The Resurrection of Jesus is the great rift of human history. Every moment before that event led up to that event. Just as Jesus proclaimed as He rode into Jerusalem, if the people did not praise Him, “the stones would cry out!” Those who visited the tomb saw the stone rolled away; that stone and the empty tomb still rings out that Jesus is alive! Sunday we will unite our voices with the millions around the world and the millions that have gone before remembering and rejoicing. We revisit this event that was “The First Day of the New Creation.” He Lives!
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Jon Stallsmith
Series: One Story: Digging Deeper
March 31, 2013
Jesus: Easter Sunday
John 19-20
If you have your Bibles, go ahead and open them up to the book of John, chapter 19. If you need a Bible, go ahead and slip up your hand. We can give you a Bible. If you need a sheet for some notes, we can do that also. Kids, you’re staying in with us the whole time. We’re going to talk resurrection. We’ll talk Jesus all together. We’re really glad to have you guys.
Have you had good Easter days so far? Do you guys have any family traditions? Any of the kids, do you guys do anything, like fun things your family does as a tradition on Easter? We’ve got some people raising their hands for Bibles and other people who are raising their hands to tell me their traditions.
Yes, young lady, what…? You dye Easter eggs. How many of you guys dye Easter eggs? Yes, that’s a very good tradition. We did that in our home. Sometimes though the Easter egg gets cracked, and you’re dyeing it, and then you open it later, and it’s like this funny green and red egg. Have you ever had that? That’s always a little bit of a bad surprise.
What other traditions do you guys do? Yes. You get together with family. Wonderful tradition. That’s a great one. What else? Does anybody else have anything exciting you do on Easter? How about Easter baskets? Yeah, you guys do Easter baskets. My mom would do Easter baskets for my brother and me. We would play the hot-and-cold game. She’s hide them around the house, and then we’d have to get closer. She’d say, “Hot. Warmer. Warmer. Warmer. Cold. Chilly. Frigid. Antarctica,” like that.
What else? Yes. Easter egg hunt. Yes. How many of you guys hunted for Easter eggs today? Yeah, that’s a fun thing to do also. In the morning, I was asking, and one family said they actually did a jelly bean hunt. That’s if you have a lot of time to kill. “There are 5,000 jelly beans in that yard.” Three hours later, “I think we found them.” “No, there’s more. Keep looking. We’re having a great time. We’re going to take a nap. Just keep looking for those jelly beans.”
When Amy and I got married, I think it was our first Easter lunch at Amy’s parents’ house, and I was introduced to seven-layer salad, which for a long time has been an Easter tradition for the Chambers family. I was delighted. I didn’t know what the seven layers were, but I was so happy when I found out that three of them were mayonnaise. That’s awesome. I loved it.
I didn’t grow up with sisters really, so I didn’t know this about Easter, but one of the really important traditions for some people is the amount of focus and effort and intentionality and reflection you put in to what you wear on Easter. My wife had a wonderful outfit. It took some good thinking, and she put it all together, this amazing dress she chose there.
So we think about what we’re going to wear. We think about what we’re going to eat. We think about who we’re going to eat with. We think about all these different things with Easter, and a lot of them are traditions, and a lot of them are comfortable and good because they’re familiar traditions. They’re things we’re used to and they feel excellent. It’s just like we’re kind of settling in.
This evening, we’re going to look at some sections of the Scripture that are probably the traditional passages for Easter. We’ve read them before, and we know these stories. The outcome is not necessarily going to shock us as we read, but this is what I was really thinking about this week as I was studying to share. This is actually my first Easter Sunday preaching. I’ve been working and preaching at Grace for nine years now, but never on Easter, so this is kind of exciting for me too.
As I was studying and working and everything, what really struck me in all the accounts was when the disciples got up that morning, and they came and they looked and they found that the tomb was empty, the stone had been rolled away, they were deeply surprised. That was their overwhelming… Like, “What?” Just outside of their expectation. They hadn’t thought of it before. The idea that this resurrection had actually occurred was a total shock, total surprise.
That’s been my prayer sort of all day as we go into some of these texts that can sometimes be a little bit traditional, that the Lord would surprise us with a fresh word, that he would breathe on these stories in a new way, that we’d feel his spirit piercing our hearts and speaking to us in a way that really brings new life.
Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to just talk about two things. First, we’re going to talk about Jesus’ death for a little bit, and then we’re going to talk about his resurrection. As we talk about his death, we’re going to talk first about the physical significance of the death and then a little bit about the spiritual significance, and then the same thing with the resurrection.
We’ll talk about the physical and the spiritual significance of the resurrection and make a few conclusions, and then really respond in worship. So that’s our game plan, and let’s open our hearts that God would speak something surprising and fresh and new out of these passages.
I’m going to start in John 19:28. Jesus, at this point in the story, is actually on the cross. He has been betrayed. His disciples have fled, except for John. Mary, his mother, is there. People around are mocking him. The soldiers are gambling at his feet. It’s a very intense scene. We dive into the very final moments of Jesus’ life, because I want us to see something here.
John 19:28 says, “After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), ‘I thirst.’ A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, ‘It is finished,’ and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.
He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth—that you also may believe. For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: ‘Not one of his bones will be broken.’ And again another Scripture says, ‘They will look on him whom they have pierced.'” (John 19:28-37) We know this story. We’ve heard it before.
1. Jesus’ death. The physical significance of Jesus’ death. John, here, is trying to make it very clear that Jesus did in fact die. He physically died. It wasn’t like he was on the cross and he swooned or he had some sort of poison that made his heart rate slow down to make him appear dead. He didn’t jump off the cross. No, he actually died. He is giving us sort of the facts, the forensic report of an eyewitness account so we would understand, that we would believe Jesus actually died on the cross.
He says they came up to him and they pierced his side, and blood and water came out. The doctors say when a body has expired, the way the fluids begin to sort out, there is the separation of the blood and the water pouring out. So he’s giving us the details. He’s letting us know that the Roman soldiers, who were of course experts in death, in execution, pronounced him surely dead.
They take him down. They put him in a tomb that has never been used before. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus reappear here at the end of the gospel with the herbs and the spices to embalm the Lord and to lay him in the tomb just as the sun is setting for the beginning of the Sabbath and the Passover feast. So that’s the significance. John wants us to make sure we understand Jesus has physically died.
But then there are also many spiritual layers going on also. What’s going on spiritually as Jesus is dying on the cross? What we see is he is gathering upon himself all the evil and the wickedness. Last week here, we talked about how Jesus was going after the deeper enemy, the greater victory. He was going after sin and self and Satan and going to defeat them from within.
As part of that process, as he’s going to the cross…we just reflected on it as we were singing and we took Communion at the beginning of the service…he was gathering all of that brokenness, all of that wickedness. If you read the story, leading up to Jesus’ death on the cross, what you see is a pretty discouraging portrait of humanity. I mean, Judas betrays him, the disciples run away from him, people are violent toward him, they mock him, the high priests are bloodthirsty, hungry for power.
Pilate, the man with the authority, refuses to make a decision. He just sort of withdraws. He says, “I don’t want to deal with that right now.” Herod dresses up Jesus and sort of makes fun of him and just sees him as a sort of celebrity entertainer. The soldiers make fun of him. They strike him. There’s deceit in the false trial. All kinds of human brokenness gathered around Jesus.
It’s hard to see that. It’s hard for me to read those passages because the truth is I can see reflections of myself in every one of those characters who had a hand in Jesus’ death. I can see my own deepest heart at times leaning toward deceit or leaning toward that hunger for power, or maybe like Pilate, I know I have tendencies at times to want to just sort of withdraw. I don’t want to do what’s right. I just want to step back and kind of let things play out as they will.
It’s important as we celebrate Easter to remember that there is no resurrection without the crucifixion and that the crucifixion is a crucial moment in history. There has been this aching question ever since the creation when God spoke the cosmos into being and he set Adam and Eve into the midst of a gorgeous garden with the responsibility to extend his rule and reign, to bear his image into the entire planet, to be fruitful and to be multiplying. Ever since that time when they chose to disobey God, take from the forbidden fruit, listen to Satan, serve their own selves, ever since that time, sin has run rampant.
We look around and we see the world still broken in lots of ways. It’s Easter, and we put a lot of thought into what we wear, and we want to dress up, and we want to look nice, and we want to celebrate, and all those things are wonderful and good and true, but the amazing thing that’s happening here on the cross is that Jesus is experiencing all the brokenness too. Underneath all the layers and all the external masks and things we put on, Jesus is taking on himself here at the cross all that brokenness.
Sometimes even you can come to church and you can feel like, “I don’t want to be really honest about who I am deep down or what I’m struggling with deep down, this discouragement or despair, this disappointment, this thinking pattern. I don’t really want to be honest. I’m in church, and all these people look nice, and I don’t really feel like this is appropriate to the Lord, like maybe he hasn’t seen this.”
When we get into this story of the cross, here’s what it tells us. Jesus has seen it. He has seen it all. He has seen it all, and he pours himself out completely to deal with it. That’s the significance of his words when he says, “It is finished.” He says, “All that stuff we bring, all that brokenness, all that ache from Eden until today and onward into the future, I’ve seen it all. I’ve dealt with it all. It is finished.”
That word, “It is finished,” in the Greek is tetelestai. It’s a powerful word. It means it has been fully accomplished. It’s the kind of word that an artist would use when he has been painting a painting and he completes the painting. It looks perfect. There’s nothing else that can be added to it. He says, “It’s finished. It has been accomplished.”
It’s the kind of word that if a builder was building a house and was putting up all the different pieces in constructing the house, and when it’s all finished and he’s ready to hand the keys to the new owner, he would say, “Tetelestai. It’s finished.” It’s the word that when you had a receipt and a debt that had to be paid, and you paid off that debt, it would be stamped tetelestai. The debt has been paid. In fact, they found ancient fragments of the early business receipts from that time, and literally they say tetelestai across them.
If a criminal was arrested and thrown into jail, then the door was shut, and then on the outside of the door would’ve been a piece of paper, and it would’ve had his sentence and his crime. Once his sentence had been served, they would’ve stamped tetelestai on it. It has been accomplished. It has been finished. It’s the word like a general going out into a new territory to conquer, when he goes into that territory and he fully accomplishes the victory, he conquers, he will come home and report, “It is finished. We finished it.”
This is what Jesus is doing on the cross here. It’s finished. All that stuff, all that brokenness, all that sin, all the things we don’t really want to admit about ourselves, even the final enemy, death itself, all of these he’s taking onto himself. He’s saying, “I’m dealing with it, and it is finished.” That really is the message that resounds from the cross. “It is finished.” It’s the message we have to really let resonate deeply within ourselves, because it is the release of forgiveness. It’s the new life, all of this coming from this scene here at the cross.
Sometimes it’s easy to get a little bit confused about what was really going on there, how this played out, what was happening with Jesus and with God on the cross. I don’t know if you’ve ever read any Kenneth Bailey, but he’s a scholar. He has written a lot of really good things about the Bible.
He tells a little story, a little parable to help illustrate what was actually happening on the cross, that spiritual significance. He says it’s not a perfect parable, so don’t push it all the way to the limits and try to interpret every aspect of it, but maybe to help understand what was happening here on the cross, you can think of it this way.
You could imagine you have a mom. This mom is about to host a party at her house. She has a little boy. We’ll call him Johnny. As she’s setting up for the party, she takes the tablecloth and she puts it out on the dining room table. Then she makes up a nice tall pitcher of lemonade, and she puts it there on the table.
Then she comes to Johnny and she says, “Johnny, now whatever you do, do not pull on the tablecloth. That’s your rule. Johnny, don’t pull on the tablecloth.” So she turns around. She’s over here maybe working at the sink for a little bit. Just in the crucial moment, she hears Johnny come into the room, and she turns around and sees he is beginning to pull on the tablecloth.
Now there are three possible ways to think of this. They kind of reflect different ways of viewing what happened at the cross between God and Jesus and mankind. This is one option, one outcome. Mom runs over and says, “Johnny, stop that!” just before the pitcher falls. She’s upset. She says, “Because you disobeyed me, you’re going to have to pay the consequence.” Then she dumps the pitcher on his head. That’s one possibility. To tell you the truth, some people think of God that way. God gives us a rule. If we break that rule, he’s angry. He makes us pay the price.
Another possible outcome involves a second son, Billy, a little bit older. So imagine this scenario. She turns around and she sees the pitcher about to fall. She runs over, grabs it, and says, “Johnny, I can’t believe what you did!” She’s very angry, but then she realizes that if she pours out this whole ice cold pitcher of lemonade on Johnny, he’s so young it’s probably going to give him a cold. So she says, “Billy!” Johnny’s older brother. “Billy, get in here!” Billy runs in, and she pours it on Billy’s head.
Some of us see it that way also. Some of us have this picture of what happened on the cross is that God was really mad at mankind, really angry because we had broken his rule and we’d started to tug on the tablecloth. So somebody had to pay the price, and so he called in Jesus, this sort of innocent older Brother, and poured out all of his wrath on Jesus. That’s not quite what happened. It’s not like God the Father is the bad guy and Jesus is the nice guy, even though sometimes we feel that way.
Now here’s the third scenario. The mother is here working at the sink, and Johnny begins to tug on the tablecloth. Just as the pitcher is beginning to tip off of the edge, she runs over and she pushes the pitcher out of the way, but as it’s falling, the glass shatters, and she gets a deep, deep cut in her arm. Instantly, blood begins to pour out of her arm. She grabs the towel from over her shoulder. She begins to wrap it up, and the blood is still dripping.
Clearly, Johnny is feeling really moved. He’s beginning to recognize what has happened. He’s realizing the mother is suffering because of what he has done. But rather than punish him, even though she’s angry, she has converted that anger into an act of great grace, an act of love, in order to spare Johnny.
Even though she’s injured, she looks at him and she says, “This will heal.” Johnny begins to understand that the mother’s rule was given out of love. It wasn’t about the penalty. Her action was about the redemption. He sees the depth of the love when he sees the depth of the wound in his mother’s arm, and that costly love changes Johnny.
That’s what’s happening on the cross. Jesus is God in the flesh taking upon himself the punishment, the disobedience, the pitcher poured out. When we look at it, that’s what we should see. Just like Johnny sees the mother coming and deeply wounded because of his own disobedience, we should see Jesus deeply wounded because of our brokenness and respond transformed out of love and gratitude for what he has done for us.
So that’s talking about the spiritual significance of the death of Jesus, but then Paul says the death in and of itself is not really enough actually. He says in 1 Corinthians 15 if Christ has not been raised from the dead, our faith and our preaching is empty. It’s vain. It means nothing. So we must get to the second half of the story.
2. Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus’ crucifixion clearly says to us, “It is finished. Yes, you are deeply sinful, but you’re also deeply, deeply loved, and I have dealt with your sin. I have made a way to deal with your sin.” Now on to the second part, Jesus’ resurrection. I’m going to read about 23 verses here. I’ll make a few observations about that resurrection.
John 20:1: “Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’
So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.” A little barb from John. “I’m faster than you, Peter. You may have been the cornerstone of the church, but I was faster.”
Verse 5: “And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself.” Mary raised Jesus well, to fold his clothing.
Verse 8: “Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to their homes. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet.
They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’
Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’ She turned and said to him in Aramaic, ‘Rabboni!’ (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, ‘Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”‘ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’—and that he had said these things to her.
On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.
Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.'” (John 20:1-23)
What’s going on here? What’s the physical significance of Jesus’ resurrection? John wants us again to be very clear that Jesus is alive, and he’s not a ghost. He is in a real body. Mary, when she recognizes him in the garden, goes to give him a hug because he has actual substance. He shows them his scars from the crucifixion.
Later on, in John 21, he’s going to cook a little breakfast of fish. He has a real body, and yet it’s a mysterious body. It’s a little bit different. They don’t recognize him right away. They’re in the middle of a locked room, and all of a sudden Jesus is in their midst, and everybody is like, “How’d you get here? You’re supposed to be dead. Bodies don’t do that.” Physically, John wants us to recognize that Jesus has been raised not as a ghost, not as a spirit, not as some floating along ethereal thing. No, he’s flesh and blood, raised in a brand new kind of resurrection body.
It’s not just that his old body had been resuscitated like Lazarus. Lazarus died and he was four days in the grave. He came out, but he was still in the same body he had before, the same body that would eventually perish. Other people in the Old Testament who had been raised from the dead, even in the New Testament who had been raised from the dead, they’d been resuscitated into their old bodies.
But this was something entirely different. Jesus was walking around in a whole new kind of resurrection body. Paul would later describe this kind of body in 1 Corinthians 15 as a body that’s a pneumatikos body. It’s literally a Spirit-powered body, where Jesus’ new resurrection flesh is not the kind that decays or breaks down or returns to dust. It’s the kind that is sustained by the very power and breath of God. That’s what kind of body it is.
As we get deeper into what John is trying to tell us here in this passage, we learn this body is going to be the template of the entire new creation. This is the beginning of the new creation in the midst of the old. We talked about the first creation when God spoke this cosmos into being. We talked about how that first creation was subjected to brokenness and things started going badly and people were expelled from the garden and there was separation between the presence of God and mankind, and all this stuff that happened.
There’s this craving all through the One Story for this moment when God is going to come in and set things right, when he’s going to recreate what has been lost, when he’s going to reverse the curse, and here it is. Jesus, risen again, standing in the midst of the disciples, breathing on them. The overtones are so powerful. The echoes are so powerful. The first words of John’s gospel, “In the beginning was the Word.” (John 1:1) He’s telling us from the very beginning that he’s telling us the creation story.
As we read the stories of Jesus’ life in the gospel of John, everywhere he goes he’s bringing new creation. It’s like if you’ve ever watercolored. You get the paper wet, and then you have the brush charged with paint, and you touch the paint to the wet paper, and the pigment just flows over the paper.
That’s what Jesus is doing as he’s walking around. He’s touching people, and they’re healed. He’s speaking, and they receive life. He’s calling the dead forth from the grave. He is the One who is the emissary. He’s initiating the new creation. Now here at the resurrection, it’s like the culmination, the big moment, the stepping forth from the tomb that is in their midst, Jesus, the new creation.
Some things have changed. How do we respond? If the new creation has begun, if Jesus is alive, what does that mean? How do we respond to this? First, there is a pretty powerful invitation. Jesus, when he’s talking with Mary… She mistakes him for the gardener. Again, it’s echoes of Eden. The gardener, the One who’s there to extend the goodness of Eden over the whole earth.
She mistakes him for the gardener. He speaks her name, and then she recognizes. There’s this crucial moment where Jesus identifies Mary. He calls forth her identity, and she now is beginning to be drawn into this life of the new creation. It’s a beautiful passage. Then what Jesus tells her is, “Don’t hold onto me, because I’m going to go up to be with the Father.”
Jesus is going to take his seat at the right hand of glory. He’s going to rule until all things have been submitted under his feet. He’s going to submit the kingdom, it says in 1 Corinthians 15, again. He says, “Don’t cling onto me, because our relationship is not going to be exactly the same as it was before.
For the last three years, we’ve been walking around, and I’ve been kind of walking with you guys and teaching and doing stuff. Things are going to change actually, and I told you about this. I’m going to send my Spirit, and our connection is now going to be more intimate than it ever was before. My very own Spirit is going to be living within you.”
This is exactly what he tells her to tell the disciples. He says, “Go to my brothers. Say to them I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” It’s interesting. Jesus, in the gospel of John, has called the disciples his disciples. He has called them servants. He has called them friends. But here now, on the far side of the resurrection, he calls them brothers. He says, “My Father and your Father.”
Suddenly, the family of God has been cracked open. Because of what Jesus did on the cross and through the resurrection, now there is open access to join once again into that community, that family, that unbroken connection with God. That’s the invitation. “Come, be a participant in the life of the new creation. Come, be a son and a daughter. Come, be a brother and a sister. Come, be with us. Be with God.”
Then there’s also a challenge that’s going on here as we’re looking at the implications of the resurrection, its spiritual significance. The challenge is pretty interesting. It begins when Jesus shows up in their midst. It was evening of that day. So it’s kind of interesting because here we are. It’s the 5:15 service. Most of the Easter excitement is about Easter Sunday morning, right? You get to church in the morning. It’s kind of like, “Yeah, he’s risen!” Sunrise service, baptizing people, and everything else.
But actually, in this story, it’s not until evening of the resurrection day. The disciples have had all day to ponder what they’ve seen in the empty tomb. They’ve been thinking about it. “What do we do with this?” It says John believes. It says Peter is still sorting things out. Thomas is definitely not in at this point. It’s the evening of that day, the first day of the week, and that’s when Jesus appears in their midst. It’s kind of like where we’re gathered here, the evening of Easter.
Jesus appears in their midst, and he gives them this beautiful, profound, compelling challenge. Here’s the challenge. He says, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” (John 20:21) “The Father sent me to go out and begin initiating the new creation all around me. The Father sent me to go out and begin drawing people into the family of God’s people. The Father sent me to go out and announce the kingdom of God. Now I’m sending you to do the same thing.”
“What?”
“Yes. The same sorts of things. Do you see what I’ve been doing for the last 19 or 20 chapters? Now I’m sending you to do the same thing.” What’s it going to look like? Well, it’s going to result in peace. “Peace be with you.” Now announce that peace. It’s peace of wholeness. Not just the absence of conflict but like real, deep, inner wholeness, outer wholeness, the shalom of God being restored.
Then, again an echo of that first creation story, it says he breathes on them, just like God did to a lump of clay gathered together in Genesis 2. It says he breathed and it received life. Here Jesus, again with his disciples around, breathed on them. He said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God dwelling in you, enabling you, empowering you, giving you the capacity to go forth and be the kind of person who’s living out the life of the new creation.” So these are the two great themes of Easter. In the death, “It is finished.” In the resurrection, “It has begun.”
Here’s what Jesus says at the crucifixion. He says, “Come as you are, because you have nothing to fear.” There is nothing we can bring to the Lord that will shock him. There is nothing we can bring to the Lord that will just dismay him and have him say, “Whoa, I’ve dealt with a lot of stuff, but that’s messed up.” All the way deep down, in the darkest core of ourselves, the crucifixion, the cross, Jesus says, “Come as you are. You have nothing to fear here. I’ll pour myself out completely on your behalf.”
Then the resurrection, “It has begun.” It says, “Live now. Live as you will be for you have everything to look forward to.” No matter where that road takes you, through death or through suffering, through pain and through loss, Jesus has walked that same road, and he has emerged with a brand new body.
All those who are with Jesus, who follow him as their Lord, their King, Savior, they too will receive new bodies of the same kind like Jesus has, and will spend eternity in a new heaven and a new earth with Jesus in our new bodies and with all of our friends in the family of God. Jesus is saying, “Hey, live that way now. Live as you will be, because you have everything to look forward to.”
So as we see this story and we kind of zero in on the great hinge of human history, the culmination of everything that has come before, focus down into this moment of the crucifixion and the resurrection, here’s what we have to hear. Death is finished and life has begun. Sin is finished; righteousness has begun. Shame has finished; honor has begun. Fear is finished; courage has begun. Captivity is finished; freedom has begun. Blindness is finished; sight has begun. Brokenness is finished; wholeness has begun.
I think there are kind of two ways really to respond to this. The first is, as we approach the Lord through the lens of the cross, maybe there are some things Jesus has dealt with but you haven’t. Jesus says, “It’s finished,” but you’re still wrestling with unforgiveness, bitterness, sadness, anger, disappointment. You know the list.
The first way maybe to respond to this is to come to him and just say, “All right, Lord, here it is. Let’s be honest. Yeah, I’m wearing my Easter best today, but deep down, here’s some stuff I just need to deal with with you,” and let him have it. Let him have it. Let him finish it.
Maybe some of us on the other side are looking forward, saying, “Okay, what are you calling me to be? What are you calling me into? What’s my future? What’s my destiny? How do I live as I will be? What’s the next step? What’s the vision? What’s ahead of me? What’s the impact of my life?” We come to him the same way. Let him come into our midst, speak to us. “Peace be with you.” Let him send us out. Let him breathe on us the power we need in order to go forth in the truth of the resurrection.
So let’s just pray along those two lines and then respond. Gratitude. Celebration. This is it. This is the good news: Jesus has died for our sins. He is raised again. The proof, the promise, the testimony of eternal life beginning now and extending onward into eternity.
O Father, we thank you. We bless you that you are the kind of God who stoops low to take our brokenness upon yourself, to suffer on our behalf that we might be made righteous and whole, that we might be joined once again into your family. God, thank you that it is finished, that you have accomplished the work on the cross.
Thank you, Lord, that it has begun, that the new creation is already now beginning to spring up like tulips coming out of the barren earth in the midst of what sometimes still feels like winter. Lord, come now by your Spirit. Minister to our hearts. Lord, if there’s anything we need to settle with you, to bring before you, just go deep. Reveal any wayward thought within us that we might let it rest upon you at the cross and be done with it. Let it go with you to the grave and it stay there, but you come forth.
Lord, we pray you’d speak to us, you’d surprise us, you’d lead us, you’d encourage us with that vision of you and who you are. Show us, Lord, where you want us to go. Send us out as the emissaries of the new creation, as the people of true peace, as the family of God. Send us out, Lord, with the words of forgiveness for a broken world.
Lord, we pray you’d just speak really specifically, and that power of the resurrection that raised Jesus from the dead, and Paul says now, in Romans, lives in us, we pray, God, that by that power, you would do this, you’d speak, you would heal, you would restore, you’d give direction, you’d bring families together, Lord. We pray that there would be little pockets of new creation beginning to spring up all around us. Come and surprise us, Lord. Surprise us with your goodness. In Jesus’ name, amen.