Well, good morning.
Welcome.
Glad you're here.
Welcome to Christ the Redeemer.
My name's Russ Masterson, the pastor here.
We're excited you're here with us.
Whether you're visiting, you got here through family.
Maybe you wanted to come, maybe your family made you come.
We don't know, but we're glad you're here either way.
Excited you're here with us to celebrate Easter, to celebrate Jesus' resurrection.
We have a few things just we know it can be difficult to connect into an existing church, and we have a newcomer chat coming up.
All this is in here, so I'm not going to cover, but just the newcomer chats coming up.
We have a church picnic coming up.
We have empty nesters group.
If you're an empty nester, your kids are out of the house, or maybe they should be out of the house.
That also will cover you.
You're good there.
We have an empty nesters event coming up.
You're welcome to look at those things.
So let's pray very quickly before we get into the sermon.
Lord, I pray as we open your scriptures that you would teach us.
You would open our hearts to see something anew and a fresh and perhaps be reminded in a really needed and wonderful way that you are life.
You are life now, you are life eternal, you are the life we need.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
A couple of weeks ago, I was texting with a friend of mine.
It was during March Madness.
We were both watching a game, and he was where he lives in his town, and I was where I live in my living room and sitting on the couch, and we're texting back and forth about the game.
Do you see that shot?
Oh, amazing shot, you know, back and forth.
And I'm texting and hitting, you know, the little up air, you know, texting, and then the little up air, boom, hit it.
And immediately I'm getting what is so rewarding, right?
The three little dots.
Right?
So like like we are together.
Me and my friend, like he is here with us, and the three little dots, and we're going back and forth, back and forth.
And then I decided I decided to change the subject.
And I I kind of put my opinion out there about something, and and then I was wanting his opinion on it, and no dots.
Right.
This this this feeling.
Like I changed the subject, and all of a sudden there was no dots.
He wasn't replying.
And like, what does this mean?
Like, where where did the dots go?
Where did he go?
I mean, you you think this person likes you, maybe they love you, maybe they're your friend, maybe they're family, and all of a sudden there's no dots here.
It's just silence.
And it's painful, right?
We all know it.
Jane Howe at slate.com, she wrote an article.
Texting means never having to say goodbye.
Here's what she says.
The implication is comforting.
That your friends will always be there for you, literally at your fingertips.
Foregoing the formalities of hello and goodbye implies a certain closeness.
You can jump into talking about Martha Stewart's Instagram post, complaining about public transit, or swap click-hole articles.
And there's some evidence that people who text more tend to report feeling less lonely and closer to their friends.
But as anyone who's ever sent a vulnerable text knows, it can be jarring to put a message out into the world and get nothing back, leaving a message hanging in a void until the next time the conversation picks up.
The etiquette of texting is, of course, different than an in-person conversation, but it can still feel like your conversational partner's silence means something.
Right?
We know what she's talking about.
We've all felt this because it's so good to have the immediate interaction back and forth, but the moment we become vulnerable with an idea or a thought or a feeling, all of a sudden those dots mean a lot more.
And if they're not there, if they're not there, we're just not quite sure what to make of that.
All of a sudden the response time of the response means everything.
Maybe you're texting with a sweet someone, you get you go on a first date, and and you take her out to Chili's and you thought it went so good, and then you may wake up the next morning and you felt so good about that date, and you wake up the next morning and you you're thinking, is it too early to text?
When can I text?
When can I say, like, you know, had a great time?
Like, when can I when can I communicate?
Don't you have to wait a day?
Don't even wait, you know, midday.
So you just I'll wait until the middle of the day, you know.
So you wait until the middle of the day and you you text, like, had an awesome time, period.
You don't want to seem too eager with the exclamation marks, just a period, and then you want to be fun, and so you do like a celebratory, like dancing cat meme, okay?
You know, you're kind of playful, celebratory, and you send it, and you're very nervous about the whole thing, and you get nothing.
No, no dots.
Nothing.
Maybe you shouldn't like chilies.
Maybe it was the cat.
Maybe it was that was too niche.
Should have gone with Michael and Dwight raising the roof.
You know, that's a classic.
Maybe you shouldn't have used the word awesome.
Maybe that was too much.
Should have gone with great.
Something safer.
Five minutes go by, ten minutes go by, an hour go by, you're checking your phone throughout the afternoon.
You're getting more, I mean, it's you're like, it's over.
She doesn't like me.
And you know where we go from this.
I don't have what it takes.
Nobody really likes me.
I don't really have any good friends.
Pretty sure my family does love me, hate my job, hate my life.
This is how fast it goes in our minds.
I'm worth nothing because I haven't received these three dots back.
Then finally in the evening, you're sitting on the couch you hate, and you're the house you don't like, and the town you're not sure you should live in, you know, the whole world's, and finally your your phone dings or vibrates.
Sorry, comma.
I had no coverage all day.
Exclamation mark.
Horrible conference at my boss's ranch.
Period.
Busy this weekend.
Question mark.
Right?
I mean, just relief.
Right?
Just relief because the silence is over.
Aaron Zimmerman's a priest in Houston, and he says this.
He says, sadly, we're all just waiting to be confirmed that we are as horrible as we think we are.
And the silence is just confirming this.
Because we have this inner voice that says, at any age, at any age, this inner voice that says, you still don't have what it takes.
And then Randy or Judy, she doesn't, you know, he doesn't reply to your text.
And never mind, she was at her boss's ranch, or she dropped her phone in the toilet, or he's having spleen surgery.
Like, never mind, any possibilities of that.
It's all judgment, the silence is judgment.
In our sinful, fragile nature, we will interpret the silence as judgment.
You see, we need breaks and silence.
We needed it.
And the good news of Easter that stands in human history.
So we don't have to worry about what God thinks about us.
Because the silence is over.
We have it forever, yes.
I will die for you because I love you, and I will verify I have the authority by rising again.
Our reading was Luke 24, rereading that, verses 1 and 2.
But on the first day of the week at early dawn, they went to the tomb taking the spices they had prepared.
And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb.
But when they went in, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
So these ladies, they go to prepare the body with no expectation of the resurrection.
I mean, all of Jesus' followers at this point had bailed.
They didn't expect this.
They thought this thing was over.
Never really believed his words about the whole resurrection thing.
Verse 4, while they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel.
And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, Why do you seek the living among the dead?
He is not here, but is risen.
Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise?
And they remembered his words.
And returning from the tomb, they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.
Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary, the mother of James, and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles.
But these words seemed to them an idle tale.
And they did not believe them.
So maybe the resurrection for you has always sort of been your issue with Christian faith.
Like kind of everything else you'll take.
But the resurrection is sort of like that's where this is an idle tale.
This is too much.
And I would just say, you're in really good company.
If you think that, or you've ever thought it.
Because all of Jesus' original followers thought this.
They documented their own skepticism to say, this is understandable to be skeptical about this.
But then these same people that had walked away and were skeptical, these same people radically turn in such a short period of time and are willing and die for this event.
Peter was one of these guys, and at the crucifixion he denies even knowing this Jesus, following this Jesus to a teenage girl.
That's how scared he was.
Maybe teenage girls are something to be scared of.
Verse 12 says, But Peter rose and ran to the tomb, stooping and looking in.
He saw the linen clothes by themselves, and he went home marveling at what had happened.
In 1 Peter 1, 3 through 5, this is his letter.
He wrote this later in life.
Jesus has caused us to be born again to a living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for our salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.
So one main kind of overarching point, just an Easter point.
We need Easter because we need to know Jesus has the authority on the cross to forgive and grant forever righteousness to us.
That was a long sentence.
We need Easter because we need to know Jesus has the authority as God on the cross to give us full forgiveness.
Forever forgiveness.
Full righteousness, forever righteousness.
Meaning, this means the resurrection verifies what the cross is proclaiming.
On Monday, if you're keeping up with the news, Notre Dame, the cathedral in Paris began to burn.
I'm sure all of us kept up with that a little bit.
You saw some images along the way.
You saw everybody doing their humble brags online of when they were in Paris and their pictures there at Notre Dame, making sure you knew that they were there.
Love going to Notre Dame every year in the spring.
You know, that kind of thing.
Gotcha, gotcha.
You get to go to Paris every year.
We got it.
850 years old.
Probably the most famous Christian sanctuary in the world.
I mean, people built this sanctuary.
The roof was made of 52 acres of trees.
Each beam was one tree.
This thing stood through kings and queens and wars.
Christians had been worshiping in that building for 500 years before a building was built in our country.
It has seen nine centuries of worship of Jesus.
Firefighters fought through the night, and they eventually they got the fire out by the morning.
There's this beautiful image, I don't know if you saw it, I was looking through some different images.
There's this beautiful image of a photographer took in the sanctuary looking forward, and there's ash and destruction all the way, but then the altar didn't burn, and then a gold cross was standing still there.
And that was really beautiful.
That was a beautiful image.
I I think even more beautiful, at least maybe that sounds almost sacrilegious to say something that's even more beautiful than that.
Maybe equally as beautiful was this image that during the fire, people had come, people in Paris had come, and they were they were praying and they were grieving all around this building.
This was their home, this was their home of worship.
And they're praying, and then they began to sing hymns.
Even the most precious thing can burn.
And yet our faith is not constrained to a place or a building, or silver or gold.
Peter keeps writing in verse 6, in this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials.
So that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, that perishes though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor of the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Some of you probably, some of us feel like we've been through fire, right?
Even now, it's hard sometimes to come to an Easter service.
You kind of feel like I gotta dress up and pretend like everything's great.
We're good at doing that at church.
And maybe it's hard because you're sick, or he's sick, or she's sick, or that person passed away this year.
Or finances are hard, or job is hard, or parenting's hard, or dealing with your parents is hard, perhaps.
Or maybe you're 13 or you're 30 or you're 70, and you're just not what you thought you would be.
You're not where you thought you would be.
And career or money or life or romance or faith.
It's very possible.
And here's what Peter is saying to us.
Four points.
Don't worry, that wasn't all intro.
This is actually the end of the sermon.
Four points.
It's not like, oh, here's the beginning.
Not the beginning.
Some of you got scared.
Number one, because of his resurrection, we do not have to live in fear of death, distance from God, or fear in life.
Number one.
Number two, because of his resurrection, we can live in hope, no longer enslaved to sin, but wrapped in his righteousness.
Number three, because of his resurrection, you have a wealth of righteousness and identity beyond this world, which can never be taken from you.
And because of that, we are freed into a life of confession, gratitude, growth, praise, and glory and honor of Jesus Christ.
And in case you're starting to worry after that last sentence, how are you gonna keep all that up?
And what if you fail?
And what happens if you could could you lose it?
Verse 5, what Peter says, who by God, you you by God's power are being guarded through faith for salvation.
And placing faith is not a measurement, it's a placement.
It's a placement of your neediness and trust in God to be for you what you have never been able to be.
In Jesus we die, and in Jesus we are risen.
My brothers and sisters, you are forever God's beloved in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Hallelujah, Christ is risen.
Let's pray together.
God, thank you for the good gift of Jesus.
Thank you for you in Jesus.
Your manifestation in this world that the silence is broken.
We do not have to wonder what you think of us.
That while we are sinners, you came to die for us.
That in Jesus we die, and in Jesus we rise again, that we have a soul reborn by the power of the blood of Jesus.
And we are freed into a forever absolute forgiveness and righteousness that claims us and gives us a wealth of identity that can never be taken away.
Amen.