Easter 2016, 3/27/16

Easter 2016 version 2  Jn 20:1-18 bb

20 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.2 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!” 3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) 10 Then the disciples went back to where they were staying. 11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. 13 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.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. 15 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.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”). 17 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.’” 18 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.

It is easter.  

Typical easter sermon.  Proofs of the resurrection or X the victor over death

Im fine w that.

But that really doesn’t matter

I can tell you a,b,c but it doesn’t matter unless it matters to you

Too many Christians want to leave Jesus in the tomb

We want Jesus, but we want him on ice

No proof of the resurrection will matter as long as we keep him sequestered

Question isn’t did it happen, question is has it happened for you

Have you let him out of the tomb

Many ways to keep him still in the tomb

I believe in love, but I cannot give it to others

I believe in generosity, but I spend it all on myself

I believe in going the second mile, but I just don’t make myself do it

Believe in forgiveness but do not forgive

Believe in hearing the call, but will not hear the call.

I believe in Believe in the power, but don’t turn it loose in life

If this your story, then he might as well not have risen, you’re keeping him on ice

People today don’t believe

Today:  jesus rose, so what

Why don’t people believe?

Our Jesus is still in the tomb

1-People don’t believe our message because -Christians can have an arrogance

People are not allowed to ask questions

          You must just take it by faith

2-People don’t believe our message because -Christians don’t love

          They point the fingers at people instead of pointing to God

3-People don’t believe our message because -Christians Don’t forgive others

4-People don’t believe our message because -Christians are just as guilt laden as I am.  They don’t really believe that they are forgiven

When we act like this, Jesus is still in the tomb.

Friends.  There is an alternative.

Jesus talked about an abundant life.  In the abundant life we can know that we are loved.

And because we are loved, we can know that we are forgiven and we can forgive others.

Jn 3:16  God so loved the world

God loves you.  Believe it or not

You cant forgive yourself?

Maybe you need a special crucifixion just for you……

Friend, the work of jesus on the cross is a once and for all time action

And because of it, We are free from Fear and guilt…………

we no longer have to live in them.  romans 5.  No condemnation to those who are in Christ

Story of the sheeply lion

We are free from retribution and from living a life based on getting even. 

The payback is over.  The resurrection means that the cross has put an end to this.  you can live as a forgiver.

To err is human to forgive is devine

It is human for us to want to hurt back

     When u get hurt – what do you do?

1. You might hold back- less likely the next time to step out.   We are artists is k-garten

2. We start making lists-labels…. They hurt me because they are _________.  We protect ourselves by shutting off people that we think might hurt us

3. Revenge- sometimes w hurt back

Because we are forgiven

We can learn to forgive

 Christians should not be  just student s of forgiving, you have to get really good at it

Forgiveness means refusing to make them pay for what they did

To refrain from lashing out at someone when you want to do it with all of your being is a form of agony

In forgiveness, you are absorbing the debt. Taking the cost of it completely on yourself .

You completely absorb the pain instead of lashing out at the other person.  It feels like a kind of death - a kind of suffering

Parker Palmer

   “The cross says, the pain stops here.”

    The cross is a way of absorbing pain,  not passing it on.

“Father forgive them, they don’t know what…”

The way of the cross is a way that transforms pain from destructive impulse into creative constructive transforming power

You see, you are a Christ follower, you do have great power

When Jesus accepted the cross, his death opened up a channel for the redeeming power of love.

This pattern unleashes amazing power in this world- and you get to play.

Any experience of life can be turned for the good.

You will be hauled before magistrates and it will be an opportunity for a testimony. Everything that happens to you in this life, good or bad, a Christian can use. You can transmute anything that comes to you and bring some good. A testimony of God’s grace, rescuing some good out of everything that happens to you.

Yes we can turn pain into joy.  That is the resurrection message.  Bad news to good.  Death into life.  Worry into hope.

Life is stormy.  Relationships are stormy.  You have a chance to bring calm to the storm

As jesus did it, so you too can be used by god to end hostility

God so loved the world

We are free from rejection……he welcomes us.  He embraces us.  Prodigal sons welcome home…….this is how Jesus sees Gods love

Victory………. although we sense the struggle from time to time, but the battle has been fought and the victory is ours in Christ. 

May we now choose to live as Easter people

Winston Churchill had planned his funeral, which took place in Saint Paul’s Cathedral. He included many of the great hymns of the church, and used the eloquent Anglican liturgy. At his direction, a bugler, positioned high in the dome of Saint Paul’s, intoned, after the benediction, the sound of “Taps,” the universal signal that says the day is over. But then came the most dramatic turn: As Churchill instructed, as soon as “Taps” was finished, another bugler, placed on the other side of the great dome, played the notes of “Reveille” - “It’s time to get up. It’s time to get up. It’s time to get up in the morning.” That was Churchill’s testimony that at the end of history, the last note will not be “Taps,” it will be “Reveille.” The worst things are never the last things.

death is not the end.  Depression is not the end.  Hurt is not the end.  Anger is not the end.  The resurrection wakes us up to new life………

Because of the resurrection of jesus we have the promise of new life.

Yes life eternal, but also life now. 

Life filled with love, life filled with hope.  Life filled with joy.

Extravagant Love, John 3:16, 12/15/2013

Sermon 12-15-13  Christmas Extravagant love   john 3:16 kjh

¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life John 3:16.

INTRO

I already don’t like this sermon.  Its Christmas time and you have not used a Christmas scripture.  Where is mary and joseph, and the baby?

Yes churches have used john 3:16 as the consummate scripture on salvation. 

We have even made a formula with it. 

But listen to this.  God so loved the world, that he gave his only son.  God loved the world, he gave his son.  God loved the world, he gave his son!  God loved the world, he gave his son!

If that isn’t Christmas, I don’t know what is

 In fact, we get confused about Christmas.  Its about Jesus, who came to die

Here is the latest episode of jesus vs santa…………                 VIDEO

When we love people we give them things.  Hugs.  Kisses.  Time.  Our commitment.  A dvd.  A tie.  Cologne. We Spend time with them.

Sometimes the occasion matches the size of the gift

Not always-

But sometimes, there is a gift that fits the occasion

An engagement ring

Dec 31, 1999

                       

And so at Christmas God has show his love for us

By giving us a gift.  The gift of his son

This is amazing, extravagant love.

 

This is the message of Christmas. 

Amazing love. Unbelievable love.  Sacrificial love

Rejection – we all know it – that is why we hope to be loved

Country song – “Check Yes or No” – George Strait

 

"Do you love me, do you wanna be my friend?
And if you do
Well then don't be afraid to take me by the hand
If you want to
I think this is how love goes, check yes or no"

 

everyone wants to know that they are important to someone

 

We create emotional layers and defense mechanisms to protect us from rejection

Adam & Eve hide in the garden – if they really knew me, they would reject me

Christmas is different – God is coming to be with us – He knows our limits, our faults, yet he comes

 

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light

Not the good people. Not the ones walking in the light

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light

 FROM THE BEGINNING WE WERE LOVED

God made us in his image.  He looked at creation and said it was good

Yes we are part of a great love story and Christmas is a turning point.

In Jesus God says, no matter what you do- I will show my love for you.

John 3:16

¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

 What makes this a powerful moment in our story is the nature of the love being shared with us.

 Jesus represents the extravagance of God’s love. 

                Nothing is held back from or for us.

                Remember the woman washing Jesus’ feet – luke 7

Not only is God’s love extravagant, it is sacrificial.

                What we are unable to do for ourselves, God offers on our behalf.

                Remember Abraham and Isaac.

                Jesus given for us

     

STORIES

I hope you have a love story in your life.

All of us at least know of love stories

There is an amazing love story in the bible

Hosea and gomer- god told him to take a wife to himself that was…!

He buys her back

Hosea goes to find Gomer – yes we have gone astray, but God is out looking for us

Hosea story is beyond our understanding

God loves us enough to enter our world

that reminds me of - famous story by Paul Harvey the man and the birds

 

The man to whom I’m going to introduce you was not a scrooge, he was a kind decent, mostly good man. Generous to his family, upright in his dealings with other men. But he just didn’t believe all that incarnation stuff which the churches proclaim at Christmas Time. It just didn’t make sense and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just couldn’t swallow the Jesus Story, about God coming to Earth as a man.

 “I’m truly sorry to distress you,” he told his wife, “but I’m not going with you to church this Christmas Eve.” He said he’d feel like a hypocrite. That he’d much rather just stay at home, but that he would wait up for them. And so he stayed and they went to the midnight service.

Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper. Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound…Then another, and then another. Sort of a thump or a thud…At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window. But when he went to the front door to investigate he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They’d been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, had tried to fly through his large landscape window.

Well, he couldn’t let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter, if he could direct the birds to it.

Quickly he put on a coat, galoshes, tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide and turned on a light, but the birds did not come in. He figured food would entice them in. So he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs, sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail to the yellow-lighted wide open doorway of the stable. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs, and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them…He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms…Instead, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn.

And then, he realized that they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me…That I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how? Because any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him.

“If only I could be a bird,” he thought to himself, “and mingle with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to safe, warm…to the safe warm barn. But I would have to be one of them so they could see, and hear and understand.”

At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind. And he stood there listening to the bells – Adeste Fidelis – o come all ye faithful – listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas.

And he sank to his knees in the snow.

Christmas is a love STORY

It is the greatest  love story ever told

⁸ But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us Romans 5:8

Here’s the story-

A man loaned his son to us for 33 years.  We borrowed him, abused him and At the end of that time, we killed him and returned him to his father.

What kind of a father allows this?

God so loved the world.

 Do you know THAT YOU ARE LOVED BY GOD

Here we are again talking about god loves the world

But do you know that god loves you?

Do you know that you were worth the sacrifice?

CONCLUSION

There were two soldiers, Joe and Carl, who were close friends. It was war time and their platoon was engaged in an fierce firefight. Outnumbered, they started to suffer heavy casualties, their commander ordered a retreat.

 When the company got to safe ground, Joe noticed his friend, Carl, was not with them. He went to the commander and asked permission to go back to look for Carl. The commander disapproved, saying that under heavy fire of the enemy, Carl would surely have already been killed. He told Joe they would recover the bodies when it was safer to do so.

Joe apologized before he disobeyed the order and ran back to the battlefield. Minutes later he came back carrying Carl’s dead body. As he put down Carl’s body, the commander  saw that Joe himself was mortally wounded now. The commander furiously told Joe, “I told you not to go. You foolishly endangered yourself, and now I risk losing another man. What a waste, Joe!”

 Joe, now fighting for his own life, calmly told the commander, “Sir, it was not a waste. When I got to Carl he was still alive. I held him up and propped him on my lap telling him to hold on. He gasped for breath, he smiled, and his last and only words were, ‘Joe, I knew you would come.’” “I knew you would come.”

These simple words convey the meaning of one of the deepest graces of our faith and our hope. We know God will always be there for us.

So again we are presented with the invitation to return God’s love. 

To respond to God’s overtures.  To choose him

Today you are invited to say yes to God.  To check yes.

To be being swept up in his amazing transformational love

 Do you know this love?

 Christmas is a reminder that God came for us. 

In our worst moment, when we needed him the most.  God did not hold back.

But we knew he would come.  He is just that kind of a god.

Jesus - Immanuel – god with us