Easter Sunday (Andrew Meher)

Andrew Meher: you Would you turn to Romans chapter 6 with me and we're gonna read verses 3 through 11. The Apostle Paul writing to this ancient church in Rome says this, Have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we were joined in his death? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. And since we have been united with him in his death, we will be raised to life as he was. We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ, we were set free from the power of sin. And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with Him. We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead and He will never die again. Death no longer has any power over Him. And when He died, He died once to break the of sin but now that he lives he lives for the glory of God so you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus let's pray Holy Spirit, we just pray that we would pay attention to the presence of the risen Jesus in our midst today. That the full reality of the resurrection would take hold and we would see and we would know and we would understand. And we pray, Lord, that we would leave today filled with the power of your Spirit to live the life of the resurrection in Jesus name amen amen amen ⁓ maybe some of you have been like me over the last few days but I have been obsessed with the launch of Artemis 2 headed towards the moon is anyone else just watching it constantly I've got the app tracking it on my phone every day I'm going on I'm just gonna tell you right now, we're gonna talk about the gospel of Jesus in a minute, but let's just talk about the gospel of you can watch the whole mission live on YouTube for free. No commercials, it's the best thing on TV right now. And I'm just like, I'm just fascinated just watching the camera on the solar array, just kind of looking at the outside of the capsule, it looks like nothing's happening, and you can see the moon in the distance, and it's just getting closer and closer. Did you know right now they're now over 200,000 miles away from Earth? and they're gonna do a five hour pass by the moon tomorrow. I just heard when I was watching it this morning a little bit that they had some camera shots with their long zoom lenses on their. their cameras, they're starting to see the craters and the mountain ranges on the moon that they had described and looked at and studied during their training. And so they are just so excited. I'm excited. But we were watching the launch with my kids and explaining to them what was happened, that humans are going back to the moon for the first time in over 50 years. I felt like a kid myself just taking this all in. It was so exciting. And I'm watching this and we're watching this explaining to my... my daughters, especially my oldest, that we're headed out towards the moon and we're gonna go by the moon and we're gonna look at it and come back to Earth and she just kind of in this moment of panic are like, how are they gonna get back? That's a great question. Yeah, I'm happy other people are doing it. I don't know that I would wanna go in space personally. But I love seeing how they're doing it all that, but she asked such a great question. How are they going to get home? And the answer, the rest of you nerds in the room that have been watching it with me, is they've gotta go around the dark side of the moon. They've got to go around the dark side of the moon. Now you may or may not be aware of this, but we only see one side of the moon from Earth. that because of the way it turns, it turns in perfect ⁓ orbit with Earth. So we only see the same side all the time from Earth. So human eyes have rarely, if ever, seen the other side. In fact, they were able to send moons because they're kind of coming along the side of the moon. And right now the sun is shining on a part of the moon that human eyes don't get to see. So go look it up. There's parts of the moon you've never been able to see before that you'll be able to see in these pictures. Again, coolest thing ever. ⁓ But they're going around and they have to go around the backside or the dark side of the moon that is usually not lit up. It's disconnected ⁓ from Earth. It's usually hidden from our view. It's usually hidden from light. And it actually is kind of terrifying if you think about it to go around the dark side of the moon because what if you kind of start going around and you just keep going? What if something fails and you're just suddenly headed out into dark space? where it's cold and dead and there's nothing you can do about it. This was what my daughter's fear was. What if they just keep going? I think about the Apollo 13 mission. You know about the Apollo 13 mission, And they had a malfunction in the spacecraft as they were headed out to the moon and they actually had to do something similar to what this Artemis crew is gonna do because they had no engines, they had no propulsion and they had just enough juice to figure out. had a slingshot themselves around the backside of the moon to try and get home. But it was scary, just like this crew is going to experience. They've got to go into pitch black where they're going to have zero radio communication with Earth. Completely cut off because they'll be behind the moon, completely in the dark, going into the dark places that seem like the wrong direction, but it's actually the very thing that is going to bring them into the light. And they're not worried at all, these astronauts, because of one thing and one thing only, and you are very familiar with it, even though maybe you don't think about it that often, and that's gravity. Gravity, because of gravity. first from the moon and then ultimately from earth, it's actually gonna catapult them around the dark side of the moon and they're not gonna have to touch their engines at all and they're gonna loop right around and crash into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego. The math is crazy, that is not my strong suit. But it's incredible to hear. But they are so confident in gravity from earth. pulling them back that they can trust that they can go to that scary place on the dark side of the moon and they know they're going to come into the light. And this is what's so significant to talk about with this on Easter Sunday because just like these astronauts are going to experience the gravity of the earth, I want everyone in this room to know one thing. If you follow Jesus, you will encounter the gravity of resurrection. There is nothing you can do about it. You will encounter the gravity of the resurrection power of Jesus. We go around the dark side of the moon in our lives every time we have to choose to enter the messes of our life, like I was talking about before. We have an opportunity to choose to go around to the dark places of life every time we are willing to be vulnerable and confess our sin to each other. Whenever we come to grips with the pain and the shame that we've experienced in life and we get vulnerable. We come into the dark side of the moon in our Christian walk whenever we are surrounded by inexplicable painful losses and we're willing to walk through them and surrender. Whenever we do this, we do what the apostle Paul says, we die to ourselves. Everything in our lives wants to do self-preservation and keep us safe from whatever's going on on that dark side of the moon. But Paul says that when we do this and we join Jesus in his death, we are buried with Christ as we read here in Romans. And our sinful, broken, messed up life gets buried with Christ on that dark side of the moon, if you will. But we might be worried to do that. I'm worried to do that. Are you often worried to be vulnerable? You might be here visiting today saying, don't want to talk about mess. That's not why I came here. In fact, I was forced to come here so I could get Easter dinner after. But I want you to know that what Jesus has done is so significant that when we identify our lives with him, we might be really worried, but we can trust that the gravity of resurrection will bring us into his new life. Paul writes that we are buried with Christ, but we also will be raised to new life in Christ. One doesn't happen without the other. There is a gravitational pull, my friends, to the Easter story. Jesus physically rose from the dead and is now immortal, unbeatable, ruling over the universe, and anyone who identifies with his death cannot help but be raised to new life. You can't stop it from happening. Can you just turn to the person next to you and say, you can't stop it? Turn to the person on the other side. Just say, hey, you can't stop it. The reality and power of the resurrection is such good news that when you join Jesus in dying to yourself, resurrection will happen. You will come into a newness of life. As the New Testament scholar Michael Gorman put it, through participation in Christ's death and resurrection, believers experience for themselves the death of sin now and will experience the defeat of death later. So what does that mean? What does that mean for you? What does that mean for us in West Milford in 2026 saying he is risen on a Sunday morning? I think it means two things very simply that I want to leave you with first. It means that because of the gravity of resurrection, we can experience life to the full right now. Right now. Someone say right now. You guys gotta wake up a little bit. Come on. Come on. We gotta wake up a little bit. You can experience life to the full right now. In verse four, the apostle Paul says, therefore. We have been buried with him by baptism into death so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. Just a little bit of context for you for why Paul is saying this. Paul is trying to explain to this ancient church in Rome that the resurrection of Jesus is so complete It is so powerful. It is so significant that when they choose to follow Jesus with their whole life and die to themselves, and he's using the example of water baptism here, when they go down into the water, it is as if they have buried their old life. Sin, brokenness, the mess of their old life is dead. It's buried with Christ. This is what Paul says is happening whenever someone gets baptized. We're having baptisms coming up soon. If you've been thinking about following Jesus into this life, this is what baptism is all about. We are identifying fully and completely with the death and burial of Jesus. But do we leave them under the water? Thank God we don't. We are also raised to new life. This is what. Paul is saying, and he's saying, this is such a complete work, and the old life is so done with that you no longer are under the power of sin. You are no longer under the power of brokenness. You might still experience the messes of life, but we know once we go around the dark side of the mood, we're getting slung shot right back into the light. We know that every time there is a mess, Jesus brings something fruitful out of the mess. We know whenever there is sin, there is always forgiveness. We know that when there is hardship and suffering and trial, that surrender always leads to joy and new life as we more deeply trust in the one that is leading us. Remember when we read a few weeks ago from Psalm 32, those of you who've been with us on this Lent series journey, and we We examined this Psalm that was someone who was in sin and they realized how it was racking their body. They were anxious. All of these things were making them miserable. And when they entered into confession, they were afraid this was going to ruin their life. And all they experienced was the joy and the acceptance and the belonging of God and the belonging of the community. They got free from the old life. came in to the newness of life and joy that was available to him. So when we enter into confessing sin, for example, when we surrender the hardships of our lives as we heard about in Good Friday, as Diana shared about, just let go, she heard God say to her in the midst of trial. Wasn't that powerful? Just let go. When we surrender, there is a joy, there is a peace. that only comes because of the resurrection power of Jesus. Whenever I am talking to people or counseling people, I share with them something that I do in my own life personally. Whenever I found myself dealing with a sense of shame about something or struggling with a trial or I'm tempted into some kind of sin or I have sinned in some way, I tell people, listen, all you gotta do is bring this into the light. All you have to do is get honest about what's going on with others and God's resurrection power begins to work. It's not my technique that's anything special. There's no special way in doing it. But when we bring things to people, I've had things where I've felt tempted to walk in a certain direction in my life. Man, this looks really appealing. I think this would be better for me and everything. And I know that God is saying this is not right for me and I will. tell people and confess my sin and I tell you sometimes that just sharing that and bringing that in to confession breaks the power of that temptation. But it has nothing to do with me saying the right words or I did it through special technique or something like that. It has everything to do with saying I am putting this under the power of Jesus in his resurrection. This is part of the old life that is dying and I am part of the new life that is being raised and Jesus every time steps in. It might take days, it might take weeks, it might take years, but Jesus every time brings me into new life. And I have watched time and time again others in this room as they have done this and walked this way of denial of self and dying to Jesus. They have found inexplicable new life on the other side time and time again. And I know many in this room have had that story. for themselves, it is because of the resurrection power of Jesus. Because you were willing to die to that way of life and join yourself with Jesus, you can't stop the resurrection life. It's coming and it is gonna pull you into life to the full. So we have new life now, but that's not all that it means. It also means that there is life to the full after death. There is life to the full after death. Paul continues and says, we know, I love that word know. This is not a like we think or we guess or this might be. He says, we know that death no longer has dominion over Christ. Death no longer has dominion over him. Now how many of you, If you think about your life, if you think about the life of your loved ones, it can be very easy to feel like death has dominion over this story. You might have loved ones that you're afraid to see let go, and a lot of that fear is about never being able to see them again. There's a sense in which we feel like death has some kind of dominion over their life. This is the human story, right? Our lives are limited. Some of us go to have surgical procedures, maybe even at young ages, because we're thinking, this shouldn't be happening to me right now. What's going on? We fear death. I believe it was ⁓ Benjamin Franklin who said, we can be sure of two things, death and taxes. But I want to say there's a third thing that we can be sure of, and it is that death holds no dominion over Jesus. And if we have joined ourselves with Jesus, Paul tells us that you will also be raised to life with Jesus. He says, will never die again and death no longer has any power over him. So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus. Because we've joined ourselves with Jesus and he has defeated death, we too can walk trusting that death is completely defeated. There are ⁓ witnesses to this reality. How many of you walking in this morning, you're like, man, this just feels like mythology or something. This sounds like something that came out of some ⁓ ancient ⁓ myth or story or legend, right? It sounds almost too good to be true, that the scriptures actually teach us that we won't just have some kind of ethereal floating on the cloud with a little harp with wings. You know, that's not what this is saying. This is saying our bodies will be raised and we will live in the new heavens and the new earth with Jesus when he returns. And I know you're going, this guy sounds crazy. He sounds insane. But we don't say this because of some confidence we have in ourselves. We don't say this just because it says so in the text. We say this because the witnesses of Jesus' resurrection saw this guy defeated death. And when we're joined with this guy, death can't even hold us in the grave forever. And we have witnesses to this. How do you know? Let me just change the subject briefly. How do you know that you can land on the moon? How do you know? Faith, we've done it before. Who's done it before? Have you done it before? Did you do it? Did your grandparents do it? Your grandparents did it? Wow, that's cool if your grandparents did Can you imagine if I actually had someone in the room who's like a relative of Neil Armstrong? They're just like, yeah, actually they did. That'd be embarrassing. This illustration wouldn't work. But here's the point. How do you know that you can land on the moon, in theory, if you were to go? Because there are 12 witnesses who have landed on the moon. That's it. There are 12 people who have said you can land on the moon. And you are crazy. You believe him. You're like, no, not crazy. What you talking about? This is verified. Do you know what the apostle Paul says in first Corinthians 15? More than 500 witnesses saw Jesus after his resurrection at one time. We're not talking about something that happened secretly off somewhere hidden. We're not talking about like maybe that happened, they say it happened, but we have no way of verifying it. We have accounts going back to the very first century saying this happened and we have witnesses to that reality. More than 500 witnesses. In the second century, Within a hundred years of all of this happening, we have the church father Athanasius who said this, I love this quote, a very strong proof of this destruction of death, talking about what Jesus did, and its conquest by the cross. Here's the very strong proof. It's supplied by a present fact, namely this. All the disciples of Christ despise death. They take the offensive against it. And instead of fearing it by the sign of the cross and by faith in Christ, they trample on death as if it was something dead. Athanasius will go on to describe how even little children were not afraid of martyrdom because they were so convinced of the reliable witness that Jesus had been raised and they too will be raised. Did you know the early Christians even worshiped in underground graveyards called catacombs? Why? Partly because they wanted to hide, but even when they could build church buildings, they kept their dead there and worshiped among them. Why would they do that? because the dead in Christ shall rise. And we wanna be with our brothers and sisters. And we take this so seriously that this is happening. You notice how most older church buildings, even in the United States, there's always a cemetery there? It's for the same reason. We've kind of distanced ourselves from that in many ways in our modern church culture. I'm not saying we should go back to worshiping in a ⁓ mausoleum, but ⁓ if. If it's full of these people who have said we have died in Christ and will be raised with him, it's kind of cool to think that past, present, and future saints are all together, the church. I know, now you're like, this is morbid and weird. But it's not based on some kind of creepy infatuation. It's based on the good news that because Jesus has utterly defeated death, we have nothing to fear. We have literally nothing. We can completely reframe how we think about death, how we think about the end of our lives and the lives of our loved ones. We can completely reframe how we think about what happens at the end of history. The dead in Christ shall rise, the scriptures say, and those that are still alive, it says when we see him, we will all be changed. New bodies, whatever that means, we don't know. It's a mystery to us. The scriptures don't. go into detail, but we will be resurrected to new life just like Jesus has been. That's what Paul tells us here. You will live and be raised in the same way. When something says in the same way, I think it means in the same way. So when we die with Jesus, both in the little deaths of everyday life, the confession, the vulnerability, the suffering that we go and bring to Jesus, and when we die at the end of our lives, when we die in Jesus, I want you to know that you cannot stop the power and the gravity of resurrection. It will come because He is risen. So. While we live here on earth now, the question for each of us is, what is your dark side of the moon? What's the thing in your life where you're like, I'm not going there. I'm not talking about it. I'm not facing it. I'm not dealing with it. In fact, I don't even think that's a problem. Maybe there's fear. There could be a whole complex amounts of trauma related to it for sure that need to be processed and unpacked and dealt with. There's layers. We're complex people. This isn't a ⁓ switch that gets flicked. But we all have these dark sides of the moon in our lives. The thing of like, man, in theory there's new life on the other side of that, but I think I'm just gonna drift off into space. Friends, I'm here today to tell you that because of the resurrection of Jesus, it is absolutely impossible for you to lay down your life and not be resurrected. It is absolutely impossible because He is risen. What might you be afraid to let die with Jesus? I'm here to tell you there's no fear because Christ is alive. What might you be afraid to reveal to Jesus? I'm here to tell you there's nothing to fear because Christ is alive. We've faced messiness as we've talked and struggled together through this Lent season and through Good Friday. We've talked about dealing with shame and suffering, of facing the points of life where there is inexplicable sorrow and we don't know how to go forward. But friends, when we die to ourselves in Jesus, the gravity of Easter will bring life out of every mess. out of every dark side, out of every seemingly hideous moment, out of every painful mistake and sin, Jesus is in the business of redeeming everything. And he is in the business of redeeming your life too. He is in the business of redeeming this messed up world that we are living in right now. The pain, the violence, the suffering, all of it, Jesus is in the business of redeeming and bringing new life where there is darkness. I don't know about you, but I needed that good news today.

Romans 6 · chapter mention