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Holy Week
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Easter is about naming the honest condition of our own hearts.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information.
Speaker 1:And I know you've already done this, but I wanna do it again. So as Christians around the world greet one another on Easter Sunday, Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. So good. Welcome, welcome, welcome today.
Speaker 1:We are delighted that you are here with us on resurrection Sunday to celebrate all of the ways that Jesus reaches into the depths of the human experience and draws up all that is new and alive. We love Easter here and I hope that maybe you've noticed balloons and such. But this year, we thought we'd try to match some excitement. In fact, the excitement of this little girl's love for My Little Pony movie. Let's roll it.
Speaker 1:I can't believe it. I think by the end of the day, I'll just be saying it along with her. I mean, have you ever loved anything as much as that little girl loves my little pony and mermaids together? I hope that you have. It's beautiful.
Speaker 1:Today, we share our Easter excitement with you in the form of kombucha, and we hope that makes you say that this is the best church day of your life. Exclamation point. My name is Bobby and I serve the commons community as one of the pastors on the team here and I am so delighted to be here with you today. I even feel a bit emotional about it. If you are new to commons, thank you for being here in the room with us on such a great day.
Speaker 1:It is so cool having you here. And it's Easter Sunday and for some of us this is a big deal like get a brand new dress, big deal. But for others, it's just another long weekend, and I get that. There are definitely times in my own life when the vibe I feel doesn't at all match the holiday that I face. I remember as a kid watching passion plays leading up to Easter, but honestly, I just didn't connect with them.
Speaker 1:You know the kind, right, Where your uncle Gord is dressed up like Jesus and your neighbor Bernie is Judas and half the town is in a tunic playing a part. Now don't get me wrong. I know passion plays are a big deal for people. In fact, I once kinda sorta dated a guy who had a dramatic spiritual experience playing Jesus in a passion play. The kind of encounter with the divine that informed every decision that he made including getting a Jesus tattoo.
Speaker 1:Bless him. But honestly, for me, the passion play experience, they're not the high point of the resurrection story in my own life. The more I think about it, the more I find resurrection in everyday rhythms, in mood swings, in four seasons, or is it like 18 here in Calgary? I don't know. Or in right in the middle of life's toughest struggles.
Speaker 1:So for me, resurrection is deeply personal. So today we step into the springtime story of Christ's resurrection through five personal scenes in John chapter 20. The resurrection story has been with us for 20 centuries. 20 centuries people. And for 20 centuries, it is a story that has baffled and blessed us.
Speaker 1:And I firmly believe that there is room for all of us in this story. So let's pray together and then jump in. Loving God, your mystery is contained in Jesus. Jesus who was born of Mary, birth into the world in fragility and simplicity. Jesus who was baptized by John and set out on a mission to seek and to save.
Speaker 1:Jesus who stood before Pontius Pilate, bore a cross of the empire, and was cast out by the religious establishment because of his refusal to stop loving the way that you love God. You know our own fragility. You know our own desire for justice in a world that does not displace the lost and the lonely. God, you know the suffering and the pain that we endure and how much we still need your transformation. So holy spirit, will you come today and draw us into the particulars of our own story, into the folds of our own lives to meet you there.
Speaker 1:God, you give resurrection life and we give you thanks. Amen. So the first intimate scene opens. 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. And the story starts in the darkness of the morning because we have come through the darkest moment in the Jesus story.
Speaker 1:On Friday, we talked about how for one weekend of the year, we are all atheists because we all lose hope and we wait through Saturday's holy vigil for faith to return. So if we're gonna talk about resurrection, we have to acknowledge death. You can't skip too fast to Easter because for grieving Mary, resurrection is personal. Where the other gospels include a host of Mary's and I love them all, John's focus is on the experience of one Mary. Mary Magdalene.
Speaker 1:And Mary has her own story of darkness too. Luke's gospel identifies her as Mary known as Magdalene, a woman cured of, get this, seven evil spirits. But don't go thinking that that makes Mary weak. Mary is a tower of faith and some consider her the apostle of the apostles. Mary is first a woman that's cursed.
Speaker 1:But her friendship and her devotion to Jesus make her a woman truly blessed, a leader in her community, and the first to encounter the resurrected Lord. So we approach this empty tomb with Mary Magdalene. We share Mary's disorientation that comes when we expect one reality, in her case, a body in a tomb, a quiet moment, her own private grief, but instead find a different reality, a story we do not expect. And at first, our brains resist the possibility that two unexpected situations can actually fit together. You expect that not getting everything that you really longed for in your life will diminish you, but what you get is a creative story that's all your own.
Speaker 1:And you expect that when you face the trauma that you endured, it will flatten you. But what you get is strength and empathy. And you expect that your grief will crush you. But what you get is a new lease on life. And the setting for resurrection is unexpected too.
Speaker 1:What Jewish people expected was a deliverer from a brutal Roman empire. But what they got was a deliverer who defeated death, sidestepping this violent empire and setting in motion a peaceful kingdom that is two thousand years resilient. And you might not be there yet on the other side of an unexpected story, but can you begin to imagine how the sacred force of life over death and love over hate can do some heavy lifting? Can you imagine the stone being rolled away from the tomb of your struggle and your darkness and your tangled emotions? The second scene in John 20, it comes straight out of something from Monty Python.
Speaker 1:And somehow, I know this even though I've never actually seen Monty Python, so go figure. But the scene is kind of funny because Peter and this beloved disciple have in my mind what looks like a pretty clumsy race to the tomb? Now there's some debate over who exactly the unnamed beloved disciple is. But in the gospel of John, the beloved disciple represents for us the author. And when the author recounts the race to the tomb, he writes that two were racing, but the beloved disciple outran Peter, and the beloved disciple gets there first.
Speaker 1:And then Peter shows up, of course, after the beloved disciple. And the beloved disciple who got there first, by the way, goes into the empty tomb to take a look. So Peter might be the favorite, but nobody's gonna best the beloved in this foot race. And that's kind of perfect, isn't it? Not that the beloved, the one who reclined on the chest of Jesus, who stood at the foot of the cross, who was entrusted with the care of Jesus' own mother.
Speaker 1:Not that he is actually loved more than the others, but simply that when we tell our own stories, we are always at the center of God's attention. The beloved disciple is not given a name because we are the beloved disciple. And being the beloved disciple is being known by God for the best thing that's in your heart. It's your ambition to win a race. It's your love for your family and friends.
Speaker 1:It's the part of your story that you are most proud of. So the scene ends in John chapter 20 verses eight to nine. Finally, the other disciple who had reached the tomb first also went inside. He saw and believed. And then there's this little parenthetical note.
Speaker 1:They still did not understand from the scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead. And then it carries on. Then the disciples went back to where they were staying. Good news moves forward in the world exactly like this race to the tomb, one beloved disciple at a time, running together and apart, straining to make sense of the horizon of mystery that we're all running toward. And this linen, it's left lying on the floor, and it drops these hints that the death cloth that once cloaked Lazarus was no longer swaddling Jesus.
Speaker 1:And there's no way that the body was simply stolen if this linen was left lying on the floor. So slowly but surely, the disciples, they piece parts of this mystery together. And in the wake of resurrection, there is belief and there is unbelief all at the same time. And in the third scene, we find Mary exactly where we found her in the first verse, standing outside the tomb. She's crying and she's alone.
Speaker 1:And just when it feels like her grief and confusion will drown her, Mary gathers up the courage to look into the tomb for herself and holy smokes, she sees angels. And here's where the storyteller brings the miraculous and the transcendent into our view. John includes the detail of two angels in white and they're symbolic of God's presence. And they pose the question to Mary, why are you weeping? And as if it's no big deal whatsoever to talk to angels, Mary shows all her cards.
Speaker 1:She says, they've taken my Lord away. And then Mary spins around and she is face to face with Jesus except she doesn't even know it's him. And Jesus asked, woman, why are you weeping? And this is loosely translated in the Greek woman. It's April fool's day.
Speaker 1:And that's kind of funny. Right? Because it actually is April fool's day. I mean, come on. Easter Sunday on April fool's day is a pretty good time.
Speaker 1:We've all seen the memes. But here, we see the need to personalize the story. Mary thinks that this is a gardener right up to the point where Jesus says her own name. The story goes, Jesus said to her, Mary. And she turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, Rabboni, which means teacher.
Speaker 1:And there is something about hearing our own name, isn't there? And here, Jesus doesn't say Mary in a mocking voice Like that time in grade two when Todd Nielsen yelled at me across the school yard in front of all the other kids, Bobby j, you should never wear stirrup pants because your legs are too skinny. Because when he said my name like that, that meanness, it stayed with me in my skinny legs for a long time. No. No way.
Speaker 1:When Jesus says Mary's name, he says it with all the love in the universe. And after such a tender moment, Jesus does something really baffling. He sends her away. The scene ends like this. Jesus said, do not hold on to me for I have not yet ascended to the father.
Speaker 1:Go instead to my brothers and tell them, I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your God. And Mary might be an unlikely ambassador, but that's the point. God's creativity is endless. There is no telling who God might use next. And Cynthia Borgia, she says that Mary understood more than most what Jesus was on about.
Speaker 1:Borgia writes, Mary saw that Jesus really did come from another realm of being and that his purpose was to make that realm manifest here and now. Resurrection, it pushes us in a direction we may never go on our own. It's a journey that takes us from chaos to clarity, grief to joy, from bafflement to blessing. And in the fourth scene, Jesus abracadabras his way into a locked room where the disciples were hiding out. And they were afraid that Jesus' fate would become their own.
Speaker 1:Remember, they lived in a time when insurrection against the empire would be squashed in a flash by Rome or by the religious authorities or by the deadly combination of the two. And instead of getting all up in their business about, oh, I don't know, abandoning him when he was violently beaten and crucified, Jesus offers them peace. Not judgment, not anger, but peace. So if people have told you that the best part of this Easter story is that God's not mad at you anymore, Remember the grace and the gentleness of Jesus here. Jesus says to these tired, shocked, scared women and men, peace be with you.
Speaker 1:And then he says it again, peace be with you. Jesus is not there to lecture on how mad the disciples made God. Not then, not ever. Jesus reserves the anger of God for those who love money more than justice and who ally with oppressive power rather than leverage power to free the oppressed. And even to the point of beating, Jesus never strikes back.
Speaker 1:The fourth scene ends with verse 22. And with that, he breathed on them and said, receive the holy spirit. If you forgive anyone's sins, their sins are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. And this verse is the only place in the New Testament where the Greek verb for breathe, emphusio, is used.
Speaker 1:And emphusio, it can be translated breathe on or breathe into. And outside of the New Testament, the rare verb for breathe is used only a couple times in the Greek Old Testament known as the Septuagint. And there, it's the breath that brings Adam to life, and it's the breath that enlivens the dry bones of Ezekiel's vision. The divine breath, the holy spirit breathes life into dead places. Here Jesus links the gift of the spirit to the mission of being human.
Speaker 1:Jesus says, people won't know they're forgiven if you don't tell them. And people won't know they are alive if you don't show them. Christians aren't supposed to tell people how bad they are. They're supposed to tell them they're already forgiven. And Christians aren't supposed to just be good.
Speaker 1:They're supposed to be alive. Can I get an amen on that? Alive. The blessing of the resurrection is the reordering of the forces of fear and death. And God does not keep the ability to reorder fear and death stuck in a tomb or locked in a room.
Speaker 1:Instead, God places resurrection power in the hands of these first followers. And with the holy spirit, they pass it on, and then they pass it on, and then they pass it on, and eventually, it reaches us. And the Easter question is, what are we going to do with life like that? You carry forgiveness with you, not because you have the power to forgive sins, but every time you grant life in a relationship that should otherwise be dead, you image the divine breath in the world. In the fifth and final scene, we see that resurrection story stays personal.
Speaker 1:Thomas missed the resurrection after party when Jesus first showed up in the locked room to his friends. And so Thomas names a demand. He said to them, unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. Remember, for the beloved disciple, resurrection is this enthusiastic story on how fast he can reach the tomb. And for Mary, resurrection is about being sent into the world with her own story.
Speaker 1:But for Thomas, resurrection is about being drawn close and welcomed in the midst of our doubts and given what we need to trust the mystery of life after death in this moment. Thomas names his doubt even after the resurrection. And so it's his honesty that opens a way toward faith. And for me, resurrection is about all the particular ways God comes to us and meets with us and gifts to us exactly what we need in order to find life when we thought all hope was lost. And not immediately, but eight days later, the disciples are in this house again.
Speaker 1:And this time, Thomas is with them. And Jesus appears and says, you guessed it, peace be with you. And then Jesus centers his attention on Thomas. And Jesus invites Thomas to step up and to touch the places where Jesus was wounded, to reach out his hand and place it into Jesus' own side. And this seems a little gory like something straight out of a freaky Tim Burton film, which I would probably love, But I love how sensory it is.
Speaker 1:And how does Thomas respond? He declares, my lord and my god. Or we could say, the lord of me. The God of me. And my Lord and my God, it's not some clunky first century nickname.
Speaker 1:It's language that the writer uses to tell us that you can talk about Jesus the same way that you talk about God. So what Thomas says, it's not really a nickname at all. It's the naming of a new reality. And in my books, naming reality is life. So my husband and I, we have been going to a marriage therapist, not because we're in crisis, but because one of my best friends is a divorce lawyer, and she gave us one piece of marriage advice.
Speaker 1:And if you listen to anyone's marriage advice, you listen to that of one of your friends who's a divorce lawyer. And so she said, see a marriage therapist like you see a dentist. Deal with cavities before you need a root canal. So we've been doing this, and our marriage therapist encourages us to work on what she calls name to tame. It's a simple exercise to name how you feel before a feeling morphs into something more beastly.
Speaker 1:And Jonathan is way better at this than I am. And a few weeks back when I was about to get my adult braces on my teeth, that's right, he asked me how getting braces at this point in my life, I'm about to turn 40, makes me feel. And at first, I said I feel silly. And Jonathan gently reminded me that silly is not an emotion. So I gave it another go, and I said, okay, I feel vulnerable, and I feel a bit worried.
Speaker 1:And after I named those feelings, I found a couple more. I started to feel grateful and proud of myself for taking care of something in my body that I have wanted to take care of for a long time. I had to name the struggle before I could see the gift. While name to tame is preventative, there's also this kind of naming that's declarative. When we put words to how we feel and what we need, we begin to see new reality because naming opens space for God to reveal what is true.
Speaker 1:We see our need and we see how Jesus is meeting us there. So Thomas, he names his doubt and then God showed up. So for some of us, Easter is about this everyday excitement of living what we already know to be true. It's about finding new ways to be just as joyful as we were the first time we really encountered resurrection life. For two thousand years, we have found new ways to make this old story deeply personal.
Speaker 1:And in that, you are the beloved disciple who captivates Jesus' attention all by yourself. And then for some of us, Easter is about drive and motivation and passion in the world. Easter is new ideas come back to life. It's grief that's turned into mission. It's unexpected stories like Mary's that we cannot help but share because Easter is about life, and life sends you out on your own path with vitality and breath and calling.
Speaker 1:And then, for some of us, Easter is about naming the honest condition of our own hearts. It's about putting ourselves in the place where grace and peace can show up for us exactly where we are. And God can come around a corner, and God can draw you in, and God can hold you for as long as you need to be held. Let us pray. Creator God, thank you for the rhythm of the seasons that after a long harsh winter, we can look forward to the spring.
Speaker 1:Jesus, you share in our mortal life so that we can share in the life of the divine. There is nothing so dead in us that you cannot bring back to life. Spirit, will you breathe into our lives the love that brought Jesus from the grave? Will you draw us into the flow of life defeating death in grief, in sadness, in longing. Jesus, you meet us there.
Speaker 1:So we wait for your Easter spirit to move stones and revive hearts and heal wounded places. And we partner with you in the renewal of all things. With resurrection hope, we pray. Amen.