He Is Risen! Series

He Is Risen!

Series: Encountering Jesus (through the Gospel of Luke)

April 12, 2020 – Brad Bailey

Series #66 / Luke 24:1-9

Intro

I want to extend my own welcome to this Easter celebration to each of you. Whether you’re engaging today as one who is connected to the Westside Vineyard…or is just exploring for the first time…I’m really grateful that we can share in the most unique Easter Sunday that I have ever known.

We’re all living in our own versions of this strange and surreal time.

Here we are in our various homes…on the day that we usually gather with crowds of worshippers…a day that we associate with large gatherings.

We might come to this day thinking that Easter itself has been contained …or even cancelled.

So I want us all to take this as a moment to step back from all that we are facing… and get a little wider perspective.

Here’s a truth for us to grasp:

Easter cannot be cancelled. 2000 years ago, all the forces of hell tried that. They failed.

On Friday…those that were there thought all was lost…that death had reigned. But they were WRONG.

And lets not miss this…the first Easter didn’t have a crowd… it didn’t involve a crowd.

It all began with the small group of Jesus’ disciples… hiding in a home in fear of being found and suffering the same fate. (I suppose we could say that they were practicing their own version of “safer at home.”)

And it didn’t stop God from doing what God was doing. God was interrupting their whole existence.

What they discovered… changed their lives.

What they discovered was like a stone dropped into the center of a body of still water that sent ripples out that go on forever… rippling into our very lives.

Or…and I say this not in a trite way…like something that went viral.

You may recall that up until a couple months ago… we spoke of something “going viral” as something positive…about the nature of something that spreads in exponential ways…through organic means.

And that is what Luke describes in his Gospel account. It was a moment that something happened…that could not be stopped.

From the text that we heard earlier…. It begins…

Luke 24:1

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.

It was “Sunday…the first day of the week that the women set out.

“Very early in the morning” … at dawn.

It was the time of day in which things are not clear.

And that captures where the events of Easter began… and where it often where they begin for us…when things are not clear.

They were going to honor their master and friend who had died before the start of the sabbath.

In him they had experienced God…but then the conflict became climatic… he was arrested… beaten… mocked… and finally crucified.

As they followed him… he spoke of a kingdom that transcended the pretense and powers of this world. A kingdom that captured the longings that exist deep within every life.

But now…disappointment was doing what it does… closing off the heart from hope. Many of us may be carrying the effects of disappointments …… in which our sense of the world becomes smaller… the future more closed.

They still had the heart of compassion to provide a more proper wrapping of his body.

It’s a testimony of their courage and care… the courage and care of this group of women who set out that morning.

The men stayed back… in hiding. They would soon get the news…and they would become fearless. But for now…it was the courage of the women.

And they started…with no expectations….other than to re-wrap a body now on it’s third day of death.

But as Luke continues.…

Luke 24:2-4

They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.

They found the stone rolled away from the tomb…there was no body inside…and they were wondering.

They are struck by something unexpected.

The guards that had put the stone in place and sealed the tomb before guarding it…are gone… the stone rolled away. Rome wanted the body to stay put and there is no power on earth more powerful than the Roman Empire.

It didn’t fit.

That is how many of us have found God interrupt our lives.

Something doesn’t fit our closed expectations. Something doesn’t fit the closed world we presumed we lived in.

We hear something that makes us wonder.

We see something that makes us wonder.

And then God speaks into that moment.