SPEAKER_00: The resurrection of Jesus is what Christianity is built on.
SPEAKER_00: It's what the faith is all about.
SPEAKER_00: The good news that God has raised this Jesus from the dead, that he didn't just die for us, but that God rose him from the grave.
SPEAKER_00: And around the world, I know Christmas gets all the highlights.
SPEAKER_00: And Easter is a little bit like the Forgotten Sibling.
SPEAKER_00: We have Santa Claus, presents, all that good stuff in December.
SPEAKER_00: But Easter is still special.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you will go home today and eat a ham, of course, something Jesus would never do, but we have lots of candy.
SPEAKER_00: Americans, by the way, spend about$3.5 billion on candy every Easter.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a little fact for you.
SPEAKER_00: Another little interesting fact, at least to me, we we're gonna eat, as a country, we're gonna eat 16 billion jelly beans today.
SPEAKER_00: So if you've participated in that or will participate in that, uh 16 billion jelly beans, and then 78% of Americans think that you should eat a chocolate bunny ears first.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're in the majority, you're right.
SPEAKER_00: It is better to eat the chocolate bunny ears first.
SPEAKER_00: But we celebrate Easter, and of course, we kind of know like this is supposed to be good news that God has raised this person from the dead, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's central to our faith, and of course, we we read in the scriptures and it's the culmination of the four gospels, but then but then the story of Christianity is really the story of people spreading this good news.
SPEAKER_00: People telling people that God has done something, that something has happened, that the rude Christianity is a it's a historical faith.
SPEAKER_00: It's about something that happened in history and it's a message that got shared.
SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking this week how interesting it would have been if Easter would have happened in our time.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, can you imagine with social media like Jesus is on Twitter or something, like hashtag I'm back, he sends out tweets, I'm here, like TikTok, you have the before and the after photos like Good Friday to Easter, like like Jesus could have gone viral.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, what's interesting is like Jesus in the Gospels, after he's raised from the dead, it doesn't seem like he's overly concerned with proving that he's back.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he could have pulled like Gladiator and gone to the Colosseum in Rome and opened up his hands and said, Are you not entertained?
SPEAKER_00: And the whole world could have seen it.
SPEAKER_00: He could have appeared before the Sanhedrin, the leaders of the Jewish state, and he could have said, You guys are you're wrong.
SPEAKER_00: You're dead wrong.
SPEAKER_00: I'm back.
SPEAKER_00: He could have appeared before Pilate.
SPEAKER_00: He could have walked into Pilate's office and been like, You tried to get rid of me, but I'm back.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't do any of those things, though.
SPEAKER_00: It's fascinating, is what we have of Jesus after he's risen from the dead is mostly him encountering his followers, him going to people that had been following and meeting with him individually.
SPEAKER_00: Now each of the Gospels gives a little bit different flavor.
SPEAKER_00: If you like long teaching sections, then the Gospel of Matthew is for you.
SPEAKER_00: If you like quick reads, then the Gospel of Mark is like fast paced, it's like the city gospel.
SPEAKER_00: If you like meals and parables, Luke has got you covered.
SPEAKER_00: In Luke, Jesus is like either at a meal or going to a meal, the whole book pretty much.
SPEAKER_00: But John, John is the book of encounters.
SPEAKER_00: It's the book of conversations.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus meets, you might remember in John 3 with Nicodemus, in John 4, he meets with the woman at the well, he meets with Mary and Martha.
SPEAKER_00: We have the extended discourse with the disciples in the last nights of his life.
SPEAKER_00: And then after the resurrection, John has these encounters that Jesus has with three different people we're going to look at today.
SPEAKER_00: And these are fascinating little conversations Jesus has with people.
SPEAKER_00: But I really want us to focus on just the miracle that is the resurrected Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This is a magnificent, world-changing event.
SPEAKER_00: What does he do?
SPEAKER_00: What does God do after he's raised from the dead?
SPEAKER_00: He goes and he finds people, he meets them in their circumstances and their problems, and he encounters them.
SPEAKER_00: He relates to them.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're going to look at how Jesus encounters Mary, how he encounters Thomas, and how he encounters Peter, and how he's going to meet each of them in their various circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: And so titled this message, Encountering the Risen Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together and then we'll get into God's Word.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we welcome your presence here today.
SPEAKER_00: We believe, Jesus, that you are raised from the dead, that you are still encountering people today.
SPEAKER_00: Meeting with them today.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that you approach us.
SPEAKER_00: That you have words for us.
SPEAKER_00: That you want to be with us.
SPEAKER_00: We pray, Lord, that this Easter you would have a conversation with us.
SPEAKER_00: We welcome you.
SPEAKER_00: It's in the name of Jesus we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to start with Jesus' conversation with Mary Magdalene.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to be in John chapter 20, and the first person that John records Jesus having a conversation with is Mary, and I'm going to pick up in verse eleven.
SPEAKER_00: But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.
SPEAKER_00: As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet.
SPEAKER_00: They said to her, Woman, why are you weeping?
SPEAKER_00: And she said to them, They've taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they've laid him.
SPEAKER_00: When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said to her, Woman, why are you weeping?
SPEAKER_00: Whom are you looking for?
SPEAKER_00: Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, Sir, if you've carried him away, tell me where you've laid him, and I will take him away.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to her, Mary.
SPEAKER_00: She turned and said to him in Hebrew, Rebonir, teacher.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to stop right there.
SPEAKER_00: Mary, if you're not familiar with the gospel stories, has a bit of a troubled past, you might say.
SPEAKER_00: She at one point is described as having seven demons, so you can take that what you will, and she meets with Jesus and encounters him, and her life is completely changed.
SPEAKER_00: She follows Jesus and is one of his disciples, and then and then Jesus dies.
SPEAKER_00: It's a completely senseless death.
SPEAKER_00: He dies and she sees it.
SPEAKER_00: And now on good Easter Sunday, she doesn't know it's good yet.
SPEAKER_00: She's at this tomb and she's crying.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, the resurrected Lord, he his first conversation, he meets with Mary Magdalene.
SPEAKER_00: And he meets her in her sorrows.
SPEAKER_00: And that's our first point this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus meets us in our sorrows.
SPEAKER_00: Now Mary was at this tomb with our sorrows and she is crushed.
SPEAKER_00: And I know in a room like this, many of us we've carried sorrows into this Easter.
SPEAKER_00: We've gone through marriage problems, we've had breakups, we've had divorce, we've had sickness, we've lost loved ones in the past year.
SPEAKER_00: If we're honest, we we carry sorrows.
SPEAKER_00: We lug them around.
SPEAKER_00: We might not literally be sitting at a tomb this morning crying, but but those tombs, they're in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: We we're grieving things we've lost.
SPEAKER_00: For some, it's a dream's been dashed this past year.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, the Lord of the universe, raised from the dead, what does he do?
SPEAKER_00: He goes and he finds Mary to talk with her.
SPEAKER_00: And now we might think like, if you're in that place, if you're in a place of sorrows, what what hope do you have?
SPEAKER_00: Our world, our culture offers us, you know, various medicines, if you will, for our sorrows.
SPEAKER_00: Most of them aren't very helpful, though.
SPEAKER_00: We might get offered medicines of like denial.
SPEAKER_00: You might think of people encouraging you, you know, just focus on positive things.
SPEAKER_00: You know, shut the door to that area of your heart, that experience.
SPEAKER_00: Just move on, just be positive.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't really happen.
SPEAKER_00: Our culture and other medicine we give is distraction.
SPEAKER_00: We might think like, if I just move through life fast enough, I won't have to deal with the pain of what happened.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us, our worst nightmare, is sitting still.
SPEAKER_00: Because if we sat still, we know it'll all come up to the surface.
SPEAKER_00: And so we choose distractions to avoid our sorrows.
SPEAKER_00: Others, we we have despair.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not too hard to imagine.
SPEAKER_00: If there is no hope, if you live in a world without a God, then what is there other than to despair in our troubles?
SPEAKER_00: Bertrand Russell, who's a famous thinker in the 20th century, actually got pushed in an interview as an atheist.
SPEAKER_00: He got pushed saying, like, if there really is no God, is there any hope?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, No, the honest answer is you just survive life.
SPEAKER_00: You just survive life.
SPEAKER_00: There's not really hope.
SPEAKER_00: We have this sort of low-level nihilistic dread.
SPEAKER_00: And most, not most, but many of us, we we live with that.
SPEAKER_00: We tolerate it, we we survive life.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus, he encounters Mary and He actually brings her some different resources.
SPEAKER_00: I think we see three in this short little encounter.
SPEAKER_00: He brings her hope, solidarity, and relationship.
SPEAKER_00: And and first, the hope, the hope that he brings is the hope of resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: Mary is in her sorrows and she's encountered by Jesus raised from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: Resurrection brings hope to our life.
SPEAKER_00: If God really raised Jesus from the dead, if the tomb is really empty, then no matter what you are going through in life, you will be okay.
SPEAKER_00: If God has raised Jesus from the dead, if the tomb is empty, if death does not have the last word, you will be okay.
SPEAKER_00: Anything you fear, anything you are struggling with, it will not have the final say.
SPEAKER_00: Resurrection has the final say.
SPEAKER_00: Resurrection brings hope.
SPEAKER_00: Not just resurrection of ourselves, but Jesus promised a renewed world, resurrection of this whole world, all things being made new.
SPEAKER_00: That reality brings hope to us in our sorrows.
SPEAKER_00: We also see, though, that there's a reframing that hope brings to death itself.
SPEAKER_00: Look at these words of Paul in Romans chapter 8.
SPEAKER_00: He likens death to the pain of childbirth.
SPEAKER_00: In Romans 8, he says, the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
SPEAKER_00: We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now.
SPEAKER_00: The whole creation has been groaning in labor pains.
SPEAKER_00: He's reframing sorrows to, it actually is just temporary.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually like leading to something better.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, he comes to Mary in her sorrows.
SPEAKER_00: The resurrected Lord, he meets us in our sorrows.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't just bring hope though, he brings solidarity as well.
SPEAKER_00: This is a Jesus who who wept with Mary and Martha when Lazarus died.
SPEAKER_00: This is a Jesus who still has scars on his hands and his feet and on his side.
SPEAKER_00: This is a Jesus who's been in the pain with us.
SPEAKER_00: I've been close friends for a while with an older couple who had a son a little bit younger than me, who died tragically about 10 years ago now in a car accident.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember when it happened and the pain they went through, and I've always looked up to this couple.
SPEAKER_00: They've been like strong in their faith and a mentor to me.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember one time, probably several years after him talking about his pain and how losing his son is not something you ever get over.
SPEAKER_00: But he said to me something that always stuck with me.
SPEAKER_00: He said, one of the things that's made this bearable is that I feel close to a God who's also lost his son.
SPEAKER_00: And that solidarity, that God, whatever the reasons we have to put up with evil for a time, it can't be that he doesn't care because he's gone through our pain with us.
SPEAKER_00: If you worship Allah, the Quran, then you have a God that's beyond us, that's so far beyond that he can't relate to our sufferings.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a Buddhist, you're supposed to be indifferent to our sufferings.
SPEAKER_00: But but Jesus, he weeps with us and he meets us in our sorrows.
SPEAKER_00: But he doesn't just give us the promise of resurrection and solidarity in the meantime.
SPEAKER_00: He also addresses Mary and seeks relationship.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Mary, and in one word, Mary's whole world changes.
SPEAKER_00: In one word, everything is flipped.
SPEAKER_00: We love to be addressed by name, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: Out of the six billion people in this world, you know, there's a few hundred, or maybe if you're really popular, a few thousand that know you by name.
SPEAKER_00: It's great when they say your name when you're at a party and somebody shouts your name or you're at an event and you see somebody and they remember your name.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I wish at church that we all had name tags so I could remember all your names better, like sneak a peek and make sure I know you.
SPEAKER_00: But we love being addressed by name.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the IRS knows you by your tax ID number, your social security number, your insurance company, you've got insurance policies.
SPEAKER_00: They they know you by that number, the DMVs, get driver's license, right?
SPEAKER_00: But but Jesus, he knows us by our names.
SPEAKER_00: He calls Mary by name and it it conjures up all this emotion.
SPEAKER_00: He knows where she's been, he knows where she came from, he knows where she still struggles, and he addresses her, and her world gets flipped upside down.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, in John's Gospel, these are the first words of the resurrected Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, imagine God raised Jesus from the dead with all of his glory in the first words in John's Gospel.
SPEAKER_00: First words, the name of a woman on the fringe of society, possessed by seven demons in her past, and it's her name, spoken intimately.
SPEAKER_00: I know in my life, when I was seventeen, I was at a camp, and I was there because I thought it was a sports camp, but as Christians often do, they snuck in God talks every night.
SPEAKER_00: And I was there, I didn't want to be there, and I remember though on the last night the speaker gave us all a piece of paper and we had to write a letter to God.
SPEAKER_00: I had nothing to say to God, nothing I wanted to say to God, and I remember sitting there mad that we had to do this, holding that piece of paper, and I I remember, I mean, right where I'm sitting, I remember when God said my name.
SPEAKER_00: I remember it wasn't audible, it was like a thought in your head, but it was like an intersecting thought.
SPEAKER_00: It hit so quick that it wasn't like something I knew I had time to conjure.
SPEAKER_00: It had a weight to it.
SPEAKER_00: There was like God's presence was there.
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't have called it that at the time, but there was a weight to it.
SPEAKER_00: But he said my name.
SPEAKER_00: And he said that he loved me, and everything in my life changed in a moment.
SPEAKER_00: The resurrected Jesus comes to us in our sorrows, and he says our name.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder this Easter, are you here with sorrows?
SPEAKER_00: Easter's not just about the fact that Jesus rose from the dead thousands of years ago.
SPEAKER_00: Easter is the continuing story of the resurrected Jesus approaching people gently by name, meeting us and encountering us.
SPEAKER_00: Are you stuck in your sorrows?
SPEAKER_00: Is there a place in your mind you just keep coming back to?
SPEAKER_00: Something you've gone through the past year that you can't get beyond.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus wants to meet you.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to have a conversation with you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: The second person we see Jesus having a conversation with is Thomas.
SPEAKER_00: In John chapter 20, verse 24, Jesus says, Thomas, who was called the twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.
SPEAKER_00: So the other disciples told him, We've seen the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But he said to them, Unless I see the mark of nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.
SPEAKER_00: A week later his disciples were again at the house, and Thomas was with them.
SPEAKER_00: Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace with you.
SPEAKER_00: Then he said to Thomas, Put your fingers here, see my hands, reach out your hand and put it in my side.
SPEAKER_00: Do not doubt, but believe.
SPEAKER_00: Thomas answered him, My Lord and my God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to him, Have you believed because you've seen me?
SPEAKER_00: Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, the risen Lord, approaches Mary in her sorrows, but he approaches Thomas in his skepticism.
SPEAKER_00: Thomas missed the party.
SPEAKER_00: The Jesus appeared to the disciples on the first Sunday and he wasn't there.
SPEAKER_00: There was ten of them there.
SPEAKER_00: Judas wasn't there, and Thomas wasn't there.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you've ever related to missing a party or feeling like you're not in on something, but Thomas missed a pretty big thing.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He missed Jesus, the resurrected Lord coming back.
SPEAKER_00: And he had to put up with all week long, all ten of them saying, Jesus is risen from the dead and he's back.
SPEAKER_00: And he's resistant.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't like the idea.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, Jesus does show up still on Sundays, and this is why you should never miss church, because you never know which Sunday the Lord will be there.
SPEAKER_00: And Thomas, he missed a Sunday service, and it happened to be the one that the Lord was there.
SPEAKER_00: And so we will be back next week.
SPEAKER_00: And you might also notice a pattern.
SPEAKER_00: He appeared on Sunday, and then a week later he appears again.
SPEAKER_00: And that's maybe what started the pattern of church on Sunday is that the Lord tended to show up.
SPEAKER_00: And so Thomas, he missed it.
SPEAKER_00: It's like showing up at a party, and there's pizza boxes, but no pizza, and you're being told.
SPEAKER_00: And we don't know a whole lot about Thomas.
SPEAKER_00: In the Gospel of John, he's got three lines.
SPEAKER_00: His first line is actually when the disciples heard that Jesus was going to the Passover.
SPEAKER_00: Thomas knew that this was bad, and he said to the disciples, let's go die with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He's mad.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, let's just go die with him.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to go to Jerusalem, stupid idea, we'll go die with him.
SPEAKER_00: Second thing Thomas says in the Gospel of John is it's at the discourse, the night before Jesus dies.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is talking about going away, and Thomas says, We don't know where you're going.
SPEAKER_00: Thomas was an honest guy.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know where we're going.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus followed it with his famous, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_00: And now we have Thomas doubting.
SPEAKER_00: If I don't touch the wounds, I don't believe you.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he didn't think very much of the ten.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he thought of Peter.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I remember when you said you loved him.
SPEAKER_00: And then you denied him.
SPEAKER_00: Why would I believe a word you say?
SPEAKER_00: And yet some of us in here we have doubts and skepticism because of bad witnesses in our life.
SPEAKER_00: People that have let us down.
SPEAKER_00: But but Thomas, he's he's clearly hurt.
SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of times our wounds, they they actually lead to the skepticism rather than the other way around.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of times skepticism, not always, but a lot of times skepticism is a result of being hurt.
SPEAKER_00: I remember when I was a young adult pastor meeting with denison students, I met with a denison student because his mom called me, which is never good because they're adults now and you let them go.
SPEAKER_00: But his mom called me, this was freshman year in the spring.
SPEAKER_00: She's like, My kids leaving the faith, would you get coffee with them?
SPEAKER_00: And I asked if he wanted me to, and he said, okay.
SPEAKER_00: So I kind of grudgingly met with him, and he did.
SPEAKER_00: He was about in April, and he was like, I'm done with Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, that's pretty close to the record for losing your faith.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, but not quite.
SPEAKER_00: And he basically was telling me a story, and I was waiting for like the moment.
SPEAKER_00: Like I had this professor who talked me out of the faith, or I met this, you know, student in philosophy class, and he said all these things I'd never heard of before, or I read this about the Bible, and instead he said, I haven't made a single friend since being here.
SPEAKER_00: And in the fall, I was praying for God to let me meet a person, a friend, and nothing.
SPEAKER_00: And now I don't believe in any of it.
SPEAKER_00: He was just hurt.
SPEAKER_00: He was hurt, he was lonely, and from it came all these doubts and these questions.
SPEAKER_00: There's a sort of famous quote that preachers often use.
SPEAKER_00: I something like this: that life, I used to think that tough questions would lead people to lose their faith.
SPEAKER_00: Now I've learned that it's actually tough experiences.
SPEAKER_00: That is often not the questions that cause the doubt, but it's the experiences, the wounds.
SPEAKER_00: We have.
SPEAKER_00: I've met with so many people that they they trace back their doubts to a leader in the church betraying them or hurting them.
SPEAKER_00: It has nothing to do with the intellect.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's not all doubts.
SPEAKER_00: There are, you know, there's a place for intellectual inquiry, and there's a place for like honest questions and getting through things like that, but but so often what we need is not more information.
SPEAKER_00: So often we need to be honest about the wounds that have hurt us.
SPEAKER_00: And if we know that we've been hurt, we have to be especially suspicious of our doubts.
SPEAKER_00: Look, if you've gone through something traumatic and now you're having doubts about your faith that you've never had before, you need to doubt your doubts.
SPEAKER_00: You need to wonder, this probably is not coming from a genuine place of intellectual inquiry.
SPEAKER_00: This is probably coming from wounding that needs healed.
SPEAKER_00: Another way that we come into skepticism is we don't actually search.
SPEAKER_00: We get complacent in life.
SPEAKER_00: There are some people that genuinely go on a search for the God, that they study world religions and compare them and they go on this path.
SPEAKER_00: But for many of us, if we're honest, we haven't actually looked for the best answers.
SPEAKER_00: I remember uh one of my favorite people in the faith is a contemporary of his name's Francis Collins.
SPEAKER_00: And he wrote a book called The Language of God, and Francis Collins was the head of the Human Genome Project.
SPEAKER_00: You might have heard him from there.
SPEAKER_00: And he was, I think, executive director of the National Institute for Health.
SPEAKER_00: But but in his book, he tells his story, and his story is kind of like that.
SPEAKER_00: It's he found himself in the medical field, brilliant young man in his twenties, and he was an atheist, but it was an unexamined skepticism.
SPEAKER_00: And actually, what started to turn the tide for him is he started seeing people die.
SPEAKER_00: He'd watch people die, and he noticed that people with faith would die better.
SPEAKER_00: And then he had this encounter with somebody who they really questioned, like, what do you believe?
SPEAKER_00: And he realized that that his doubts and his skepticism weren't actually that deep, that he had never never been bothered to go on a search for God.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a lot of us.
SPEAKER_00: We've never been bothered to actually go on a search for God.
SPEAKER_00: And Francis Collins in his story has this turning point where he's out in nature and he sees this beautiful waterfall and his life has changed, and he has intellectual reasons for his conversion as well.
SPEAKER_00: But for many of us, we we haven't been bothered to search for God.
SPEAKER_00: But but for Thomas, I think we see a little bit different.
SPEAKER_00: Thomas, I think, has another reason for skepticism, and that's that's a problem of the heart or the will.
SPEAKER_00: See, what's interesting about this whole exchange is that Jesus, who's incredibly empathetic and meets Thomas in a skepticism, he actually addresses Thomas's will.
SPEAKER_00: He says to him clearly, I want you, literally, it's like, don't be unbelieving.
SPEAKER_00: Just stop.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be unbelieving, which is kind of silly, right?
SPEAKER_00: Don't be unbelieving, but be believing.
SPEAKER_00: Like you can choose.
SPEAKER_00: You can choose to trust.
SPEAKER_00: He knew that Thomas's problem was not intellectual.
SPEAKER_00: Another hint that we have that this was a problem of the heart is that Thomas gave God an ultimatum.
SPEAKER_00: It was if you don't let me touch your wounds, I won't believe.
SPEAKER_00: Martin Buber, the philosopher, has a kind of famous paradigm, some of you have probably heard, where he talks about I-it relationships and I thou relationships.
SPEAKER_00: I it relationships are how we relate to objects, things.
SPEAKER_00: I have my water bottle here, it's an it.
SPEAKER_00: And in those relationships we we often control, manipulate.
SPEAKER_00: They're ours.
SPEAKER_00: But people are thou's, I thou relationships.
SPEAKER_00: And in those relationships, we have to let people be people.
SPEAKER_00: So much conflict in life comes when we treat people as it's.
SPEAKER_00: How dare you not believe?
SPEAKER_00: He accommodates him.
SPEAKER_00: He gets on his level and says, touch the wounds.
SPEAKER_00: Touch the scars.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus meets us in our doubts.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus had met with his disciples, but one was missing.
SPEAKER_00: One was doubting.
SPEAKER_00: One didn't feel like they belonged.
SPEAKER_00: And he went out of his way to meet with them.
SPEAKER_00: And some of us here this Easter, if we're honest, we're carrying a lot of doubts, doubts about God, doubts about church, doubts about our world.
SPEAKER_00: And we have these doubts, and we we think that they create distance between us and God, but they don't.
SPEAKER_00: The resurrected Jesus comes close to us anyway.
SPEAKER_00: He comes close to us in our questions.
SPEAKER_00: They don't scare him.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is not worried about your doubts, your questions.
SPEAKER_00: He's not scared off.
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to be real and honest.
SPEAKER_00: And the resurrected Jesus, he meets us in our doubts.
SPEAKER_00: The third person and the third place we see Jesus meeting us is he meets Peter in his shame.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus meets Peter in his shame.
SPEAKER_00: In John 21, Jesus showed up again to the disciples by the sea.
SPEAKER_00: He showed himself in this way.
SPEAKER_00: Gathered together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the twin, Nathaniel of Cana and Galilee and the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples.
SPEAKER_00: Simon Peter said to them, I'm going fishing, and they said to him, We will go with you.
SPEAKER_00: They went out and they got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Just after daybreak Jesus stood on the beach, but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to him, Children, you have no fish, have you?
SPEAKER_00: And they answered him, No.
SPEAKER_00: He said to them, Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.
SPEAKER_00: So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish.
SPEAKER_00: So that disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, It is the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord he put on clothes for he was naked, and he jumped into the sea.
SPEAKER_00: But the other disciples came in in the boat, and they dragged the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.
SPEAKER_00: When they had gone ashore they saw a charcoal fire there with fish on it and bread.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to them, Bring some of the fish that you've just caught.
SPEAKER_00: So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty three of them.
SPEAKER_00: And though there were many of them, the net was not torn.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to them, Come and have breakfast.
SPEAKER_00: Now none of the disciples dared to ask who are you, because they knew it was the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus came and he took bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish.
SPEAKER_00: And this was the third time that he appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: After they finished breakfast, Jesus said to Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?
SPEAKER_00: And he said to him, Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to him, Feed my lambs.
SPEAKER_00: A second time he said to him, Simon, son of John, do you love me?
SPEAKER_00: He said to him, Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to him, Tend to my sheep.
SPEAKER_00: He said to him a third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me?
SPEAKER_00: And Peter felt hurt, because he had said to him a third time, Do you love me?
SPEAKER_00: And he said to him, Lord, you know everything, and you know that I love you.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to him, Feed my sheep.
SPEAKER_00: This is a story that is actually kind of a reenactment, and to kind of get the full flavor of it, it helps if you've read, you know, how Peter originally came to Jesus, but but the short version is that a few days before Jesus died, Peter had said, I'll never betray you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm your guide, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I'll die with you, I'm with you to the end.
SPEAKER_00: And then Peter betrayed Jesus three times.
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, it says in one gospel, he wept bitterly.
SPEAKER_00: He's full of shame.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't live up to who he thought he was.
SPEAKER_00: And now Jesus is meeting with the disciples, and it's it's this mirror scene of when Jesus first met with Peter.
SPEAKER_00: And Peter was out fishing.
SPEAKER_00: They throw the nets on the other side, they bring it in, and he has this conversation, and he even calls them by his old name.
SPEAKER_00: Now he had a new name given to him, Peter the Rock, and he's going even back to his old name.
SPEAKER_00: And it's this back to the beginning moment for Peter, and Peter is full of shame.
SPEAKER_00: Shame is this thing that makes us think that these truths they don't apply to me.
SPEAKER_00: That, yeah, sure, God's love, but he doesn't love me.
SPEAKER_00: Something's wrong with me.
SPEAKER_00: The truths they must apply to everybody else.
SPEAKER_00: Other people can have that close relationship with God, but but I'm too bad.
SPEAKER_00: I'm too wrong.
SPEAKER_00: There's something broken with me.
SPEAKER_00: Shame causes us to hide.
SPEAKER_00: Peter is hiding, he's back to fishing again, and he's he's not chasing the Lord or clinging.
SPEAKER_00: This is actually the third time he's seen him now, and we are kind of surprised to find Peter here.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, he comes to Peter in his shame.
SPEAKER_00: And he comes to you and I in our shame.
SPEAKER_00: In this story, when he meets with Peter, he intentionally asked Peter three times, Do you love me?
SPEAKER_00: mirroring the three times that Peter denied him.
SPEAKER_00: He actually, I know in English we just use the word love for everything, but in Greek there's different words for love.
SPEAKER_00: He he actually asked Peter, Do you love me?
SPEAKER_00: And he uses the word agape, like God like love.
SPEAKER_00: Do you love me like a God?
SPEAKER_00: Do you love me with all the love that God has?
SPEAKER_00: And each time Peter replies, like, I love you like a friend, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: This were like a dating scene, it would be awkward, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's like, Peter, though, is he's finally aware.
SPEAKER_00: He's finally aware that he's not better.
SPEAKER_00: See, Jesus, he meets us in our shame and and it leads to this honest reflection.
SPEAKER_00: He takes us to the point of our pain.
SPEAKER_00: Did you catch that in there?
SPEAKER_00: He says he asked three times, and this hurt Peter.
SPEAKER_00: We don't like to think of Jesus as hurting us.
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes we need that little bit of hurt to face what we've done.
SPEAKER_00: And he hurt Peter because he wanted to heal Peter.
SPEAKER_00: He hurt Peter because he wanted to get to the foundation.
SPEAKER_00: He wanted to restore Peter, and that's why he said, feed my sheep.
SPEAKER_00: He's giving Peter purpose back.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, I know you've blown it.
SPEAKER_00: I know you thought you loved me more than every other disciple.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm glad that you now realize you love me to the best of your ability, but not more than everybody else in the world.
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you've had this moment of honesty, and then he restores purpose to Peter.
SPEAKER_00: The resurrected Jesus hunts down his disciples and he meets them right where they are.
SPEAKER_00: He meets them in their sorrow, he meets them in their doubts, he meets them in their shame.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder this morning if if anybody is carrying shame.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you don't feel like God would ever want a relationship with you because of what you have done.
SPEAKER_00: The resurrected Lord wants to meet you there.
SPEAKER_00: And when his finger goes on it, it will hurt a little.
SPEAKER_00: But his intention is to heal you.
SPEAKER_00: Peter did what probably feels like the most shameful thing a Christian could do, to deny Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus intentionally seeks him out to say, I still want you, Peter.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you've done that is causing you to hide from God, to keep God at a distance, to keep maybe serving God or going into ministry at a distance, whatever you've done that you think has made you unqualified, Jesus comes close.
SPEAKER_00: His intention is to heal and to restore.
SPEAKER_00: And so we have the resurrected Lord meeting us in our sorrows and our doubts and our shame.
SPEAKER_00: I believe this morning that the Lord wants to continue to meet with us.
SPEAKER_00: That the reason Jesus has not come back in all of his glory is that he is not done meeting with people one-on-one.
SPEAKER_00: He's not done having conversations with people.
SPEAKER_00: He's not done addressing people by name.
SPEAKER_00: He's not done meeting us in our circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: The temptation in our sorrow will be to blame him.
SPEAKER_00: The temptation in our doubts will be to question him.
SPEAKER_00: The temptation in our shame will be to hide from him.
SPEAKER_00: But he will not let those barriers get in the way.
SPEAKER_00: He will pursue you with an everlasting love.
SPEAKER_00: He will look for you until he finds you.
SPEAKER_00: Because he is not done.
SPEAKER_00: The good news of Easter is there is a reality beyond what our eyes see and our ears hear, a reality beyond our five senses.
SPEAKER_00: Left to ourselves, we would all be agnostics, but this reality is personal and has chosen to reveal himself to us that we might know him and that he will close the distance, he will encounter you and me.
SPEAKER_00: And whether you know it or not, he has begun a conversation with you and will pursue you until the very end.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, we thank you that Christ risen is among us.