Easter weekend (Jamie Haith)

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Transcript

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Welcome to SGTM Talks. We hope you find this encouraging and inspiring.

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It's the Easter Bank holiday weekend, surely the best weekend of the year. It's the first breather after a long academic term. It's the first chance to revel in not just one but two extra days off work. It's filled with the excitement of the first signs of the warmth and the sun of spring, unless you're up north in the path of Storm Dave. As an aside, did you know that storm names are selected from a short list of suggestions from the public in the UK, Ireland, and Netherlands? It's just a hunch, but I suspect Dave had its name chosen by the English. Who else would name a Storm Dave? My money, when it gets to S, it will definitely be Stormy McStormface. We all love the Easter Bank Holiday weekend. Let's be honest, however much we all love our work, we love weekends in general. Bank holiday are not. The weekend is when we get to relax and do the things we love and be with the people we like the most and give our lives the most meaning. For some that will mean a round of golf or DIY project. For others, it's a walk in a forest or a park, hosting a dinner party. Maybe you like mudlarking on the Thames or a trip to the seaside. Perhaps you just like to spend time with your friends or to get out gardening, whatever you like to do with your weekend. Weekends are great, aren't they? Actually, fittingly enough, those two elements, friends and a garden, were the bookend context of what we celebrate today because what we celebrate at Easter is quite simply the greatest weekend in human history. It was the weekend that changed the world. What started on an evening at a table, surrounded by friends on Thursday, came to its final glorious conclusion in a garden on the first Easter Sunday morning. The greatest weekend ever. The one weekend that changed the world. The three years that had gone before the three years of Jesus' public ministry, his public appearances, they'd all been leading up to this one weekend. Before that, 30 years of obscurity and anonymity for Jesus. All of it, preparation for this one weekend. And even more than that, this one weekend had been coming for hundreds for thousands of years. After all the waiting, after all the preparation, here it was. Now is the time. And so what we're celebrating here today is one weekend. One weekend that tells us everything we need to know about God. One weekend that means a new day for you and me. One weekend that changed the world. That extraordinary weekend, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. What can each of those days teach us? It all started one Thursday evening, so let's start there. What do we learn from reflecting on Maundy Thursday? Maundy Thursday, when we hear the command to copy Jesus. The word maundi is derived from the Latin word mandatum, for command or mandate, as we would use it today, referring to the command Jesus gave to the disciples at the Last Supper that they should love and serve one another, so vividly illustrated in John 13 by Jesus washing the disciples' feet. Jesus says in John 13, 14, If I then, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done to you. On that final Thursday evening before he faced the cross, Jesus sits with his disciples at what we now call the Last Supper. The command he leaves ringing in their ears is that they should love. They should love. Love. Love. So this small group of people went on to quite literally change the world. The character and the miracles and the teaching, the whole life of Jesus changed our world forever. And Jesus calls us to copy that life. That life of a short 33 years, 33-year life of an obscure rabbi carpenter, that life changed everything. From a purely historical perspective, no life on earth has ever had such a massive impact, even come close. So much so that right now the whole of the world, Christian or not, marks time itself relative to the birth and life of Jesus Christ. President Ronald Reagan put it like this: meaning no disrespect to the religious convictions of others. Still can't help wondering how we can explain away what to me is the greatest miracle of all and which is recorded in history. No one denies there was such a man, that he lived, that he was put to death by crucifixion. Where is the miracle I spoke of? Well, consider this and let your imagination translate the story into our own time, possibly to your own hometown. A young man whose father is a carpenter grows up working in his father's shop. One day he puts down his tools, walks out of his father's shop. He starts preaching on street corners and in the nearby countryside, walking from place to place, preaching all the while, even though he's not an ordained minister. He does this for three years. Then he's arrested, tried, and convicted. There's no court of appeal, so he is executed at age 33 with two common thieves. Those in charge of his execution roll dice to see who gets his clothing. The only possessions he has. His family cannot afford a burial place for him, so he's interred in a borrowed tomb. End of story. How do we explain that? Unless he really was what he said he was. The message of the life and teaching of Jesus, summed up on that Last Supper, on that Maundy Thursday night, is that God himself is with us. God is love and he wants us to love as he loves. God loves us so much that he has chosen to not stand apart from human experience. He's right there with us, rubbing shoulders with us, eating and laughing and crying with us. He's right there with us in the joy and the jubilation of life. He's right there with us in the hardship and the horrors. God himself entered this world as our friend, as our brother, as our leader. He understands every single thing we go through. It's phenomenal. Encapsulated in this one evening, we see the start of the greatest weekend ever. But there's so much more because after this supreme example of embodied teaching in the life of Jesus on Thursday, we then witness his death the very next day. Morday, Thursday, Morday Thursday, when we hear the command to copy the example of Jesus is followed by Good Friday, when we see the Father forgive through Jesus. Luke 23, verse 33. When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals, one on his right and the other on his left. And Jesus said, Father, forgive them. They do not know what they're doing. Seems so strange to call it Good Friday, doesn't it? Why do we recall the torturing and the death of Jesus as good? It's because for centuries, those days that the church considered holy were called good. The Orthodox Church still refers to Good Friday as holy and great Friday. Jesus' death and resurrection is the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. And so this day was good, very good, for you and for me. It's the day that humanity was offered freedom. Freedom through forgiveness. God sees us in our need. His heart broke over the sick soul of humanity, so he reached out to us in the goodness of Jesus. It's Good Friday because it's the day that Jesus cried out, Father, forgive them. That cry was answered, and forgiveness broke into the world. It's the day that Jesus cried out, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. And I don't believe he was only asking this for the people in the crowd. I don't believe he was only asking this for the people in the courtroom. I don't believe he was only asking this for the people who just hammered six-inch iron spikes into his hands and feet on the cross. I believe Jesus is crying out for forgiveness for you and me. For the whole of humanity. He knows how weak we are. He knows our total lack of understanding. He knows we are like foolish sheep, doing our best to follow him, but really just herding around the place. I always remember listening to the radio a few years ago when I was listening to the DJ Chris Evans. I remember physically stopping and turning and looking at the radio because I was so stunned by what he said. And I went back and found the quote. I'd written it down. He said, We're just wandering around, waiting to die, bumping into each other and achieving a few things. I was so struck by how sad that sounded and meaningless. And God knows that we long to know the meaning of life, the purpose of existence, and he knows that the starting point is the inbreaking of forgiveness to arrest the downward spiral of our lives. To help us understand that, rock star Bono puts it better than most. He says, I love the idea that God says, look, there are certain results to the way you are, to selfishness. And there's a mortality as part of your very sinful nature. And let's face it, you're not living a very good life, are you? There are consequences to actions. The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That's the point. Jesus Christ came to soak all of our guilt and all of our shame and all of our pain into himself. And in place release to us forgiveness and freedom. Which is such good news because on a cheery note, we all die. The psalmist writes, what person can live and not see death? Everybody dies. There's nothing so democratic in the world as death. Two per second, six thousand per hour, 155,000 per day, 57 million each year, we all die. No matter what you do. We all know it's true, however much we try and avoid thinking about it, talking about it. It's so much easier to just cover our ears and eyes and pretend it's not true, but at Easter we're confronted with the reality and the pain of death. It's all very honest, it's all very raw. But all the death and destruction of Good Friday is not the end of the story. It's Friday, but Sunday's coming. I read of a wonderful man called Dr. Shadrach, best name in the world, Dr. Shadrach Meshach Lockridge. What a name. Forty years the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in San Diego till 1993. He was known for his preaching across the US and around the world. You may have heard his sermon, That's My King. If you haven't, look it up on YouTube. That phrase, it's Friday, but Sunday's coming. It's not original to me. I stole it from his famous sermon by the same name. Allow me to read an abridged version. It's Friday. Jesus is praying, Peter's sleeping, Judas is betraying, but Sunday's coming. It's Friday. Pilate's struggling, the council is conspiring, the crowd is vilifying. They don't even know that Sunday's coming. It's Friday, the disciples are running, life like sheep without a shepherd. Mary's crying, Peter's denying, but they don't know that Sunday's coming. It's Friday, the Romans beat my Jesus. They robe him in scarlet, they crown him with thorns, but they don't know that Sunday's coming. It's Friday. The world's winning. People are sinning and evil's grinning. It's Friday. The soldiers nail my Savior's hands to the cross. They nail my Savior's feet to the cross. And then they raise him up next to criminals. It's Friday. But let me tell you something. Sunday's coming. It's Friday. Hope is lost. Death has won. Sin has conquered. And Satan's just laughing. It's Friday. Jesus is buried. A soldier stands guard and a rock is rolled into place. But it's Friday. It's only Friday. Sunday is coming. It's the greatest weekend ever. And Sunday is coming. But to get there first, we must go through Saturday. On Maundy Thursday, we hear the command to copy Jesus. On Good Friday, we see the Father forgive through Jesus. These are followed by Silent Saturday, when we feel the haunting hollowness of a world without Jesus. We've looked at the derivation of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Silent Saturday is called that because I like the sound of it. I don't think I'm the first to say it. Matthew 27, verse 65. Take a guard, Pilate answered. Go make a tomb as secure as you know how. So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard. Saturday is normally an awesome day, isn't it? For many, it's normally the best day of the week because it's the day of rest without work the next day. It's normally a wonderful day, but not this one. Because on this Saturday, the murdered son of God was entombed in cold, hard rock. And just imagine for a second the gut-wrenching grief, the sheer shock endured by Jesus' friends and family on that Saturday. The awful emptiness of Silent Saturday, surely the worst Saturday ever. R.R. Reno, writing in the Wall Street Journal, put it like this: Christianity takes an approach, an honest approach, which makes believers take a long, hard look at death. The central symbol of Christianity, the cross, evokes a brutal execution. For Catholics, the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter is the only day of the year on which the Eucharist, the power of eternal life, is not provided. On that day, we must endure death's awful emptiness in a spiritual way, just as sooner or later we must feel death's terrible blows in brutal, literal ways. Imagine the temptation of those disciples to give in to the hollowness, the hopelessness of that day, to yield to the desolation of that moment. Imagine what it was like for all of those who had met Jesus but rejected him and so shut God out of their lives, sealing even the thought of him behind a huge rock in a stone-cold tomb. And perhaps that's what you've done until today. Shut up and sealed your belief that God is dead. And when we do that, we wonder why the world feels so hauntingly hollow. But the message of Jesus laying in the grave is that God is at work even in the darkness, even in the silence, even in the waiting, even when it feels like there is a huge rock in the way and there is no hope. Maybe that's you today. If that is true, you're not the only one that feels like there's a massive, immovable boulder standing between you and hope-filled confidence in God's plan for your life because all of us go through tough times. If that's you, please hear this. You need to hear this today. There may be disillusionment, there may be doubt, but God is dedicated to you. You may feel pain and you may feel panic, but God's plan is still in place. Because on that Friday and on that Saturday, things could not have looked more bleak. The world could not have been more lonely or more painful. But here's the thing Christian is someone who accepts and understands that Thursday and Friday, and that Saturday, they are not the full story. Because a Christian is someone who has hope. Because they know that Sunday's coming. A Christian is someone who believes God at his word, that no matter how deep the night, a new day is just around the corner. It may look dark today, but dawn is on the way, and so we come to the final day of the greatest weekend ever, Easter Sunday, when we rejoice in the light of life that is Jesus Christ. Mark 16. When the Sabbath was over, over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome brought spices so they might go to anoint Jesus' body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, Well, who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb? But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. People down through the ages have done their level best to disprove the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In the 18th century, there was a man called Gilbert West who didn't like that a lot of his friends were becoming Christians. So he set about writing a book that would disprove the resurrection. Because if you can disprove the resurrection, then you disprove Christianity. It really is as simple as that. So he started his research for his title was Observations on the History and Evidences of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. And about halfway through writing the book, West met Jesus and became a Christian. Fast forward to the 19th century, the famous atheist Robert Ingersoll had a friend in the Civil War Union Army called General Lou Wallace. Ingersoll challenged him to write a book disproving the resurrection. Because if you can disprove the resurrection, then you disprove Christianity. It really is as simple as that. So Wallace began his investigation into the doctrines and traditions of Christianity, culminating in, quote, a conviction amounting to absolute belief in God and the divinity of Christ. In other words, he got about halfway through writing his book when he met Jesus. He finished the book. And what was the name of the book that Wallace wrote? Ben Hur. In the 20th century, a man called Frank Morrison set out to shatter Christianity once and for all, using the logic that the only way to do that was to disprove the resurrection. Because if you disprove the resurrection, you disprove Christianity. It really is as simple as that. He was a journalist, he knew how to research, he was also a lawyer, so he knew how to play around with the material. But you know what's coming. He got about halfway through his book when he met Jesus. 1930, the book Who Moved the Stone was published. And it's a classic text to this day. So the message is crystal clear. If you're in a hurry to meet Christ and be saved, then start to write a book disproving the resurrection. All of these people came up with what their level best to come up with a logical explanation for the resurrection. And of course, on one hand, there is no logic to it. Because on one level, logic says this is madness, dead men do not walk. But I believe there is a whole other level of logic going on. This is the logic that says that you have to start with asking if God exists in the first place. And if God exists, then whether that God created all things. Now, if that applied logic says yes to those questions, we have to accept that God who created all things can also recreate all things if he wants to. He can do anything he wants. And so what God wants to do is engage in us and awaken in us that logic, that spiritual logic, because it's that that will make hope break into your life today. That is what we're celebrating here together. The fact that today can be the dawn of a new day in your life. That is the message of the resurrection. Jesus is alive, and that makes anything possible. That is why the resurrection is the cornerstone of Christianity. Because if the resurrection is true, then it changes everything. But if it's not true, then the whole of Christianity is rendered completely meaningless. The writer John Irving, in his book, A Prayer for Owen Meanie, says, anyone can be sentimental about the nativity. Any fool can feel like a Christian at Christmas. But Easter is the main event. If you don't believe in the resurrection, you are not a believer.

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St.

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Paul put it similarly when he said to the church in Corinth, and if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless. And so is your faith. So what is the impact of all of this on our lives? I love the words of President Snow, played by Donald Sutherland in The Hunger Games. He says, hope is the only thing stronger than fear. A lot of hope is dangerous. That sums it up perfectly. Because when Jesus Christ rose from the dead, a whole lot of hope broke into the world. Dangerous hope. Hope that is dangerous to the emptiness and the pain in this world. Hope that doesn't feel much like much at first, but it grows and it grows, much like the dawning of the sun. You know, when you get up really early and you and you just this glimmer of the light coming. You see the sun just start to rising. And when you first see the sunrise, it takes your breath away. You're busy looking at the light. But then you look around and you realize you're seeing now by the light. That's what the resurrection offers us. At first, the disciples were amazed, astonished, the revelation of Jesus alive again, light defeating the darkness. You can imagine them standing there like gorping, awestruck, gazing at the light. But then as time goes on, increasingly they saw the world in a different way. By that revelation. All of human history, all of their own futures, they saw by that light. By that light, they saw the truth about the future of those who follow Christ. That the promise has been issued. That what God did with his own grave, he will do with yours. That what God did with his own body, he will do with yours. That God takes what we see as the final chapter and turns it into the preface. He changes the dungeon of death into a doorway. He transforms the pit of death into a passageway. I love St. Paul's Cathedral just down the road from here. If you've got nothing else to do this afternoon, pop along there. It's amazing. I had the honour of being ordained there under the dome back in 2004. Forty years before that highly auspicious occasion, another far greater occasion took place under the Great Dome, the funeral of Winston Churchill. And what was unique about Churchill's funeral was that he himself had planned it right down to the last detail. At his direction, following the final blessing, at the end of the service, a bugler positioned high up in the dome of St. Paul's played out taps, the universal military signal that says, the day is over, lights out. But then, again, at Churchill's instruction, right after taps ended, at the other side of the great dome, another bugler played the notes of Ravalli. The universal military signal that it's time to get up and step into a new day. So let us conclude our journey through the greatest weekend ever. Maundy Thursday, when we hear the command to copy Jesus. Good Friday, when we see the Father forgive through Jesus. Silent Saturday, when we feel the haunting hollowness of a world without Jesus. And Easter Sunday, when we rejoice in the light of life that is Jesus. The late great British journalist Malcolm Muggridge sums up this greatest weekend ever in his book, Jesus Rediscovered. Ostensibly, it all ended in defeat and despair. But it was only the beginning. Not defeat, but a fabulous new hope had been born. Not despair, but an unexampled joy had come into the world. Christ died on the cross as a man who had tried to show us what life was about. He rose from the dead to be available forever as the intermediary between us and God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the greatest weekend in history. And we thank you for the difference it makes in the world and the hope that it offers each of us today. And just for the one, maybe two people that have heard something today that they've never heard before, I want to encourage you that today you can know this new life. Today you can know what it is to be saved by Christ. In your heart, if you'd like to repeat this prayer. Father, I don't know you, but I want to. I thank you for Jesus dying and rising for me. Thank you for your love. Thank you for your forgiveness. I receive that love. And I receive that forgiveness. And I give you my life. Amen. Thank you, Lord. For anyone who has prayed that prayer, let your love fill their heart. Let your hope fill their whole life this week. Your joy, your peace. In Jesus' name.

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Amen.

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