Wonder Week: Easter - Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch Podcast.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at MetaCurch.

And my hope is that today's podcast finds you at the perfect time in your life that God uses it to inspire and enlighten you.

I hope that you enjoy today's message.

Alright, MetaCurch, I want to welcome you to Easter.

If you are joining us for the first time, my name is Clayton.

I have the incredible privilege of being the lead pastor here at Meta.

And if you are a part of MetaCurch, this is obviously probably the strangest Easter that we could imagine.

I I really would have never thought that Easter 2020 I would be preaching to an empty room.

And I mean like really empty.

Like we didn't even put chairs down because there's no point in putting chairs down because there isn't anyone here.

Like we've got some staff, an incredible production team, but everything is digital this year.

And that can be tough.

And I know it's it's disappointing, but we also find hope.

We were actually talking earlier that the only thing stranger than ending up Easter 2020 with an empty room is the very first Easter 2,000 years ago that started with an empty tomb.

And we look to that empty tomb, and that is where we find hope.

And over the last month, preaching to empty rooms, which I feel very unqualified for, uh, it feels very awkward, and yet God has been using it in incredible ways.

And our digital presence has grown significantly.

And the the people that we are beginning to reach are people who, even though we have church service in a saloon, we literally gather on Sundays in a bar, still wouldn't come to a church service, but were spiritually curious enough to watch a stream.

And so my prayer for Easter, not just here at MetaCurch, but churches all over America and the world, who are not able to gather in their locations is that God is going to use this digital wave of hope and inspiration to reach more people than we could have ever imagined.

And if you have stumbled upon this, and maybe you consider yourself a skeptic or an agnostic or an atheist, maybe you have walked away from your faith, maybe you are pissed off at religion because of some baggage that you have from your past, maybe you feel like you have just screwed up too much in your life to be qualified to be a part of a spiritual movement if you're here with us.

I want to challenge you to stay to the end of this message.

I want to talk directly to you, especially the people who don't believe what we believe about Easter.

Today we're looking at an empty tomb and we're looking at an empty room, and we're believing that God is going to use it in incredible ways.

We're coming to the end of a seven-week series that we've been in.

We call it Wonder Week.

We're looking at the seven days leading up to the most important day, the day that changed everything, the day that we call Easter.

And on every day we've seen a different way that Jesus was preparing us to understand the magnitude of Easter and why it actually matters to our life.

Today, it's Easter, and we're gonna see Jesus as Savior.

Before we dive in, would you join me in prayer?

Jesus, we love you.

God, we look to you.

And the world is very dark right now, full of sadness, insecurity, anxiety, uncertainty.

The world just doesn't feel right.

And God, I believe that you have something to say to us about that.

And I believe you have a message of hope, and I believe you're gonna challenge us today.

And so, God, I pray that you would take these words that are echoing right now in front of me into an empty room.

But God, I know that it is now going directly into the houses and the rooms and the apartments and the gatherings of people, and you're gonna use it in incredible ways, and so I ask, Holy Spirit, that you would take these just meager words and use them, God, in ways we could never imagine.

We love you, and we pray all these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

We're gonna be in Matthew chapter 27 today.

Matthew 27 · chapter mention

We're gonna start all the way down in verse 57.

And before we move on to Saturday of Wonder Week, we we've got to double back a little bit to Friday.

We left off on Friday, which is when Jesus stood before Pilate.

They went back and forth.

We saw Jesus as God.

We learned that nobody puts Jesus on a cross, that he was going there of his own free will.

He was making himself the sacrifice, and Pilate gave the order, handed him over to be crucified.

Jesus was beaten mercilessly.

He was nailed to a Roman cross, and that's where he died.

We pick up the story on Friday, verse 57.

It says, when it was evening, a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph came, who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus.

He approached Pilate and he asked for Jesus' body.

And then Pilate ordered that it be released.

And so Joseph took the body, wrapped it in clean, fine linen, and placed it in his new tomb, which had been cut into the rock.

He left after rolling a great stone against the entrance of the tomb.

And a lot of people get the idea that as Jesus was kind of on mission here on earth, that it was really only the people on the fringes of society, those who were poor and the down and out, the marginalized, like those were the ones who really followed after Jesus, but we learn that the people who were joining this new movement that Jesus was starting came from all walks of life.

Joseph of Arimathea was a wealthy man.

He had just finished a brand new tomb.

And these tombs, especially the ones that went in the side of these hills, they were incredibly expensive endeavors.

They were a part of a family's heritage and legacy, and they had room for usually multiple generations of family members who could all be buried together.

This was about the Arimathea name, and now he is placing Jesus, a criminal, who was hung on a tree, a sign of Jewish curse, putting him in the cave, and no one in the Arimathea family would ever be allowed to use it again.

It would now be cursed.

It would be the tomb of a criminal.

This was at great expense and great worship from this man named Joseph.

In the next verse, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were seated there on Friday.

They were facing the tomb.

And they didn't know where else to go.

This was the world at its darkest.

You see, we have this beautiful thing called retrospect, and we know what's coming.

We know that Sunday's coming, and we know that the stone that Joseph just rolled in front of the tomb would be rolled away.

We know an empty tomb is coming, but it's still Friday of Wonder Week, and they have no idea.

All they know is that it's over.

That this is the darkest, most dismal moment of their life.

That the future that they could see so clearly, they were gonna follow Jesus into something extravagant, something significant.

Jesus was gonna be the king of all of Israel and all these people who had given their life to follow him, they're these disciples of Jesus, they were gonna get these significant positions and probably live in the palace and rule with authority and influence.

And it was all gone.

Their future was now uncertain.

And oftentimes, when our future feels so uncertain, what we do is we go back to what is familiar, and the women who follow Jesus showed radically more faith than the men.

The men had already retreated back into their other lives.

We know when Jesus was arrested on Thursday, the disciples, even those closest to Jesus, they all fled.

They all ran away.

No one was to be found at the crucifixion, and now, as their savior, their rabbi, the prophet king, Jesus was being put in a tomb.

None of the men were anywhere to be found.

Some of the disciples were fishermen.

They went back to the boats.

See, when our future is uncertain, we try to find hope in what is familiar.

It got worse.

In verse 62, it says, the next day, which followed preparation day, the chief priests and Pharisees gathered before Pilate.

It's Friday, and the next day at sundown, they they bury Jesus.

The next day is the Jewish Shabbat, the Sabbath.

And the Jewish law is incredibly stringent.

All these Jewish followers of Jesus, they have to follow the Sabbath law.

No work is to be done.

You're really not supposed to even leave your home.

Everything is lined out for you.

How many steps you're allowed to take?

You're only able to lift things that are under a certain weight.

No work is done on the Sabbath.

It's a day of rest.

And what a terrible predicament, the day after your leader dies, the day after your future dies, the day after hope dies, and you can do nothing about it.

You can't even step out of your house.

It sounds a little bit like quarantine.

It sounds a little bit like we are set up today to understand Saturday of Wonder Week at a deeper, more meaningful level than perhaps any other Easter we have ever experienced before.

Have we ever been at a time in most of our lives where our future was more uncertain than it is right now?

Where the world felt more distressed and dark.

See what happens when we're uncertain about our future is we become filled with anxiety, and when we're anxious about our future, a lot of times we give up on the huge hope of what our future was going to be, and we look to find hope in what was familiar.

The men who were fishermen, they went back to their boats.

The disciples, they thought Jesus is dead.

It's all over.

They went back to their boats.

They started casting the nets.

They didn't know what to do.

Their future was no longer an option.

They went back to what is familiar.

And we're like a month into quarantine.

And we just don't know.

We don't know how long this is gonna last.

We don't know how many people will die.

We don't know when jobs are coming back.

We don't know when the economy will rebound.

We just don't know.

And with an uncertain future, even today, many people are reverting back to trying to find hope in what is familiar.

And some of you were on really good tracks in your marriage, and your marriage hasn't always been great, but you could finally see a future where you actually coexist and you're healthy and powerful and love each other again, and now you're quarantined and you don't know what's coming in the future, and you don't know if you're gonna get to keep your job, and so the future is so murky that you go back to what is familiar, and all of a sudden you're fighting now even more than you ever have before, and you're cooped up in the same house.

And some of you have been sober now for a few months, a few years.

You could see a bright future ahead of yourself now that you've kicked an addiction.

And you're sheltering at home, and you've got the itch to go back to what is familiar.

You don't know about the future, you don't know when you get to go back out.

Maybe you've lost a job, maybe you've lost health, maybe you've lost a loved one.

When we can't see the future, we go back to what is familiar, and maybe, maybe, you know, I don't know what's coming, but I know drinking makes me feel better.

I don't know what's coming, but I know drugs makes me feel better.

And so it's like this tension.

And the real question for today is where do we find hope when the world just isn't right?

It was Friday night, Jesus was dead.

They watched him be put in the tomb.

The world wasn't right, everything had changed.

What do we keep hearing over and over again in 2020?

Everything has changed.

We don't know if there will be a normal that we go back to.

Where do we find hope?

I want to move into Saturday of Wonder Week.

We're gonna spend most of our time there today in verse 62.

The next day, which followed the preparation day, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate.

And if you'll notice, the chief priests, the Pharisees, the religious leaders who were responsible for the death of Jesus, even though they are the keepers of the law, they are the one group who is not even following the Sabbath law, gathering together before the Roman leader Pilate.

In verse 63, they said to Pilate, Sir, we remember that while this deceiver, Jesus, was still alive, he said, After three days I will rise again.

So give orders that the tomb be made secure until the third day.

Otherwise, his disciples may come, steal him, and tell the people he's been raised from the dead.

And the last deception will be worse than the first.

And there are many things that are strange about this.

Number one, there was a dark secret lurking among the religious leaders, and that's that many of them began to believe that Jesus was actually capable of the miracles that everyone was reporting.

Some of these religious leaders had seen the blind beggar that they passed every single day outside of the temple, and now he can see.

And some of them watched as a man with a crippled hand found new life and healing.

Some of these religious leaders were there when someone who was cast out as a leper in incurable disease came back and showed himself to the priest and was healed by Jesus.

And to save face, they gotta come up with a better excuse than we think he might actually come back from the dead.

Because if they admitted they thought he might actually come back from the dead, then why did they kill him in the first place?

So they say, listen, we gotta really guard it.

I know there's like a big rock, but we gotta get some guards out there.

We gotta put a whole troop in front.

Because what if they come and steal it?

Now, this is so strange to me because this does not feel like a well-thought-out excuse.

Like, what if they stole it?

Hey guys, uh, Jesus is alive.

Awesome, can we see him?

No, he's sleeping forever.

Like, no, no, let's just, let's just, what was the plan after they stole?

Were we gonna like weekend at Bernie's Jesus and put some strings and some sunglasses?

Like, this can't go on forever, but they have to have an excuse.

Anything that they have to do to keep Jesus in the tomb.

And Pilate's done with it.

We saw last week.

Pilate is so tired of the back and forth.

In verse 65, Pilate says, You have a guard of soldiers.

Go and make it as secure as you know how.

Whatever you have to do, whatever energy you have to spend, whatever experience you have to rely on, here are some soldiers.

You go, you go to the tomb, and you make it as secure as you know how for as long as you need to.

And now, whatever glimmer of hope there was seems to be gone.

It's Saturday, and Jesus is dead.

His disciples have dispersed.

And the tomb is not only guarded by a large stone, but now it is guarded by actual Roman soldiers.

The question is, what do we believe in when times are hard?

You know, some of us turn to ourselves, our own skills, our own power, our own ingenuity.

Some of us look to science.

What are so many people looking to right now?

So many people are actually believing in and putting their hope in politicians and government systems.

The question is, what should we believe in?

When the world is so uncertain and the future seems so scary, what should we believe in?

And the answer all hinges on Easter.

It all goes back to whether or not there really was an empty tomb.

If Jesus never left the grave, if it really is all just a fairy tale to make all of us feel better about dying someday, then you are correct to put all of your energy into finding something in this world that will give you a little bit of hope, a little bit of temporary relief.

Listen, if Jesus never rose, then you're right to just drink away some of your fears.

You know it will work at least temporarily, then you're right to go back to the drugs that you know will at least for a moment make you forget about all of the anxiety that is sitting on your shoulders.

If Jesus never came back to life, then you're right to just keep hooking up with as many people as you can, just trying to find some semblance of value and worth out of all the different people that you sleep with.

If Jesus never rose again, then the only possible hope can come from the familiar things that the world has to offer us.

And so maybe you're there, and maybe you're not sure what you believe about Easter and Jesus and resurrection.

But here's the truth, and we can't miss this.

If Jesus is alive, it changes everything.

Saturday of Easter is this very just sharp reminder that death is coming.

We saw over the last couple of weeks that Jesus was all human, but he was also all God.

And even as God in human flesh, he tasted death momentarily.

Death is the one absolute.

It's the one thing that every person holds in common: the rich, the poor, the black, the white, all continents, all people, all races, all gender, all ages, everyone eventually dies.

And this reality of death brings some very critical questions into focus.

Questions like, who do I really want to become during my time here on earth?

What really matters in the day-to-day operations of my life?

What kind of legacy do I want?

And all of those questions pale in comparison to the most critical question that we all have to wrestle with, which is what comes after this life?

And maybe you disagree, maybe you don't see that as the most critical question.

But if we are honest, all of the other questions we have to answer in life come out of this one answer to what comes after?

If the end of this life is just it, it's just darkness, it's just death, it's just burial, it's termination, then hope looks different and life looks different, and and and quality looks different.

If there is no hope, if Jesus never rose, by definition, there's no hope for relationships, no hope for addiction, no hope for peace in this time of quarantine.

And of course, I'm biased.

As a pastor, I have a real vested interest in you believing in Jesus.

I actually think it matters.

I think your eternity hinges on it.

But this is just not something that comes out of my mind or out of some triad manipulation.

Atheism is sweeping the country.

In fact, it continues to grow and grow every year.

Statistically, more and more people are catching on to what they're calling new atheism, which there's really nothing new about it except it's just new people who are grabbing on to it.

A famous atheist philosopher named Alex Rosenberg, he published a list of atheism's frequently asked questions.

He just wanted to know.

Like, I get these all the time, so let me just list them out for you guys so we can we can get the the big pieces of atheism out of the way.

I want you to hear some of these questions and some of Mr.

Rosenberg's answers.

The first one is where you have to start.

He asks, Is there a God?

And the answer very simply is no.

And this is the starting place.

And I want you to see how out of this philosophy where there is no God, which means there is no Jesus, no resurrection, no empty tomb, I want you to see the outpouring of the rest of the questions.

Is there a God?

The answer is no.

Frequently asked questions, what is the purpose of the universe?

The answer, there is no purpose.

Question, what is the meaning of life?

There is no inherent meaning.

Question, why am I here?

Rosenberg's answer, it's just dumb luck.

Question, does prayer work?

Rosenberg sarcastically says, of course not.

Is there a soul?

Are you kidding me?

He rhetorically asks back.

Question, is there free will?

Answer, not a chance.

There's more, but we have to stop here because free will is the foundation and the bedrock of morality.

If we don't have free will, we don't have free choice.

And if we can't make our own choices, there is no way to hold someone morally accountable.

And so if someone comes up and stabs you in the chest, it just means they were pre-programmed to do that.

This cluster of cells that is walking around has been biologically predetermined to do that, and there's no way we can put them in jail.

There's no way you can so there's no way you can even be mad because there's no free will.

And of course, if there is no God, where would we get free will from?

Question What is love and how can I find it?

Rosenberg says love is the solution to a strict.

Strategic interaction problem.

Nothing more than the solution to a cultural relational problem.

And the marriage that you enjoy and the parent-child relationship and you watching your parents grow older and spending time with them.

All love is a solution to a relational problem when you take God out of the mix.

The last question: what happens when we die?

Rosenberg answers.

Everything pretty much goes on as before.

Just not.

You.

What should we believe in?

What comes after this life?

This is an unbelievably tragic assessment of life, of the world, of the human experience.

But this is the logical, honest conclusion of a worldview that takes God out of the equation.

You know, I happen to believe there's all kinds of proof for God.

I actually believe that facts back up our faith.

And I'm so tired of people who don't believe, saying they're so tired of people who have faith because an atheist has just as much, if not more, faith, that there isn't a God than someone who believes in Jesus has faith that there is.

Perhaps the greatest facts that we have is the person of Jesus, a historically recorded person coming to earth, claiming he was God, claiming he would die and come back to life three days later, and then pulling it off.

And if it didn't happen, then there's no God.

And if there's no God, there's no point.

There's no purpose.

There's no love.

There's no meaning at all.

But if it did, it changes everything.

As I was preparing this message, one sentence of these scriptures just flew off the page at me.

We've already read it.

In verse 65, Pilate says to the religious leaders who had Jesus killed, he said, You have a guard of soldiers, and here's the sentence.

Go and make it as secure, as secure as you know how.

Like with all of your might, all of your ingenuity and effort, all of your experience, give maximum energy to making sure that Jesus stays inside the tomb.

The Jewish leaders made it as secure as they knew how to keep Jesus inside the tomb.

And immediately it hit me.

We are doing the same thing today.

We are making our hearts and our lives as secure as we know how to keep Jesus out of our lives.

Millions upon millions of people have heard the good news of Jesus and rejected it.

Not based on its merits, not based on a real, unbiased investigation of the claims.

Millions of people have rejected Jesus.

Not because they just don't believe, but because they don't want to believe.

So many people have chosen, not that they don't believe, but if they're honest, that they don't want to believe, and so you lock it down and you cut yourself off from any temptation to believe, or that maybe that it could be true that perhaps someone did love you so much that an eternal being stepped out of perfection, down into a broken world, lived in poverty, was rejected and despised by his own people, beaten and nailed to the cross that we deserve, and that he would do it all for you.

And so we guard ourselves.

And we watch enough Christopher Hitchin YouTube that we can put this little facade of science around us and we get enough little atheist one-liners so that we can keep our overly religious family at bay, and that's what we're gonna trust in.

Look at all of the science, and we are neglecting the fact that without an uncaused cause that we call God, the very basic of reason and logic does not exist to be able to even do science.

And we we dig into Richard Dawkins and we we fill ourselves up with just one side of the argument, never stopping to think about how much Richard Dawkins absolutely thoroughly hates a God that he claims he doesn't believe in.

You know who I don't waste my time hating?

People who don't exist.

I don't hate Mickey Mouse, I don't hate the Little Mermaid.

You know why?

Because they're not real.

And yet, so many atheists are not just putting their faith in the fact that there is not a God, they hope that there is not God.

It's not that they don't believe, they don't want to believe.

And if that's where you're at, with all the love in my heart, I want to tell you that is not good enough.

And maybe you've really done the research and you've looked at both sides, and you are historically, biologically, philosophically, theologically, you are convinced in every aspect of human experience against the fact that there could really be a God who really came to earth, who really paid the price of your sin, who really created a way for you to have life after life.

But my guess is most people, it's not that we don't believe, it's that we don't want to believe.

And if you're right, then you're right.

And we all end up in a grave.

But if you're wrong, if Jesus really did come back to life, if there really is an empty tomb, it changes everything.

Matthew isn't done at chapter 27.

Chapter 28 starts this way: After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, they went to view the tomb, and there was a violent earthquake because an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and approached the tomb.

He rolled back the stone and was sitting on it.

His appearance was like lightning and his clothing as white as snow, and the guards were so shaken by fear that they became like dead men.

And the angel told the women, Do not be afraid.

I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified, but Jesus is not here.

For he has risen just as he said.

And if you are watching this and you don't believe in Jesus and you're not sure about God, it's like, what is this?

What is this guy sweating and screaming and spitting in a room that is completely empty right now?

We proclaim in an empty room because of the hope of an empty tomb.

We believe that Jesus is real, we believe that he died for us, we believe that he loves you, he sees you right where you are, and he knows how screwed up you are, and he knows how jacked up I am, and he's made a way for us anyway.

And man, the world is crazy right now, and the future is uncertain, and if there is not hope outside of the familiar, if there is not hope for your future, then what we are in right now will destroy us.

But if it's real, if there's an empty tomb, if there's a God who loves you and proved it on a cross, then there exists something that is greater, that is bigger, that has already defeated death itself.

The reality is we all die.

The question is, are you ready?

Have you truly wrestled through what comes after this life?

Have you truly made up your mind?

Have you been living, making your heart as secure as you know how?

They did it to keep Jesus in the tomb.

You might be doing it to keep him out of your life.

You know, it's interesting that the very measures they took to keep Jesus in, the stone, the guards, are actually some of our greatest proof that he resurrected.

The stone did roll away, the guards were no use.

Perhaps the same thing is true of you.

Perhaps all the measures that you're taking to keep Jesus out of your life are the very evidence that Jesus is real and wants out into your life.

We normally don't guard against things that aren't real.

Would you consider that Jesus is calling you today?

That the same Jesus who defeated death by coming out of a tomb is ready to conquer death in your life as well.

Death is the one reality that we all have to face.

And right where you are, and I know there is a screen between us right now, but I want you to consider that God is everywhere.

And maybe you're watching this and you've been running from God and you've been rejecting Jesus.

And if you're honest and you step up to the challenge, it's not just that you don't believe, you don't want to believe.

Maybe today, even though you've made your heart as secure as you know how, you feel like it's beginning to budge, you feel like your heart is beating out of your chest.

The Spirit of God is working on you.

Your Heavenly Father wants you, loves you, sees you, has a purpose for you.

If Jesus really did come out of the grave, it means that you have a life to live, that it matters that you're here on earth, that you have a purpose you were created for.

Some of you have locked yourself up because the only thing scarier for you than not having any meaning in your life is that you might actually have real purpose, that it might actually matter that you are placed on earth.

What might be scaring you is that you are infinitely more powerful, precious, and purposeful than you ever thought that you could be.

Maybe today you're ready to open up your heart to choose hope.

Hope in the midst of the darkness.

Hope with an uncertain future.

If you're ready, I want you to acknowledge your belief in Jesus, and you can do that with a simple prayer, just like this.

You can say it out loud, right where you're at, looking at your phone, looking at your computer.

You can say it in your mind where God can actually hear your thoughts.

Say something like this.

Jesus, today I choose to believe in you.

I know that I have gone a long time not wanting to believe.

But today I choose hope.

I believe you died for me.

I believe you rose again.

I thank you for a new eternal life.

I want to pray over all of us real quick.

Jesus, we give you this, and we give you the strangest Easter any of us have ever experienced.

But God, it all started in the strangest way imaginable: an empty tomb, a resurrection.

They said it was impossible, but you came and defeated death itself, and we stand on that hope, believing that this message will go forth and touch the lives of people who we never would have been able to touch if we had the opportunity to gather in these venues today.

You are that good.

We love you, we choose you, we choose hope.

We pray it all in the powerful name of Jesus.

Amen.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

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Man, I love you guys and I hope you have a great rest of your day.