[Living the Easter Life in] A World Turned Upside Down (Chester UMC Easter)

Want to tell you one of my favorite stories this morning.

I have to do a condensed version of it because it's too long to

tell. When I start the story.

Amy might actually get up and leave, but you'll understand by

the time I get to the end of the story.

Why, it's the story of a corn flake who was, who was actually

the greatest little corn flake in the world.

Has anyone ever heard the story of the greatest little corn

flake? Amy's heard it so many times

it's painful for her. So the greatest little corn

flake, you know, he, he, he, he was born in the corn flake

factory and he was the first corn flake out of the chute into

the box. And so he was at the bottom of

the box, and all those corn flakes were piled up on top of

him. And so he pushed and he shoved

and he shoved and he pushed and he pushed and he shoved and he

pushed until he got to the top of the box, being the great

little corn flake that he was. Now that box went down the

conveyor belt and it came to the end of the conveyor belt.

And when it went to the end of the bin after that, it fell off

the end of the conveyor belt and it landed upside down in the

bin. And so the corn flake was back

at the bottom of the box. So we pushed and he shoved and

he shoved and he pushed and he pushed and he pushed and he

pushed till he got to the top of the box, being the great little

cornflake that he was. If you feel like you're learning

a rhythm, feel free to join in. As he was riding in that cart

through the warehouse, he was taking the place where they were

going to be the crated up to be placed on the truck.

And as they were lifted out of the bin and placed in the crate,

the person turned it back over again and said, little cornflake

found himself back on the bottom of the box.

So he pushed and he shoved and he shoved and he pushed and he

pushed and he shoved and he pushed till he got to the top of

the box, being the great little cornflake that he was placed in

the back of the big truck he was driving down the road.

And it was bouncing and banging and bouncing and banging and

bouncing and banging. And and as he shook up and down,

he settled all the way down to the bottom of the box.

And so he pushed and he shoved and he shoved and he pushed and

he pushed and he pushed and he pushed until he got to the top

of the box, being the great little cornflake that he was.

Now at this point, I'm going to cut the story short because

might I tell the story? I typically tell it until

someone says, is this story ever going to end?

My longest to date was 3 1/2 hours.

So, you know, very polite friends of mine many years ago

on a car trip, 3 1/2 hours until someone says, is this story ever

going to end? And then I say, no, it never

ends. It's a cereal I see there.

That's how it goes. But the great little cornflake,

the great little cornflake is in some respects a good image for

us of what Jesus has done at the resurrection, because Jesus

turned the whole world upside down at the resurrection.

And everything that was on top is now on the bottom, and

everything that was on the bottom is now on the top.

Jesus, after the resurrection has turned our whole world

upside down. We've been talking all through

Lent about how do we, how do we live faithfully?

How can we be faithful in systems that are stacked against

us? And we do live in systems that

are stacked against us. But at Easter, God has turned

the world on its head. The fact that systems have been

stacked against us ultimately does not matter because God up

ends all of those systems just to breeze through a few

different ways He did that. And some of this we already read

Hunter red for us this morning. He's not here.

He is risen. Just as well.

Actually, Brandon read that one. Just as he said, Jesus was

supposed to be dead. He was supposed to be in the

tomb. He was supposed to have been

killed. And he was killed by the mighty

and powerful Roman Empire, which was the strongest force anywhere

in the world in that day. And they executed Jesus as a

slave. They humiliated him publicly.

They mockingly wrote the charge above his head.

Here's your king of the Jews. We're killing him on the cross.

This is how much power your king has.

But the woman arrived at the tomb and the tomb was empty, and

Jesus wasn't there. And the Angel said he's not

here. He has risen just as he said.

The world turned upside down. The world turned upside down.

Back in Luke, that hunter read, he's brought down rulers from

their Thrones, but has lifted up the humble.

This was a prophecy that Mary spoke when she met her, her,

her, her kinswoman Elizabeth. And they were both miraculously

pregnant at the time. And this is one of the things

the Spirit revealed to Mary about Jesus, who she was

bearing, that he's brought down rulers from their throne and

lifted up the humble. Jesus came from the very

beginning to turn the world upside down.

After Jesus's birth, Simeon told his parents, this child is

destined to cause the falling and the rising of many.

Jesus is turning the world upside down.

People that are on the bottom in these systems, in the world that

are stacked against them, they're going to find themselves

in Christ and in the Kingdom of God on the top.

And, and we cannot miss the reality here that the people

that are on the top are going to find themselves on the bottom.

That's just as important. It's not, it really isn't just

that everyone get raised, gets raised to the top.

The people on the top are now at the bottom.

The people on the bottom are now at the top.

God has turned the world upside down at Easter.

We see that in a number of different ways.

The crucified slave triumphs over the Roman Empire and the

local authorities and the religious elite in Roman, in the

Roman Empire, they crucified thousands of people.

It was the punishment for slaves.

It was the way the Roman Empire said you are the lowest of the

low, the the least powerful of the least powerful, that we can

strip you naked, beat you near to death and hang you on a cross

to spend days dying for all the world to see just how weak you

are. Now occasionally there were

people that were Roman citizens that needed to be crucified

according to the authorities, but before they could crucify

them, they stripped them of their citizenship and made them

slaves. Jesus hanging on the cross was a

display from the Roman Empire saying Jesus of Nazareth is not

the King of the Jews. Jesus of Nazareth is not the

Messiah. Jesus of Nazareth is not the Son

of God. Jesus of Nazareth is a slave.

He's our slave and we have destroyed him.

But the crucified slave one, the crucified slave, rose from the

dead. The crucified slave would not

stay dead. The crucified slave was not a

victim of the mighty Roman Empire.

The crucified slave was a willing voluntary sacrifice to

restore people to God and God to people.

The world turned upside down. Instead of life ending and

death, death ends in life. Anyone here hate clowns?

Got one or two people that hate clowns used to be so much fun.

I don't know whether it was Stephen King, but someone has

really ruined clowns for the entire world Now.

If you hate clowns, I've got good news and bad news for you.

Do you have do you know where clowns started?

In the church? How about that?

If you hate clowns, there's another reason to hate church.

You know, if you love clowns, it's another reason to love

church. The clown started in the church.

Believe it or not, there were times back in the Middle Ages

when preachers preached too long and were boring.

No, seriously, it, it happened. It's hard to believe, but it

happened. And, and I'm telling you, this

is God's honest truth. The people were designated as

clowns and they would come out from a doorway in the back of

the, you know, the narthics at the front of the church.

They would come out and do something in mime.

They didn't speak. They were silent.

Do something in mime to wake the people up, to draw their

attention back to what the pastor was saying.

And and they, the white face that they wore, they put on,

they put on white face and then covered the white face with

bright colors. And that was an intentional

symbol because from very ancient times on people to acknowledge a

death and to acknowledge their mortality, we acknowledge they

were in mourning, would take ash or other things and paint their

faces white as a symbol of death.

And by putting on the white and then putting on the color on top

of that, those Christian clowns were saying we're not moving in

this world from life to death. We're moving from death to life.

So the next time you watch it, remember Jesus.

Remember Jesus. It's hard sometimes, I know.

But even in it, we're not moving from life to death.

We're moving from death to life. We're moving from death to life.

The world has been turned upside down.

Another big thing that happened here is that in Jesus's day and

in much of the ancient world and much of the world today, women

are considered second class citizens.

If the resurrection of Jesus is a lie that was told by his

followers after his death in order to try to continue

something after that and, and start a movement, you know, on,

on the shoulders of a dead guy. It was a bad lie for a number of

different reasons, but one of the reasons it was a bad lie, if

it was a lie, is that if you're making it up, no one would have

ever made women the first witnesses of Jesus's

resurrection. Women's testimony was not

considered credible and valid in courts of law or anywhere else.

We see that in other gospels where the women go back and tell

the disciples they're like, yeah, I know you're crazy.

We'll go look for ourselves. The women were right.

Yes, the women were right. We should remember that.

That should be a mantra. The women were right.

Jesus turned the world on its head.

The first evangelists, the first apostles, the first human being

sent out to share the good news of the resurrection of Jesus

were not the men who had followed Jesus for all those

years. It was the women who had

followed Jesus for all those years, sent out.

The world turned upside down. The Angel said to the women, Go

quickly and tell his disciples, he has risen from the dead.

He's going ahead of you to Galilee.

There you will see him. They were sent to tell the

disciples the good news. The disciples heard the gospel

first from the women. A beautiful thing, a beautiful

reversal. Jesus said to them, do not be

afraid. Go tell my brothers, go to

Galilee. There they will see me Jesus

himself. We didn't read that part.

We just stopped at the Angel. But a few verses later Jesus

himself appeared to the women. Jesus himself renewed their

their calling and status as apostles and evangelists and

said that's what the word apostle means is sent one who's

been sent out and sent them out to be the first sharers and

bearers of the good news in human history.

Jesus turning the world upside down.

In Jesus resurrection, we see that the strategies of the

powerful are powerless to stop the tactics of the crucified.

Slave strategy is for the for folks in power, for folks that

can look down the road and make accurate predictions or

reasonably accurate predictions about what circumstances and

what actions will produce what results and to make decisions

based on those predictions that will yield the best results for

them. That's how corporations work.

That's how governments work. That's how you know, that's how

many churches operate with strategic thinking.

That's the thinking of the powerful.

Jesus came among us as one who had no power.

He was a nobody from a nobody family in a nothing town in a

nothing part of the world. Even other Israelites didn't

think anything of Nazareth. It was a proverb that nothing

good comes out of Nazareth. Think if you're, you know,

Michigan, right? Sorry.

Sorry, Steven, but what else can I do?

Easy target. Jesus didn't come into this

world with strategy. He came in with tactics.

He came in with tactics and his tactics were this love Those who

have been cast out, reach out a hand to the people that are on

the bottom. Share a meal with anyone who

invites you over. Invite them into your life.

You enter into their lives and when when the authorities come,

when the people with powerful the people have a strategy.

We've got this prophet. He's causing trouble.

He's preaching things that undermine our power and our

authority and make us look bad. We will conspire together to

have him crucified to show everyone that he is nothing and

we are everything. And Jesus said, I'll take that

bet, Crucify me. Do your best.

It's part of the plan. The whole time it was part of

the plan, and Jesus allowed himself to be crucified and

turned the world upside down. And the crucified slave showed

himself to be beyond the power and control of the mightiest

government, the mightiest leaders in the entire world.

Jesus turned the world upside down.

One way to think about it is though it sometimes it feels

when God does these things that God is creating chaos, that God

is is bringing disorder in the world.

But the simple fact is that when Jesus turns the world upside

down, he's restoring order to what sin has disordered.

Those systems that are stacked against the regular folks, the

common folks, the poor folks, the folks that are just, you

know, just not the wealthy, not the powerful, not the ones on

top, and not the ones in charge. That kind of system which puts a

few people on top and in charge and everyone else at their

mercy, that is a world that's out of order.

It's a system that's disordered and it's been disordered by sin,

by things like pride and greed and arrogance and a desire for

control and, and an obsessive pursuit of comfort and health

and, and all of these kinds of things that creates a world

that's out of order. And Jesus said we're putting

things back in order, turning it back right side up.

It's not really upside down. You've been upside down all of

these years. I'm going to turn it back right

side up. There's a great story that it's

not a great story. Cancel that.

It's a sad story, sorry. Dallas Willard tells in one of

his books. I believe it's a true story.

So I don't want to, I don't want to mock it, but it was, it was

Air Force pilots. They were training in jets,

fighter jets and, and they were flying at night and they were

practicing flying on instruments.

And a pilot received a message to pull up and she pulled up.

Problem was her plane was upside down and she didn't realize it,

and when she pulled up, she flew into the ground and died.

This is how human society has been for countless generations,

upside down. We don't know it.

We think the way up is up when it's actually down, and we think

that going down is going down when it's actually going up.

And Jesus has come to put the world back in order to restore

the order that God intended for this world, to bring the things

that were a bottom back to the top.

This is my theological take and my cinematic take as well.

Hate me if you will. The Marvel Cinematic Universe's

curse is Easter's blessing. I used to love the Marvel

Cinematic Universe until they introduce the multiverse, right?

And now that the multiverse is here, who cares if anyone dies?

You know they're coming back, right?

It's ruined it. And we know it's coming because

they're doing the whole new movie and Iron Man's coming

back, and Captain Eric is coming back.

All these dead people are coming back because of the multiverse.

There's no tension anymore in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

because no one ever really dies. That's Easter for us.

There's no tension. It's a curse for entertainment.

Makes a really boring movie in my opinion.

I think that's my phone vibrating up here.

Oh, it is. Oh, I really wish it said God on

there. That would have been.

And I got a doctor's appointment next week.

It's good that I get the calls because I forgot to go to the

last one. So Marvel Cinematic Universe is

cursed for entertainment. The last thing you want to do is

ruin the tension that if you love someone you want to, you

hope and hope and hope and hope and hope that they don't die,

because if they die, they're gone.

They're out of the story. But the blessing of Easter is

this death does not remove anyone from the story.

No one who is a follower of Christ is taken out of the story

by death, because death isn't the end.

We're not going from life to death.

We are going from death to life. Here's an interesting thing I

think one of my seminary professors said to me.

I argued with him about it at the time because I thought he

was stupid. I was young then and Dumber than

I am now. I'm still not smart, but I was

Dumber even then. And, and, and, and he said, he

said we really mess up. He was very good at saying we,

we don't know what we think we know.

And he was talking about the Garden of Eden story and how God

promised Adam and Eve. If you eat of the tree of

knowledge of good and evil, you will surely die.

And then they ate and they didn't die.

At least that's what I've always they didn't actually die.

God had mercy on them so that they didn't die.

And then my professor said, you know what?

We say that like we know what death is and like we know what

life is. But what if God wasn't lying?

And what if everything that we think of in this world as life

is really death? And it's not until we die that

we will get to experience real and true and genuine life.

That the world really has been turned upside down such that we

cannot even tell with any degree of certainty the difference

between life and death. But the only hope that we have

is that in and through Jesus we see that even when we die, life

is ahead of us and it's a new life.

It's a better life. It's a life in glory with Jesus

forever. It's a life free of manipulation

and corruption and death. It's a life free of, of the

heartache caused by the abuse of one person over another or one

group over another. It's a life free of greed.

It's a life free of, of the brokenness that causes so much

pain and suffering and heartache at an individual, family, and

worldwide level that as we pass through death, we will for the

first time experience true and full and complete life.

And Jesus's resurrection is the picture of that for all of us.

The MCU's curse is Easter's blessing now.

There's still pain and death. But there's a sequel, there's a

sequel, and we know the ending. The ending is resurrection.

There is a time coming. There is a day coming when Jesus

will return just the way he left, and all those who are dead

in Christ will rise again. Not as Casper the Friendly

Ghost, but with bodies like Jesus's body.

Bodies that might be scarred from the pains of this world,

but bodies that have a new and eternal life that they can share

with God and with each other forever and ever and ever.

A life where every tear is wiped away, where every heartache is

healed, where every wound is healed.

And the scars remind us less of the pain and more of the healing

and the joy that we have in Jesus himself.

Now, if you don't know the ending of your story, if you

don't know the why not take care of that today?

Why not offer yourself to Jesus and say, you know what?

I've heard about this before, all of this business of life in

you forever. I if you're not sure about that,

I'm not going to do. We're not going to do in every

head bowed, every eye closed. I got that a lot when I was a

kid. It drove me nuts.

I got saved like 12 times. But there there is a decision

that we all need to make to surrender our lives to Jesus, to

be willing to live as he called us to live, not striving to get

to the top, but doing like Jesus did and taking up our cross,

denying ourselves, following him.

And if we're taking up a cross, we are a slave, but we're not a

slave to the people in power down here.

We're a slave to God, who has promised us that even death ends

in life if we follow Jesus. If we follow Jesus, this takes

us back to the it's my first gift I've ever made.

If you pronounce it jiff, you're wrong.

First gift. That's harsh, I know, but it's,

you know, I got to preach the truth.

I was proud of that. It doesn't take much to impress

myself. The good news is our situation

is so much better than the corn flake.

The corn flake, every time that box was turned upside down, he

had to push and shove and shove and push and push and shove and

push so we could get to the top of the box, being the great

little corn flake that he was. Jesus says the world's turned

upside down. It's been turned upside down and

disordered by sin. If you're on the bottom, chill,

relax. I'll turn it back over.

I'll put you on the top. I'll put you on the top.

You don't have to struggle for it.

You don't have to strive for it. You don't have to step on anyone

else or push them down to get to the top.

Just settle at the bottom and let me turn things over.

Let me turn things around. This is living the Easter life.

Living the Easter life is remembering that God has and

will mate. He already has.

In the rection, resurrection turned the world right side up

where it's been upside down. And in our resurrection we'll

see the reality of that with our own eyes in Jesus name.

Let's live that way today. Amen.

Amen. Let's stand and sing together.

Majesty #176 We're going to sing it two times.

Majesty, worship His Majesty unto Jesus, be your glory, honor

and praise Majesty. Kingdom authority flow from his

throne unto his own. His anthem rays so exalt.

Lift up on high the name of Jesus, magnify, come, glorify

Christ Jesus the King. Majesty, worship His Majesty,

Jesus who died now glorify King of all kings.

Majesty, worship His Majesty, unto Jesus be all glory, honor

and pray. Majesty, Kingdom authority flow

from His throne unto his own. His anthem raise so we exalt,

lift up on high the neck of Jesus, magnify, come glorify

Christ Jesus the King. Majesty, worship His Majesty

Jesus, who died now glorified King of all kings.

The thing to remember is that the crucified slave is the one

with the majesty, the one hanging on the cross naked is

the one with the glory. The one who whose life was taken

by the powers that were stacked against him is the one who is

the King of all kings. And our call is not to pursue a

life of struggling to get to the top of the box.

Our call is to follow Jesus to the bottom.

And we forgot to turn everything upside down.

In Jesus name, Amen. Amen.