Easter: The Tremendous Work Already Finished

Well good morning.

Welcome to Christ the Redeemer.

Happy Easter, happy rain.

We can breathe again.

Are we all taking deep breaths?

That feels good.

I went for a walk this morning and I remembered when we began this Linton journey 40 days ago, Lent's that season leading up to this weekend, Easter weekend, all the trees were barren 40 days ago.

And this morning when I went out and walked, I saw green leaves, I saw white and pink and blue and purple flowers, everything was blooming.

There's now new life where there was once death.

And it's possible that you are here, and parts of you and parts of your heart feel like that, a little worn out, a little beat down, maybe even some dead places.

And we are so glad that you are here with us this morning.

What we love to say every single week is we are more broken.

We're more sinful than we originally thought, but we're more loved by God and Jesus than we could ever dare to dream.

After Jesus died, the authorities took his body and they put Jesus in a tomb.

The Romans sealed and guarded that tomb.

And then Mary Magdalene, the next day, she goes to the tomb and hopes to prepare the body.

So that's where we read John 20.

Let's read again verses 1 and 2.

Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.

So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.

A few weeks ago I watched on Netflix the documentary Greed and Gold.

Has anybody seen Greed and Gold?

It's a three-part series.

I think it's kind of hidden in the cube.

You've got to go find it.

You should watch it.

It's really interesting.

Back in 2010, a millionaire Forrest Finn, this guy hides a million dollars of gold in a chest in the Rocky Mountains.

And then he writes a poem, publishes the poem, and the clues to find the treasure in the poem.

Brilliant idea to sell your poetry because the poetry doesn't have a big market.

So that's a really smart, good way to sell poetry.

So hundreds of people begin on this journey of becoming treasure hunters.

For 10 years, people are treasure hunting, looking for this.

My favorite group was a father and two sons in Kerwin, Wyoming.

They read the poem and they are positive they know where this treasure is.

They know it's in a canyon east of Yellowstone National Park.

They know right where it's at, so they work their way up the canyon, up the river, and they see this one huge boulder, and they know the treasure is under the boulder.

They just know it, so they start to dig.

And they dig and they dig.

They dig through the winter, they dig through the rain, they dig and live there for six months, digging under one rock.

Treasure wasn't there.

Heartbreak.

I mean, even at one point, the wife calls and is like, I'm gonna divorce you.

And he says, I'm gonna keep digging.

That was his choice.

Real healthy marriage.

They risk relationships for nothing.

The entire time the treasure's a few hours west inside of Yellowstone National Park, just in a chest sitting up against a tree 100 yards from a river.

Takes 10 years to find them.

Now, at first, I really laughed at this father and son.

Six months under a boulder digging one spot, and this older guy, he dug under there and hid the treasure, and they're digging deeper and deeper.

And all I'm thinking about, I'm like, morons?

I mean, these guys are morons.

And then it hit me like how often I sort of do the same thing, not physically, but like how I sort of do this with my life, trying to find a treasure somewhere it's never gonna be.

We can spend our lives looking for treasure in places we're never gonna find it.

We're often so convinced we'll eventually be loved.

Eventually, if I keep digging here, eventually I'll be important.

I'll be valued.

And we just keep digging.

We're all asking the same question: is it possible?

Could I be okay?

Could I be whole?

Could I be content?

Could I be known and loved?

Could I be forgiven?

Where is new life?

Romans 8, 31 through 35, Paul says this, what then shall we say to these things?

If God is for us, who can be against us?

He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?

It is God who justifies.

Who is it to condemn?

Christ Jesus is the one who died more than that who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Point number one is that the resurrection is the story of God's victorious and lavish love for us.

In John chapter 20, Peter and John they rush to the tomb.

John 20 · chapter mention

They didn't believe what Mary said.

They need to go see it, they see it, they believe it, they see that empty tomb, they come back and report to the other disciples.

Remember, we have that one disciple, Thomas.

He doesn't believe.

He's like, no, no, I don't believe you guys.

I need to see it.

I don't believe, I don't believe.

And how does Jesus deal with messy, doubting followers?

I love this quote by priest and author Robert Capin.

He writes this trust him.

No matter how many waverings you may have, no matter how many suspicions, no matter how much heaviness and sadness your lapses, vices, and disciplesitions, and bratty whinings may cause you.

You believe simply that somebody else, by his death and resurrection, has made it all right.

And you just say thank you and shut up.

The whole slot closet full of mildewed performances, which is all you have to offer, is simply your death.

It is Jesus who is your life.

If he refused to condemn you because your works were rotten, he certainly isn't going to flunk you because your faith isn't so hot.

You can fail utterly and still live the life of grace.

You can fold up spiritually, morally, or intellectually and still be safe.

Because at the very worst, all you can be is dead.

And for him who is the resurrection and the life, that just makes you his cup of tea.

Beloved, we are loved.

We're his.

And we're secure in his love versus a fragile life of digging under boulders trying to find some worth, some forgiveness, some justification.

So, what does that life look like?

What are the implications of that?

Well, in Colossians 3, Paul teaches us in chapters 3 and 4 the implications of such secure and lavish love.

That's how the book is structured.

Colossians 1 and 2, the extravagant promises of Christ's word for us, and then it transitions, Colossians 3 and 4, the implications of those promises in our lives.

So from the indicatives of the lavish promises we have in Jesus, everything we have secure, we just receive it, hold our hands out, receive it, it's totally given to us.

Comes the imperatives, what are the implications from those secure promises?

So we get Colossians 3, 1 and 2.

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Set your minds on the things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ and God.

When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

A few years ago, I was with my ministry cohort, group of pastors and people in ministry out in the Tetons, and we hiked to Phelps Lake, this beautiful lake at the foot of a canyon.

We had a shore lunch there on that lake, and at the far end of that shore, we discovered this little area, hundreds, hundreds of butterflies, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, you know, make the story good.

Tens and tens of thousands of butterflies.

It's everywhere.

And I learned that they were California tortoise shell butterflies.

And it was amazing to stand in the middle of them and to think they were all fat worms.

Like all this beauty started from a fat worm that cocoons itself and becomes this beautiful flying mini dragon that can fly all over.

I mean, that's a transformation.

What an unbelievable transformation.

A picture for us.

Remember Paul's words, 2 Corinthians 5, 17, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old is passed away.

Behold, the new has come.

And in this way, we're all butterflies.

We're told that we have this new life in Jesus, but maybe you're wondering, like, where's my new life?

I don't feel, I'm not feeling that.

I'm feeling like the fat worm is what I feel like.

Well, in the 1500s, Martin Luther wrote about the difference of the theology of glory and the theology of the cross.

A theology of glory says you need to get better, then God will love you.

If I get my act together, God will save me, have me, sustain me.

If I earn more, have more, pray more, then I will really be okay with God.

Then God will really be okay with me.

And the problem with the theology of glory is that it just creates performing and pretending because we're not all that great.

Hate to break the news.

So it breeds dishonesty and exhaustion.

Because you're told you need to get better, but we're not always getting better.

Now, the theology of the cross is different.

Theology of the cross states God provides, he gives salvation, he gives righteousness, forgiveness, he gives wholeness as I give up, as I die into Christ.

We're buried in Christ to walk in a newness of life.

He doesn't endure you, he delights in you.

Colossians 3, 5 through 8.

Here's an implication.

Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry, on account of these, the wrath of God is coming.

In these you too once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away.

Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.

So the human heart, our hearts are always searching for acceptance, leads us to destructive things, some really big things, and some things just like how we speak about ourselves or other people.

And Paul calls us in Colossians to say, hey, remember who you already are.

Live out of who you already are.

Point number two, the resurrection welcomes us into a new life of resting and growing in Christ.

Paul goes on in Colossians 3, 9 and 10, do not lie to each other since you have taken off your old self with his practices and have put on a new self, which is being renewed in the knowledge of the image of its creator.

See, as we grow more alive to the fullness and the lavishness of God's love for us, we grow in the implications of that love.

That's us becoming the butterfly.

We are deemed the butterfly by Christ fully, and then we learn who we already are.

Now, back in John chapter 20, Mary is distraught, and verse 11, she's weeping outside the tomb.

John 20 · chapter mention

She can't believe they stole his body.

Where did he go?

Two angels show up and say, Woman, why are you weeping?

And then Jesus shows up looking like a gardener.

Don't you love that image that he chose a gardener?

Because that's what he's doing with her.

He's tending to her.

He wants to grow her, care for her.

John 20, verse 15.

John 20:15

Jesus said to her, Woman, why are you weeping?

Whom are you seeking?

Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.

Jesus said to her, Mary.

She turned to him and said in Aramaic, Rabbinai, which means teacher.

Jesus said to her, Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father, but go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father to my God and your God.

Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, I have seen the Lord.

And that he has said these things to her.

Point number three is this Jesus loyally pursues you and calls you by name.

He calls you to your identity as a beloved, secure, safe son and daughter of God.

Every other identity is an illusion, it's a digging under a boulder.

Back in March in Death Valley, we had a rare event occur.

It was called a superbloom.

Now, Death Valley is one of the hottest and driest places on the entire earth.

And in March, the valley received more rain than it usually does.

And seeds that had blown into this valley, some seeds had been lying dormant in the valley for ten years, suddenly began to bloom.

It's a beautiful image for our hearts on Resurrection Sunday.

For the new life that we have in Christ.

Because we know the feeling of being worn out, wondering if our hearts could come alive.

We know the reality of sin and guilt and shame and condemnation.

And it's in that very place, in that very dry place, that helplessness, that God shows up with his amazing grace.

Well, in closing, it is Master's Week.

I know it's been difficult for some of you.

It's like Easter, Masters, like we're like, which I don't know, it's been hard.

Some of you, I know it has.

I know you've been thinking about it.

And we'll turn on the TV, and some of you will get to walk the course.

And the grass and the Zaleas, they will be perfect.

They will be so beautiful.

They're going to be amazing because Augusta employs about a hundred grounds crew year-round.

Year-round, a hundred people are working on this course.

Now, leading up to the master's, they up that to about 200 grounds crew.

And the weeks leading up to master's, that grounds crew can work 12 to 16 hour days.

During the master's week, they wake up at 3:30 a.m.

to prep that course for us.

See, behind the beauty is tremendous work.

Augusta's beauty is maintained through work.

And we show up to the master's, we show up to work that has already happened.

When we show up to Easter morning, when we show up to our Christian faith on a Tuesday morning or a Friday night, we show up to work that has already happened.

Jesus died on a cross.

Jesus rose again.

That we might have life.

Not in our resume or our reputation, but all the forgiveness we need.

All the righteousness we need, all the worth we need is in Him.

It is the finished work of Jesus for you.

Church, we trust in the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

I close with Revelation 1, 5 and 6.

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, a priest to his God and Father.

To him be glory and dominion forever and ever.

Amen.

Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, we're so thankful that you know us and love us.

You pursue us in our lack of belief and all of our mess of behaviors are digging around under boulders where there's no treasure.

And yet our hearts long for treasure.

We want to be treasured.

We want to be forgiven, whole, content, loved, known, valued.

Help us to find it in you.

Holy Spirit, in these moments, would you find in us the dry places, the dead places, and would you bring new life?

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.