Sermon
Easter Sunday 2026
Publisher transcript
Transcript
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Friends, today's teaching scripture is from John chapter
John 20 chapter mention
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20. Early on the first day of the
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week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb
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and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.
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So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple,
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the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, They have taken
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the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid
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him. Then Peter and the other
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disciple set out and went towards the tomb.
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The two were running together, but the other disciple outran
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Peter and reached the tomb first.
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He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there,
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but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came following
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him and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying
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there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus head not lying
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with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in the place by
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itself. Then the other disciple who
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reached reached the tomb first also went in, and he saw and
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believed. For as yet they did not
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understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead.
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Then the disciples returned to their homes.
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But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she
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bent over to look into the tomb, and she saw 2 angels in white
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sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head
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and the other at the feet. They said to her, Woman, why are
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you weeping? And she said to them, They have
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taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.
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When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus
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standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.
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And Jesus said to her, Woman, why are you weeping?
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Whom are you looking for? Supposing him to be the
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gardener, She said to him, Sir, if you have carried him away,
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tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.
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Jesus said to her, Mary. She turned and said to him in
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Hebrew Rabuni, which means teacher.
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Jesus said to her, Do not touch me, because I have not yet
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ascended to the Father, but go to my brothers and say to them,
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I am ascending to my Father, and your father to my God and your
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God. Mary Magdalene went and
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announced to the disciples, I have seen the Lord, and she told
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them that He had said these things to her.
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This is the word of the Lord. All right, Good morning.
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If we have not met, my name is Parker Frye.
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I'm. One of the pastors here at
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Central. Vineyard and I'm so.
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Happy to see. So many familiar faces, So many
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new faces. Welcome, welcome.
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We're glad you're here. Should we do the thing one more
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time? Christ is risen.
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There is a moment at the beginning of Terrence Malick's
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film the. Tree of life where?
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The mother speaks in voice over and she.
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Says there are two ways through life.
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The way of. Nature and the Way of.
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Grace. You have to choose which one
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you'll. Follow.
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The way of nature, she explains, grasps and hoards everything
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that it can possibly get its hands on, protecting itself from
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loss. The way of.
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Grace accepts being hurt in life and doesn't claw to stay on top,
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doesn't claw for control. And what?
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Follows is. 2 1/2 hours of a family moving through ordinary
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life, experiencing joy and cruelty and tenderness.
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A brother dies young and no one in the film explains why and the
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film? Holds the grief of the loss.
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Of a young son inside tremendous, almost unbearable
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beauty and. Refuses to let.
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You have one of them. Without the other.
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It brings into sharp focus. The the the.
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Glory, the holiness of ordinary life and it's central question
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is simple, and I think it's the same question that a lot of us
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find ourselves asking every year around this time when we come
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together to celebrate Resurrection Sunday.
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Can grace survive? Can the love of God, Can the
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kindness of God, survive inside of suffering?
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I've been sitting with that question as I've been preparing
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for our time together this week. Because I think most of us know
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that what we actually need from the resurrection is not a tidy
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resolution or some kind of fairy tale ending to this.
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Story about Jesus life. We need something that can
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actually hold up in a. Chaotic world that most.
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Mornings when we. Wake up feels like.
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It might not, so I want to begin here.
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The world that we. Woke up to this morning is
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complicated, and you can almost certainly name your own version
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of what's complicated about it. Something in your own life,
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something in your own body, something in your own house or
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something. Broader like the low.
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Grade anxiety of watching things that took a long time to.
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Build come apart faster. Than you ever expected the sense
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that the ground around. You is less stable.
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Than it used. To feel the realities.
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Of your aging body, a grief that you can't quite explain to
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someone who hasn't lived or experienced it themselves.
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The resurrection doesn't ask us to set any of that aside.
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And so, you know, as much as I would have loved more
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pyrotechnics this morning and for Jared to zip line in to lead
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us in silence, I think the truth.
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That we're all aware of is that we live.
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Complex lives and the complexity can't just be.
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Erased. By reading a Bible passage one
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Sunday morning a year, can it? That's not what the resurrection
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is doing in the Christian story. It's it's not a feeling that.
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You work yourself. Up to it's not some sort of
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spiritual sense that we're trying to reach for or or drum
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up inside. Of ourselves it's.
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Something that happens to us, it's something that breaks into
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the. Reality of our world.
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And almost always happens. Where we least expect it.
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Where we're not looking. For the love of God to.
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Break in John's account of the resurrection is probably my.
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Favorite because it starts. Right here in ways.
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That the other gospels. Don't quite do the same way.
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Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark.
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Mary Magdalene came to the tomb. While it was still dark.
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She came before dawn because someone she loved had been
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executed and she didn't know what else to do.
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Maybe she couldn't sleep. She's certainly not there.
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To celebrate. And.
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This is where. The resurrection account opens,
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It's in the dark with a grieving woman who showed up when
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everyone else had scattered to the four winds after Friday's
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events for fear of retaliation from the government and the
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religious leaders. And I think John begins there
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on. Purpose because.
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That's the person that this. Story is for.
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This story is being written and recounted.
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Precisely for the. Person who comes.
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While it's still dark. Before we get on to what happens
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next in the garden, I just want to show you something in John's
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gospel leading up to this. Text that.
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I think changes the way that. This whole story reads.
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And I don't. Know if you'll ever be able to
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read it. Again, without thinking about
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this, John uses darkness and light as a motif.
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All throughout his gospel. So if you read it from the
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beginning to the end. You'll see that throughout.
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He's painting a picture of something that's happening in
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the world using these. 2 words these two.
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Ideas, Darkness and light. From the very earliest.
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Lines of John's Gospel The light shines in the darkness, and the
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darkness has not overcome it, and he returns to it over and
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over and over again. He says people love darkness
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rather than light. Jesus says.
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I am the light of the. World while you walk, walk while
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you have the light. And so on and so on.
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And by the time. We reach while it was still
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dark. In John 20, that phrase.
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Carries the weight of. Everything that's come before it
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as we've journeyed through John's entire.
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Gospel we have. This darkness and light theme
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and now. While it's still dark, it
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appears the. Darkness may have overcome the
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light once and for all. But this is the.
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Final darkness in John's gospel, it's the final mention and God's
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new creation is coming in to the darkness while.
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It was still dark. But John is doing something even
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more deliberate than just that, which I find fascinating.
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He's mapping the whole. Story.
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On to the first week of Genesis. So if you open your Bible to the
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very. Beginning John is telling us
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that God is making a new. World he's.
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Describing a completely new creation after the same pattern
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that the first one was created, the.
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Prologue tells us. In the beginning was the.
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Word. As a way of echoing in the
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beginning, God created. And so John is announcing from
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the very beginning of his book that the one who was present at
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the first creation is the one who is present in this new story
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that he's beginning to tell. And then, if you're paying
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attention, he tracks the events of Holy Week against the
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Creation Week, so on. Friday the 6th day, Jesus is
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brought before the. Crowd and Pilate presents him to
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the people. John pauses to note the time and
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the day. Very.
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Carefully. It was the 6th day of the week.
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And Pilate says, behold the man John wants you to feel the.
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Echo of the. Creation of humanity on the 6th
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day. So Jesus is crucified.
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And just before he died, he speaks one final word in John's
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gospel. It is finished that.
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Word. To telesty the same word in the
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Greek Old Testament when God is finished.
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With the work of. Creation on the 7th day in
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Genesis and God. Rests.
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Jesus dies. And is laid in the tomb as the
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Sabbath begins, the 7th. Day, the day of rest, the work
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of the first created order is. Done, and has been laid in the
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grave. This first world that that.
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Ran off the rails. The ways that.
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That the humans have taken advantage of each other, have
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exploited one another. Have built up.
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Systems that oppress and control.
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It's been laid in the grave on the 7th day, and then John 20
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very intentionally opens with the. 1st.
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Day of a new week, a new beginning.
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And it's not just. A clever literary device.
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John is making a bold claim in the way that he's writing this
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story. What happened on the Day of the
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Resurrection was the beginning of a new.
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World the 1st. Creation had been re enacted,
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had been had been recapitulated and the old.
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Order is over. God has done again what God did
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in the beginning, spoken life into lifelessness, spoken life
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into the thing that was not alive, and set a new creation
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into motion. And so the resurrection isn't.
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A reversal of defeat. It's the beginning of something
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that has never. Existed before.
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Something that we are entirely unfamiliar with.
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It's. A world in which.
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Death has been defeated from the inside, one in which.
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The physical. Creation itself has been cracked
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open and is being remade. Before our very eyes.
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And John? Tells us that it starts while it
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was still dark. Mary comes to the tomb and she
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finds the stone rolled away, and she runs to tell Peter and the
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other. Disciple and.
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They come and look and they see. The burial clothes.
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Lying there, the face. Cloth folded up separately.
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A strange detail to include, if not to say that it's like
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someone got up and left in an orderly fashion, and then the
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disciples go home and John said he he so simply they they went
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back to their homes. They saw this and it was almost
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like in the grief and the anxiety.
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That they carried. Forward from From.
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Friday they see the. Scene and are not sure what to
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make of it. They are, sort of.
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So deep in their own experience of the previous.
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Few days that. An encounter with all the
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evidence right in front of their faces causes them to.
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Just sort of go. I don't know about that.
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And they? Leave but Mary.
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Is left standing outside the tomb.
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She stays and I think we're meant to sort.
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Of stay with her. For a moment as we make our way.
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Through the story, she's. The one who came before dawn.
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She's the one who stays when the others leave.
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She doesn't have a. Theology of the Resurrection.
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She doesn't have some special insider knowledge about what's
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going on. She has no framework for what?
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Could possibly be. True of this moment, she has.
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Grief. She has love.
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For someone who has died and nowhere.
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Else to be. And she stands there in front of
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the empty tomb of her friend and her teacher, weeping after her
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other two friends go away. And there's something in this in
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between moment that stands out to me.
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Peter and the other disciple came and looked and went home.
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And we're not told why they left.
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But for whatever reason, they leave, Mary doesn't.
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And I think. That the.
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Posture that she represents of staying present without answers
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and without a plan turns out to be the.
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Exact way that. You and I are meant to receive.
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The. Resurrection into our own lives.
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I see myself. In both of these.
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Responses both the response. Of the other two disciples.
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And Mary's response? And I hope you can too.
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It's hard to lean in, It's hard to keep looking.
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It's difficult. To search for a.
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Reason to. Allow yourself to hope.
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When your intuition screams, that a different thing.
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Altogether is what is at. Hand around you, She looks
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inside and she sees 2 angels. Who asked her why?
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She's crying and she tells them that someone has taken the body
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and she doesn't know where and then she turns around and a man
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is standing in the garden and she doesn't recognize him.
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We were reading this story with our almost 4 year old this week
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and she found it very strange that Mary didn't recognize
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Jesus. Almost incomprehensible.
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You know she. Was like they were friends.
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And, and she was kind of like, you know, we moved on and then a
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little. Bit later on she was like.
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But why didn't she recognize him?
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They were friends. Like she should have known who
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he was, you know, So funny. It's a funny little detail, but.
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John almost certainly wants us to notice that she assumes he's
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the gardener. Because.
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If you think about the creation account we were just recounting
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in Genesis. 2 The very first. Human being is placed in a
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garden and given the work of tending to it.
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To. Bear the image of God.
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Is to be a. Gardener is to tend to the
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people and the things that have been placed around.
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You to be a. Keeper of the Creation.
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This is the. Original vocation given to the
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humans in the very beginning. And here in this new creation,
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Resurrection Garden, the risen Jesus appears in the original
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vocation for the first humans. He's rightly recognized as the
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one who tends the ground, as the one who tends the creation.
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And so we think that. This is a silly error.
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On Mary's part, but what I think is even truer underneath.
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This is that she doesn't realize how correct she is that she's.
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Come face to face with the gardener.
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The man asks what she's looking for and she tells him she just
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wants to find where they've. Put the body.
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She wants to be near him and that's all she has.
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There's no. Theological category for.
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Anything beyond that. And then he says her name, Mary,
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one word, and she recognizes him.
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She knows him and I think this is the center.
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Of the whole passage, not the empty.
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Tomb. Not the disciples racing to the
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empty tomb, not even Mary being sent away after.
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This. Not the folded grave clothes.
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This. Moment because the resurrection
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doesn't announce itself with some kind of apologetic argument
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for all the reasons. Why Jesus must certainly.
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As a matter. Of historical fact have.
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Risen from the dead this day we present to.
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The jury exhibits. AB and C it doesn't come to.
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Us as a legal. Argument.
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Or a thesis that's. Defended before a crowd with a
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string of straw man. A strong man.
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Bulletproof legal logical arguments.
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Full of polemic certainty, it comes through being known, being
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known by the gardener, by the one who tends the creation, by
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the one who tends. Your soul, your life.
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And Mary hearing her name in the.
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Voice of the rabbi who she thought.
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Was gone. The Good Shepherd passed through
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death out the other side. And came back and the first
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thing that. He does before.
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Anything else before any explanation, before any
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teaching. He doesn't even perform any more
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miracles after this point. He calls.
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Her by her name Mary and she recognizes him and she says
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Riboni teacher and I think the reason that John tells.
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It this way is because this is the.
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Way that resurrection continues to happen.
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This is the way. That the new life of the risen
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Jesus continues to come into our lives.
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Not by some spectacle, not by something that grabs our
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attention. Not with trumpets.
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Not in the dramatic. Or the obvious.
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But in the ordinary. Way that it.
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Comes to Mary, hearing her name spoken by a friend and
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recognizing him. It's quiet.
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It's in the. Dark through the.
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Experience of being known, that we come to know the risen Jesus
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and so through something that that finds you in grief, in the
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dark, in confusion. That you thought you were.
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Carrying alone by. Yourself while it's still.
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Dark, the risen Jesus speaks the names.
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Of the people he's. Calling to himself and.
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This is also. The moment to name what the
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resurrection actually is. Because I think the word gets
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used loosely. And I I don't want to.
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I don't want to let it. The resurrection isn't a
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metaphor for things getting better.
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It's not spiritual symbol of hope.
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The tomb is empty. The.
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Body that was laid. On the tomb on Friday is not
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there. What happened to Jesus isn't
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some kind of resuscitation or a return to ordinary life.
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The way that it was before. It is complete transformation.
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New creation matters in this. Story A physical.
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Body that is somehow both continuous with what it was and
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has become something completely new is at the center.
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Of this story, He, Jesus is is touchable.
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He's real, but he moves through locked doors.
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And isn't always recognized and is.
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What the scriptures called the first fruits.
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Of a new kind of existence, one where the entire creation.
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As we see it. Is being pulled forward into the
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future. And then Jesus says something
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kind of unexpected. To Mary, he says.
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Do not hold on to me. Do not cling.
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And I think at a glance this seems sort of.
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Cold Mary thought Jesus was dead.
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And now he's not dead. And now she recognizes him.
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And the first thing that he says is don't cling to me.
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And I think. If I were Mary, I'd be like.
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OK, you know, like why? Why are you being like that?
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I I think. One of the things that Jesus
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communicates in saying this. Is that this isn't just a.
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Return to the way that things were.
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I'm not back to just keep doing the things that we were doing
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before and we pick. Up the story where we left off
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the resurrected Jesus. Can be encountered but can't be
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contained, can't be pinned to a specific moment.
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You can be met by him, but you can't freeze the encounter in
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time. And I think when I hear.
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Jesus, say the words. Don't cling to me.
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I hear that the ways that we. Experience new life.
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The ways that we. Experience the the.
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Life of the Resurrected. Jesus coming into our life.
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It's not something that can be returned to or captured like a
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museum piece. We can't go back to the way that
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things were before Friday. It's not a restoration of
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something that came before. It's not a return.
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It's something altogether new. And I think you and I can
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probably think of moments in our.
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Lives where we've had. Some kind of encounter with the
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what I would call the presence of God.
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Or the love of Jesus. Or some people might even just
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call transcendence where the weight.
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Of the beauty of the world, of the love.
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Of God sort of comes. Crashing into your life.
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And if you're not? Careful you sort of.
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Spend a lot of time trying to find that again.
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To recreate the. Circumstances in your life, you
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know, what was I doing? What did I?
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Have for breakfast that day. Who was I hanging out with and
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and try to find this like healthier.
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More. Exciting place that you were in
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at one point. I think there's a version of
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Christianity that really becomes about trying to hold on to
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something, trying to revive some version of safety or.
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Certainty that felt solid. Once 5 or 10 or 40 or 100 or
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500. Years ago, but.
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Jesus said to Mary and, and I think maybe even to us, don't
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the new creation, the future Kingdom of God breaking into the
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present can't be fully comprehended by looking back.
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It's ahead of us. Breaking something open.
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That we thought was sealed, that we thought was put away out of.
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Reach from us, and I want to talk for just a moment about
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what I think makes this Sunday more than just an annual
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commemoration of this. Part of the story it's that
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this, this first day. Of the new.
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World The. First day of new.
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Creation that Jesus steps. Out of the tomb, into is not
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over, Paul writes in Second Corinthians.
2 Corinthians 4 chapter mention
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Chapter 4. God who said let light.
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Shine out of darkness made his light shine in our hearts again.
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Quoting Genesis 1, he's saying that the same voice that spoke
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at the beginning. The voice.
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That called light. That called material reality out
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of nothing. Is still.
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Speaking and new creation isn't just a past event that we look
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at from a distance. We can easily think that.
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The story of Jesus. Being raised from the dead is
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something that we're looking back 2000 years in history.
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To sort of. Take a gander at once a Year and
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think a little bit about what it means for us, but I think.
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The truth about this story is that the first.
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Day of the New World is not over, I think paying attention.
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Is the the spiritual practice that Easter?
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Calls us into, not just the. Belief in the.
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Resurrection as an intellectual. Exercise.
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That we can sort of assent to and say.
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Yeah, I think. Jesus was raised from the dead
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back in the day. Check.
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We're being called into a way of seeing and learning to notice
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the ways that new creation is actually breaking through into
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our lived reality in places that we might otherwise.
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Walk past without a second thought there.
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Are moments of unexpected kindness from someone you may
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have completely written off, conversations that were supposed
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to go one way and end up going someplace else entirely.
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There are moments when we think a relationship in our life is
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finished, and it takes one small, unexpected step toward
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reconciliation, toward resolution in a morning when you
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wake up and something that's been.
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Heavy for a. Long time suddenly.
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Feels a little bit lighter. Almost inexplicably, these are
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not small things, these. Are the first day of new?
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Creation crashing into the. Present there's a a little.
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Passage from Thomas Merton that I always think about when I when
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I think about this. Idea.
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He had a moment like this in 1958.
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He was a monk. He was someone who spent years
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living behind monastery. Walls by.
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Choice and lived in Kentucky. He went into Louisville on some
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errand and was standing on a street corner, 4th and Walnut,
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and suddenly something cracked open in him and he wrote about
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it. Later I was.
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Suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I.
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Loved all those. People that they were mine and I
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was theirs. That we could not be alien to
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one another, even. Though we were total.
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Strangers. It was like waking from a dream
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of separateness. And then he wrote this line.
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Which I haven't. Been able to get out of my head
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all week. There is no way of telling
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people that they are all walking around shining like the sun and
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friends. I think this.
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Is one of the places where the resurrected Jesus meets us.
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Most intimately when we have the opportunity, when we have the
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presence of mind, to slow down and to notice.
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People to notice the God. In people.
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The ways that that. The imprint of the gardener is
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on our neighbors, is on the people that we rub.
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Shoulders with at work. Is on our difficult family
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members. This is resurrection language.
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It's what it. Looks like when we finally
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suddenly. See the first day of new.
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Creation breaking in all around us because something is shining
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through the ordinary world. That we would have.
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Completely missed 5 minutes. Earlier.
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And I think it's important to note that Merton didn't have
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that moment in a sanctuary. Sanctuaries are beautiful.
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I'm so happy to be here with you this morning, reading the
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scriptures and singing songs. But resurrection moments
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probably most often come to us in our ordinary.
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Everyday lives. Merton had this moment on a
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street corner in the middle. Of a busy city.
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The new creation was. Already at work in the world.
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And for just a moment. He could see it.
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The English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote it this way.
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The world is charged. With the grandeur.
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Of God it will. Flame out like shining from
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shook foil. He knew the darkness, and when
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you read this poem in in its entirety, it wrestles honestly
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with. Why, if the world carries this
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charge of beauty, it's so easy? To miss and the answer that he
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gives. Is that we're distracted.
-
And we're pressed down and we're worn smooth, he says.
-
By the weight of. Ordinary living the world.
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Is smeared with. Trade and toil.
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And we lose the. Capacity to notice but this
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isn't where the poem ends it pivots and he.
-
Writes because the Holy. Ghost over the bent.
-
World broods with. Warm breasts and with, ah,
-
bright wings. The Spirit is still.
-
Brooding over the world that you and I live in, the spirit that
-
animates the. Life of the first day of the
-
new. Creation and the way.
-
That the. Spirit moved over the.
-
Waters at the very. First, creation.
-
God's presence is moving over the waters of the unformed.
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Parts of the world. Around us, beckoning this life
-
into the present. And so the question that's put
-
to us is not only. Do you believe?
-
That this happened, it's. Are you learning to see it?
-
This is the crucial question that we must ask ourselves
-
every. Time we reflect on the
-
resurrection of Jesus the God man come as a human.
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Put to death, swallowed by death.
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But conquers death and comes out the other.
-
Side. Are you learning to see it?
-
Where is the Spirit? Bringing life to you right now.
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Is it in your relationships? Is it in your neighborhood?
-
Is it in parts of your own inner life that you'd maybe quietly
-
given up on? Where is resurrection pressing
-
through? Where is the gardener standing
-
waiting for you to? Hear your.
-
Name and I want. To also briefly say.
-
It's not just our individual. Lives that are caught.
-
Up in this to stand up on a morning like this one and say.
-
Christ is. Risen is an act of defiance.
-
The resurrection is. The church's counter.
-
Proclamation to every system to. Every power to every.
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Empire that runs on the logic of doom and hopelessness.
-
Every way that. As Hopkins.
-
Said the world presses. Us down and wears us smooth.
-
We push back against it by standing up on this morning and
-
confessing Christ is risen. It's a it's.
-
A refusal to concede. To every voice.
-
That's insisting that what's broken stays broken and only
-
gets. Worse.
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And that what's lost is simply gone, it says.
-
That the God who spoke light out of the.
-
First, darkness hasn't gone quiet on us.
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And so. I want to close with Mary still.
-
In the garden, she came before dawn.
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While it was still dark. With grief and pain coming
-
because she loved someone who was dead and she didn't come.
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With faith. Or answers or certainty or any
-
of those things. And she was the one who ended up
-
being the first person to carry the news.
-
That the world had. Changed forever and so friends.
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Those of you who. Find.
-
Yourselves here. In a moment where you look
-
around and and it might. Feel like it is still dark?
-
My encouragement to you is that you may very well find
-
yourselves being the first person.
-
To carry the. Good news that the world has
-
changed forever back into your the brokenness in your family
-
system. Or in your workplace, or just to
-
the. Parts of your inside life that
-
you've not quite been able to make sense of.
-
Friends, Jesus, resurrection and these ordinary resurrection
-
moments. Are where we.
-
Become awake. To.
-
The love of God in our lives. And we don't have to wait until
-
we have everything sorted, until we have all of our questions
-
answered, until we can make sense of the circumstances
-
around us, until we find ourselves.
-
A little bit less depressed. Or a little bit less anxious,
-
they come crashing into the. Real world.
-
The world that we. Live in.
-
The real world. And it's a world that's being
-
invaded by the joy and the unrelenting.
-
Love of the God who? Who?
-
Loved it into being. So we are still.
-
In that first day, it's not behind us.
-
The first day of the new. Creation is the age that we're
-
living in right now, where this present age and the age to come
-
are intertwined, and the gardener is still standing in
-
the garden and is still speaking the names of the ones.
-
Who look for their teacher. And the invitation of the
-
resurrection is to be people who are paying attention.
-
People. Who are learning to see people
-
who can say I have seen the. Lord, because they.
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Heard their name called. While it was still dark.
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And so as we. Move toward worship.
-
And ministry. I want to invite the worship
-
team back up and I want to say something directly to anyone who
-
might be in the room who hasn't made a decision to.
-
To follow Jesus. The resurrection is not
-
primarily about getting your individual soul into heaven.
-
I know that's. A popular A popular take, but
-
the. Resurrection is about the
-
remaking of the whole cosmos, the.
-
Whole. Creation, everything that is,
-
everything that ever has been, the whole human story.
-
And God isn't just patching up the old.
-
World. He's making a new one, and it's
-
already begun. That's the scale.
-
Of the thing that we're talking about when.
-
We read this story. And the thing about that?
-
Story is that it's so big that there is.
-
Room for you to live inside of it.
-
There is room for you to. Look at a story where.
-
The God who makes the world, who sees its brokenness, Who sees
-
your pain, Who sees. The ways that your.
-
Life is messed up and says the restoration that I'm bringing,
-
the ways that I'm repairing the world are.
-
So big that. Even you fit inside of it.
-
And so I just want to encourage you not as a transaction, but as
-
an orientation. Of your whole life.
-
Toward the one who spoke the world into existence.
-
If you've never done that. If you've never.
-
Thought to yourself, the story is so big.
-
The story is so. Good.
-
The person of Jesus is so incomprehensibly kind that I
-
want to turn. All of it over, I'd love, I'd
-
love. To pray with you this morning.
-
One of our team would love to pray with you this morning.
-
Mary showed up in the dark and the risen Jesus called her name.
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And if any of you find that that is happening to you today, come,
-
come and find one of us. Jared might have a couple things
-
for for ministry, but I just want to say.
-
If. If today is full.
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If you're full of joy. If you're full of hope, If
-
you're full of faith, let it be. Full bring the joy.
-
And if you are carrying. Something incredibly heavy or
-
you find yourself just feeling a little bit.
-
Confused or skeptical about all of that?
-
That's OK. Mary came to the tomb while it
-
was still. Dark.
-
And so I would just encourage you to bring whatever it is,
-
anything that you would want to receive.
-
Prayer for. To to one of our.
-
Team will be posted. Up around the room.