Living Hope

Well, good morning, everyone. My name is Nick. I am pastor for discipleship here at this church.

It's my joy to be sharing God's word with you on this Easter day.

On Friday, we heard the gravity of Jesus last night before his death.

That in the Gethsemane Garden, Jesus glimpsed the cup of God's wrath that he must drink for the sin of all humanity.

But it was not the pain or the shame or the torture of his death that was causing him to sweat blood.

It was the abandonment from God, his Father, if he continued to plan their plan to save the world.

Jesus showed us that there is nothing worse than being torn apart from God, the Father.

And Jesus faced that greatest loss to give us the greatest thing imaginable, to have God.

And on the third day after Jesus' burial on the cross, his followers were trying to come to grips with a similar loss.

Because they thought they had found God, but he was dead.

They'd lost God and they'd lost all their hope.

The man on the screen, well, thank you tech team for trying to make things work.

Can you see this strange looking man up here?

His name is Pete Holmes.

He is a fairly famous comedian.

And he has this perspective that he brings into his comedy act about God and people.

He thinks it's ridiculous that we as humans could ever think that we might be able to understand who God is.

He says that humanity is, together we are like characters in a book.

Characters in a book written by an author, but we can't get to the author.

We can't get ourselves out of the book because God, we are in it and God is not in it.

We are stuck in the book.

We are like Harry Potter trying to figure out who J.K. Rowling is.

Some of the author is reflected in Harry.

As Pete says, like some of God is reflected in us.

But that's as far as we can hope according to this guy.

And this is helpful because, not because Pete is right,

but because it shows how aware we in our world often are of our hopelessness without God.

Even if we can see that there is an author and a writer and a creator of all of this,

he needs to write himself into the story or else we have no way to have him.

If we can't get God, there is no hope.

The Bible describes human hopelessness very clearly.

That all humanity is without hope and without God in the world.

The world is our place and it seems like this is all we have while we live.

We are hopeless spiritually without God and we are purposeless without meaning and hopeless.

But Christians claim that there is proof that God wrote himself into the book.

And when he didn't do it just to star in it,

he did it to rescue the characters and give himself to us.

So, we have Luke 24 before us and we're going to join Jesus' followers as they witness Jesus' unbelievable resurrection.

The disciples were experiencing an acute spiritual hopelessness in this moment.

They were anxious.

They were asking, what do we do now?

They had no leader.

Their Messiah had just died.

The disciple John adds in his gospel in chapter 20 that they even locked the door for fear of the Jewish authorities.

Fearing violence against them.

They were also disconnected, asking, who are we now?

Earlier that day, two of the disciples had left Jerusalem.

Instead of hiding in safety together, maybe that wasn't the safest option, they thought.

And so, they left altogether.

What if I stay with...

Why would I stay with Jesus if he's not the Messiah?

Incidentally, that was the video we were going to watch.

We were going to hear about what happened on the road to Emmaus to those two disciples.

And they were also confused.

Do we dare hope that this isn't the end?

Because that same two who left earlier that morning had now returned.

They'd knocked on the locked door.

They had said they'd seen Jesus.

Luke even reports that Peter had seen Jesus too.

And they either haven't heard or don't trust the women's report of the tomb being empty that Rachel read out during the singing today.

They were standing in the locked room.

Even hearing that angels had testified Jesus was alive.

And they were wrestling.

Would they give in to hope of these reports?

Or would they give in to their doubt?

And then in verse 36, as Janet read, Jesus appeared.

And they still do not believe.

Even when they heard his voice, they saw him.

They saw his likeness.

Standing in a locked room with them.

They didn't lose their confusion or their unbelief.

So how unbelievable is this hope?

If you have a Bible in your hands, you hold eyewitness testimony.

Gathered by a, what we now call Syrian.

That's where Luke is from.

Syrian, Greek-speaking journalist.

Soon after these events occurred, he wrote all of this down to share it with you.

And you need to decide whether it is reasonable to hope in something so unbelievable or not.

There are four common doubts about Jesus' resurrection that this passage speaks against.

And the first is to doubt the event itself, that the resurrection can't even happen.

And for doubt to grow, for this doubt to grow, it's often planted in the assumption that people of this day weren't as educated as us nowadays.

They were more gullible.

They'd just believe anything.

But this is upside down.

Think about this.

In modern day Chatswood, we are far more comfortable than Luke's audience with the idea that death can be held back.

That death can be pushed away.

Our life expectancies are more than double what they were back then.

We have healthcare and medical miracles and resuscitations and those things that bring you back to life on the walls everywhere,

including over there on the other side of church.

It's common.

But living under Rome, without hospitals, without modern medicine, death was closer than recovery.

You cut your leg, it might be a death sentence.

They were far more experienced with death.

And arguably, they would have believed in a resurrection less than we might.

But to add to this, no religion at the time in the known world included any expectations or the acceptance of a bodily resurrection.

So, when the leaders of Israel react to Jesus being executed,

they convince Pilate to seal Jesus' tomb and place a guard of Roman soldiers outside.

Not because they were afraid of Jesus coming out.

But because they'd heard what Jesus had said about rising again.

And they worried that the disciples might break in and pretend that Jesus had risen.

If you want to read about that, it's in Matthew 27.

But even though Jesus had promised that he would rise, his disciples themselves had no belief the resurrection was possible.

They made no attempt to fake it.

Nobody in their right mind would create a story at the time based on resurrection.

And that brings us to doubt too.

The accounts of what happened must be fake.

This assumes that the disciples in Luke created a lie,

knowing that a Jewish audience would accept a resurrection.

That's the assumption.

Surely God's people expected their Messiah to rise.

Well, according to modern day scholar N.T. Wright,

there was no promise in the Old Testament of a bodily resurrection at all.

Not one.

The only similar resurrection is in Daniel 12 on the screen, verses 2 and 3.

But it describes God's people rising together.

Potentially the end of all things.

With bodies that shine.

Nothing like this mundane, normal body of Jesus that we've just heard about.

Jesus' resurrection would have been the least believable lie that the disciples could tell.

Luke is reporting eyewitness testimony that we must, just like them, either believe or make an alternative argument.

You could start by trying to argue that, thirdly, the disciples didn't really believe Jesus had risen.

And there's two reasons that doesn't make sense either.

Firstly, some who were in that room in Luke 24 died testifying that Jesus was risen from the dead.

Is a lie worth dying for?

And they didn't just get killed because of their faith.

They faced death with joy.

Christians were known at the time to be hunted down and brutally killed while singing.

They were joyful.

They had the confidence that this was not going to be their end.

That they too would be raised because they'd seen Jesus raised.

And secondly, they lost the tomb.

You can go to Jerusalem nowadays and you can pay money to see a tomb of Jesus.

But there's no historical proof that that's the one.

And the reason why we don't know where the tomb is is because the disciples lost it.

No one cared.

Church leaders ever since had graves that were venerated.

People wrote down the date when they died and marked the place where they had been buried.

People traveled long distances to pay respects to their church fathers.

But the followers of Jesus completely forgot about Jesus' final resting place because he didn't have one.

The disciples really believed that Jesus rose from the dead as a real person.

And fourthly, they did not just have a spiritual experience.

If you doubt that Jesus physically rose again in this passage, I offer you this.

Did you think it was weird that Jesus asked to eat some fish?

Why is this broiled fish story in there?

It's so strange.

Literature experts say that these kinds of verses in Luke prove that he's trying to convey history.

Not write a myth or a legend.

Because it makes no sense.

Jesus either stood on the floor, talked, showed them the scars of his execution,

and then asked to eat something and ate in front of them,

or Luke's a crazy, terrible myth writer.

It's far more likely, in fact, I believe it is true,

that Luke is writing down what the disciples and he believe is the truth of what happened.

That's Luke's testimony.

Jesus is no ghost.

He's eating.

And Luke himself was talking to fellow Gentiles,

knowing how outrageous Jewish religion was to the rest of the world already.

So he would never tell something so outrageous and unbelievable

is someone being provably killed and executed,

and then on the third day rising to life and asking for some dinner?

Unless it happened.

You can't argue that there's only a spiritual resurrection.

And as Jesus says in the first 39,

a ghost has not flesh and bones, as you see I have.

Either the resurrection and all Christianity itself

is an illogical lie made up by insane people

that no one would expect or believe to be true.

or it's true.

Either unbelievable nonsense or unbelievable hope.

So let's see if Jesus can resurrect your hope in himself.

And you might be like the disciples,

a little frightened, troubled, confronted even.

Even as doubts rise in your minds,

just like the disciples,

Jesus wants to prove to you that he is really him.

Look at my hands and my feet.

It is I myself.

Touch me and see.

Jesus really is himself.

The friendship of God

that the disciples had experienced

was back on.

Hope is resurrected in front of them.

Jesus' physical body has been restored,

not replaced.

As he chewed fish and was held down by gravity,

just like my hand here,

and breathed the stuffy air,

it's a bit nicer than it would have been

in that locked room hiding from the Jews

in that space.

Jesus was recognisable

by sight and sound.

And he was touchable,

flesh and bone like you and I.

The disciples had their friendship

with Jesus resurrected.

One of the best parts about living in this city

is enjoying food together.

It is one thing that has always been a part

of living in this community.

I have had the privilege

of going around to your houses

and you giving me a meal.

And that felt like an extension of

I want to be your friend.

I want to get to know you.

And that is wonderful.

But it was so much deeper than that back then.

If you ate with someone,

it was an invitation into friendship

that everyone understood.

And when Jesus ate the fish,

know that he didn't have to do that.

It doesn't mean he was hungry.

It means he wanted to show

that he wanted friendship,

that we can have him back.

And if you are someone

that has a sense that

there's a somebody out there

who's going to complete you,

think of Jerry Maguire

or any movie or book

or like pretty much every story

has this longing in it.

We're trying to find that person

or we can never find that person

or we're dealing with the grief

of losing that special person.

Jesus is that person

who can bear the weight

of all of our expectations

of that special someone.

Even if you have someone

in your life right now

who comes pretty close

and won't be sitting next to you.

Death always separates,

but Jesus never dies.

And he is saying,

you can have me for real, forever.

Our relationship with him

will continue face to face

for eternity.

Jesus is really with us.

He's not an imagined presence

that we sometimes speak of in grief

when someone dies.

They're looking down on us.

No, Jesus is really alive

alive and one day

will be physically present with you

for he will raise you up

like him

to be with him.

And he proves

the depth of his love

for his friends

in his scars

on his hands

and his feet.

He says,

touch me

and see.

And he showed them

his hands

and his feet.

the scars

that bear the nail marks

of crucifixion

on his physical body,

he still has them

right now.

They're scars

that show us

that Jesus didn't just die

for himself

in some kind

of self-justifying act

before God

as a martyr.

No,

they prove

his suffering

achieved something

for his followers.

He suffered

on their behalf.

He achieved

forgiveness

of them.

Steve mentioned

this on Friday.

Jesus' scars

are like

our receipt.

There I claim

that our debt

of sin

is paid.

Just like

when we leave the store

and we're holding

on to our receipt.

This is our ticket

to freedom.

We're not going

to get tackled

by a security guard.

We have proved

that Jesus

has paid

our debt

of sin.

When we hold

Jesus' scarred hands

one day,

we will hold

the receipt

that our debt

for sin

is paid.

His scars

are hope

also

for our own

scars.

if you are

suffering

through life.

It might be

pain,

illness,

physical,

mental,

events in the past,

trauma in the past,

things happening

right now.

All of what

you face

one day,

you will see

how it matters.

you might not

be aware

of it yet,

but one day,

if you follow

Jesus,

you will

one day

be you

in your body

restored

beyond your

tears

and your

troubles

and your

story will

continue.

It will not

be deleted

and you will

step out

of your

suffering,

carrying your

language

and your

personhood

into the

physical

embrace

of Jesus

scarred

hands.

Your scars

on that

day

will be

shown as

worth it

following

Jesus

and his

scars

are proof

to you

of that.

And you

will never

have to be

apart from

Jesus

like Jesus

was

from his

father

and from

his

disciples

for those

three days.

And the

proof of

this is

that

Jesus

passes

through

walls.

Here's an

interesting

question that

I found in

my reading

in the last

few weeks.

I don't

think I'd

ever just,

it's so

simple,

but I'd

never thought

about it.

Why was

the stone

rolled away

from the

tomb?

Why was

the stone

rolled away

from the

tomb?

According to

this passage,

it's not so

Jesus could

get out.

Walls

couldn't hold

him,

he was

physically

resurrected,

and yet

he can

never be

limited by

something like

a stone

or a

wall.

The stone

was rolled

away,

not so

Jesus could

get out,

but so we

could see

it was

empty.

Jesus could

have knocked

on the

door of

this room

with his

fearful

disciples

inside.

After all,

he's not

a ghost,

but he

wanted to

show his

disciples that

he could be

with them

anywhere,

in the

darkest hour

of their

life,

in the

darkest hour

of their

soul.

There is

no limitation

for Jesus

Christ.

He will

be with

you.

Just like

Jesus didn't

need to

eat the

fish to

show that

he was

himself,

he wanted

to.

And unlike

Lazarus,

who died

again,

Jesus,

the death

has lost

its grip

on Jesus.

Jesus can

disappear,

as happened

before the

very eyes

of the two

on the road

to Emmaus,

and he

can

reappear.

He lives

in a

realm beyond

decay and

limits.

He isn't

like any

other religious

founder,

or any

other

resurrected

person.

He will

never be

held back

from his

people.

We no

longer need

a temple

or a

priest to

get close

to God.

We have

Jesus

himself.

But none

of this

lands as

true for

his audience

yet.

Even with

all this

before them,

the disciples

didn't believe

the women,

the returning

to,

even Peter,

and now

they can't

even believe

their eyes,

even with

Jesus in

front of

them.

And so

Jesus

needed,

needed to

open their

minds so

they could

understand.

Look at

verse 45.

Don't

downplay the

spiritual

experience of

believing in

Jesus'

resurrection.

Luke has

given us

evidence for

it, yet

we now

still need

the same

power to

open our

minds and

illuminate these

scriptures today

as the

disciples did in

that room,

or else

we're going

to stay

just like

Jesus'

followers in

verses 41.

at best,

we can be

joyful and

amazed,

but stuck

in unbelief.

So Jesus

opened their

minds to

the word

of God

and the

truth in

it about

himself,

gifting

them

understanding

that carried

with it

belief.

And it's

specific

belief in

Jesus,

Jesus,

that he

is the

one who

fulfills

all that

the Old

Testament

promised,

that he

rose from

the grave

on the

third day,

and that

forgiveness

of sins

comes through

repentance

in his name.

God

today,

you do not

have to

have all

the answers,

all the

understanding,

but if you

believe that

Jesus was

raised from

the dead,

and that

his scars

have the

power to

offer

forgiveness

from sins,

sins,

then you

need only

turn and

repent

and believe

in him.

You will

receive

everything in

Jesus,

eternal life

with God

and a

living hope

that puts

all the

struggles and

darkness of

this world

in a

perspective

that goes

beyond it.

Nothing

else can

offer you

that.

Jesus

has

reasoned

with our

anxious

minds,

and he's

come near

to those

who are

disconnected,

and he's

given them

belief,

and for

all those

who believe

in Jesus,

he also

destroys

our confusion

at what

is going

on in the

world,

what do

we do

with our

life,

and our

hopelessness,

and graciously

gives us

purpose.

Have a look

at verse

48.

You are

witnesses to

these things,

Jesus says.

Witnesses

testify.

They

testify.

Think of

it this

way.

There have

been countless

people from

that moment

in that

room to

now who

have testified

of the

truth of

Jesus raised

from the

dead.

Think of

it like a

chain.

I'm thinking

of one of

those big

industrial

chains that's

like holding

a ship

in place

on the

dock.

Huge,

big chain.

Each link

leads out

of that

room

with these

followers.

It leads

out across

history,

across

hundreds of

generations

of believers

who have

each carried

the gospel

to the

world to

witness what

they've

seen.

not in

the room

on that

day,

for there

were only

a few,

but what

they have

seen through

the testimony

of the

Bible.

And that

chain has

led all

the way

into this

room.

We're still

connected.

And this

happens because

Jesus'

followers have

a purpose,

and it's

three things.

Spirit,

the word,

and the

plan.

First,

Jesus promises

that we

will be

clothed

with power

from on

high,

verse 49.

And this

is a

reference to

the coming

of the

Holy Spirit.

The Spirit

is God

with us

wherever

we are,

not just

wherever

Jesus stood.

Because when

he's in

that room,

that's where

God is.

That's how

to be

close to

him.

But there

is an

unbreakable

connection

with God

through the

Spirit that

every Christian

wears like

a garment

that empowers

us to

achieve

Jesus'

purpose.

The

confidence

the disciples

discovered

through the

Spirit was

like having

Jesus with

them every

moment of

their life.

He is

with us

in the

Spirit.

And that

same Spirit

speaks through

the Scriptures.

It's the

Word of

God in

the Bible.

It guides

our life

and it

is our

message.

And Jesus

is specific

again.

What words

in particular?

His

summary in

verse 44

refers to

the law

of Moses,

the prophets

and the

Psalms.

And that's

a description

of how the

Jewish Bible,

what we now

call the

Old Testament,

was structured.

The law,

the prophets

and the

writings.

All of

that,

that we now

call the

Old Testament,

everything in it

points to

Jesus.

And it's

also the

words spoken

through the

apostles and

the eyewitnesses

to Christ in

the New Testament.

It's the

activity of the

Holy Spirit

that inspired the

prophets,

historians,

and the early

church who

witnessed these

things.

See,

Christians find

hope for

living in the

Bible.

We're like

trees,

reliant on

the sap

of Scripture.

All of

us came to

faith through

words spoken

by the

Spirit in

the Bible

because we

were not in

the room

with Him.

And as

the Spirit

empowers us

to share

the words of

Scripture,

we are given

a plan,

a plan to

share it

with the

world.

And the

plan is

clear.

Verse 47

says,

It's a

plan that

we partner

with God

in while

He works

the miracle

of saving

the world

along the

way.

And Luke

himself knew

about the

Spirit,

the Word,

and the

plan.

He knew

because people

from that

room

followed

Jesus'

plan.

The

gospel of

Jesus had

reached Luke

where he

was,

countries

away,

speaking a

different heart

language.

And he was a

Gentile,

he was an

enemy of

the Jews,

but he

found out

that Jesus

rose to

give him a

living hope.

back in

chapter 1

of Luke,

Luke tells

us why

he's gone

and wrote

all this

down.

It's to

bring certainty

about what

he had

heard,

to go

directly to

the eyewitnesses

and report

back.

And Luke

calls those

eyewitnesses,

the people he

spoke to,

or the people

who he heard

about Jesus

from,

servants of

the word.

I think

that's a

beautiful

description

of the

purpose of

Jesus'

people,

to be

servants

of the

word.

And how

thankful we

should be

to Luke

that a

servant of

the word

himself,

nearly 2,000

years later,

we are

hearing from

eyewitnesses

through his

journalism.

And Luke,

at the

beginning of

his gospel,

started by

reporting what

happened in

the temple.

When

Zechariah was

the first to

hear of the

good news of

the coming

Messiah, and

Luke finishes

his gospel back

at the temple.

Look at verse

51 and on to

the end of

this book.

Jesus ascended

into heaven

physically,

visibly,

as if ascending

to the throne,

the throne of

heaven, and

then he was

gone from

their sight.

But this

time with

Jesus gone,

the disciples

were joyful,

continually, it

says.

They went to

the temple

praising God.

Their

darkness was

gone.

And they

went to the

temple where

they could be as

close to God as

possible,

grateful that

their Messiah

had risen,

and they

were waiting

for the

Spirit to

come.

And from

that point

on, once

the Spirit

came, they

went everywhere.

They didn't

need to go to

the temple

anymore.

They went

from hiding

in the

darkness,

anxious,

disconnected,

and confused,

to believing

united and

purposeful.

Jesus is a

hope for

living.

It's a

living hope.

No person

need live

without hope

and without

God in

the world.

Anxious,

disconnected,

and confused.

No person

need fear

that we

can't know

the author

who created

this story.

So let the

resurrection of

Jesus confront

your mind and

your heart

and your

whole life.

There is

one who has

defeated the

darkness of

sin and death

and rose to

life, who

now offers

the light

of life

to you.

So repent

today and

find forgiveness

in him and

a living hope.

ending