Easter 2018

My name is René, I'm one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church. So excited about the message this morning because this really came out of a place of really deep soul-searching for me. I'm going to talk about that in just a minute, but before we jump into the message today, I just want to tell you a little bit about a new series that we're starting next weekend. It's called "Living in the Goodness of God," and there's a card about this in your programs. If you want to take that out and just take a quick glance at it and you can flip it over to the backside, you can see all the different topics we're addressing.

And here's basically what this is all about. Sometimes it can feel like what you see on Facebook or the news is all the awful things going on today, right? And it's so easy to live in a state of stress and of fear. And what this series is all about is really learning to live in a daily awareness of the goodness of God. And this is based on Psalm 23, the beloved Psalm that starts, "The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want." If nobody else needs to hear how to live in the goodness of God daily, I need to. So I'm really looking forward to this. I'm going to kick it off next weekend. I really hope that you can join us for that.

Now for today, let me start with this. I love great comeback stories like the story of Jim Morris. His story was made into the movie "The Rookie." Raise your hand if you've seen this movie, "The Rookie." I loved it, right? You may not know it's based on a true story. Jim Morris was a pitcher for like a year and a half in the minor leagues, and then an injury forced him to retire. He ended up years later coaching high school baseball in a small town in Texas. And they say, "Coach, we think you can still throw. You should be throwing in the majors." And he says, "Listen, kids, I'll make you a crazy deal. If you work hard, make it to the state finals. I will try out for the majors." And they do make it to state. In fact, they win the state championship.

So now he's really on the line. Morris goes to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, where he knows a couple of people. And he says, "Just for my kids, just let me try out in front of a couple of scouts." Remember, he's in his mid-30s. He has not thrown professionally for 11 years. So a couple of scouts go, "Okay, throw 10 pitches." They put the radar gun on him. Inexplicably, every single one of those pitches is thrown at or above 98 miles an hour. So they say, "We think we're going to give you a chance in spring training." Then he makes the roster. And here is actual video of his first game back comes in and relief, strikes out the first batter he faces, and he goes on to become one of the great baseball stories. That is a great comeback, right?

But here's one I like even better. There's the pro football game known simply as the comeback. The Buffalo Bills are down 32 points, 35 to 3 in the fourth quarter, and their backup quarterback, Frank Reich, throws for one touchdown after another. They end up winning in a thriller. It's still the greatest comeback in pro football history. That's another great comeback, but here's one that's even better. About 10 years ago, Jason McElwain, a student with autism, was a benchwarmer for his high school basketball team. In the last game of the season, just four minutes left, the team's got nothing to lose, nothing really to play for. Coach puts him in. He misses his first shot with an air ball. Three minutes left. He tries another three, swishes it, and then he makes another three, and then he swishes that, and then he makes another three, and then he swishes that, and he never misses again.

And in less than four minutes, he becomes the high scorer of the game with 20 points, and his team comes back to win, and Jason becomes a beloved high school hero. What a great comeback story. Well, those are great, but if you love comeback stories, as great as those are, I've got one that's even better. Because this morning, we are talking about the comeback, the comeback of all time, right? When Jesus Christ comes back from the dead. For seven weeks here at Twin Lakes Church, we've been in this Light in the Darkness series during Lent, and we've been going through the Gospel of Mark on the way to the cross, and this morning we wrap up the series by reading the Easter story, and of course, like any great comeback story, it begins very badly.

In Mark 15:37, it says, "With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last." And here's what I hope to do this morning. If the Easter story is maybe a little over-familiar to you, and you feel like maybe you've lost a little bit of that sense of wonder that you used to have about this, I am hoping to restore a little bit of the thrill, a little bit of the astonishment today. And maybe you've heard it so many times that frankly you've become a little bit skeptical. And I hope to point out some details in these stories that you have maybe never heard before that can give you a greater sense of confidence and belief in the resurrection.

I'm totally stoked about what we're going to do today. In the next few verses, I want you to watch the way Mark reports what happened. Have you ever noticed this? Because it's like he's building a court case for skeptics because he's stacking up one eyewitness after another who certify, yet Jesus was actually dead. Watch this, verse 40. "Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, the young girl of Joseph, and Salome." And so these three women are specifically named as witnesses to that moment that Jesus died. Keep their names in your mind.

Verse 42. "As evening approached Joseph of Arimathea," so now another witness is introduced, Joseph of Arimathea, "not a Galilean disciple, not part of Jesus' crowd. He was a prominent member of the council who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God." This is the same group that just put Jesus on trial. So it comes from a completely different circle, kind of doesn't have a dog in the fight, right? So he went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body. Pilate was surprised to hear that Jesus was already dead, so summoning the centurion. So now another witness is introduced, a Roman centurion, who's an expert on death, and he asked him if Jesus had already died.

"When Pilate learned from the centurion that it was so, he gave the body to Joseph." So Pilate is the legal authority, and he declares, "Yep, Jesus is legally the corpse." "So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, placed it in a tomb cut out of rock, rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb." So now Jesus is not just dead, he is entombed, and watch this. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid. So two of the women named as witnesses to the death are now also witnesses to the burial. The point is multiple witnesses, expert witnesses in the centurion's case, who don't, again, have any dog in the fight here, they don't have any reason to lie, they testify Jesus is dead, he is a corpse, he is entombed, it is over. Or is it?

"When the Sabbath was over," Mark 16:1, "Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they may go anoint Jesus' body." Are you noticing the repetition of these names? Three times in just eight verses, Mark records the names of the women who were eyewitnesses. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Salome. Have you ever thought, "Why would he do that?" We're not idiots, we just read it eight verses earlier. Why would he say their names three straight times? For an answer, I want to take you to Cambridge University. Richard Baucom is a history scholar there. He's a world expert in ancient literature and how to interpret ancient literature. And he says, "This is a way of Mark letting us know he's recording a historical account, not a legend."

The repeated names of the women here are source citations. We would call them footnotes. It's like Mark is saying, "I know this story sounds incredible, but you can fact check me. Go ask these three women. They're still alive. They can corroborate these details." And this is really important because a lot of times people get the idea that the Bible was written so far after the events that they become legendary, mythological, there were surely no eyewitnesses left. But that's a misperception of what these documents are. Almost all scholars agree, and it's tough to get scholars to agree on almost anything, but they agree that this, the Gospel of Mark, was written in the mid to late 60s. Not the 1960s, the original 60s, only about 33 years or so after the death of Christ.

To put that in perspective, 33 years ago for us was 1985. I want you to raise your hand if you are a living eyewitness to some stuff that happened in 1985. Anybody here? Right? This is not incredible, right? It's like saying, "1985, Michael Jordan's rookie year, he was named Rook of the Year." If you don't believe me, you can go ask Bob, right? Because everybody knows it, but if you really want to corroborate, go ask him. He was alive. Mark is saying, "Here are three people who were there." Now, and this is really important, notice something about these three people. What can you tell me about these three people? They were women. And if Mark was making this story up, there is no way that he would have written the corroborating eyewitnesses to be women.

You know why? Because in his culture, women were marginalized so much that often their testimony wasn't even allowed in court. This is just one example, but Celsus was an ancient Roman critic of Christianity. What was his biggest objection? His biggest objection to Christianity? Christianity is based on the testimony of "hysterical women." So think about it. If Mark and the Christians were just making these stories up out of whole cloth, there's not a chance they would have written women into the stories as the primary witnesses. This weakened their case in their culture. The only possible reason they would have for saying women were eyewitnesses is what? If women were eyewitnesses.

And what is it that they witnessed? Mark 16:2. Very early, first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb, and they asked each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?" But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. "Don't be alarmed," he said. "You're looking for Jesus, the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen. He is not here. See the place where they laid him." Remember, they had been eyewitnesses to him being laid in that tomb. But go, tell his disciples, and Peter, "He's going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you." Because Jesus had said several times, "They're going to kill me, but I'm going to rise on the third day."

Now, what's their response to these women immediately become stoked and confident, and running around going, "Yes, it's true. Jesus is back." Next verse, "Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb." They're scared to death. They said nothing to anyone because they were afraid. Now, I want you to look at the three adjectives describing them. "Trembling, bewildered, and afraid." Why were they trembling, bewildered, and afraid? When the tomb was empty and some angel tells him, "Jesus is alive," well, wouldn't you be? They were just normal people. They were there to anoint a dead body that they had seen die. And so when the body wasn't there and some being tells him he's risen, they weren't like, "I thought so." They were freaked out.

What you see in the account, somebody put it this way, nobody expected no body, not in any of the gospels. And this is so important to see because follow me here. Again, watch this. If you were Mark and you were just trying to make something up that would be like an inspiring myth to motivate people to follow new leadership of this little movement, wouldn't you, A, have the witnesses be unimpeachable like male aristocrats, right? If you were making it up. And secondly, wouldn't you have those male aristocrats, at least one of them, say to the other people when they were all discouraged after Jesus was that, "Guys, don't you remember what Jesus told us? He was going to rise from the dead. Look, it's the third day. It's almost sunrise. Let's go to the tomb and show him how we have faith. I'll lead the way, right? Let's say it was Peter because Peter's going to be the new leader. And so he brings all the disciples down. It's almost sunrise. Let's count it down. Three, two, one, resurrection. Yeah. You'd have Jesus pop out of the tomb. High five, Peter. I anoint you the new leader, right? That's how you'd write it.

The last thing you do would be to write a story that goes, "Yeah, Peter was a coward the whole time. In fact, he cursed Christ. And the first sign of trouble we all took off. And even when the tomb was empty and the angel told us Jesus was risen, we still didn't get it. We were actually just clueless cowards. So come follow us. How does that win you any followers?" Unless that's the way it happened. And I think we miss this because we know how the story came out. And so we don't read these stories right sometimes, right? We don't see how normal their reactions were.

I was a couple of weeks ago, got to travel in Israel with a group from our church. And by the way, every single weekend in April, our daily video devos that you can get texted to you every morning at 7, those are going to be ones I filmed there in Israel. Those are free little daily three-minute videos, meant to be kind of an inspirational way to start your day with some scripture. And details on how you can sign up for them are in the programs today at the bottom of page two. But while I'm over there in Israel, very early one morning by myself, I go to the church of the Holy Sepulchre. This is a very ancient church. It's actually built over the place where experts believe Jesus was actually buried. And it's very popular even very early in the morning. There's lines of people to see the alleged tomb of Christ.

But as you can see, it's all covered with gold and silver and marble. There's actually not much left from the first century in there, but I just filmed this with my iPhone as I was walking around. If you know where to look, it's not marked. You can go behind a column into this ancient stairwell with wooden steps. But then if you turn left, you enter this weird circular room with a mysterious burned-out throne. And if you look around at the walls, you'll eventually see there is this barely legible picture of the disciples laying Jesus in the tomb. And there's a doorway under it that's about this tall. And if you hunch over, you can go into this ancient passage. And you can start crawling on your hands and knees, and it leads you into an actual 2,000-year-old tomb from the time of Jesus, hewn out of the solid rock. And when you're in there, you can see the places where they laid the dead bodies. And you can see it's not all inlaid with marble and gold and silver. It's just dark and creepy like it was in those days.

Now, why do I bring this up? Because the emotional state of the disciples on that first Easter was not, "Let's celebrate. This is going to be so cool. It's light and gold and marble, and he's going to rise today past the marshmallow peeps." That's not where they were at at all. Their state of mind was more like this, dark and depressing and full of death. If anything, they were thinking, "Yeah, we're next." Trembling, bewildered, and afraid. But then something happened to these same people and days later, and that's important, not like 100 years later once some myth had taken hold, but days later, to be precise, 50 days later, at the Feast of Pentecost, the same exact group of people, these men and women, they pour into the streets of Jerusalem, completely changed, saying, "He is alive, and they will not stop talking about this good news."

And the Jesus movement spreads all over the known world, even past the borders of the Roman Empire, within their lifetimes. The same exact people who were trembling, bewildered, and afraid are suddenly afraid of nothing and full of initiative and bravery. How do you explain that? The only compelling explanation to me is the one they gave themselves. They said, "Well, we cannot stop speaking about what we've seen and heard." They'd seen their best friend dead, and then they made him alive, and he said that that same thing would one day happen to them. And so nothing could intimidate them at all. They were completely changed because they believed it.

And here's the big question of Easter. What if you believe the resurrection is true? I mean, good for them, right? But does the resurrection mean anything for your life right now, today? Yes, yes, in so many ways. In fact, the whole rest of the New Testament is basically just the same exact people trying to work out the implications of what it means that the resurrection has begun through Jesus Christ. I could take you to lots of places, but let's start to bring this in for a landing with just one amazing verse. The Apostle Paul wrote this in 1 Corinthians 15:20–21. He said this, "Christ has been raised from the dead." Watch this now. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died. Just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man.

It wasn't just about Jesus. The resurrection from the dead has begun. In other words, when those first disciples saw Jesus resurrected, they weren't like, it wasn't about him being resuscitated. It was about him being resurrected, and that means something different. They were like, this is just the first stage of what God is going to do, how God is going to transform our bodies and the whole planet. The resurrection means one day you and I and all of creation will be restored just as Jesus Christ's body was restored and perfected and glorified. Now, excuse me, this is something that the prophets in the Bible talked about. You've heard the prophecies of the day when death will be defeated and the lion will lie down with the lamb and there will be no more evil, no more sorrow, no more suffering, no more sin, a time of total well-being, a time when all oppression ceases, a time when there will be no more injustice.

And what happened with Jesus was this, that began with Christ, and one day that will spread to everything. And to the extent that that future is real to you, it changes everything about how you live right now. Because it gives you a sense of wonder and anticipation, first of all, because you're like, wow, what does God have up his sleeve? Because he can resurrect anything. Because the same power that resurrected Christ from the dead is alive in me. And also it gives you a sense of purpose because you're like, if that's what God wants to bring to earth, then my task as a Jesus follower is to give people a little preview of that new heaven and new earth, give people a preview of what it feels like to know someone who's not unjust, someone who does not oppress, someone who loves, someone who does not judge.

And it gives you hope. You know, why is it so hard to face disease? Why is it so hard to face death? Your own death and the death of loved ones? Or why is it so hard to stand up for what's right, especially if it's going to cost you something? It's hard because we think this broken world is all we've got. But the resurrection says it's not. I think of Johnny Ericzentada. When Johnny was 17, she had a diving accident, became a quadriplegic paralyzed from the neck down. And you know what she says she likes least about her paralysis? She says every week in her church, there's a point where the worship leader asks everybody who can to kneel in prayer, to kneel. And she can't kneel. And she hates that. And one recent Sunday that that was happening and for some reason it struck her and she began to cry.

But then she says her tears of self-pity changed into another kind of tears. She says this, "I continued weeping but at another thought. I remembered in the new heaven. I'll be free to jump and dance and to kick. But the first thing I plan to do on resurrected legs is to drop on grateful, glorified knees and quietly kneel at the feet of Jesus." She says, "Can you imagine the hope that the resurrection gives someone like me?" That is so good. And the resurrection can give you hope too. If you have this in mind like the disciples did, it just changes the way you live life.

Let me illustrate it this way. Anybody know what this is here? It looks kind of weird. It's got a battery and it's got all kinds of red and black wires inside. And when I press this little starter button on one side, it sounds very ominous, doesn't it? Yeah. So what is this? You know what this is? This is an Easter egg for children who are blind. And yesterday in our accessible Easter egg hunt that we had with Leo's Haven here, we had a place where children who are blind can hunt for eggs and all the eggs peeped like this. And so they went for the sound and then they traded in the eggs for candy or for toys afterwards. And I looked at this. It was so touching to see it happen. But I thought, what a metaphor for what the idea of the resurrection does for us in our darkness.

Because when we can't see ahead, that concept, that idea is like spiritual sound that's allowing us to hone in on the truth. That one day we will be able to see past this veil of darkness. That one day there will be no more suffering. That one day evil will not win. The idea of the resurrection leads us to Easter hope. This week I was watching an Easter sermon by a man named Bishop Kenneth Ulmer. He's the pastor at a big church down in Los Angeles called West Angeles Cathedral. And he just gave a great Easter message. But the best part about it was at the end of his sermon, he told a great story that I want to tell you.

He says, one day an international chess champion, Paul Morphy, was walking through a museum and he stopped by one particular painting that caught his eye. It was a scene of two men sitting on opposite sides of a table. And in the middle of the table was a chess board. And the title of the painting was "Checkmate." And one man on one side is obviously portrayed as the devil, "Mephistopheles." And on the other side there was a distressed man who'd obviously just lost his game with death. "Checkmate, game over!" But this chess master in the museum looks at the painting and he says, "Hmm, something's wrong." And he starts looking at the painting and he moves his hands. And he looks at the painting again and he moves his hands. And finally he snaps his finger and he says, "They either need to change the painting or change the name." Because the game is not over yet. He said, "The king still has one more move."

And in his sermon Bishop Ulmer says, "This is the message of Easter." Because the Son of God was nailed to a cross and declared dead and sealed in a tomb and it was done, gone over. Checkmate! But Jesus is king and the king still has one more move. Now I realize this is Aptos and not West Los Angeles. Thank you. And we kind of, when we think something is like really vitally true, we give a golf clap. Because that's where we're from. But when Bishop Ulmer taught this, people responded differently. So just in case you miss it, this is the gospel message of Resurrection Sunday. The king still has one more move. The king still has one more move.

And do you see the difference this makes when you live in this reality? Because this means that, listen, some of you need to hear this. This message, don't throw in the towel. Don't throw up your hands. Don't leave the court. Because it may seem to you like the game's over. Like you're at a spiritual dead end, a physical dead end, a relational dead end, an emotional dead end. But don't stop. The resurrection means the resurrection power. Today means the king still has one more move. And when you live in that reality, it changes everything. It leads you on.

You know, like everybody, I can forget that. I told you earlier this message came out of a very personal place for me. And I'll tell you about it. Monday of this past week, I found myself crying, thinking of my mom, my mother. And it was strange because she died almost three years ago in May. But have you found that grief is a strange thing? It'll suddenly just hit you just right out of the blue. And I was walking through the kitchen and all of a sudden I was just like, boom. And I just kept thinking of what a great person she was and how at 80 years old she was so physically fit, she walked and swam for miles every day. And she was so kind and she loved the Lord so much. And then Alzheimer's disease struck. And she was completely reduced until by 82 she was dead.

And I'll be honest with you, I found myself just this past Monday with anger just welling up inside of me in frustration. And I kind of yelled at God all by myself, almost a paraphrase of what Jesus cried out on the cross, only it was, "My God, my God, why did you forsake her?" And I'm so glad I've been working on this message because it was like I felt the comforting arms of God around me. And the voice of God whispering to me, "René, don't you remember the king still has one more move. Death never has the final move. Suffering never has the final move. Disease never has the final move." And it was like God was reaffirming to me. It was like God was saying to me, "René, you thought she was fit in this life. Wait until you see her in the resurrection. You thought she loved the Lord in this life. Wait until you see how she loves Jesus face to face in her glorified body on that day that there will be no more tears and no more sorrow and no more pain and no more death because the king still has one more move because Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. And that truth means something for you and for me today and forever. It changes everything.

So let's go to that risen, living, present Jesus in prayer right now. Would you bow your heads and your hearts with me? With every head bowed, there are some people here who may feel like I felt Monday or feel hopeless or purposeless. And I want to invite you in this moment to come to the risen, living, present Lord Jesus in prayer and say, "Just help me. Help me move into confidence and boldness and purpose like those first terrified and bewildered disciples. I don't understand it all. I'm a little bewildered, but very simply, I want my life to be about life and not death. And so I want to follow you, the risen Jesus. Help me understand every day what that means more and more, how to live in the reality of the resurrection. Help me turn from sin and death to life, abundant life, so I can forever praise you and forever serve you. And we pray this in the name of the living Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.