41 Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. 42 So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.
The Resurrection
20:1 Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3 So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. 4 Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, 7 and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’1 head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples went back to their homes.
Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene
11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. 12 And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14 Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic,2 “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”—and that he had said these things to her.
41 Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. 42 So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.
The Resurrection
20:1 Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3 So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. 4 Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, 7 and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’1 head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples went back to their homes.
Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene
11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. 12 And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14 Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic,2 “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”—and that he had said these things to her.
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:
I invite you to open your bibles to John chapter 19. John chapter 19. Scripture will also be there in your worship guide. We'll begin reading in verse 41. Now, in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden, And in the garden, a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.
Jeffrey Heine:
So because of the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there. Now on the 1st day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, they have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him. So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going towards the tomb. Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.
Jeffrey Heine:
And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came following them and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloth lying there and the face cloth which had been on Jesus's head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in and he saw and believed. For as yet they did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead.
Jeffrey Heine:
Then the disciples went back to their homes. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb and as she wept, she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw 2 angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain. 1 at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, woman why are you weeping?
Jeffrey Heine:
She said to them, they have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him. Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, sir, if you have carried him away tell me where you have laid him and I will take him take him away.
Jeffrey Heine:
Jesus said to her, Mary. She turned to him and in Aramaic, Rabboni, which means teacher. Jesus said to her, do not cling to me for I have not yet ascended to the father, but go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your God. Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, I have seen the Lord and that he has said these things to her. Pray with me.
Jeffrey Heine:
Our father, we are so thankful for your word, for your witness to your resurrection. And I pray that now through your spirit you would write these things on our hearts. That the words we read would not just be black words on white pages, but you would use them so that we might hear clearly from you Jesus. I pray that my would fall to the ground and blow away and be remembered no more, but, Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:
Amen. I want to begin by just saying this. As a church, we believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus, That he was physically raised from the dead. We we don't believe in a metaphorical resurrection. Some some metaphorical resurrection that's supposed to just inspire us to somehow live better lives.
Jeffrey Heine:
And we don't believe in just a spiritual resurrection, that it's it was just Jesus' spirit that somehow lives on and on forever. We believe that Jesus was dead, he was buried, and he physically came back to life. And that Christianity rises and falls with the resurrection of Jesus. If Jesus if Jesus was still physically dead, trust me, I have better things to do on a Sunday morning than come here and talk to you. Or as one of my old professors, he he used to say, if ever some archaeologist digs up the bones of Jesus, I'm taking the first flight to Vegas.
Jeffrey Heine:
Alright? And that was just the same thing that Paul would say when he says, if Jesus was not raised from the dead, then eat, drink, for tomorrow we die. But Christianity rises and falls with the resurrection. And I feel I need to say this at the start because there are there are pockets of churches out there. Some near here.
Jeffrey Heine:
Pockets of them that try to wave the flag of Christianity, yet do not believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus. They believe that Christianity is not centered around the death and the resurrection of Jesus, but it's centered around his teachings and his life. In other words, Jesus is not our savior. Jesus is our role model. He's the one that we try we try to emulate.
Jeffrey Heine:
We wanna be like Jesus. But as we have seen, as we've gone throughout this great gospel, Jesus himself has not left that option open to us. And a matter of fact, if you read through the entire new testament, it has not left that option open to us. The New Testament is not gonna tell you how to live your life, not to tell you how to, to live a good moral life and be a good moral person unless you first believe who Jesus is and that God raised him from the dead. That is the foundational doctrine you must hold to before you can ever live a good life.
Jeffrey Heine:
The instructions we receive in the new testament make no sense apart from the resurrection. So what we are looking at this morning, I want you to hear me say, it makes or it breaks Christianity. So let's look at John's account of the resurrection of Jesus. And I love I love his account because he gives so many little details, details that, that aren't in the other gospels. It's obviously a eyewitness account of things.
Jeffrey Heine:
He's recording these things simply because he remembers them. And so he begins by telling us that it was Mary Magdalene who first went to the tomb. She got up early on a Sunday morning while it was still dark outside, and she came to the tomb and she found that the stone had been rolled away. So immediately, she runs to go and get Peter and John. And John, he he likes to call himself the one whom Jesus loved.
Jeffrey Heine:
So she goes and she gets Peter and John, and then they set off running towards the tomb. There's a whole lot of running in this chapter. There's more running in this chapter than the rest of the gospels combined. Alright. People are running everywhere.
Jeffrey Heine:
And I love what John says. He's like, and and just so you know, the one whom Jesus loved ran a whole lot faster than Peter. I mean, Peter's been dead by the time he wrote this for like 20 years. He could say whatever he wants. But I love that he just throws that in there.
Jeffrey Heine:
Why? Because it happened. Because it happens. I got there so much faster than Peter. When he gets to the tomb, he he looks in and he sees the linen cloths, but no body.
Jeffrey Heine:
And he he just stops. Peter finally catches up, probably out of breath, but then Peter does what Peter always does. He just barges right in. He goes right past John. He goes straight into the tomb, and he sees the linen cloths.
Jeffrey Heine:
But then he also, because he's in there a little bit further, he gets to see the face cloth and that it's been folded up or rolled up. The word used in verse 6 is foresaw is the word thero. Thero is where we get the word theory from. It means you're not just seeing with one's eyes, it means you're processing information and you're trying to make sense of it. You're trying to come up with a theory.
Jeffrey Heine:
A theory that makes sense with what you were seeing. And so Peter, he's he's looking and he's he's processing information. He's trying to make sense. He's like, well, the the body's not here. So I guess people came and and took away the body somehow, yet yet there's the the face cloth that's wrapped up.
Jeffrey Heine:
Now who in the world why would grave robbers, like, take the body out, but then take the time to fold up a napkin? And he's processing that. And then he sees the actual cloth that they would have wrapped Jesus in. And he's saying, and why would they have left the cloths? Who wants to carry around a a a a naked corpse?
Jeffrey Heine:
And then he looks at the cloths more closely. He says, well, they weren't unwrapped. It's almost as if a body just kind of evaporated through them. And he's processing. He's processing this information, trying to come up with a theory to make sense.
Jeffrey Heine:
And Christianity always does this. It says, come and see. Come and see the evidence. Come and process this yourself. And as he is processing this, John then follows him all the way down in, sees the evidence, and he immediately believes.
Jeffrey Heine:
He believes. They both then get out of the tomb and then they take off running. And apparently, right as they are leaving, Mary is arriving. They don't stop to be with her. They they go back, and now it's just Mary in the tomb.
Jeffrey Heine:
And so she decides she's going to take a look. And so she goes in, but this time the tomb is not empty. There are 2 angels in there, but but through her tears and through her grief, she doesn't she doesn't even know they're angels or if she does know they're angels, she doesn't really care. All she could think is, where have they taken Jesus? I just want to honor his body and I can't even do that.
Jeffrey Heine:
Where have they taken him? Now you have to ask the question, why are there angels there? They weren't there when Peter and John were there. God waits for Peter and John to leave and they're just a teeniest window, they leave Mary arrives and then God puts the angels there. Why?
Jeffrey Heine:
Why? Jesus is gonna talk to Mary in about 10 seconds, but he wants the angels there first. When Mary goes in, she notices where the angels are sitting. It's an important detail. One is at the head and one is at the foot of where Jesus had laid.
Jeffrey Heine:
And what Mary sees and what John is showing us is there is now a new mercy seat. Remember the ark of the covenant When we were going through Exodus, and we studied the Ark of the Covenant and the lid for the Ark of the Covenant, we call it the mercy seat. It was was the throne of God. It was the place of the greatest sacrifices. The blood was dripped on it.
Jeffrey Heine:
The day of atonement sacrifices. The blood was dripped on that mercy seat. And do you remember what was in between or on either side of that lid? It was the 2 angels with the sacrifice in the middle. What we are seeing here is the new mercy seat.
Jeffrey Heine:
But here, there's no longer a sacrifice. It's the end of the sacrificial system. That's what Mary is saying. Because the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus has been made and there never needs to be another one. Jesus, the lamb of God, He was slain.
Jeffrey Heine:
He is now risen and we all now have perfect everlasting atonement. Of course, this is all missed on Mary. It's all completely missed on her because she's just beside herself with grief and she's just thinking, robbers have taken away my Jesus. Now the text doesn't say this, but I suspect that the angels just kinda give her a little nod at this point. Like, you know, just why don't you just kinda, you know, turn around Mary.
Jeffrey Heine:
And she does. She she turns around, and she sees Jesus. But once again, through her, you know, puffy eyes and and through her tears, she doesn't recognize him. It's also completely out of context. You you know when you see somebody perhaps when you're on vacation and you see somebody from church at the same restaurant you're at, you you you might just walk right past them because it's the wrong context.
Jeffrey Heine:
You don't make the connection. And Mary doesn't make the connection because she is not looking for a living savior. This is the last place she expects to see Jesus is right there alive, and she misses it. So she just kind of gives him a cursory glance and she looks down. She thinks he's the gardener.
Jeffrey Heine:
That's another detail that's not a small one that John puts. This is not a throwaway description. He's the gardener. John has been preparing us for this for a while as we've gone through John's gospel. In John 18, Jesus was betrayed in a garden.
Jeffrey Heine:
Chapter 19 verse 41, we just saw it that the place that Jesus was crucified was a garden. The place that Jesus was buried was a garden. And now Jesus is thought to be the gardener. John is including all these details because he wants to push back our memories back to another time all the way back into Eden. He wants us to be thinking through Genesis.
Jeffrey Heine:
You see, the story of humanity began in a garden and now we see it reaching its climax here in the garden. Back in Genesis, Genesis chapter 1, God creates man and he creates woman. Chapter 1 verse 28, we see the first thing God does after he creates them is he blesses them. I love that. He blesses them.
Jeffrey Heine:
The word for bless there, it's a rich word. It's baruk and it it means that he he gave them peace. He gave them shalom. Shalom was given to man and woman. They were at total peace with their creator.
Jeffrey Heine:
They were at total peace with the world all around them. They loved one another. They were completely for one another at all times. They had no secrets from one another. They were completely filled with joy.
Jeffrey Heine:
They had God's baruk. And one of the the first things that God does after he blesses them is he then puts them into a garden to work. That's actually part of his blessing is putting them in the garden to work. God made Adam a gardener. And so you read in Genesis 2:25 that they're gardening, but as they're gardening, they're both naked and unashamed.
Jeffrey Heine:
That's a that's a beautiful picture to be able to do that, to be able to live that way. Fear did not exist at this point. There there was no shame, there was no hiding, Just perfect shalom with one another. Perfect shalom with the earth. You could plant a tomato plant and not have to worry about blight coming and and getting it.
Jeffrey Heine:
You wouldn't have to worry about a drought coming and killing it. They were they were given power, and they were given authority to to create. They could just imagine a song or imagine a painting or imagine an architecture, and they would actually have the time and the energy and the peace with the earth to be able to bring that imagination to life, to to reality. There was no sickness. There was no death.
Jeffrey Heine:
There was no complicated pregnancies. No buried parents or buried loved ones. There was no sleepless nights, no insecurities, no anxiety medications, no dreading having to be with your family for the holidays, No looking in the mirror and seeing another wrinkle, seeing another gray hair. No putting on an old dress and finding that no longer fits. That is the world that you were meant to live in.
Jeffrey Heine:
At perfect peace, blessed by God, working joyfully in the garden, harmony with one another and with the world. So what happened? What happened? I mean, we know what happened. Genesis 3 happened.
Jeffrey Heine:
The fall happened. The woman was deceived. She ate the fruit she was not supposed to eat, and then she gave it to her husband who ate and then death entered every one of our bodies and entered their bodies. And as a result, they they immediately, they hid from one another and they they hid from God. Now they are at disharmony with one another.
Jeffrey Heine:
Disharmony with God and at disharmony with all of creation. There's broken relationships. Now there's going to be toil and there's going to be sweat and there's gonna be blood as they work. It's gonna be hard. So God re he removes Adam and Eve from the garden, and this is a punishment.
Jeffrey Heine:
But make no mistake, this is also a tremendous grace by God. A tremendous grace that he removes Adam and Eve from the garden. Because if they had remained there and had access to the tree of life, they would have forever remained in their broken state. That's not paradise. That's hell.
Jeffrey Heine:
So God in both his punishment and in his grace, he removes them from Eden. So now paradise is lost. They now live east of Eden. And this is your world. This is the world that you woke up in today.
Jeffrey Heine:
The the reason that some of you had fights with your children trying to get them ready for church is because of this. The reason some of you had arguments in the car on the way to this place is because of this. The reason some of you walked into this room and you immediately, you just wanted to hide. So all you wanted to do was hide. It was this internal struggle.
Jeffrey Heine:
You wanted to be known, but at the same time, you wanted to remain anonymous. Nobody to notice you. This is the reason that you can step on a scale and be discouraged or want to step on a scale at all to see where you stand. This is why many of you struggle with depression or anxiety or you take blood pressure medication or a pill to sleep. This is why you feel so lonely and so misunderstood.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's why work is so exhausting to you instead of life giving. It's why your best creative ideas forever remain in your head and never come into fruition. Too much work. Too many obstacles. Too many things working against you.
Jeffrey Heine:
This is why some of you, you turn to overeating or you turn to shopping or you turn to porn or you turn to alcohol All to try to make yourself feel better. Paul Paul, he he says it this way in Romans 5:12, Sin came into the world through 1 man and death through sin. And so death spread to all men. Sin, death, brokenness came into the world through Adam. And then it was passed to his children, and then it was passed to their children, and then it was passed to their children all the way to you.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's what the bible calls our sin nature. Now if if you don't believe in a sin nature, it's because you're, well, you're deceived. You probably also don't have children. It's impossible. It really is impossible to not believe in sin nature if you are a parent.
Jeffrey Heine:
I've said this before, but the only thing that keeps a 2 year old from ripping off the heads of their parents is strength. That's it. They just don't have the power to do it yet. If children were born stronger, they would kill all of their parents. It's actually one of the reasons we even think they're so cute.
Jeffrey Heine:
You know? Children, they're just so cute. They're cute because they're powerless. And so if they don't go where you want them to go, you just kinda pick them up and you put them there. They run here, and you pick them up, and you put them there.
Jeffrey Heine:
Try and do that do that to a guy who's 6 foot 5, £250 and see what happens. That's why you could dangle a toy in front of them as they reach it, remove it. You keep doing it. Why? It's cute.
Jeffrey Heine:
No. They want to rip your head off. You have to teach children not to hit one another, not to take what they want. Teach them to be kind. Parenting consists primarily of 2 things.
Jeffrey Heine:
1, just keep your child alive. 2, try to tell them not to act according to their sin nature. That's our condition. So is there any hope? Is there?
Jeffrey Heine:
I mean, after Adam sinned and mankind messed up is is is now just all of humanity doomed forever. Or does God do something about this? Now, God doesn't have to do anything about this. God could have just looked at Adam and Eve and said, you got yourselves into this mess. You get yourselves out of this mess.
Jeffrey Heine:
Good luck with that. He could have said, alright, it's time to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and do something, become better people, make the world a better place, be a good moral person, and if you try just hard enough, you might again earn my favor. That is what all other religions say. Work hard, be better people, perhaps you'll get God's approval. But that is not what our creator decided to do.
Jeffrey Heine:
Our creator decided to send a new Adam, to send a new representative of the human race. The Bible has been preparing us for this all along with these these different types of representatives. Moses was a type of a representative. Israel rose and fall with him, fell with him. David was a type of a representative.
Jeffrey Heine:
He'd go and face Goliath. If he lost, all of Israel lost. If he won, all of Israel won. He was their representative. But they were just a shadow.
Jeffrey Heine:
The reality is Jesus is the man. He is the man. We we've already talked about this as we've been going through John. A few weeks ago, we saw how Pilate, when he he brought forth the broken and the bloody body of Jesus, presents him in front of everybody. Jesus is standing there and Pilate says, behold the man.
Jeffrey Heine:
The man. He spoke so much greater than in you. The man, the representative of the entire human race. And now we once again see someone saying or thinking something far greater or far more right than they ever knew. Jesus or Mary sees Jesus in the midst of this garden and she thinks, oh, it's the gardener.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's not a throwaway detail by John. He's he's calling us back to Genesis. I mean for crying out loud, he starts his gospel with in the beginning. In the beginning. Later right after this, you're gonna see Jesus literally breathing on his disciples.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's a weird detail that John gives us. Why? Because that's what the creator did back in Genesis. Receive life. John wants us to see what's happening here through that Genesis creation lens.
Jeffrey Heine:
He's describing a new beginning, a new creation, and once again, we find ourselves back in time, back to that place where there is darkness and we are staring into the emptiness, into the void. And we're saying, is there gonna be light? Is there gonna be life? And God gives us a resounding yes. Yes.
Jeffrey Heine:
And he brings forward the new gardener. The old gardener brought death. The new gardener brought life. He's not just the new Adam, he's the new Adam and the creator rolled into 1. That's why he could give us a life unmatched, a life eternal.
Jeffrey Heine:
He's the son of God and he's the son of man. And it's now through Jesus that this new life, it's broken into this world. Jesus did not just rise from the dead. He didn't just rise from the dead. He reconciled man to God.
Jeffrey Heine:
He brought shalom back to earth. He is resurrecting all of creation. A new work is beginning here and someday it's gonna be brought into completion and that's what revelation tells us in Revelation 20. Once again, the tree of life is gonna be brought back in. It's where we will live and it will bring healing to us and to the nations.
Jeffrey Heine:
Just as the resurrection was physical was a physical reality, our forever state is going to be a physical reality. That's what the resurrection of Jesus means. We're not gonna be floating around in some disembodied state for all of eternity in something that looks like a forever church service, Alright? That's hell. Alright?
Jeffrey Heine:
That is hell. Real bodies, real creation all renewed. We will get back to the garden again and we will be blessed by God. But poor Mary, she thinks he's just a gardener, not the gardener. Then Mary hears that one word.
Jeffrey Heine:
That one word that changes everything. She hears Jesus call her by name. Mary, the shepherd calls the sheep by name. They listen and they obey and they follow. Look at verse 16.
Jeffrey Heine:
Jesus said to her, Mary. She turned to him in Aramaic, Rabboni. Then Jesus said to her, do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the father, but go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and to your God. Think of everything that changed in that single second when Mary heard her name and she turned to see Jesus. Think of everything.
Jeffrey Heine:
Before that, the world was a cold, cruel place. And like that, it was turned into a place of hope. One second before her heart is broken and in despair, and instantly, she is leaping for joy and she is almost crushing the life back out of Jesus. She is holding on so tightly to him. And I love what Jesus says to her.
Jeffrey Heine:
There there there's a couple things. We gotta end. I don't know. I gotta end. I'll go forever.
Jeffrey Heine:
There's a lot here. Let me just point to 2 2 more things. Can I just say first, I love it that Jesus picked Mary? Mary to be the first witness to the resurrection. Not Peter, not John, but Mary to be the first witness and to be the first evangelist.
Jeffrey Heine:
And can I just say, if you were making up a story in this day, you would never have chosen a woman, especially a woman with a past like Mary? Women were not even allowed to testify in court because their witness was unreliable, but Jesus chose her. Her. He gave Mary that honor because the resurrection is for the broken and it is for the oppressed. The resurrection is for those with the past, And then look what he says to her.
Jeffrey Heine:
He says, go tell my brothers. Go to my brothers. I tell you, I mean every time I read that, it just hits me because you know what Jesus could have said? Go tell those wretches. Go tell those traitors.
Jeffrey Heine:
Go tell those so called friends who abandoned me to torture that I'm back. But he doesn't instead he says, go get my family. Family. This is what Jesus has done, the death and the resurrection has done. It has taken enemies of God, and it has come and made us family.
Jeffrey Heine:
So near we actually become children of God. Pray with me. Our father, thank you for Jesus. Thank You for not leaving us in a broken and bruised and fallen world, but sending the new gardener and your son that we might have life. He is the only reason we are here.
Jeffrey Heine:
Thank you, Jesus, for your sacrifice, and we celebrate what your resurrection means to us in this moment. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.