Easter — Life, from the Garden of our Defeat - Origin Sermon - 2 April 2021

Hello, Originals. I'm so glad to get to be a part

of your Easter weekend and to celebrate, Jesus, resurrection

with you and what that means. For our lives.

Sometimes the experiences of Our Lives can cause us to lose sight

of what Jesus is, resurrection actually means for us and

because of that, it's so important that in each part of

the Christian celebration and Year, we get to consider again

what it means for Jesus to be with us through different

seasons and experiences of our life.

Every Gardener knows that there are seasons of productivity and

then seasons of wrist that there's seasons of quiet and

then seasons of great fruitfulness and the Splendor of

the garden, the seasons can come and go and we count on them.

However, there Also seasons of Our Lives where we can feel

disrupted by famine by pestilence or even by death.

And when those Seasons come, it's really difficult for us to

see this Garden as a place of Life instead.

It becomes a reminder of our defeats of our Despair and of

death. It becomes so disorienting to

us. Us.

Interesting enough. John reminds us that what we're

about to experience, and the story of the resurrection of

Jesus is actually occurring in a garden.

Jesus was bound up for his arrest, in a garden, where he

had been praying. And then, after the crucifixion,

Jesus was bound up in the grave clothes and laid in a tomb.

That was in a garden. What can happen in the garden of

our defeat? It's seen here in what happens

in the garden of Jesus's, defeat, and how its transformed.

So let's read together from John chapter 19, and I'm going to

John 19 · chapter mention

read all the way into John chapter 20.

John 20 · chapter mention

We're going to see Joseph of Arimathea.

We're going to see Nicodemus and we're going to meet Mary

Magdalene, who all had great Devotion to Jesus as disciples.

Our Focus will be Mary Magdalene and her experience of this

transformation that occurred in the new reality of Jesus as the

Risen Lord. And so follow with me as I read

from John chapter 19, this incredible, text on which all of

John 19 · chapter mention

the history of humanity hinges. Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked

pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of

Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish Leaders with

Pilots permission. He came and took the body away.

He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited

Jesus At Night, Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and

aloes about 75 pounds, taking Jesus.

His body, the two of them wrapped it with spices in strips

of linen. This is was in accordance with

Jewish burial Customs at the place where Jesus was crucified.

There was a garden and in the garden, a new Tomb in which no

one had ever been laid because it was the Jewish Day of

preparation. And since the tomb was nearby,

they laid Jesus there. Early on the first day of the

week, while it was still dark Mary.

Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been

removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon

Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved and said

they have taken the Lord out of the Tomb and we don't know where

they have put him. So Peter and the other disciple

started for the tomb, both were running but the other disciple

outran, Peter and looked into the tomb.

First, he bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying

there but did not go in. Then Simon.

Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb.

He saw the strips of linen lying there as well as the cloth that

had been wrapped around Jesus head.

The cloth was still in its place separate from the linen.

Finally, the other disciple who had reached the tomb, first also

went inside. He saw and believed.

They still did not understand from the scripture that Jesus

had to rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to

where they were staying. Now, Mary stood outside the

tomb, crying as she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb

and saw two angels in white seated, where Jesus body had

been one at the head and the other at the foot.

They asked her woman. Why are you crying?

They have taken my Lord away. She said, and I don't know where

they have put him. At this, she turned around and

saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that.

It was Jesus. He asked her woman.

Why are you crying? Who is it?

You are looking for? Thinking he was the gardener.

She said, sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where

you have put him and I will get him.

Jesus said to her, Mary she turned Horton toward him and

cried in Aramaic. Rabboni, which means teacher.

Jesus said do not hold on to me for I have not yet ascended to

the father go instead to my brothers and tell them I am

ascending to my father and your father to my God and your God.

Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news.

I have seen the Lord. And she told them that he had

said these things to her. Defeat disgrace, despair death.

It can be so disorienting. For Mary Magdalene and The

Disciples of Jesus. It truly was disorienting.

It was a moment of their shared defeat.

I think any one of them would have said this was our defeat

all of the hopes that we had put in Jesus now seemed to have

dissolved into nothingness. But Here, In This Moment, Mary

is transformed. She is turned into what Pope

Francis and 2016 called the Apostle to the apostles.

He was reflecting and much older.

Reference to Mary Magdalene Mary, the Magdalene came from

magdala a small village on the Sea of Galilee and Luke chapter

Luke 8 · chapter mention

8 were told that she was in the company of disciples and was

listed with women. Who supported Jesus and the

ministry from their own material means from their own

possessions. Here?

She is the first to witness the Risen Lord, Jesus, but earlier,

she had been a first-hand witness to the power of Jesus.

The Holy One for, in Luke 8. It also tells us of Mary that

Jesus had driven from her seven demons these forces of death.

These evil spirits. And sickness had been driven

from her. He had freed her from their hold

in the gospels. The Demonic powers are not

powers of Temptation. They're actually powers of

subjugation. That is they would torment and

lay hold of people and physically.

Disable them. They were seen as a power of

impurity not of holiness. Jesus was recognized by these

Powers as the Holy One of God, and he had the power to drive

them away and Destroy them. Mary Magdalene became a devoted

disciple of Jesus and she was able to firsthand testify once I

was bound up, but now I am free. The power and authority of Jesus

over these defiling powers. She was also a witness to the

crucifixion of Jesus. It must have seemed like a

terrible. Defeat, a terrible disgrace.

The Despair and disorienting that came from that moment had

been with them all weekend. Even as they tried to celebrate

the Passover. So, on this first day of the

week after Jesus death by crucifixion, she comes to this

Garden of defeat. What heaviness would have

weighed her heart for any of us who've experienced death of a

loved one, or a great defeat or have experienced such shame and

disgrace of those we considered close.

The mind puzzles over that trauma, you know what?

It's like we walk around in the waves of grief would come or we

walk around and we try to figure it or our body for a time.

Seems to shut down as we try to make sense as we try to ask why.

Here, Mary, that's confronted three times by the reality of

the good news of Jesus, but it was through the lens of her

defeat that she was seeing it and she was so disoriented that

she couldn't make sense of the new reality of Jesus, the

resurrected Lord. First, she sees the empty tomb,

the open door a door, which typically could not be opened

from the outside. And so she quickly assumes that

Jesus is body has been taken away and she runs off to the see

the disciples Simon Peter and John and tells them.

They have taken the Lord out of the Tomb and we don't know where

they have put him. She still is seeing this moment

as a moment in formed and shaped by the power of death.

Second. She actually observes inside the

tomb, two angels sitting at the head and the foot of where Jesus

would have been laid in this tomb, had would have been laid

in the Tomb in order to Decay and rot, even though he had been

served up and wrapped up ministered to in death, by

Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus.

With the spices Fit For A King. But he had seen no Decay.

Jesus had been raised. But through her tears.

She tells the the Angels they have taken the Lord away.

And I do not know where And then third, she turns around.

And Jesus asked about her tears, assuming that this person before

her is the gardener. She says, Where have you put

him? And I will get him.

I will carry him. All of her language is.

Speaking of one who is dead, a body that must be carried a body

that must be laid, a body that must be lifted up.

But it was in this fourth move towards Mary.

Where she finally sees? Jesus says her name Mary.

Now the recognition comes and Jesus immediately proclaims to

her. The new reality, this Garden of

Defeat of Despair. And of death is becoming a

garden of New Life. He declares to her the reality

of his kingdom. She must have moved towards him

having called him teacher. She moves towards him and he

says do not hold on to me for I have not yet ascended to the

father go instead to my brothers and tell them, I am ascending to

my father and your father to my God and your god there, Jesus

affirms the direction and meaning of the cross on his

life. The creation of a new family and

a new people in his power in his life.

He sells her that he's going to his father and her father to his

brothers. He uses the words of family here

to describe the new communion made possible through his death

and his resurrection and soon through his Ascension and then

he gives her a new mission to go with the news and tell this to

the other disciples. And so she does, I have seen the

Lord Mary's mission that morning, had been to consider

and to reflect on her devotion and what had happened to Jesus

in his death, but now her mission was to consider and to

rejoice and to Proclaim. Jesus is life.

In between, in that disorienting.

Her Mission had been to recover his body.

To lift it up and replace it, tenderly to its place in a tomb.

But Jesus had no place among the dead, he was among the living.

And so now she proclaimed and lifted Jesus up.

Among the apostles. Afterwards with the gift of the

Holy Spirit, the apostles themselves, Peter and even Paul

declared the meaning of this moment.

And Acts chapter 2, Peter says, but God raised him from the

Acts 2 · chapter mention

dead, freeing him from the agony of death because it was

impossible for death to keep its, hold on him.

Paul says in Acts chapter 13 that Jesus says, Resurrection

Acts 13 · chapter mention

was the Fulfillment of God's promise that he would not let

his holy one. See Decay, indeed.

Jesus body was buried but it had not decayed there.

And as it laid in that tomb, I'm so Paul goes on and Acts chapter

Acts 13 · chapter mention

13 to declare their for friends. I want you to know that through

Jesus. The Forgiveness of sins is

proclaimed to you through him. Everyone who believes is set

free from every sin, a justification.

You are not able to obtain under the law of Moses Easter.

Confronts us with a new reality with a new life.

And with a new purpose, the Lord, Jesus becomes the lens

through which we see The Gardens of Our Lives.

He who was crucified was buried. He who was buried was raised.

He who was raised has ascended, and he who has ascended will

return. And so, though, now we walk

through Gardens, that are sometimes places of death and of

Despair and great disorientation.

The ministry of the spirit of God, and now the people of God

is to call each of us back to our hope to the hope of Jesus

Christ raised from the dead that indeed, we have been buried with

him in baptism, but we have been raised also with him in New

Life. And so now in our common

kinship, We live in and proclaim, the resurrected Lord

Jesus. Who is the Holy one who doesn't

just cast out demons and sickness, but who also has

destroyed death. Though.

We may grieve. We do not grieve as those who

have no hope, in fact, We are able to enter into the very life

and move up discipleship. Jesus said, unless a seed dies

and falls to the ground, there would be no Harvest.

And so Jesus himself became that seed who fell to the ground and

was buried. But he has been raised in order

to create a new family and a new people who will be secured with

him forever. This power of life, this way of

considering, even the oppressive forces of Darkness that animate

people today. Is something that has marked the

church for 2000 years now? I was so moved this past month

and watching sister, Anna Rose new tongue in my Amar.

We got to see pictures of her on the newspaper with her in her

white outfit as a nun, kneeling before soldiers, hands and arms

extended pleading with them, not to shoot the children.

This is what happened when Christian leaders identify with

protesters, identify with people who are pleading and looking for

a better way, for those who are facing the powers and forces of

death. This is what happens when the

church. Would extend and relinquish

itself. Of Earthly Powers, but would

seek the resurrection power of Jesus.

We are able to move in Hope, and in life.

She says shoot me instead. Don't shoot the children.

This Jesus and this Garden of Life.

How do you see him? How do you see this Garden?

Easter is the reminder that Jesus is with us in our losses

and in our griefs, in the disorientation of Defeat of

Despair and of death, Jesus reorients us to himself and the

power of his resurrection, to the Forgiveness of our sin to

The Fellowship of his communion and of his people.

We now would say we walk in a garden.

Where he is our delight, and the resurrected Lord is our life.