Easter Sunday - Hope is RISEN!
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
Easter morning, a Sunday school teacher to ask the kiddos what they knew about Easter. And so she said, "Does anybody know what Easter is about?" And this one little boy raised his hand, he was so excited, he said, "Yes, yes, Easter is when "all my aunts and uncles come over to my house, "eat turkey, watch football, and take naps." And I said, "Well, no, that's kinda not it. "You're thinking of Thanksgiving." And then Susie, she raised her hand, she goes, "Oh, oh, I know, I know." She goes, "We celebrated Easter last year. "We decorated a tree and we had presents and there was milk and cookies. And the teacher goes, "No, I think you're probably, you're thinking about Christmas. Does any," and she's real nervous by this point. She's like, "I don't know if any of the poor kids know what Easter is about." And so she goes, "Okay, anybody know?" And Mina kind of sheepishly raised her hand. She goes, "Well, well, Easter is really about the special day when Jesus hung on the cross and he died and they put him in a tomb for three days. And the teacher goes, "Mina, that's awesome, that's great." And then Mina says, "And then we wait "and Jesus, when he comes out of the tomb, "if he sees his shadow, there's three more weeks of winter." That poor Sunday school teacher. Yeah, yeah. Right. Got some work to do. Yeah. So we're not talking about Groundhog Day today, we're talking about Easter. And before we get started, I love to just pray with us once more. Jesus, thank you for today, God. We continue to give you praise, the honor, the glory, God, that you rose that very first Easter and we celebrate that today. God, we are so excited to be here with you. You are here present, we know it. Your Holy Spirit has been felt this whole morning in this space. And so Jesus, we give you the praise, the honor, and the glory. God, be with us. Help us to transform who you want us to become. God, you have something for each of us today. Maybe we knew that, maybe we're here not by our own personal choice, but we're here maybe with somebody else who invited us, or we woke up and jumped out of bed and we couldn't wait to be here at church today. God, you have a word for each of us. God, may we leave this place different than when we walked in this morning by your power. Pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Amen.
Before we get to our passage this morning, I just wanna get us all on the same page as far as what's happened in the life of Jesus. So we're going to recap what's happened to Jesus since he was betrayed by Judas in the garden of Gethsemane. So since that time, Jesus was handed over, he went through a couple trials, and Pilate, even though he was found innocent, they couldn't really find anything wrong with him, because of the pressure and the politics, he handed him over to be crucified. And at that time, the Roman soldiers mocked him and tortured him to extreme extents. And at that point, after dealing with all of that, and physically reaching the point of exhaustion, his body being tortured, he then has to carry his own cross to the top of the hill. He can't make it all the way. So Simon of Serene helps him carry that cross to the top. And at that time, having to endure all of this, having gone through all of this, reaching this point of exhaustion, he speaks with some women there, Mary and Mary and some of the other women. And even in this moment, he's being Jesus. He's meeting them where they're at, comforting them, offering them grace and love. Pilate puts this sign on Jesus's cross that says, "This is Jesus, King of the Jews.”
He's then crucified and bystanders continue to mock him. A criminal hanging next to him asked Jesus to remember him. And Jesus, again, hanging there on the cross, Dying offers salvation and promises that he will see him in heaven that very day. Jesus dies on the cross. The women have been watching the crucifixion from afar. There is an earthquake and the veil in the temple is torn. And at this point, even some of the dead from nearby tombs are raised to life. Soldier wants to make sure that Jesus is dead And so he pierces the side of Jesus, confirms that Jesus is dead. Joseph of Arimathea, who opposed the crucifixion of Jesus, he's a leader, he asked Pilate to take the body of Jesus and Pilate agrees. And so Jesus' body is placed in a tomb. And at that point, the rock, the stone is rolled in front. It is sealed and there are guards placed to make sure that nothing can come in or out. And then this time, this journey from the cross to the cross, and it just shows what Christ had to endure, what he had to persevere. It's the ultimate humiliation for the Creator being humiliated by His creation. And then on Holy Saturday, just yesterday, this is a day of grief, of sorrow, of pain, of mourning, Jesus is dead, and it's Sabbath. And so no one can do anything about the body. Imagine this agony for the people who love Jesus, his followers, having to take a Sabbath, having to take a day of inactivity, just sitting in their emotions. I don't do that well. I'm a person that if I'm feeling something, if I'm feeling off, I need to resolve it. I need to go make it right. If that's talking to a person, I will drive over, I will text them and say, "How do we do this right now?" I don't do well with sitting in emotions. And I can't imagine the followers of Jesus having to sit in their agony. When they wanted to do something, they wanted to address Jesus' body. They just wanted to do something to express their grief and their love. Saturday must have been one of the hardest days after losing Jesus. It had to be overwhelming to the point where their emotions are swelling and so the first thing after Sabbath was over, they wanted to do something.
So we're in our passage, Matthew 28 verse 1 says this, "After the Sabbath at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb." The very next morning. They finally get to do something for Jesus, for their savior who had died. So the women wanted to go embalm Jesus. We know this from Mark's gospel, that they had brought spices to start this process. They were there to grieve, but they were not at all prepared for what was about to happen. They went there to continue their mourning, to honor and to continue in their adoration for Jesus, but instead.
Verse two says, "There was a violent earthquake, "For an angel of the Lord came down from heaven "and going to tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. "His appearance was like lightning. "His clothes were white as snow. "The guards were so afraid of him, "they shook and became like dead men." This was not the scene that they expected to find when they showed up. They had expected to find, honestly, quite the opposite. another gospel talks about is the women are on their way, they're like, who's gonna move? Oh yeah, who's moving the stone for us? We can't move it. But God had other plans, right? God had a different plan. He wanted to do something different that day. He wanted to do the unexpected. The tombs of those days were much different than a mausoleum or maybe a traditional grave site that we think of today. These were basically caves that were hewn into stone by hand and were basically corked or sealed with another rock because as a body decays, it lets off an unpleasant odor. And so these places were basically to be the only way that they could have something to be sealed in the manner that would not disturb the rest of life around smelling dead bodies all the time. And so this rock, in a sense, there's a couple different theories of what these rocks were like. We have the traditional round stone and the kind of rail that kind of rolls back and forth, but when you say stone, we don't realize like how big these things were. We're talking one to two tons, eight feet in diameter, one to two inches thick. There's even some studies in archaeology that did this and they found these tombs that were sealed with basically just ten-foot boulders. And they were just kind of like shoved in there almost like a cork.
And so for Mary and Mary to show up and to see this thing moved was pretty impressive. This is not what they expected to find whatsoever. And I love what even it says, this verbiage here, that the stone rolled back. There's some scholars that actually see that in the tense of the original language and the original account written down. Some would translate as thrown aside. So this rock just wasn't just like, "Oh, nice. Nice little ramp it rolled over to." literally thrown aside to a place where like you walk up and go, "That rock's not supposed to be there. That's supposed to be over there." And so they show up and this is the absolute unexpected. The rock was trying to hold Jesus back. As Pastor Andre said, there were guards there keeping watch. The Pharisees and Pilate were so scared that Jesus was either gonna do what he said he was gonna do or that someone was gonna try to steal Jesus to make it look like like Jesus had done what He said He was going to do. And so they had the elite of the elite, the top soldiers of the day keeping watch over this tomb. I'm sorry, but no fisherman is taken out of it, a Roman soldier in that day. And then on top of all of that, it is actually sealed with a royal seal that basically says, "Do not enter upon death," essentially. This was not traditional. This was out of the ordinary. This was strange. When people buried people, they put the stone there and they walked away. There was no further activity that took place at graves. But there was something special that God was doing. See, they put Jesus in the ground. They rolled a stone in front of the entrance. They proclaimed a royal decree to seal the tomb. They had guards watching and yet it was all undone. Hope that very first Easter overcame anything that humans tried to do to stop Jesus from being alive. Hope has overcome. So why do we say all this? Everything humanly possible was done to contain Jesus in that grave. And yet the hope of that very first Easter overcame it all. Physical barriers, soldiers, kings, political leaders, powers, authorities on earth said, "This story is over." But God said, "I still got something to say. I still have something to say about this and the resurrection of Jesus was not a quiet one. We just read about earthquake and shining like lightning and divine heavenly beings, angels coming down. This was a loud, loud event. There was not one person, thing, power, anything that was gonna do to push back against that. The hope of Christ was proclaimed that very first Easter. Hope overcame everything in order to change everything for the glory of God.
Our passage continues in verse 5 when it says, "The angel said to the women, 'Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who is crucified. He is not here. He has risen just as He said. Come and see the place where He lay. Then go quickly and tell His disciples He has risen from from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him. Now I have told you." In Luke's account, it says, "In their fright, the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said, 'Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, he has risen.'" Church, hope is alive in the person of Jesus Christ. For the women at that moment, all they were trying to process was that their friend, their beloved, their Messiah was still alive. Just a complete 180 in their hearts and minds. I don't know if you've ever received good news after maybe expecting or sitting in the worst news, but it kind of takes a while for your heart and mind to catch up with what you've just heard. And you're just, wait, hold on, I was in this place and I was prepared for this, my mind was already here, I was making plans for that. And then you get told the opposite And it just doesn't like, "Oh great, now we're good." It takes a while, like, "What? What are you saying?" And so I think in this moment for the women, hope is sinking in. In Jesus, there is hope. And because Jesus lives, hope is alive. In the past three years of Jesus' life, he was sharing the good news, the good news about the kingdom of God, about how he would reign, and what this kingdom would look like. the news of salvation. But that news changes now. We go from the gospel, which used to be this common word in the Roman Empire, talking about this herald that would go from town to town, sharing the gospel, meaning any victory that the Roman Empire had, that's what they would share. Rome won, that was the gospel. Well, Christianity hijacked that word, which I love and said, this is ours now. We have the best news. And we're gonna go and share it with everyone. And so gospel goes from little G to the big G. The gospel is the best news that Jesus is alive. Their savior, their Messiah, their Lord, their teacher, their friend, their hope is not dead, but is alive. Hope is alive.
And church, I want us to realize this too, without the resurrection, there is no hope. Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 15, he says, "For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile. You are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life, we have hope in Christ. We are of all people, most to be pitied, but Christ indeed has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. See, without the resurrection, our faith is worthless. True faith has power because of who we believe in, not just in the fact that we believe. A lot of people will just say, if you believe in something, that'll get you somewhere in life. No, true power comes in who we believe in, which is Jesus. Without the resurrection, we don't have the forgiveness of sins. Without the resurrection, there is no hope of heaven. But because the resurrection is real, because Christ did indeed raise from the dead, we have hope. We have hope that we are forgiven. We have hope that our faith in God matters. And we have hope of a future where there is no more sin, where everything that is marred and stained and damaged and destroyed by sin will be undone. Hope is alive. And in our passage, the angel had instructions of what to do with this hope. And what are they to do with the news? With this new reality as it's sinking in, well, they're to go and share the gospel. These first witnesses, these first believers, We're tasked by the angel to go and tell. And so what do we do with that news today? Well, for us, when our reality has changed by meeting the one who is hope, Jesus, and the one who gives us hope, we too have been tasked with the responsibility.
Matthew chapter 28 continues on in verse 8. It says, "So the women hurried away from the tomb, "afraid yet filled with joy," these paradoxing emotions. And they ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly, Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said. I almost wanted to use salutations. The most formal way of saying hello. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go, tell my brothers to go to Galilee. There they will see me." Jesus's resurrection that very first Easter changed eternity. For the very first time, death had been defeated once and for all. We have the account of Jesus raising his friend Lazarus from the dead, but at some point, Lazarus dies again. 'Cause that was not a permanent resurrection. That was a temporary. See, up to this point, All that people knew was temporary hope. You get good news one day, you have hope, and then the next moment it's shattered. You wake up and you think this is gonna be a great day, and then something happens. You get the phone call, you get the email, you get the text, and our lives are thrown into ruins. But the hope that Jesus brought that very first Easter was one that was permanent, was one that was eternal, the one that was everlasting. So what is our response in this hope that is eternal? Our first response is the same of those who saw Jesus along the way. They bowed down and they worshiped him. That's our response. They came face to face with this eternal hope in Jesus on that encounter, and Jesus changed their life. and they fell down and they worshiped. They understood the weight, the significance of Christ in that moment and saw very much of when they last saw him being different. See, the last time that they saw him, they had put him in the tomb and walked away. Very much dead, very much permanent, very much hopeless. And then on their way, He shows up and says, "I'm alive. I'm risen. The story's not over." the temporary in that moment became eternal.
The second way we can respond is to go and tell. Our calling and our purpose for each and every one of us is to spread this hope all around. Your calling is to be a hope dealer. Your calling and where you live, where you learn, where you work, where you play, wherever you go, you are taking this hope of eternity with you. And you are sharing it with everyone that you come into contact with. That's what Jesus said here to go and tell. For those of us who have experienced this hope in Christ, we have to be sharing it with others. The world around us is hurting. The world around us is in dire need of Christ. There's hurt, there's misery, there's panic, there's uncertainty, there's despair all around us. And I see it this way. I see it as us standing on the shore of a rushing river, in a river that is filled with fear and trepidation and worry and anxiety and pain and stress, suffering and failure. And these waves are trying to pull people down and to drown them in this rushing river. And you and I, for those who have the hope in Jesus, are standing on the shore with a rescue buoy in our hands. That is the gospel of Jesus. Would we not throw it to save those who are drowning? See the best part about that is we don't have to do the rescuing. That's the buoy. That's Jesus. Jesus does the rescuing. But we have to throw it. We can't help but just stand there and hold it in our hands. Who needs to know? Who in your life needs to know this story of hope? Maybe for others of us, you'd say, "Pastor, I'm in that river. I'm drowning every day. day. I got fear, I got anxiety, I got worry, I got stress, I got problems on top of problems, on top of problems. There is no hope in my life. Well I want to tell you today that Jesus has a life buoy to rescue you today. Now Now it's not gonna fix everything overnight, but what I will tell you is the temporary hope that you cling to from moment to moment as you drown will become a permanent hope in your life, a hope that is eternal, a hope that nothing can ever take away, a hope that will be with you through every single thing that you walk through in every single thing that you face. And I'll tell you, it's the greatest hope that you could ever have. And until you experience that hope, and step into that hope and say, "God, you know what, I'm done. "I can't do this anymore, I need you." You don't know what this true hope is like. There's so many of you in this room that are just nodding along with me, 'cause you know that hope. You have that hope every single day, and it changes your life. Not only here, but it changes your life in eternity. This hope continues on forever and ever and ever and ever. That very first Easter, God's love shone through the cross in Jesus's death. And the darkest day that we thought all hope was lost, God said, "I still have something to say." And love conquered death. In Jesus conquering death, you and I can live in this new life. We can have this new life free from pain, suffering, uncertainty, despair, hurt, fear, to live in a new life with purpose, with freedom, with hope. This is the story of Easter. This is the story that God wants you for this moment and right now. And that feeling that you're having inside of you with struggle and uncertainty, but there's this drawing that you have. That's the love of God. That's Jesus saying, I want to take care of you. I wanna fix it. I wanna make it right. You just gotta let me in. Let me, God is saying, give you new life today.
Our prayer is that all of you would be reminded or would know undoubtedly that hope has overcome, that hope is alive and that hope is eternal. And we have hope because Jesus shares his resurrection with us. And so we know that even as we endure this life, that is full of pain and sorrow and man, There's just so much sadness that doesn't end. But we know that after we die, we too will experience what Jesus experienced, where we get to be with God in heaven. We're so thankful for the fact that Jesus shares in his victory with us. And that's what we celebrate on this day. We celebrate Jesus' victory and the fact that we are a part of that victory too. So as we close in prayer, Let's remember and praise God for the hope that we have in Christ. If you guys could bow your heads with me. God, we come before you with joy, with humility, and with full confidence, knowing that you raised Jesus from the dead, that the resurrection is real, that the resurrection has very real implications for our lives, ones that bring us joy and hope, a hope that allows us to endure through this life, to live it for you, to join you in eternity. Lord, we praise you because without you we have no hope. We praise you for defeating sin and death and extending hope to us. And we pray that you would fill us today with hope. There are some in this room who need hope desperately. You know exactly what's going on in everyone's life. You know those who came here with joy, and for that we praise you. We know that there are some who came here barely being able to come here, Lord. Just took everything for them to show up. And God, I pray that you would fill them with your hope. Church, if you're here with your eyes closed, heads bowed, If you're here and you are in need of change in your life, if you're in need of Jesus and you're in need of that hope, I want you to pray this prayer silently to yourself in your heart. Repeat after me in your heart, say, Lord, give me hope. I need you and I can't do this life without you. The only hope in this world is in you. "God, forgive me of my sins as I surrender my life to you. "Thank you for your salvation." And God, we pray for anyone who just prayed that prayer, we praise you, God, that you can look forward, that they can look forward to an eternal life with you. And in that eternal life, in eternity, in heaven, they are free from pain, free from suffering, despair, and hurt. God, give them a new life with purpose, freedom, and hope.
And church, for the rest of you, as Pastor Chris shared, I want you to think of someone in your life who needs to know about this hope that is found in Jesus, only in Jesus. And I want you to pray this in your hearts, just quietly to yourself. God, give me strength and boldness and humility and vulnerability in moments where your spirit is leading me to share. God, give me a heart that cares more about others' eternity than any judgment we can face here on this earth. God, help my heart to yearn for this hope to be seen through my life, the way I live and the way I talk. And Lord, give me the words to say to share this hope when that time comes. God, we give you all the glory. We give you all the praise. Thank you for Jesus's life, death, and resurrection. And thank you for the hope that we have in Him. Amen.