Transcript
Speaker: The following podcast is a Jill dev Divine Media production.
Speaker: Welcome back to Normal Goes a Long Way. I'm your host, Jill Devine, and let's get into it. Let's get back into our sermon series based on the story. We are in the the Easter season today, so with some of the music and some of the liturgy that we've had, and and that's the idea is that, now really in the church though, ah Martin Luther said this and others have practiced it as well, every Sunday is supposed to be a little Easter in the church.
Speaker: you You always focus on the death and the resurrection of Christ. That's why we come to church, because that's the message that makes us Christians. That's the message that saves us.
Speaker: ah So chapter 27, the story goes through the story of the resurrection. And what I want to do this morning is walk through five scenes that are at the end of the gospel.
Speaker: The garden. The road to Emmaus, the upper room, the Sea of Galilee, and the Mount of Olives. First, the garden. So on Friday, ah Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus had prepared Jesus' body and buried him in a tomb.
Speaker: And of course, these were ah religious elites. These were Jewish leaders. ah But in secret, they were really following Jesus at this point. They had so much come to love Jesus and respect Jesus and believe in Jesus ah that they made an effort to do this. Joseph of Arimathea actually put up his own family tomb.
Speaker: so that Jesus would have a place to be buried. And on Sunday, so on the third day, three days, ah three followers of Jesus who were all women, ah they go to the tomb to make sure that the men did it right.
Speaker: That's why I think they went. i mean, the men prepared the body already, but I think they went to the tomb to make sure they did it right. And all of these women, all three of them are named Mary. Mary Magdalene, the woman that Jesus freed from demonic possession,
Speaker: Mary Salome, who was the wife of Zebedee and the mother of James and John, and Mary, wife of Cleopas. Cleopas, by the way, was Joseph's brother.
Speaker: So that makes this Mary Jesus's aunt. And when they arrive, the stone is rolled away and Jesus is gone. And they go tell the disciples and Peter and John rush to the tomb, but all they see are burial cloths.
Speaker: Mary Magdalene returns and she sees angels sitting at the head and the foot of where Jesus' body had been. And then she talks to a gardener who turns out to be Jesus because he's risen from the dead.
Speaker: Now this, that Sunday, is the most important day in history. This is the most important story in the Bible Everything else in the Bible hinges on this one event.
Speaker: The Bible exists because of the resurrection, not the other way around. The Bible came to exist because Jesus rose from the tomb.
Speaker: And if Jesus did not rise from the dead, there would be no the Bible. There would just be an Hebrew Bible, an Old Testament. Because the rest of the stories probably, maybe some of those stories would have been shared.
Speaker: i mean, there's some pretty amazing stories that happened in the New Testament, things that Jesus did. Maybe these stories would have been told like folk tales and maybe thousands would have heard of them or maybe more, but there's no way that billions of people would follow Jesus as their savior and that billions of copies of the Bible would be printed unless Easter happened.
Speaker: You only have to believe in two miracles to be a Christian, creation and resurrection. Those the only two required, that you believe that there is a God who created you and that that God came to redeem you.
Speaker: You only have to believe in two miracles. Now, of course, if you believe in those two miracles, then it's not far-fetched to believe that maybe Jonah wasn't a whale or that Moses parted a sea.
Speaker: Or that Jesus also raised Lazarus back to life. Or even that Peter healed a paralytic. See, the resurrection of Jesus is not a Bible story.
Speaker: It is the story. And it's the reason that we have a New Testament Bible. It's the story that launched the movement that got people telling others about Jesus and eventually writing down the Gospels.
Speaker: According to the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, he tells us that more than 500 people saw Jesus alive after he was crucified.
Speaker: He also said that most of those people were still alive.
Speaker: So this is when he's writing the later the letter. i mean, this is 20 years later or 30 years later. Most of those people are still alive, he says, Do you think I'm lying? Well, then you guys go interview them.
Speaker: go ask them. you You don't believe me that that Jesus appeared to me and that he really is risen? Then go interview them. Go interrogate them. They're still here See, Easter resolves the most important question that faces humanity.
Speaker: What does think of What God think of What does God think of me? And where do I stand before God, right?
Speaker: um What happens to me when I die? I mean, that's maybe the most basic question. What happens when I die? The answer, well, it's the answer Jesus gave Nicodemus. God so loves you that he sent his son to die in your place and then to rise from the dead so you will also rise from the dead.
Speaker: Easter is the answer. Now the next scene, scene number two, has two of Jesus' disciples walking the road to Emmaus. And I have a picture of it today. You can actually hike there today. Maybe I left that picture out of the slides, actually. That's okay. um But Jesus shows up, and he hikes with them, and they talk about the mystery of the empty tomb for seven miles.
Speaker: For seven miles. Imagine a walk that took them two and a half, three hours or so. And the whole time they don't recognize Jesus. The Gospel Luke names one of them, Cleopas, who is the husband of Mary, who's Jesus' aunt, who was at his tomb.
Speaker: so again, this is Joseph's brother. This is Jesus' uncle, walks with him for three hours and doesn't recognize him. Now, the other disciple is not named, but some have speculated that it could have been his wife, Mary, or perhaps it was the gospel writer, Luke himself, who's retelling this story.
Speaker: ah We're not sure. Well, they walked and they talked with him for hours and didn't recognize him until they reached the house and Jesus was invited in and at their table and he broke bread and blessed it for them.
Speaker: which is to say the Eucharist opened their eyes. Communion opened their hearts, opened their eyes so they could see Jesus again. Now the next scene is in the upper room.
Speaker: The disciples are back in place where they had celebrated the Passover, the first Eucharist, communion, with Jesus, the place where he had washed their feet before his crucifixion.
Speaker: And this is what it says in John chapter 20. On the evening of the first day of the week, when the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them.
Speaker: See, it's still Easter day. It's the evening of the most important day in history of the world. And Jesus will stay for a total of 40 days. 40 days. Well, why 40? 40 days.
Speaker: Well, I talked about this last week about the number 30. Well, 40 is also a very important number in the Bible. i Think about the story of Noah. It rained for 40 days and 40 nights.
Speaker: Moses spent 40 years as Egyptian royalty. 40 years as a shepherd and Midian, and then his last 40 years leading the people out of slavery to the promised land, out of Egypt and into the promised land.
Speaker: He also spent 40 days on Mount Sinai where he received the Ten Commandments, where he brought them down to the people. He was there for 40 days. Goliath, the giant, taunted the Israelites for 40 days until David finally went out there and dropped them cold.
Speaker: Before taking Canaan, Moses sent 12 spies to scout it out for 40 days. Strengthened by food from and from ah from an angel, Elijah traveled for 40 days and nights to Mount Sinai.
Speaker: Nineveh, in the story of Jonah, Nineveh fasted for 40 days and 40 nights after Jonah reluctantly prophesied to them, warning them that God was coming and wrath was coming with him.
Speaker: Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights before his temptation with the devil. And in the Bible, it's like the number 40 is a time of preparation before God fulfills his promises.
Speaker: Good promises or bad promises, God gives you 40 days to prepare before the thing happens. Now, notice that phrase that was in John 20.
Speaker: It says, the doors were locked.
Speaker: And this is the thing that really scares me about Christians a lot of times. And it started at the beginning with the apostle. And by the word by the way, the word apostle means sent one.
Speaker: Sent one. Locked doors keep the faith inside. I'm sure they were scared. I'm sure they had reason to be scared of the authorities. I'm sure.
Speaker: but They're not supposed to lock their faith inside. And fear does that. Fear restrains all kinds of all kinds of things in life, all kinds of things. Fear gets in the way. Now, I'm not saying all fear is bad.
Speaker: Fear in the right circumstances ah can help can help someone lift a car off a kid. It happens. a Fear when a bear is chasing you is a really good thing.
Speaker: You'll go faster, I hope. But what happens when fear paralyzes you in your normal life or in your faith? Which I would argue, it happens to us too much of the time.
Speaker: And it's happening here with the disciples. They're paralyzed in place. Fear won't allow you to trust anybody. And and let me tell you something. If you won't trust anyone...
Speaker: You will never have a meaningful relationship in your life. If you're single, you have to learn to trust people. Not all people. They're not all trustworthy. Even if you're married right now, if you want to build your relationship, you need to start with your trust of your spouse.
Speaker: And likewise, trust builds relationships. Relationships require trust. 1 John chapter 4 says, there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.
Speaker: Translate perfect love as godly love, God's love, the kind of love that we're trying to have as followers of Christ. We're trying to have that perfect love, that godly love.
Speaker: See, it's one thing to believe in the Bible. It's quite another to trust it, to trust it. Well, listen to what it's saying to you. There is no fear in love.
Speaker: Jesus would have you cast out your fear. John chapter 20, it continues. Jesus said, peace be with you.
Speaker: And after he said this, he showed them his hands and sighed. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. And again, Jesus said, peace be with you. Jesus says peace twice.
Speaker: When Jesus says something twice, we have to pay attention. We have to underline it. Peace is a really big word in Judaism. Really big word. ah Their word for peace is the word shalom. It is a greeting.
Speaker: it is something that you say when you say goodbye. You're offering peace, godly peace. Shalom is what we had in the garden before the before the fall. a type of serenity.
Speaker: See, it's way bigger than like hippie peace. Shalom is much more like harmony. Everything's in harmony. Peace is not a lack of war to the Jewish people. Peace is not just a lack of war.
Speaker: Peace is humanity in harmony with one another.
Speaker: Peace is what we lost in the fall. We lost peace with God. We lost peace with each other. We lost peace with the creation, with nature.
Speaker: We lost peace with ourselves. When Christians share the peace with each other, we did this in the church I grew up in. ah Sometime in the middle of the service, the pastor would say, right, everybody stand up and share the peace with each other, and then you'd all get germs on your hands.
Speaker: um It was like, it was one thing to say that God blesses you or the pastor blesses you, but let's bless each other. That was the point.
Speaker: to bless each other. What we're doing when we do something like that, in any way, mean, whether it's getting a cup of coffee and getting to know somebody better, like, you know, in the commons or praying with another Christian here at Messiah when you do that, um I think something subversive is happening.
Speaker: Something subversive is happening. We are putting aside politics and race and class, and all the other junk that the world tells us is so important to focus on.
Speaker: And we see the heart of another person. Not their color, not their car, not their job title. None of that other junk matters.
Speaker: We're doing something subversive. We're seeing at the heart of somebody the way that God sees people. And we're entering... At least we're trying to enter into a state of harmony.
Speaker: And if we're doing this right, by the way, we are celebrating as if we are in heaven. That's why the the Lord's table is called a foretaste of the feast to come.
Speaker: foretaste. When we come to the table, we're saying, you know what? One day i will sit at the table of God and I'm doing it now for a couple seconds. I'm doing it now because God is real and he's going to claim me and he's my father.
Speaker: He's my protector. He's my savior.
Speaker: We're celebrating that phrase we say in the Lord's prayer. Thy will be done on earth as I know it is in heaven. Peace is a picture of a world without sin, without war, without disease. It's a picture of the Garden of Eden before the fall.
Speaker: And fear is the thing that's getting in the way. It's disrupting that peace from coming. And so Jesus is here, and he's giving it back to the disciples. The fact that he goes to the upper room to confront them right away ah so important.
Speaker: Then in John chapter 20, his story continues. Jesus says, as the Father has sent me, i am sending you. and with that, he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit.
Speaker: This is the first Pentecost. They have received the Holy Spirit before anybody else can. See, the rest of the followers, they're going to receive the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 2.
Speaker: But the disciples, they need it right now. Acts 2 is a Pentecost for the nations. John 20 is the Pentecost that drives fear out of the disciples.
Speaker: Messiah
Speaker: This is a really important point here. We have to catch the the spirit first. If we want anybody to hear any good or gospel out of us, we have to catch the spirit first if we're gonna share it with anybody else.
Speaker: And I think too many churches, Lutheran churches, I'll pick on my own church body, Too many churches, Lutheran churches too, have metaphorical locks on their doors, on their churches.
Speaker: They're huddled in there and they're protecting themselves from the world.
Speaker: it's Fear has paralyzed them.
Speaker: And I think it's about time that we went on the off offensive with love, but on the offensive and not no longer fear the world.
Speaker: Jesus breathes on them to reenact the garden. Adam came alive because of the breath of God. the church comes alive when we inhale the spirit of God. And a spirit-filled church is one where found people find people and save people serve people. But to do that, you actually really have to love people.
Speaker: People that are different from you. You have to care about people and you have to care about where they're going to spend eternity. For the church to really be able to fulfill its mission.
Speaker: And that's the kind of church that God is making us into.
Speaker: Because if there's one thing about me, you got to know. I want hell to be empty. I want it to be empty. I want the devil to be lonely down there.
Speaker: And that's why Jesus is in the upper room and he's telling the boys to go outside. By the way, Jesus goes back a week later and guess what? They're still in the upper room and the doors are still locked.
Speaker: And Jesus goes back, not just to wake them up again and get them to unlock the doors and go outside. He goes there because now Thomas is with them and he knows Thomas is doubting. he's like, all right, touch the wounds.
Speaker: Touch my side. And he goes there to remind the disciples, come on, guys, stop locking yourself in. The gospel's got to get let out.
Speaker: Now, the next scene is by the Sea of Galilee. Peter is back on his fishing boat, and he's practicing his old profession. The new gig didn't work out. He's going he's going back to the old gig.
Speaker: He's back where where he was when Jesus called him, by the way. And once again, just like when Jesus called them that first time, Peter can't catch any fish.
Speaker: There's a man on the beach who tells him throw his net on the other side of the boat. And when he does, the nets are so full, they they can't really drag them into the boat. They kind of have to like steer them, drag them behind the boat up to the shore.
Speaker: And when they get to the shore, they realize it's Jesus again. He's seen them twice in the upper room and now He's with them at the Sea of Galilee. And interestingly, it says they caught 153 large fish.
Speaker: and And I kind of wondered, like, why did John count them for us? I mean, i I think a lot of times when they report a number, there's maybe something behind that. Because otherwise you just say more fish than they ever caught or a ton of fish or the nets were, you know, bursting at the seams or you would you would say something else.
Speaker: But like John took the time to count them. So what's the significance? Some speculate that John is recalling a prophecy from Ezekiel chapter 47, where the prophet gives us a picture of heaven, where the river of life will give life to every species of fish.
Speaker: And if you add up the numerical values of the Hebrew letters of the Eneglem, which is mentioned in Ezekiel, you get the number 153.
Speaker: And that's one of the places where fishermen are casting their nets in Ezekiel, in Eglin. Here's another speculation. ah John is writing his gospel from Ephesus, and he's pastoring Greek people.
Speaker: And to them, the number 153 was very important.
Speaker: It was the number that the great mathematician Archimedes is used in his measurement of a circle. It was key to discovering the value of Pi. The number 153 is associated with the geometric shape known as the visia pisces, literally the bladder of a fish.
Speaker: You've probably often heard that the early Christian symbol was the sign of the fish, right? It's from that mathematical equation. Archimedes referred to the ratio 153 265 as the measure, called it, the measure fish.
Speaker: as the measure he called it the measure of a fit You form this image by overlapping two circles, partly, and that image that's in between where they overlap.
Speaker: And that's how the early, again, the early Christian symbol of a Christian, what we call the ichthus, that means the fish, the fish. Now, some church historians think they've argued that 153 is the sum of the first 17 integers, and somehow the number 17 is significant.
Speaker: um I haven't found anybody that really knows, though. Just interesting that John takes the time to count them and then to report it to us out of all the details to point out.
Speaker: Now, when they get to shore, Jesus is cooking fish and bread over a charcoal fire. And there's only one other time the word charcoal fire is used in the Bible. We hear about charcoals themselves, like in the book of Isaiah and otherwise, but only one other time we hear a charcoal fire.
Speaker: And it's when Jesus was arrested.
Speaker: Jesus is arrested and Peter is warming himself by a charcoal fire. It's there that he denies knowing Jesus three times, and it's there that the rooster crows, and it's there where Peter, quote unquote, wept bitterly. Like, we don't have a word for the way he wailed.
Speaker: And maybe that's why Peter was back on his boat that day trying to fish. He had a shot to be a disciple. He was a simple guy that got a big shot.
Speaker: To follow the rabbi that, of course, anybody would have wanted to follow.
Speaker: And he blew a shot. He failed him when he needed him most. Surely he was unfit for service. So Peter's back doing the thing that's familiar. And it was here that he was called away from fishing to be a fisher of men. And now Jesus is reinstating him to follow him again.
Speaker: Three affirmations. that canceled the three denials. Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. Then feed my lambs.
Speaker: And again, Jesus said, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. Then take care of my sheep. A third time he asked him, Simon, son of John, do you love me? And Peter was hurt that he asked him a third time, do you love me?
Speaker: But of course he had to ask him three times. Three affirmations to cancel, three denials. And then he tells him again, feed my sheep.
Speaker: And then Jesus told him the kind of death that Peter would suffer. When you are old, he says, you will stretch out your hands. What do we know from history? Well, we know that Peter was crucified, supposedly upside down.
Speaker: He didn't want to die. he did he was he was not worthy to die the death that Jesus did. But crucifixion is the worst death the worst death the Romans had. So they agreed to crucify him upside down.
Speaker: you know me? Do you know me? Do you know him? Three times, no, no, no. Then Jesus asked him, do you love me?
Speaker: Do you love me? Do you love me? Yes, he does. One other detail, I i find this interesting. He asks him, do you love me more than these?
Speaker: Than these. He doesn't say, do you love me more than them, like the other disciples. He says, do you love me more than these? Well, what these is he talking about?
Speaker: I think it's the fish.
Speaker: Peter's back doing his own job, his old job. He's back doing human work. when you do human work and you earn income from your human work, you start to trust in your human work.
Speaker: and Jesus wants to give them heavenly work. He has to do his calling. Do you love me more than these things that you used to put your trust in? Peter, I know this is how you fed your wife and your family.
Speaker: By the way, did you know Peter had a wife? He had a wife. ah Jesus actually healed ah Peter's wife's mother, Peter's mother-in-law. It's in the Bible.
Speaker: Fish was Peter's money. Fish was his 401k. Jesus is calling Peter to love and trust him more than these things of this world.
Speaker: And Peter did. and he helped change the world. He's the guy that got to preach at the other Pentecost in Acts chapter 2. And he and the disciples, they got to baptize thousands that day.
Speaker: And that was just on day one of the church. On the first day ever that there was church, they baptized thousands.
Speaker: So just imagine how many lives that Peter got to impact from that day till the time the Romans finally got him.
Speaker: The last story from the resurrection is on his 40th day. And he takes his disciples back to the Mount of Olives, close to Bethany. And this is the same place where Jesus prayed while his disciples slept, before he was arrested, before his crucifixion. That's where Judas betrayed him.
Speaker: He's back at the Mount of Olives. And now it's their last, it's the last place he was before his ascension into heaven. And you can go to ah Israel even at this time, and you can go see the Mount of Olives, the last place that Jesus was here on earth. And it's here that he gives his disciples, um i like to call them marching orders.
Speaker: Matthew 28, he says, go and make disciples of all nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit and teach them to obey everything I have commanded you.
Speaker: See, it's go and make versus stay and lock. These are the two types of churches, the two types of Christians we have in the world. Go and make Christians or stay and lock Christians.
Speaker: The disciples spent a week hiding in the upper room with the door locked, and Jesus had to remind them of their marching orders twice before they finally left. They stayed and locked.
Speaker: But the command is to go and to make Christians. Now, I know when I mention evangelism, your stomach probably churns right now. Feels icky to try to like stick your opinion on someone else's beliefs.
Speaker: Here's my opinion, though. The best evangelists are not the attention getters. They are the attention givers. The best evangelists pay attention to what God is up to in the world.
Speaker: they ah They pay attention to like what's going on in someone else's life. They look at how the Spirit is already working in that person's life. And if you're going to read the sign of the Spirit's work in someone's life, you have to accept some principles.
Speaker: My mentor, these are some of the principles that but he gave for proper evangelism. Number one, you have to believe, and I believe, that human beings are created in the image of God.
Speaker: So there's some good raw material there that's been corrupted by sin. But human beings are created in the image of God. Number two, that God is already present in that person's life in the form of some kind of burning bush.
Speaker: Like they might not believe in God, they might not have faith, but that does not mean that the Spirit's not tapping at the door but that things aren't happening. Number three, the best things about that person are blessings from God, and you can celebrate those.
Speaker: But number four, the worst things about that person are areas for God's redemption. You have to accept that as well, that people need redeeming, that things are not okay, that we need a Savior.
Speaker: And number five, we have to accept that people are hungry for encouragement and love, and they need help noticing the presence of the divine in their lives.
Speaker: You're not preaching at anybody. You're just helping them sniff out where God's already at work. So don't assume you're ever at square one with anybody.
Speaker: Assume that God's been working on him the whole time. You just gotta find out how the Spirit's been working on them. In Matthew chapter nine, he says to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.
Speaker: Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.
Speaker: It might seem weird to say that America is a plentiful harvest field, but it is. You might think lots of people are are turning their heads away from God, but it doesn't have to be that way.
Speaker: The front door of our church cannot be the front door of this building because lost people don't go to church. And God never told lost people to go to church. He never told lost people to go to church.
Speaker: He told the church to go find the lost.
Speaker: This is not a bunch of numbers. People you care about don't know where they're gonna spend eternity. People you care about don't know Christ. And yet, Jesus says, the harvest is plentiful.
Speaker: So what's our goal at Messiah? What do we need to be doing? I think i think it's just as simple as what James said When the disciples were arguing whether Gentiles could become Christians, people that were not Jewish, could they become Christians?
Speaker: They were arguing about this, and this is what James said. He said, we should not make it difficult for those who are turning to God. That's all evangelism is.
Speaker: Basically, like, don't get in the way. Don't be judgmental. Just don't be a jerk.
Speaker: Don't be a Puritan or a Pharisee. be normal. Don't act like you're better than anybody. Just share what Jesus did for you. He forgave you, loved you, saved you.
Speaker: So I suggest you go out and you forgive and you love people and you watch Jesus save them. He did all that, not because of anything you did. He saved you because of who he is.
Speaker: Just because of grace. And by the way, a church that does that, who wouldn't want to be a part of that kind church? Amen. Amen. Thank you for listening. And if you feel as if you are ready to go a little bit deeper into this week's episode, head to normalgoesalongway.com. We have some questions for you to go through either by yourself or with a friend or your community group and join us this coming Thursday as Ms. Hannah and Ms. April present this week's episode in kids form.
