Good morning, friends. Morning. Happy Easter. Happy Easter. He is risen. Visiting if you’re visiting and I know many of you are either visiting because you’re just, dropping in to say hi visiting because a friend wouldn’t take no for an answer. And because of the different makeup of the, what the services look like I, I usually try and begin with something that that at least I think is a little humorous.

Not everyone always agrees and that’s fine but usually I’m like, this feels it, welcomes people in and usually I’ll have a good idea of where. This teaching portion, which is shorter than a normal Sunday, is going like way out in advance, but it’ll just sit like there waiting and the staff will say to me like, how how’s it feeling?

I’m like, you know what? I feel like it’s missing. Just a little bit of like levity, a little bit of humor, and sometimes that comes right at the last minute. I have a family that kind of do some funny things and something will produce itself. This year I was waiting and I was waiting and I was waiting and it got closer and closer.

And then on Friday night, one of my kids got sick and then another one, and then another one, and then my wife got sick and this just cascaded. So I tried to be quick saying hi. If I shook your hand. That means I really like you. If I hug you that means even more. And so this was the events leading up to this.

I’m still trying to find out what the punchline is of this humorous story that he gave me to share. But I haven’t figured it out, and so if you figure it out, let me know. The beauty, the joy of resurrection as we celebrate it is that it’s resurrection for those whose. Who walk in here leaping full of joy, everything going well, it’s resurrect, resurrection, perhaps, especially for those that walk in here limping.

And so would you stand with me as we read Luke chapter 24? If you’re unfamiliar with the scriptures, Luke is one of the biographies of Jesus life. This is his recording of what happened on that Sunday, first day of the week, a couple of thousand years ago. On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb, never able to figure out what the men were doing, something sleeping in.

They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And what they were wondering about there suddenly too many in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them in their fright, the women bowed down with their faces to the ground.

But the men said to them, why do you look for the living amongst the dead? He is not here. He has risen. Jesus, as we ask questions around resurrection, what new life means I have words to share, but would you somewhere in the middle of, in this gap between those words and my friends here, would you speak.

Which you do what you do which is in the midst of hard stories of things that feel like death at times. You bring resurrection. I. Yes. Thank you Jesus. Amen. Oh, you can sit down. Thank you. One of the things that’s tempting on a day like this is to take stories of resurrection and try and kinda be the person that shines a new angle on resurrection that says something new.

How you say something new about a story that’s a couple of thousand years old. I’m not entirely sure. My suspicion is all we get to do on this day. Called Resurrection Sunday is simply ask a few questions that might look something like this. What kind of story? Is this, in the midst of the story of Easter, we recognize that it’s an unusual story, that God in his goodness shares a story that’s surprisingly about death and incredibly about life.

In the midst of that, perhaps we ask the question that the first hearers of this story asked, which was what do all of these things mean? What does it mean for God to die and then come back to life again and maybe finally. What does it mean for me on this Resurrection Sunday? Asking questions like this, surprisingly, puts us in good company.

The earliest followers of Jesus were constantly confused as to what his mission really was, what he was teaching, what he was saying, just general confusion and spend the rest of their lives trying to write down or understand what had happened in their midst of a friend of mine who when I was. First doing this kind of teaching thing said to me Alex, if you do this for three years, if only 12 people are listening to you, they constantly misunderstand your illustrations and one of them wants to kill you then you’re in a good place.

Because that’s where Jesus was after three years. He knows of what you speak the earliest followers of Jesus were figuring it out like we are. And so to help us ask those questions, this Resurrection Sunday I’d like us to step back a couple of days before all of these events took place to use for a moment, your imagination to enter into the story.

You wake up one Jerusalem morning as the sun comes up over the hills, you are staying with Jesus and his disciples as someone who’s followed them for a while. You’re part of the in, in crowd, and as you lie there waiting for the morning to really get started, you start to think about all of the things that have happened.

Over the last couple of days and just two days ago, you were with Jesus in a town called Bethany, where Jesus had stood in front of the tomb of your friend Lazarus, and had literally called him out from his grave and Lazarus, a obeyed. You saw a moment where life conquered death. A story worth remembering.

And then just a couple of days after that, there was this moment where you moved from Bethany to Jerusalem, and as you walked in, crowds gathered around Jesus declaring him to be a king. There was this moment where it fear like a new story was about to emerge with Jesus power over death, with his ability to teach profoundly, surely a new kingdom would emerge right now in the midst of this old one.

There was expectation, the shouting of the crowds. You even heard one of the religious leaders declare the whole world has gone after him. You allow yourself a few moments to dream what that new kingdom might look like. Jesus, of course, as king, but you seated close to him, close to the power on the throne.

Start to imagine a world or at least a nation without oppression, and best of all, without any of these Romans that feel like they’ve been hanging around for a century or so, start to think how you might be able to make life a little difficult for the people that betrayed your nation over the last year.

Those tax collectors, those sinners that kind of turn towards the Romans. You get up and you go and join the group, and you hear that some people have come to meet with Jesus from people all the way out from Greece. They’re excited about this thing too. The dream seems ever so possible. A real nation like God centered nation, and then you hear Jesus words.

Jesus isn’t talking about victory, he’s talking about loss. He isn’t talking about life, he’s talking about death, and there’s this moment when you realize what Jesus hopes for and expects is very different to the thing that you’ve been hoping and expecting for. In this story in John chapter 12 where this scene plays out, we see Jesus say a couple of things that are wildly different than the expectations his disciples would have.

Verse 20. Now, there were some Greeks among them who went to worship at the festival that came to Philip, one of the disciples who was from Beth Seder in Galilee. With a request, sir. They said we would like to see Jesus. Philip went to tell Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus something about this.

This ask cues Jesus into the fact that something is about to change. Jesus replied, the hour has come. It’s like a moment where the clock ticks over for the son of man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you. Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

Now my soul is troubled and what shall I say, father, save me from this hour. No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name. It’s impossible to tell the story of Easter, the story of Jesus without the first movement being about death. We begin there on Easter. How you might ask as a follower of Jesus in this moment, back 2000 years ago, how.

Can death bring life? Jesus talks about death like it has a purpose. When he talks about death, he’s talking about something that’s like almost a universal. Human condition, right? Benjamin Franklin said, only death and taxis are certain, a bunch of other stuff sometimes gets added in. In the meme world, an anonymous person said, death smiles at all of us.

And all a man can do is smile back. And yet when we talk about it, really when we encounter it, we realize it’s this. Profound thing and that we, when we experience it long for a better story and because it’s difficult to talk about things that are really painful to my soul. I’m gonna try and talk about this in a way that’s a little bit more within reach for a resurrection Sunday morning, first moment, I experienced it for myself.

It was here. This was a cat that I loved. This is before I realized that dogs are better. Just on a every level cat. Dog sees a human, loves it, takes care of it. What does the dog think? These people are? Gods cat has a human that takes care of it. What does the cat think? I must be a God. There’s something about cats.

They’re a little off. But this cat I loved, used to sleep on the end of my bed, just sweet little thing. And I came home to the news that it had been run over. Instead of going behind the house where there was hundreds of miles of pristine English countryside, it went to the front of the house where there were roads that people drive down very fast.

And so I went out to the back of the house and found this small. Delicate thing now static, and I knelt down on the ground by it and I put my hands on it and said, Jesus, you believe in resurrection, right? You do the resurrection thing. If that sounds like a really cute childlike faith, I should tell you, I was 22 years old when this happened and all of that can be explained by me growing up Pentecostal, like every little bit of it just there.

I was left with a few questions based on that experience. I’m told I don’t finish stories. So let me just say the cat wasn’t raised from the dead. You would’ve heard about that somewhere by now. Had that happened, my questions were ease. Did I do something wrong? May, maybe is this not important to you and amongst all the other things going on in the world, is my small cat not a big deal?

Do you not like cats? And then finally, maybe Jesus what if we were a dog? Would the answer be different? Do you, is your care only for that? Species, but in the midst of it, really the sense of pain, which on a small microcosm is an example of all the pain that we feel around this subject.

A longing for a different story. I. I wish that this story wasn’t as permanent and final as it is. When the earliest followers of Jesus talked about his story, they tried to figure out what does this mean? They gave some theories. One was that on one level, Jesus’ death was a substitution that we were the ones.

That was supposed to experience that death and he stepped in the way. Another theory is around debt. Is there anyone that owes any money to anyone in the house? I’m sure there’s nobody I’m sure you are all like debt free and doing well but supposing you did. And then supposing a neighbor walks in and sits down at the kitchen table and says, I’ve been watching you.

And you say that’s creepy. But he says no, I, I’ve been seeing how you guys live and it feels there’s a story and maybe you’re struggling, and so just tell me what’s the number? How much do you owe what’s on the house, what’s on the cars, what’s on the what’s on the HELOCs, what’s on the credit cards and then after giving you a list of different numbers, he says, okay, I’m gonna write you a check that should cover it.

Those are a couple of ways that followers of Jesus thought about the work that he had done, but there was another one. That’s gotten lost over the years in different ways. And the other one was called Christus Victor. It’s a Latin word that comes from this idea that when the Roman army would win a victory, someone usually a general would declare when everyone else was defeated Rome Victor, like Rome is victorious Once again.

Christus Victor is this idea that Jesus in death, surprisingly, is victorious. And this is what this passage is talking about. Unless seed, he says, falls into the ground and dies, his story starts with this idea, this agricultural image of death. Thi think about for a moment, this story from the seed’s perspective, does it not feel like a death?

The seed is taken and it’s placed in the ground, and the cold and the damp and the dark of the earth covers it over the sky and disappears, and there it sits for a moment, waiting for a while. Nothing happens it seems from the perspective of the seed, like it’s been buried. And then. Something happens as the cold of winter moves to the warmth of spring.

In Colorado, it then goes back to winter and then back to spring, and then back to winter. And but in a sane state, in a normal place, as the warmth of spring emerges, life emerges with it. There’s this moment for the seed. Where it, it becomes really apparent that it wasn’t buried. It was just planted.

That is this tiny picture that Jesus gives us of what resurrection is. Resurrection. It seems as a code ridden into the world that we see it in trees that make other trees. God makes one tree and it makes other trees. He’s not making multiple trees. We see snippets. Of resurrection on a spring morning when the bulbs that were planted in fall are now alive.

We see it in the blossom on the trees that catches. The warm air and the scent reminds us somewhere of childhood. We see moments that remind us that point to resurrection when it’s suddenly spring and we’re putting, if you own one a boat into a lake and you’re hanging out with family and friends, you see it in the moment where you realize you haven’t actually hung out with your neighbor since October, and now you’re hanging out.

Again, in a different way. There’s all these different ways. The, this world cues us all kind of nods and winks at the idea that resurrection is part of our world. That’s this story. CS Lewis talks about it this way. Then the mist turn from white to gold and presently cleared away altogether. Shafts of delicious sunlight struck down on the forest floor and overhead.

You could see a blue sky between the tree tops. As soon there were more wonderful. Things happening, coming suddenly around a corner into a glad of silver birch trees. Edmond saw the ground covered in all directions with little yellow flowers Undines. The noise of water grew louder. Presently, they actually crossed a stream.

Behold, beyond it, they found snow drops growing. There’s this beautiful synergy when you place Easter alongside Spring. You realize that spring is this emergence from winter, this new life. It appears just when you’ve convinced yourself it may never come again. Now read this story on the first day of the week.

Very early in the morning, the women took the spices. They were prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered it, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. What they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them in their fright.

The women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said, why do you look for the living amongst the dead? He is not here. He is risen in the last moment that they could possibly expect it to show up. Resurrection shows up in this story. Think about it for a moment. From Jesus’ perspective, his body is placed in the ground and the dirt and the cold and the damp of the soil covers it over, and for a moment, nothing happens.

The sky is hidden from view. There’s a pause in time and then. This thing up here begins to speak to this body and down there because you see, it turns out that with Jesus, two, he wasn’t buried. He was merely planted. Resurrection is a story of life emerging when you couldn’t possibly expect it to. Peter Marshall said, thank God we have an empty tomb.

The glorious fact that the empty tomb proclaims to us that life for us does not stop when death comes. Death is not a wall, but a door. The surprising claim of this Krista Victor theory, is that when the systemic rules of death, the one that everybody dies, that death is true for all of us meets the death of Jesus.

It’s surprisingly. It produces life. The surprising equation, Easter is that death plus death equals life. For this one time only, I find another scenario where a bad thing plus a bad thing equals a good thing, and it’s hard to find in this universe. This is one of those stories that Jesus worked for us, changes the equation.

The statement of atonement on Christus. Victor reads like this, Christ is risen. We get that. We already said it from the dead. Trampling over death by death, and on those in the tombs bestowing life. While the other theories of atonement focus on the work of Jesus’ death, and that’s vitally important.

Krista’s Victor recognizes the fact that resurrection. Matters. In this picture, we see the risen Jesus holding our ancestors, Adam and Eve, pulling them up from the tomb with him as life takes over. It’s why the psalm of resurrection is this one. Lift up your heads or you gates be lifted up you ancient doors.

It’s the moment where Jesus dis ascends and breaks the rules of death. And hell, who is this king of glory? The Lord strong and mighty. The Lord mighty in battle. In this story, resurrection has a way of turning up the moment we’ve given up hope it will ever arrive. That’s the way it works in Jesus’ story, and I think that’s the way it works for you and us, you and I as well.

Other places in your life where you would say, I need to see resurrection? There’s maybe stories that feel like they’re on the verge at least of death. There’s relationships that feel toxic, broken. There’s dreams that feel like they disappeared. Maybe the whole system feels like this just doesn’t feel like it’s working for us right now.

Resurrection is the moment that God steps into that story, your story in a particular way as well. It’s birth 2000 years ago, and we still see it show up every moment of every day if we’re looking for it. Tim Keller asked this question, is every sad thing going to come untrue? The answer he said is yes.

The answer of Christianity to that question is yes. Every sad thing is going to come untrue at some point, and it will somehow be greater for having once been broken and lost the story of God, and this universe takes that mysterious shape. What part of your story needs this story, this Easter? The cry of the early church, one Corinthians 1555 was this where, oh, death is your victory.

Where, oh, death is your sting. Athanasius, like third century said, if then death is trampled underfoot, it is clear that it is Christ himself and none other who is the arch victory over death. He has robbed it of its power. Death used to be strong and terrible. But now since the work of the savior and the death and resurrection of his body, it is despised.

The startling news of resurrection is this, that as a follower of Jesus death has lost its meaning, lost its power. We live in a nation that is terrified of death, and the word of Jesus is you do not need to be afraid. That he has walked this journey before and in the right time, he’ll invite you down it and won’t look like it once did.

It’s defeated, despised, trampled over all because of this work. There is no story is the message of Jesus that he’s out of reach. Of resurrection, just in the moment where you believe your story is out of reach makes you a good candida for that story to show up. The startling news of resurrection is that it turns up for the victim, for the one who’s been abused by their partner.

The kid that’s been abused by its caregivers turns up for the elderly person who’s had their savings stolen by an old trick in a new way, and startlingly this as well. Turns up for the abuser. Startlingly turns up for the guilty. Startlingly turns up for the one who does the swindling Startlingly shows up for anyone who puts up their hand and says, I deeply need the story of Jesus in my life.

Doesn’t make the thing okay. Doesn’t mean that there may not be a lawsuit. Doesn’t mean that they might not go to jail, but. It does mean in this grand story, something has changed. The story of Jesus is a movement from death to life, and then perhaps surprisingly more life. The thing that the early writers want us to capture is just how big this story is.

A seed that was planted is raised to life, but Jesus said it also creates more seeds. The earliest biographers of Jesus wanted to know just how far this story stretches and how big this story you are involved in really is he? Jesus told them another parable. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field.

Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree so that the birds come and perch in its branches. The mustard tree is not a large tree by our standards, but it was to his heroes. I wanted to give you the example of a Sequoia, a small seed that becomes a big tree, but it doesn’t give you the breadth.

The reach. A Banyan tree would be a great example, but nobody knows or what it is. So an oak is maybe the best we can do. This tree that starts off as a seed and grows and stretches wider, Jesus wants us to know just how far this story carries. I. Now the danger of a story that carries far is this. We find that it doesn’t have enough resources for everyone.

It just doesn’t work. It feels like it breaks down. My experience of this that I thought I’d share with you was turning up at an airport with a a pass to a lounge that my wife had got. Through a credit card. We had this moment where we were excited, we turned up at the airport like people who used to travel with kids, not traveling with kids.

Turn up at an airport. If like once you’ve traveled with kids, like just being in an airport, this place of misery is a joy. ’cause you’re like, we’re suddenly just, we’re just swaggering through this place. The whole world is our oyster. We walked all the way up to the entrance to this lounge and we.

Threw down this card like we owned the place and there was this moment where the guy who was supposed to let us in looked at us and frowned and said, okay. Go join the line over there. We turned behind us and there’s this line stretching down to the next gate of people that are trying to get into this exclusive place.

It’s this moment where we realized that they don’t have the resources. This was not special at all. This special pass was offered just to everybody who would take it. The kingdom of God, Jesus says, is not like that. The Kingdom of God is wide and rich, and its resources are enough for everybody that possibly needs it.

Tom Wright says, the Reg resurrection completes the inauguration of God’s kingdom. It is the decisive event demonstrating that God’s kingdom really has been launched on earth as it is in heaven. It’s open to everyone can reach, everyone can provide everyone, but needs you. In it. Another Easter question might be, how can your story bring this story to the world?

What is it that you can share from the story? God is birth in you. In John chapter 12, verse 32, Jesus says this is the conclusion to this passage, and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die. Jesus is still drawing people towards him.

Still calling people wherever we are. Perhaps once near now, far, perhaps never in the story of always finding ourselves on the outside of the story. Third is to question for you. Will you make this story the center of your story? Can you find a place for it? Are there other stories that have dominated it?

And will you surrender to this story? What’s the thing that’s in the way? I often read this quote at the last moment of an Easter service. To me, it just rings of Easter. Invite you to read it, not knowing where your story is right now. Not knowing the places of pain, the places that maybe feel like death.

As this by Frederick Ner, this is what resurrection means. Resurrection means that the worst thing, death is never the last thing. The worst isn’t the last thing about the world. It’s the next to the last thing. The last thing is the best. It’s the power from unhi that comes down into the world. It wells up from the rock bottom worst of the world, like a hidden.

Spring, can you believe it? The story of Jesus’ death and resurrection waits for anyone that will say yes to it. It simply sits hovers, perhaps, especially at times like this. It’s a springtime emerging from a winter that perhaps has been long and painful, but it’s a story that never stops, can’t be stopped.

The sea stirs always were invited into it.