Sermon

Easter Sunday 2026

Central Vineyard Church

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  1. Friends, today's teaching scripture is from John chapter

    John 20 chapter mention

  2. 20. Early on the first day of the

  3. week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb

  4. and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.

  5. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple,

  6. the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, They have taken

  7. the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid

  8. him. Then Peter and the other

  9. disciple set out and went towards the tomb.

  10. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran

  11. Peter and reached the tomb first.

  12. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there,

  13. but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came following

  14. him and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying

  15. there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus head not lying

  16. with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in the place by

  17. itself. Then the other disciple who

  18. reached reached the tomb first also went in, and he saw and

  19. believed. For as yet they did not

  20. understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead.

  21. Then the disciples returned to their homes.

  22. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she

  23. bent over to look into the tomb, and she saw 2 angels in white

  24. sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head

  25. and the other at the feet. They said to her, Woman, why are

  26. you weeping? And she said to them, They have

  27. taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.

  28. When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus

  29. standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.

  30. And Jesus said to her, Woman, why are you weeping?

  31. Whom are you looking for? Supposing him to be the

  32. gardener, She said to him, Sir, if you have carried him away,

  33. tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.

  34. Jesus said to her, Mary. She turned and said to him in

  35. Hebrew Rabuni, which means teacher.

  36. Jesus said to her, Do not touch me, because I have not yet

  37. ascended to the Father, but go to my brothers and say to them,

  38. I am ascending to my Father, and your father to my God and your

  39. God. Mary Magdalene went and

  40. announced to the disciples, I have seen the Lord, and she told

  41. them that He had said these things to her.

  42. This is the word of the Lord. All right, Good morning.

  43. If we have not met, my name is Parker Frye.

  44. I'm. One of the pastors here at

  45. Central. Vineyard and I'm so.

  46. Happy to see. So many familiar faces, So many

  47. new faces. Welcome, welcome.

  48. We're glad you're here. Should we do the thing one more

  49. time? Christ is risen.

  50. There is a moment at the beginning of Terrence Malick's

  51. film the. Tree of life where?

  52. The mother speaks in voice over and she.

  53. Says there are two ways through life.

  54. The way of. Nature and the Way of.

  55. Grace. You have to choose which one

  56. you'll. Follow.

  57. The way of nature, she explains, grasps and hoards everything

  58. that it can possibly get its hands on, protecting itself from

  59. loss. The way of.

  60. Grace accepts being hurt in life and doesn't claw to stay on top,

  61. doesn't claw for control. And what?

  62. Follows is. 2 1/2 hours of a family moving through ordinary

  63. life, experiencing joy and cruelty and tenderness.

  64. A brother dies young and no one in the film explains why and the

  65. film? Holds the grief of the loss.

  66. Of a young son inside tremendous, almost unbearable

  67. beauty and. Refuses to let.

  68. You have one of them. Without the other.

  69. It brings into sharp focus. The the the.

  70. Glory, the holiness of ordinary life and it's central question

  71. is simple, and I think it's the same question that a lot of us

  72. find ourselves asking every year around this time when we come

  73. together to celebrate Resurrection Sunday.

  74. Can grace survive? Can the love of God, Can the

  75. kindness of God, survive inside of suffering?

  76. I've been sitting with that question as I've been preparing

  77. for our time together this week. Because I think most of us know

  78. that what we actually need from the resurrection is not a tidy

  79. resolution or some kind of fairy tale ending to this.

  80. Story about Jesus life. We need something that can

  81. actually hold up in a. Chaotic world that most.

  82. Mornings when we. Wake up feels like.

  83. It might not, so I want to begin here.

  84. The world that we. Woke up to this morning is

  85. complicated, and you can almost certainly name your own version

  86. of what's complicated about it. Something in your own life,

  87. something in your own body, something in your own house or

  88. something. Broader like the low.

  89. Grade anxiety of watching things that took a long time to.

  90. Build come apart faster. Than you ever expected the sense

  91. that the ground around. You is less stable.

  92. Than it used. To feel the realities.

  93. Of your aging body, a grief that you can't quite explain to

  94. someone who hasn't lived or experienced it themselves.

  95. The resurrection doesn't ask us to set any of that aside.

  96. And so, you know, as much as I would have loved more

  97. pyrotechnics this morning and for Jared to zip line in to lead

  98. us in silence, I think the truth.

  99. That we're all aware of is that we live.

  100. Complex lives and the complexity can't just be.

  101. Erased. By reading a Bible passage one

  102. Sunday morning a year, can it? That's not what the resurrection

  103. is doing in the Christian story. It's it's not a feeling that.

  104. You work yourself. Up to it's not some sort of

  105. spiritual sense that we're trying to reach for or or drum

  106. up inside. Of ourselves it's.

  107. Something that happens to us, it's something that breaks into

  108. the. Reality of our world.

  109. And almost always happens. Where we least expect it.

  110. Where we're not looking. For the love of God to.

  111. Break in John's account of the resurrection is probably my.

  112. Favorite because it starts. Right here in ways.

  113. That the other gospels. Don't quite do the same way.

  114. Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark.

  115. Mary Magdalene came to the tomb. While it was still dark.

  116. She came before dawn because someone she loved had been

  117. executed and she didn't know what else to do.

  118. Maybe she couldn't sleep. She's certainly not there.

  119. To celebrate. And.

  120. This is where. The resurrection account opens,

  121. It's in the dark with a grieving woman who showed up when

  122. everyone else had scattered to the four winds after Friday's

  123. events for fear of retaliation from the government and the

  124. religious leaders. And I think John begins there

  125. on. Purpose because.

  126. That's the person that this. Story is for.

  127. This story is being written and recounted.

  128. Precisely for the. Person who comes.

  129. While it's still dark. Before we get on to what happens

  130. next in the garden, I just want to show you something in John's

  131. gospel leading up to this. Text that.

  132. I think changes the way that. This whole story reads.

  133. And I don't. Know if you'll ever be able to

  134. read it. Again, without thinking about

  135. this, John uses darkness and light as a motif.

  136. All throughout his gospel. So if you read it from the

  137. beginning to the end. You'll see that throughout.

  138. He's painting a picture of something that's happening in

  139. the world using these. 2 words these two.

  140. Ideas, Darkness and light. From the very earliest.

  141. Lines of John's Gospel The light shines in the darkness, and the

  142. darkness has not overcome it, and he returns to it over and

  143. over and over again. He says people love darkness

  144. rather than light. Jesus says.

  145. I am the light of the. World while you walk, walk while

  146. you have the light. And so on and so on.

  147. And by the time. We reach while it was still

  148. dark. In John 20, that phrase.

  149. Carries the weight of. Everything that's come before it

  150. as we've journeyed through John's entire.

  151. Gospel we have. This darkness and light theme

  152. and now. While it's still dark, it

  153. appears the. Darkness may have overcome the

  154. light once and for all. But this is the.

  155. Final darkness in John's gospel, it's the final mention and God's

  156. new creation is coming in to the darkness while.

  157. It was still dark. But John is doing something even

  158. more deliberate than just that, which I find fascinating.

  159. He's mapping the whole. Story.

  160. On to the first week of Genesis. So if you open your Bible to the

  161. very. Beginning John is telling us

  162. that God is making a new. World he's.

  163. Describing a completely new creation after the same pattern

  164. that the first one was created, the.

  165. Prologue tells us. In the beginning was the.

  166. Word. As a way of echoing in the

  167. beginning, God created. And so John is announcing from

  168. the very beginning of his book that the one who was present at

  169. the first creation is the one who is present in this new story

  170. that he's beginning to tell. And then, if you're paying

  171. attention, he tracks the events of Holy Week against the

  172. Creation Week, so on. Friday the 6th day, Jesus is

  173. brought before the. Crowd and Pilate presents him to

  174. the people. John pauses to note the time and

  175. the day. Very.

  176. Carefully. It was the 6th day of the week.

  177. And Pilate says, behold the man John wants you to feel the.

  178. Echo of the. Creation of humanity on the 6th

  179. day. So Jesus is crucified.

  180. And just before he died, he speaks one final word in John's

  181. gospel. It is finished that.

  182. Word. To telesty the same word in the

  183. Greek Old Testament when God is finished.

  184. With the work of. Creation on the 7th day in

  185. Genesis and God. Rests.

  186. Jesus dies. And is laid in the tomb as the

  187. Sabbath begins, the 7th. Day, the day of rest, the work

  188. of the first created order is. Done, and has been laid in the

  189. grave. This first world that that.

  190. Ran off the rails. The ways that.

  191. That the humans have taken advantage of each other, have

  192. exploited one another. Have built up.

  193. Systems that oppress and control.

  194. It's been laid in the grave on the 7th day, and then John 20

  195. very intentionally opens with the. 1st.

  196. Day of a new week, a new beginning.

  197. And it's not just. A clever literary device.

  198. John is making a bold claim in the way that he's writing this

  199. story. What happened on the Day of the

  200. Resurrection was the beginning of a new.

  201. World the 1st. Creation had been re enacted,

  202. had been had been recapitulated and the old.

  203. Order is over. God has done again what God did

  204. in the beginning, spoken life into lifelessness, spoken life

  205. into the thing that was not alive, and set a new creation

  206. into motion. And so the resurrection isn't.

  207. A reversal of defeat. It's the beginning of something

  208. that has never. Existed before.

  209. Something that we are entirely unfamiliar with.

  210. It's. A world in which.

  211. Death has been defeated from the inside, one in which.

  212. The physical. Creation itself has been cracked

  213. open and is being remade. Before our very eyes.

  214. And John? Tells us that it starts while it

  215. was still dark. Mary comes to the tomb and she

  216. finds the stone rolled away, and she runs to tell Peter and the

  217. other. Disciple and.

  218. They come and look and they see. The burial clothes.

  219. Lying there, the face. Cloth folded up separately.

  220. A strange detail to include, if not to say that it's like

  221. someone got up and left in an orderly fashion, and then the

  222. disciples go home and John said he he so simply they they went

  223. back to their homes. They saw this and it was almost

  224. like in the grief and the anxiety.

  225. That they carried. Forward from From.

  226. Friday they see the. Scene and are not sure what to

  227. make of it. They are, sort of.

  228. So deep in their own experience of the previous.

  229. Few days that. An encounter with all the

  230. evidence right in front of their faces causes them to.

  231. Just sort of go. I don't know about that.

  232. And they? Leave but Mary.

  233. Is left standing outside the tomb.

  234. She stays and I think we're meant to sort.

  235. Of stay with her. For a moment as we make our way.

  236. Through the story, she's. The one who came before dawn.

  237. She's the one who stays when the others leave.

  238. She doesn't have a. Theology of the Resurrection.

  239. She doesn't have some special insider knowledge about what's

  240. going on. She has no framework for what?

  241. Could possibly be. True of this moment, she has.

  242. Grief. She has love.

  243. For someone who has died and nowhere.

  244. Else to be. And she stands there in front of

  245. the empty tomb of her friend and her teacher, weeping after her

  246. other two friends go away. And there's something in this in

  247. between moment that stands out to me.

  248. Peter and the other disciple came and looked and went home.

  249. And we're not told why they left.

  250. But for whatever reason, they leave, Mary doesn't.

  251. And I think. That the.

  252. Posture that she represents of staying present without answers

  253. and without a plan turns out to be the.

  254. Exact way that. You and I are meant to receive.

  255. The. Resurrection into our own lives.

  256. I see myself. In both of these.

  257. Responses both the response. Of the other two disciples.

  258. And Mary's response? And I hope you can too.

  259. It's hard to lean in, It's hard to keep looking.

  260. It's difficult. To search for a.

  261. Reason to. Allow yourself to hope.

  262. When your intuition screams, that a different thing.

  263. Altogether is what is at. Hand around you, She looks

  264. inside and she sees 2 angels. Who asked her why?

  265. She's crying and she tells them that someone has taken the body

  266. and she doesn't know where and then she turns around and a man

  267. is standing in the garden and she doesn't recognize him.

  268. We were reading this story with our almost 4 year old this week

  269. and she found it very strange that Mary didn't recognize

  270. Jesus. Almost incomprehensible.

  271. You know she. Was like they were friends.

  272. And, and she was kind of like, you know, we moved on and then a

  273. little. Bit later on she was like.

  274. But why didn't she recognize him?

  275. They were friends. Like she should have known who

  276. he was, you know, So funny. It's a funny little detail, but.

  277. John almost certainly wants us to notice that she assumes he's

  278. the gardener. Because.

  279. If you think about the creation account we were just recounting

  280. in Genesis. 2 The very first. Human being is placed in a

  281. garden and given the work of tending to it.

  282. To. Bear the image of God.

  283. Is to be a. Gardener is to tend to the

  284. people and the things that have been placed around.

  285. You to be a. Keeper of the Creation.

  286. This is the. Original vocation given to the

  287. humans in the very beginning. And here in this new creation,

  288. Resurrection Garden, the risen Jesus appears in the original

  289. vocation for the first humans. He's rightly recognized as the

  290. one who tends the ground, as the one who tends the creation.

  291. And so we think that. This is a silly error.

  292. On Mary's part, but what I think is even truer underneath.

  293. This is that she doesn't realize how correct she is that she's.

  294. Come face to face with the gardener.

  295. The man asks what she's looking for and she tells him she just

  296. wants to find where they've. Put the body.

  297. She wants to be near him and that's all she has.

  298. There's no. Theological category for.

  299. Anything beyond that. And then he says her name, Mary,

  300. one word, and she recognizes him.

  301. She knows him and I think this is the center.

  302. Of the whole passage, not the empty.

  303. Tomb. Not the disciples racing to the

  304. empty tomb, not even Mary being sent away after.

  305. This. Not the folded grave clothes.

  306. This. Moment because the resurrection

  307. doesn't announce itself with some kind of apologetic argument

  308. for all the reasons. Why Jesus must certainly.

  309. As a matter. Of historical fact have.

  310. Risen from the dead this day we present to.

  311. The jury exhibits. AB and C it doesn't come to.

  312. Us as a legal. Argument.

  313. Or a thesis that's. Defended before a crowd with a

  314. string of straw man. A strong man.

  315. Bulletproof legal logical arguments.

  316. Full of polemic certainty, it comes through being known, being

  317. known by the gardener, by the one who tends the creation, by

  318. the one who tends. Your soul, your life.

  319. And Mary hearing her name in the.

  320. Voice of the rabbi who she thought.

  321. Was gone. The Good Shepherd passed through

  322. death out the other side. And came back and the first

  323. thing that. He does before.

  324. Anything else before any explanation, before any

  325. teaching. He doesn't even perform any more

  326. miracles after this point. He calls.

  327. Her by her name Mary and she recognizes him and she says

  328. Riboni teacher and I think the reason that John tells.

  329. It this way is because this is the.

  330. Way that resurrection continues to happen.

  331. This is the way. That the new life of the risen

  332. Jesus continues to come into our lives.

  333. Not by some spectacle, not by something that grabs our

  334. attention. Not with trumpets.

  335. Not in the dramatic. Or the obvious.

  336. But in the ordinary. Way that it.

  337. Comes to Mary, hearing her name spoken by a friend and

  338. recognizing him. It's quiet.

  339. It's in the. Dark through the.

  340. Experience of being known, that we come to know the risen Jesus

  341. and so through something that that finds you in grief, in the

  342. dark, in confusion. That you thought you were.

  343. Carrying alone by. Yourself while it's still.

  344. Dark, the risen Jesus speaks the names.

  345. Of the people he's. Calling to himself and.

  346. This is also. The moment to name what the

  347. resurrection actually is. Because I think the word gets

  348. used loosely. And I I don't want to.

  349. I don't want to let it. The resurrection isn't a

  350. metaphor for things getting better.

  351. It's not spiritual symbol of hope.

  352. The tomb is empty. The.

  353. Body that was laid. On the tomb on Friday is not

  354. there. What happened to Jesus isn't

  355. some kind of resuscitation or a return to ordinary life.

  356. The way that it was before. It is complete transformation.

  357. New creation matters in this. Story A physical.

  358. Body that is somehow both continuous with what it was and

  359. has become something completely new is at the center.

  360. Of this story, He, Jesus is is touchable.

  361. He's real, but he moves through locked doors.

  362. And isn't always recognized and is.

  363. What the scriptures called the first fruits.

  364. Of a new kind of existence, one where the entire creation.

  365. As we see it. Is being pulled forward into the

  366. future. And then Jesus says something

  367. kind of unexpected. To Mary, he says.

  368. Do not hold on to me. Do not cling.

  369. And I think at a glance this seems sort of.

  370. Cold Mary thought Jesus was dead.

  371. And now he's not dead. And now she recognizes him.

  372. And the first thing that he says is don't cling to me.

  373. And I think. If I were Mary, I'd be like.

  374. OK, you know, like why? Why are you being like that?

  375. I I think. One of the things that Jesus

  376. communicates in saying this. Is that this isn't just a.

  377. Return to the way that things were.

  378. I'm not back to just keep doing the things that we were doing

  379. before and we pick. Up the story where we left off

  380. the resurrected Jesus. Can be encountered but can't be

  381. contained, can't be pinned to a specific moment.

  382. You can be met by him, but you can't freeze the encounter in

  383. time. And I think when I hear.

  384. Jesus, say the words. Don't cling to me.

  385. I hear that the ways that we. Experience new life.

  386. The ways that we. Experience the the.

  387. Life of the Resurrected. Jesus coming into our life.

  388. It's not something that can be returned to or captured like a

  389. museum piece. We can't go back to the way that

  390. things were before Friday. It's not a restoration of

  391. something that came before. It's not a return.

  392. It's something altogether new. And I think you and I can

  393. probably think of moments in our.

  394. Lives where we've had. Some kind of encounter with the

  395. what I would call the presence of God.

  396. Or the love of Jesus. Or some people might even just

  397. call transcendence where the weight.

  398. Of the beauty of the world, of the love.

  399. Of God sort of comes. Crashing into your life.

  400. And if you're not? Careful you sort of.

  401. Spend a lot of time trying to find that again.

  402. To recreate the. Circumstances in your life, you

  403. know, what was I doing? What did I?

  404. Have for breakfast that day. Who was I hanging out with and

  405. and try to find this like healthier.

  406. More. Exciting place that you were in

  407. at one point. I think there's a version of

  408. Christianity that really becomes about trying to hold on to

  409. something, trying to revive some version of safety or.

  410. Certainty that felt solid. Once 5 or 10 or 40 or 100 or

  411. 500. Years ago, but.

  412. Jesus said to Mary and, and I think maybe even to us, don't

  413. the new creation, the future Kingdom of God breaking into the

  414. present can't be fully comprehended by looking back.

  415. It's ahead of us. Breaking something open.

  416. That we thought was sealed, that we thought was put away out of.

  417. Reach from us, and I want to talk for just a moment about

  418. what I think makes this Sunday more than just an annual

  419. commemoration of this. Part of the story it's that

  420. this, this first day. Of the new.

  421. World The. First day of new.

  422. Creation that Jesus steps. Out of the tomb, into is not

  423. over, Paul writes in Second Corinthians.

    2 Corinthians 4 chapter mention

  424. Chapter 4. God who said let light.

  425. Shine out of darkness made his light shine in our hearts again.

  426. Quoting Genesis 1, he's saying that the same voice that spoke

  427. at the beginning. The voice.

  428. That called light. That called material reality out

  429. of nothing. Is still.

  430. Speaking and new creation isn't just a past event that we look

  431. at from a distance. We can easily think that.

  432. The story of Jesus. Being raised from the dead is

  433. something that we're looking back 2000 years in history.

  434. To sort of. Take a gander at once a Year and

  435. think a little bit about what it means for us, but I think.

  436. The truth about this story is that the first.

  437. Day of the New World is not over, I think paying attention.

  438. Is the the spiritual practice that Easter?

  439. Calls us into, not just the. Belief in the.

  440. Resurrection as an intellectual. Exercise.

  441. That we can sort of assent to and say.

  442. Yeah, I think. Jesus was raised from the dead

  443. back in the day. Check.

  444. We're being called into a way of seeing and learning to notice

  445. the ways that new creation is actually breaking through into

  446. our lived reality in places that we might otherwise.

  447. Walk past without a second thought there.

  448. Are moments of unexpected kindness from someone you may

  449. have completely written off, conversations that were supposed

  450. to go one way and end up going someplace else entirely.

  451. There are moments when we think a relationship in our life is

  452. finished, and it takes one small, unexpected step toward

  453. reconciliation, toward resolution in a morning when you

  454. wake up and something that's been.

  455. Heavy for a. Long time suddenly.

  456. Feels a little bit lighter. Almost inexplicably, these are

  457. not small things, these. Are the first day of new?

  458. Creation crashing into the. Present there's a a little.

  459. Passage from Thomas Merton that I always think about when I when

  460. I think about this. Idea.

  461. He had a moment like this in 1958.

  462. He was a monk. He was someone who spent years

  463. living behind monastery. Walls by.

  464. Choice and lived in Kentucky. He went into Louisville on some

  465. errand and was standing on a street corner, 4th and Walnut,

  466. and suddenly something cracked open in him and he wrote about

  467. it. Later I was.

  468. Suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I.

  469. Loved all those. People that they were mine and I

  470. was theirs. That we could not be alien to

  471. one another, even. Though we were total.

  472. Strangers. It was like waking from a dream

  473. of separateness. And then he wrote this line.

  474. Which I haven't. Been able to get out of my head

  475. all week. There is no way of telling

  476. people that they are all walking around shining like the sun and

  477. friends. I think this.

  478. Is one of the places where the resurrected Jesus meets us.

  479. Most intimately when we have the opportunity, when we have the

  480. presence of mind, to slow down and to notice.

  481. People to notice the God. In people.

  482. The ways that that. The imprint of the gardener is

  483. on our neighbors, is on the people that we rub.

  484. Shoulders with at work. Is on our difficult family

  485. members. This is resurrection language.

  486. It's what it. Looks like when we finally

  487. suddenly. See the first day of new.

  488. Creation breaking in all around us because something is shining

  489. through the ordinary world. That we would have.

  490. Completely missed 5 minutes. Earlier.

  491. And I think it's important to note that Merton didn't have

  492. that moment in a sanctuary. Sanctuaries are beautiful.

  493. I'm so happy to be here with you this morning, reading the

  494. scriptures and singing songs. But resurrection moments

  495. probably most often come to us in our ordinary.

  496. Everyday lives. Merton had this moment on a

  497. street corner in the middle. Of a busy city.

  498. The new creation was. Already at work in the world.

  499. And for just a moment. He could see it.

  500. The English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote it this way.

  501. The world is charged. With the grandeur.

  502. Of God it will. Flame out like shining from

  503. shook foil. He knew the darkness, and when

  504. you read this poem in in its entirety, it wrestles honestly

  505. with. Why, if the world carries this

  506. charge of beauty, it's so easy? To miss and the answer that he

  507. gives. Is that we're distracted.

  508. And we're pressed down and we're worn smooth, he says.

  509. By the weight of. Ordinary living the world.

  510. Is smeared with. Trade and toil.

  511. And we lose the. Capacity to notice but this

  512. isn't where the poem ends it pivots and he.

  513. Writes because the Holy. Ghost over the bent.

  514. World broods with. Warm breasts and with, ah,

  515. bright wings. The Spirit is still.

  516. Brooding over the world that you and I live in, the spirit that

  517. animates the. Life of the first day of the

  518. new. Creation and the way.

  519. That the. Spirit moved over the.

  520. Waters at the very. First, creation.

  521. God's presence is moving over the waters of the unformed.

  522. Parts of the world. Around us, beckoning this life

  523. into the present. And so the question that's put

  524. to us is not only. Do you believe?

  525. That this happened, it's. Are you learning to see it?

  526. This is the crucial question that we must ask ourselves

  527. every. Time we reflect on the

  528. resurrection of Jesus the God man come as a human.

  529. Put to death, swallowed by death.

  530. But conquers death and comes out the other.

  531. Side. Are you learning to see it?

  532. Where is the Spirit? Bringing life to you right now.

  533. Is it in your relationships? Is it in your neighborhood?

  534. Is it in parts of your own inner life that you'd maybe quietly

  535. given up on? Where is resurrection pressing

  536. through? Where is the gardener standing

  537. waiting for you to? Hear your.

  538. Name and I want. To also briefly say.

  539. It's not just our individual. Lives that are caught.

  540. Up in this to stand up on a morning like this one and say.

  541. Christ is. Risen is an act of defiance.

  542. The resurrection is. The church's counter.

  543. Proclamation to every system to. Every power to every.

  544. Empire that runs on the logic of doom and hopelessness.

  545. Every way that. As Hopkins.

  546. Said the world presses. Us down and wears us smooth.

  547. We push back against it by standing up on this morning and

  548. confessing Christ is risen. It's a it's.

  549. A refusal to concede. To every voice.

  550. That's insisting that what's broken stays broken and only

  551. gets. Worse.

  552. And that what's lost is simply gone, it says.

  553. That the God who spoke light out of the.

  554. First, darkness hasn't gone quiet on us.

  555. And so. I want to close with Mary still.

  556. In the garden, she came before dawn.

  557. While it was still dark. With grief and pain coming

  558. because she loved someone who was dead and she didn't come.

  559. With faith. Or answers or certainty or any

  560. of those things. And she was the one who ended up

  561. being the first person to carry the news.

  562. That the world had. Changed forever and so friends.

  563. Those of you who. Find.

  564. Yourselves here. In a moment where you look

  565. around and and it might. Feel like it is still dark?

  566. My encouragement to you is that you may very well find

  567. yourselves being the first person.

  568. To carry the. Good news that the world has

  569. changed forever back into your the brokenness in your family

  570. system. Or in your workplace, or just to

  571. the. Parts of your inside life that

  572. you've not quite been able to make sense of.

  573. Friends, Jesus, resurrection and these ordinary resurrection

  574. moments. Are where we.

  575. Become awake. To.

  576. The love of God in our lives. And we don't have to wait until

  577. we have everything sorted, until we have all of our questions

  578. answered, until we can make sense of the circumstances

  579. around us, until we find ourselves.

  580. A little bit less depressed. Or a little bit less anxious,

  581. they come crashing into the. Real world.

  582. The world that we. Live in.

  583. The real world. And it's a world that's being

  584. invaded by the joy and the unrelenting.

  585. Love of the God who? Who?

  586. Loved it into being. So we are still.

  587. In that first day, it's not behind us.

  588. The first day of the new. Creation is the age that we're

  589. living in right now, where this present age and the age to come

  590. are intertwined, and the gardener is still standing in

  591. the garden and is still speaking the names of the ones.

  592. Who look for their teacher. And the invitation of the

  593. resurrection is to be people who are paying attention.

  594. People. Who are learning to see people

  595. who can say I have seen the. Lord, because they.

  596. Heard their name called. While it was still dark.

  597. And so as we. Move toward worship.

  598. And ministry. I want to invite the worship

  599. team back up and I want to say something directly to anyone who

  600. might be in the room who hasn't made a decision to.

  601. To follow Jesus. The resurrection is not

  602. primarily about getting your individual soul into heaven.

  603. I know that's. A popular A popular take, but

  604. the. Resurrection is about the

  605. remaking of the whole cosmos, the.

  606. Whole. Creation, everything that is,

  607. everything that ever has been, the whole human story.

  608. And God isn't just patching up the old.

  609. World. He's making a new one, and it's

  610. already begun. That's the scale.

  611. Of the thing that we're talking about when.

  612. We read this story. And the thing about that?

  613. Story is that it's so big that there is.

  614. Room for you to live inside of it.

  615. There is room for you to. Look at a story where.

  616. The God who makes the world, who sees its brokenness, Who sees

  617. your pain, Who sees. The ways that your.

  618. Life is messed up and says the restoration that I'm bringing,

  619. the ways that I'm repairing the world are.

  620. So big that. Even you fit inside of it.

  621. And so I just want to encourage you not as a transaction, but as

  622. an orientation. Of your whole life.

  623. Toward the one who spoke the world into existence.

  624. If you've never done that. If you've never.

  625. Thought to yourself, the story is so big.

  626. The story is so. Good.

  627. The person of Jesus is so incomprehensibly kind that I

  628. want to turn. All of it over, I'd love, I'd

  629. love. To pray with you this morning.

  630. One of our team would love to pray with you this morning.

  631. Mary showed up in the dark and the risen Jesus called her name.

  632. And if any of you find that that is happening to you today, come,

  633. come and find one of us. Jared might have a couple things

  634. for for ministry, but I just want to say.

  635. If. If today is full.

  636. If you're full of joy. If you're full of hope, If

  637. you're full of faith, let it be. Full bring the joy.

  638. And if you are carrying. Something incredibly heavy or

  639. you find yourself just feeling a little bit.

  640. Confused or skeptical about all of that?

  641. That's OK. Mary came to the tomb while it

  642. was still. Dark.

  643. And so I would just encourage you to bring whatever it is,

  644. anything that you would want to receive.

  645. Prayer for. To to one of our.

  646. Team will be posted. Up around the room.