SPEAKER_03: This podcast is a great great parkway.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus, we asked that you would in a few seconds would you flood us with the quickest reminder of our disgraceful sin against you.
SPEAKER_02: And we can feel freshly that that has been cleansed, that has been washed, that has been forgotten, that has been rightly paid for.
SPEAKER_02: And that those who put their trust in you, those whom you have saved, those who've been made new and alive in you, they stand before you clean.
SPEAKER_02: They stand before you, not facing judgment.
SPEAKER_02: They stand before you with the very righteousness of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, this morning, would you land on us in a one-on-one conversation where you speak from the text and then give us clarity on how we then should live.
SPEAKER_02: This we ask, this we expect from you.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Please be seated.
SPEAKER_02: I'm glad you're here.
SPEAKER_02: My name is Blake Hardcastle.
SPEAKER_02: I am the spiritual formation pastor at Grand Parkway.
SPEAKER_02: Part of what that means is I have care and oversight in our Sunday morning Bible studies, in midweek Bible studies, in missions.
SPEAKER_02: And on occasion, I have responsibility to be God's mouthpiece and deliver the word to us.
SPEAKER_02: What we need most, we will get this morning.
SPEAKER_02: We need God to speak to us, and He will speak from His Word.
SPEAKER_02: It's what we desperately need to hear.
SPEAKER_02: This morning, Clyde mentioned it's kind of a it's an odd text in that Jesus' death has occurred, and just when you thought it couldn't get any lower, or it will get lower.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, we'll take a snapshot at this the most pathetic funeral that's ever existed.
SPEAKER_02: And then will be confusion.
SPEAKER_02: Where's the body?
SPEAKER_02: And then one person, Mary Magdalene, will have a very quick encounter with the risen Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Not enough to where everyone's convinced, just enough to where she brings the news.
SPEAKER_02: But I think this is the text God wants to bring this morning to address where you feel buried in life.
SPEAKER_02: Where you feel in a grave.
SPEAKER_02: I think he says to you this morning, it will not end this way.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna walk through the text and then we'll we'll land on somewhere significant.
SPEAKER_02: So this morning, uh what's gonna happen is we'll see from the text there's some questions that uh the persons in the background in this scene are asking and thinking.
SPEAKER_02: And they're really the same questions that you and I ask and think.
SPEAKER_02: It's questions like, God, have you forgotten me?
SPEAKER_02: Me forgotten.
SPEAKER_02: Me, your servant?
SPEAKER_02: Do you love me?
SPEAKER_02: Are you gonna leave me like this?
SPEAKER_02: Let's walk through the text and then we'll unpack this together.
SPEAKER_02: John chapter 19, where we left off last week.
SPEAKER_02: This is verse 38.
SPEAKER_02: After these things, these things are the death of Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus but secretly, for fear of the Jews.
SPEAKER_02: So he believed Jesus was the Messiah, had his hopes in that, was kind of monitoring closely, but secretly.
SPEAKER_02: He didn't let anybody else know.
SPEAKER_02: Certainly didn't let those he he uh lived and worked with know.
SPEAKER_02: But he's got some power because he's able to approach Pilate and ask that the body, he could take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission.
SPEAKER_02: So he's got some kind of pretty high political status, political connection.
SPEAKER_02: And he goes secretly and says, have this body.
SPEAKER_02: And Pilate's not supposed to do this.
SPEAKER_02: The Romans, if you were a criminal of sedition, so uh an uprising against the Roman Emperor, uh, you needed to be publicly shamed before and after death.
SPEAKER_02: Left to exposure, let the animals consume you.
SPEAKER_02: Jews would permit you to be buried, but only with other criminals.
SPEAKER_02: And Pilate doesn't do either one of these.
SPEAKER_02: He said, ah, yeah, you can have them.
SPEAKER_02: You can put them in the tomb you want.
SPEAKER_02: Nicodemus, verse 39, was also who earlier had come to Jesus at night.
SPEAKER_02: It's still the same secret approach to Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Let us know about this.
SPEAKER_02: Came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about 75 pounds in weight.
SPEAKER_02: He didn't carry this by himself.
SPEAKER_02: Both these guys are pretty wealthy.
SPEAKER_02: They have servants, and the 75 pounds seems like this is a little excessive, right?
SPEAKER_02: Especially for a rushed funeral and preparation and burial.
SPEAKER_02: When Herod the Great died, over 500 servants carried spices to his burial.
SPEAKER_02: These are two wealthy men, and everyone else is scattered.
SPEAKER_02: The disciples, gone.
SPEAKER_02: His mother, gone.
SPEAKER_02: Peter, definitely gone.
SPEAKER_02: John writing the gospel, the one Jesus loved, he's not there.
SPEAKER_02: Just these two.
SPEAKER_02: These two kind of on the fence disciples.
SPEAKER_02: They uh they prepare him for death and they they they wash the body and they take the linen, which is expensive, and they begin wrapping parts of the body and packing the spices in between the limbs and the layers of fabric and packing on top.
SPEAKER_02: And as they're wrapping this body, uh you can imagine that they begin wrapping the hand, and they remember this is the hand that touched this man who was paralyzed, and he got up, rolled up his mat, and walked out of there.
SPEAKER_02: This is the hand that made some kind of slurry and put it on the blind man's eyes, and he could see.
SPEAKER_02: This is the hand that was covered in this garment, and someone reached out and touched the edge of it, and this long-term disability left her body.
SPEAKER_02: It dives deeper.
SPEAKER_02: God, have you forgotten us?
SPEAKER_02: Why would you let us be tricked by this man?
SPEAKER_02: Do we missee what we saw?
SPEAKER_02: And they wrap, they cover the head.
SPEAKER_02: These are the lips that spoke confounding truth to the best experts in the law.
SPEAKER_02: How is it this happened?
SPEAKER_02: How is it that we were duped?
SPEAKER_02: How is it you let this happen?
SPEAKER_02: We were certain, the disciples were searching, we were pretty sure, but following a distance, this was the one.
SPEAKER_02: How can this be?
SPEAKER_02: And if you were there rapping and laying him in the tomb, you would be thinking some of the same things.
SPEAKER_02: God, have you forgotten us?
SPEAKER_02: Do you love me?
SPEAKER_02: This is how it ends.
SPEAKER_02: This is a pathetic funeral.
SPEAKER_02: The most significant person who's ever lived.
SPEAKER_02: God who enfleshes himself, the God man.
SPEAKER_02: This is what we celebrate at Christmas.
SPEAKER_02: God comes in flesh has one of the most insignificant, rushed memorials, burials in history.
SPEAKER_02: The one who should have the most significant, the most fan hair fair, the longest line, the most days of remembering gets this little quick thing before the sunset.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 1 of chapter 20.
SPEAKER_02: Now on the first day of the week, Sunday morning, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while still dark.
SPEAKER_02: It's dark out.
SPEAKER_02: She can't see into the tomb.
SPEAKER_02: She's not expecting to.
SPEAKER_02: She's expecting to come, and there'll be a big stone in the way, and there'll be a Roman guard.
SPEAKER_02: That's not what she sees.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, what she sees is very distressing and very confusing.
SPEAKER_02: It's still dark.
SPEAKER_02: She saw the stone have been taken away from the tomb.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 2, so she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, They've taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they've laid him.
SPEAKER_02: She doesn't say, Woo! He's resurrected.
SPEAKER_02: Stop crying.
SPEAKER_02: She was already grieving.
SPEAKER_02: And now it's just a sucker punch to the gut.
SPEAKER_02: Already all my hopes are dashed, and now I can't even I can't even go s pay my respects.
SPEAKER_02: She probably thinks there's been a grave robbery because this is what would be the most likely explanation.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, Emperor Claudius is so common or so pervasive, he orders capital punishment for the crime of grave robbery.
SPEAKER_02: Someone has come, someone has moved the stone away.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know where he's at.
SPEAKER_02: He's not there.
SPEAKER_02: Peter and John, they respond, they don't respond by, well, let's talk about this.
SPEAKER_02: They go slowly, tell us again.
SPEAKER_02: Now, are you sure?
SPEAKER_02: They don't question, they just get up and go.
SPEAKER_02: Verse three and four.
SPEAKER_02: So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going to the tomb.
SPEAKER_02: Both of them were running together, and the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 5.
SPEAKER_02: And stooping to look in, he saw the linen clothes lying there, but he didn't go in.
SPEAKER_02: And so maybe there's enough, barely enough light now.
SPEAKER_02: He can look in, and it's really confusing.
SPEAKER_02: Because there's no stone, no guard.
SPEAKER_02: There's the burial cloths.
SPEAKER_02: There's no body.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, they're not that big.
SPEAKER_02: Can't really not allow corners to hide in.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 6, then Simon Peter came following him, and he went into the tomb.
SPEAKER_02: He passed John.
SPEAKER_02: John's just looking in, and he saw linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded up in a place by itself.
SPEAKER_02: Neither one are saying, Oh yes, resurrection.
SPEAKER_02: They're confused, they're shocked, they're hurt.
SPEAKER_02: They're confused because the likely explanation of thievery now doesn't make sense.
SPEAKER_02: Because thieves, when they break in, they don't leave money on the floor.
SPEAKER_02: The linen and the spices, these are expensive.
SPEAKER_02: You didn't just have this laying around.
SPEAKER_02: It would be much easier, okay.
SPEAKER_02: Let's just pick the whole thing up.
SPEAKER_02: The body, and you know, some spices are gonna drop on the ground, we won't get it all.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pick the whole thing up, put it on the thing, drag it out.
SPEAKER_02: They don't leave money there.
SPEAKER_02: They're not gonna fold up a head shroud, a facecloth.
SPEAKER_02: This is very confusing.
SPEAKER_02: It's in stark contrast to the resurrection of Lazarus.
SPEAKER_02: When Jesus raises Lazarus, he tells him to come out and he comes out of the tomb with all the grave clothes on.
SPEAKER_02: We don't know.
SPEAKER_02: We're not told in the text what happens.
SPEAKER_02: We don't know if what's going to happen in a couple chapters verses from now, where Jesus comes, there's a locked room, and 120 are gathered, and he enters in.
SPEAKER_02: We don't know.
SPEAKER_02: Does he just kind of pass through and get up out of this wrapped bondage?
SPEAKER_02: We don't know that.
SPEAKER_02: But we do know there's no body.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 8.
SPEAKER_02: Then Simon.
SPEAKER_02: Then the other disciple who had reached the tomb first went in, and do not miss this.
SPEAKER_02: He saw and believed.
SPEAKER_02: John walks in, and John, writing his gospel, says, This was the moment.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't understand everything.
SPEAKER_02: It didn't all make sense yet, but that was the moment.
SPEAKER_02: Something birthed in me.
SPEAKER_02: Well, before this, I didn't sleep well.
SPEAKER_02: I cried.
SPEAKER_02: I was depressed.
SPEAKER_02: I felt like a fool.
SPEAKER_02: Felt in danger still.
SPEAKER_02: And then Mary told us he's not there.
SPEAKER_02: And I ran to the tomb.
SPEAKER_02: And I had hope.
SPEAKER_02: John tells us that they didn't know, they didn't understand the scriptures that he must rise from the dead.
SPEAKER_02: You know, later on, they they re-see the Old Testament and they see, oh yes, God will come as the Messiah.
SPEAKER_02: He will come as the rescuer of his people and the judger of God's enemies.
SPEAKER_02: And like most of the Jews, they have thought this is going to be one guy one time.
SPEAKER_02: God's going to come in, boom, Romans, you're gone.
SPEAKER_02: Come in, set up the kingdom.
SPEAKER_02: And God's that's not what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, the enemies I fought are sin and death.
SPEAKER_02: And I come the first time offering repentance and grace.
SPEAKER_02: When he comes a second time, it's the second half of the office of Messiah.
SPEAKER_02: When he comes a second time, it is judgment, final judgment for all God's enemies.
SPEAKER_02: John sees and believes.
SPEAKER_02: The simplest explanation for what John sees.
SPEAKER_02: It's not thievery, it's not trickery by the Romans.
SPEAKER_02: It's not mockery by them.
SPEAKER_02: It's that he's no longer dead.
SPEAKER_02: He raised Lazarus.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe he has just raised himself.
SPEAKER_02: G.A.
SPEAKER_02: Carson describes this way.
SPEAKER_02: He says, the rapid growth and the preaching of the early church are really unexplainable.
SPEAKER_02: There's nothing that makes sense without the empty tomb.
SPEAKER_02: And to stop this nonsense, all that had to be done was produce the body.
SPEAKER_02: The Jews, the Roman leaders, they had custody of his body.
SPEAKER_02: All that had to be done was, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_02: You guys stop saying that.
SPEAKER_02: Bring him out.
SPEAKER_02: See, there's the corpse.
SPEAKER_02: There's the wounds.
SPEAKER_02: See?
SPEAKER_02: Rotten away.
SPEAKER_02: All that had to be done to stop this was bring the body.
SPEAKER_02: It never could be done.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 9 and 10.
SPEAKER_02: They didn't understand.
SPEAKER_02: They go back to their homes.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 11.
SPEAKER_02: But Mary stood weeping.
SPEAKER_02: Now they go back confused.
SPEAKER_02: They go back not really clear.
SPEAKER_02: Her story's corroborated.
SPEAKER_02: But he hasn't appeared to them yet.
SPEAKER_02: Mary, we don't know that they missed each other.
SPEAKER_02: She obviously went back to the tomb.
SPEAKER_02: We don't know that.
SPEAKER_02: Did she just stay outside?
SPEAKER_02: We don't know any of that.
SPEAKER_02: We just know that John fast forwards.
SPEAKER_02: Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.
SPEAKER_02: Sobbing.
SPEAKER_02: And when she stopped to look into the tomb to see, she doesn't see what she expects.
SPEAKER_02: Now she's expecting, look, it's bad enough he died, bad enough he's buried.
SPEAKER_02: Why did they desecrate the grave?
SPEAKER_02: Why did they shame?
SPEAKER_02: He's already a fraud.
SPEAKER_02: You don't need to do all this.
SPEAKER_02: It's all already, all hopes are dashed.
SPEAKER_02: There's no need to make it worse.
SPEAKER_02: You can't really make it any worse.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 12.
SPEAKER_02: She saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet.
SPEAKER_02: She didn't expect this.
SPEAKER_02: And in fact, we're told here in a second what she's thinking, verse 12.
SPEAKER_02: We saw two angels in white, verse 13.
SPEAKER_02: They say to her, Why are you weeping?
SPEAKER_02: She says, They've taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they laid him.
SPEAKER_02: She didn't have hope of a resurrection.
SPEAKER_02: She just wants to grieve.
SPEAKER_02: And even now this was withheld from her.
SPEAKER_02: Now it says two angels, if you were to read the other gospels in Mark, it's the angel described as a young man dressed in white.
SPEAKER_02: In Luke, it's two men dressed in clothes like lightning.
SPEAKER_02: In Matthew, the angel pierces lightning, clothes as white as snow, and uh frightens the guards and rolls back the tomb.
SPEAKER_02: What is it?
SPEAKER_02: Is it one or two, Blake?
SPEAKER_02: How many, how many angels?
SPEAKER_02: Our modern assumptions of how facts should be portrayed and recorded are not the same as the way they're recorded in ancient literature.
SPEAKER_02: Secondly, a gospel is not a play by play, and then this and then this and then this.
SPEAKER_02: A gospel is like a photo album.
SPEAKER_02: You just open, and you don't say everything that ever happened, you just kind of give picture after picture after picture.
SPEAKER_02: You sum up a whole week's vacation in five photos.
SPEAKER_02: And so as John is opening the photo album, um he's communicating what's true without our our modern limitations on that.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, was it one or two?
SPEAKER_02: It probably was two, and one had a more prominent role.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 13.
SPEAKER_02: They speak to her, and it seems kind of rude.
SPEAKER_02: Woman, why are you weeping?
SPEAKER_02: It's a little bit of a rebuke.
SPEAKER_02: She said, They've taken away the Lord, and I don't know where they've laid them.
SPEAKER_02: She doesn't know what they know, she doesn't understand what they understand.
SPEAKER_02: To her, why would she not be weeping?
SPEAKER_02: Why would she not be sobbing?
SPEAKER_02: How can you say to me, Why are you doing that?
SPEAKER_02: What's wrong with you?
SPEAKER_02: She doesn't know he's resurrected.
SPEAKER_02: We are just like Mary.
SPEAKER_02: Let me pause here.
SPEAKER_02: We'll circle back to this in a little bit.
SPEAKER_02: We're just like her in that we do not know all that God's up to.
SPEAKER_02: We experience something and take a little bit of data, and then we extrapolate and think, well, this must be what God's doing, or this must be what God's not going to do.
SPEAKER_02: And we feel all and more what she felt.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 14.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus appears.
SPEAKER_02: But she doesn't know it yet.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus, having said this, she turned around and she saw Jesus standing.
SPEAKER_02: So she turned back to angels, and maybe she feels a presence of someone, turns back and doesn't recognize him.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's the blurry eyes from the crying, or maybe it's in this state.
SPEAKER_02: In some way, he's kind of shifted a little bit.
SPEAKER_02: You know, the those on the road to uh those on the road did not recognize him.
SPEAKER_02: Those at the sea of Tiberius did not recognize him.
SPEAKER_02: They're out in the boat, and he calls them.
SPEAKER_02: They don't know it's him yet.
SPEAKER_02: She does not know yet, and she thinks he's the gardener.
SPEAKER_02: It says, Woman, why are you weeping?
SPEAKER_02: Who are you seeking?
SPEAKER_02: So the first is a little bit of a rebuke again, and now it's an invitation.
SPEAKER_02: So thinks he's the gardener.
SPEAKER_02: So if you've carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him away.
SPEAKER_02: We, let me pause here.
SPEAKER_02: We like Mary, we too weep.
SPEAKER_02: We get stuck in circumstances, and sometimes it's our own doing, sometimes it's someone else doing to us.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it's someone else who's hurting, and we just know them, so we're we're sucked into that.
SPEAKER_02: And a lot of times it's a mixture of all kinds.
SPEAKER_02: And and it begins to feel like a grave.
SPEAKER_02: It hurts, and it feels like a death.
SPEAKER_02: It feels like we're losing control, losing power, losing hope.
SPEAKER_02: And it looks like frustration, looks like sadness, looks like confusion, looks like anxiety, it looks like anger, it looks like boredom, it looks like fear.
SPEAKER_02: And at the core of this, we don't know what God knows.
SPEAKER_02: We don't know how the story ends.
SPEAKER_02: And in some ways, we we can't imagine a resurrection.
SPEAKER_02: And we think in our heart, these things.
SPEAKER_02: God, have you forgotten me?
SPEAKER_02: Do you really love me?
SPEAKER_02: Are you going to leave me like this?
SPEAKER_02: Are you going to leave me in this grave?
SPEAKER_02: Let me give you a couple examples.
SPEAKER_02: These are just generic examples.
SPEAKER_02: But they they label some categories.
SPEAKER_02: I think of a girl in her mid-30s who is the oldest of some sisters, and she's single.
SPEAKER_02: She wants to be married, wants to have a family.
SPEAKER_02: And our little sisters, they have married, and the youngest sister, the most recent family gathering, has said, Hey, I got some news.
SPEAKER_02: I'm pregnant, and everyone's happy, and she's even happy, but it's happiness that's mixed with death, with pain.
SPEAKER_02: And she hides it.
SPEAKER_02: And they try to be gentle and not overdo it in front of her because they know she's hurting.
SPEAKER_02: But she's asking in her soul, God, have you forgotten me?
SPEAKER_02: Do you love me?
SPEAKER_02: Are you gonna leave me like this?
SPEAKER_02: I think of a man in his 40s, and really from no fault of his own, markets change and companies downsize, and he's one of the losses, job loss.
SPEAKER_02: And he's let go.
SPEAKER_02: And life's pressures, they don't they don't stop.
SPEAKER_02: So there's still mortgages and there's still food and there's still utilities, and I guess there were vacation plans, and there's still tons of responsibility, and there's really no immediate jobs on the horizon.
SPEAKER_02: And in the midst of what feels like a grave, God, have you forgotten me?
SPEAKER_02: Do you love me?
SPEAKER_02: Are you gonna leave me like this?
SPEAKER_02: I think if a retired adult did the right things, worked hard, and delayed gratification, saved, raised their children, and now it's time to enjoy their golden years.
SPEAKER_02: They still got energy, they got time and money now to be a blessing to people, and it's time to travel and see things.
SPEAKER_02: And a routine checkup, discover some abnormalities and some further tests, confirm.
SPEAKER_02: Is it cancer?
SPEAKER_02: It begins orbiting the soul of these questions.
SPEAKER_02: God, have you forgotten me?
SPEAKER_02: Do you love me?
SPEAKER_02: Are you gonna leave me like this?
SPEAKER_02: I think of a teenager.
SPEAKER_02: She uh job transfer for her dad, and so she's at a new school, and it's a new year.
SPEAKER_02: But a lot of these kids know each other, and they've known each other for a while.
SPEAKER_02: And it's just hard to break into those friend groups.
SPEAKER_02: It's hard.
SPEAKER_02: And school becomes a mini grave where you go and die every day.
SPEAKER_02: And wish why why could Dad not got a job where I live, where I had all these friends?
SPEAKER_02: Where going to school was life-giving, it wasn't crushing me.
SPEAKER_02: And her soul is thinking and feeling, God, have you forgotten me?
SPEAKER_02: Do you not love me?
SPEAKER_02: Is it always gonna be like this?
SPEAKER_02: These are just examples.
SPEAKER_02: There's no one's specific story.
SPEAKER_02: But my guess is, because we share the same fallen human condition, this orbit somewhere in your soul.
SPEAKER_02: That there may be one, maybe more than one grave that you feel like, yeah, I'm I feel like I'm buried in something.
SPEAKER_02: I feel like I'm entombed in something.
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, part of me is asking, God, do you see this?
SPEAKER_02: You still love me?
SPEAKER_02: You gonna leave me here?
SPEAKER_02: These are examples of what it feels like for what Peter says in 1 Peter 2, verse 21.
SPEAKER_02: He says, For this you've been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so you might follow in his steps.
SPEAKER_02: You see, what God is doing in your life is where we are in the gospel of the death, burial, and resurrection, he is retelling this story in your life.
SPEAKER_02: He's retelling it.
SPEAKER_02: Well, it's not the same kind of death, Jesus died, not the same kind of burial, but it feels like death.
SPEAKER_02: It feels like being buried.
SPEAKER_02: And it I need some kind of resurrection.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, there's one coming and the life comes when he returns, but I need resurrection out of these circumstances now.
SPEAKER_02: Let me show you a painting.
SPEAKER_02: This is Rembrandt's night watch.
SPEAKER_02: It's helpful for a lot of reasons.
SPEAKER_02: One, Rembrandt was a master of using shadow and light to kind of give the impression of movement on things that were still.
SPEAKER_02: And so in this painting, the edges are really dark in the surrounding, everything but the three focal points.
SPEAKER_02: The two gentlemen in the foreground and the girl with the chicken.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: These are the three focal points.
SPEAKER_02: I have no interpretation of this.
SPEAKER_02: That's not the point of this.
SPEAKER_02: The point of this is this is what God is doing in your life.
SPEAKER_02: He is painting a picture that retells the story of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And when it feels like death and feels like burial, he's painting the dark edges.
SPEAKER_02: And he will complete the image.
SPEAKER_02: And the completion will not just be, whoo, look at me.
SPEAKER_02: The completion will be what we're gonna see in the next three verses.
SPEAKER_02: It will be, I have seen the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: It will be Jesus front and center in the circumstances of your life where no one could misinterpret what happened to you.
SPEAKER_02: No one could, their eye couldn't stray to something else that God wants, that God doesn't want them to focus on or give credit to or glory to.
SPEAKER_02: And you would never, you would no longer be a secret disciple like Nicodemus or Joseph Arimathea.
SPEAKER_02: You would you would have no trouble declaring the Lord's the one who did this.
SPEAKER_02: Let's get back to the text.
SPEAKER_02: Last three verses, verse 16.
SPEAKER_02: He says, Mary.
SPEAKER_02: And she turned and said to him, Remboni.
SPEAKER_02: She now knows him.
SPEAKER_02: She now knows who he is.
SPEAKER_02: And she is shocked.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus said to her, Do not cling to me.
SPEAKER_02: Your translation may say, Stop touching me, don't touch me.
SPEAKER_02: Clearly, something's happened where she has lurched at him and grabbed onto him as any of us would with what we thought was lost and never irrecoverable, is now right in front of us.
SPEAKER_02: We would grasp onto it.
SPEAKER_02: This verse 17 is a little tricky in the English.
SPEAKER_02: Don't cling to me, for I've not ascended to the Father, but go to my brothers and say to them, I'm ascending to the Father and to your Father, to my God and your God.
SPEAKER_02: We should hear it this way.
SPEAKER_02: He's not saying, now don't touch me, stay away.
SPEAKER_02: He rather is saying, stop doing this thing.
SPEAKER_02: And we should look at this way.
SPEAKER_02: Hold on.
SPEAKER_02: You can let go of me.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not going anywhere yet.
SPEAKER_02: Let go.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not leaving without saying goodbye.
SPEAKER_02: Let go.
SPEAKER_02: I got something for you to do first.
SPEAKER_02: We don't know all the circumstances.
SPEAKER_02: We know verse 18, Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, I have seen the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: And that he had said these things to her.
SPEAKER_02: They don't know yet all this means.
SPEAKER_02: They don't even know if it's true.
SPEAKER_02: He appears to them later.
SPEAKER_02: Mary sees him.
SPEAKER_02: And these questions are answered for her.
SPEAKER_02: God, do you know what I'm facing?
SPEAKER_02: Oh, he does.
SPEAKER_02: Do you love me?
SPEAKER_02: Oh, he does.
SPEAKER_02: Are you going to leave me like this, weeping outside this tomb?
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: Does God love you?
SPEAKER_02: He does.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus died for you.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes we've gotten so used to that that we lose the impact of it.
SPEAKER_02: There's a quick story in the Gospels where the disciples are sent out two by two and they come back and they are rejoicing that demons have responded to them and cast out by them.
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus said, Be excited, take joy rather than your lives are written in the book of life.
SPEAKER_02: Do you love me?
SPEAKER_02: Jesus has suffered for you, suffocated for you, mutilated and mauled for you.
SPEAKER_02: He loves you.
SPEAKER_02: He said, I could prove it no other way than dying for you.
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: Are you gonna leave me like this?
SPEAKER_02: He says, Nope.
SPEAKER_02: Everything I've ever promised, God says to you, the resurrection proves it's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_02: Everything I've ever promised.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna leave you like this.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna leave you like this, a secret disciple.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna leave you like this only displaying to the world some kind of dark story of me.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna finish the painting.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 41.
SPEAKER_02: You may have noticed I skipped over this.
SPEAKER_02: Back to 41 and 42 of Psalm 19.
SPEAKER_02: Now, on the place where he was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb which no one had been laying.
SPEAKER_02: So because of the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid him there.
SPEAKER_02: Small little detail.
SPEAKER_02: But it helps answer why do our trials look so bleak?
SPEAKER_02: God, why do you got to paint such a dark picture?
SPEAKER_02: Why is such a big one?
SPEAKER_02: This this image from Rembrandt, this is one of the largest ones, it's 12 feet by 15 feet.
SPEAKER_02: Why gotta paint so much of the space?
SPEAKER_02: Painful.
SPEAKER_02: Why so much burying?
SPEAKER_02: Same reason.
SPEAKER_02: 41, that's a brand new tomb.
SPEAKER_02: To show that no one else could change this.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, what he's doing is the reason why we have this story, the most sad, pathetic funeral, and right after the resurrection, it's to be the dark and the light.
SPEAKER_02: No one else could change this.
SPEAKER_02: No one else could account for this.
SPEAKER_02: The only one who can rescue is God, and the glory he will say is his alone.
SPEAKER_02: He won't share it, he won't let it be confused.
SPEAKER_02: He will not hide his deeds, and he and he will not let you claim them as your own.
SPEAKER_02: Those before whom you have been maybe embarrassed or just withheld the name of Jesus when rescued, when resurrection from this grave, you'll give him credit with a second thought.
SPEAKER_02: It will just seem as natural.
SPEAKER_02: Come right out of you.
SPEAKER_02: You'll shout, I have seen the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: You'll believe Jesus is raised as the ruler of the world, and you'll repent of your unbelief.
SPEAKER_02: Where does this leave us?
SPEAKER_02: One is to believe, like John, see and believe Jesus is raised.
SPEAKER_02: Nothing else can account.
SPEAKER_02: Surrender the outcome of rescue.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I'm a little bit of hope now.
SPEAKER_02: I'm putting my hope that God can rescue me from this grave.
SPEAKER_02: Surrender to him the details of that.
SPEAKER_02: Don't assume that you know how to make this work.
SPEAKER_02: We know we don't.
SPEAKER_02: And there's great power in God.
SPEAKER_02: I am trusting you for rescue, and I'm letting you be God.
SPEAKER_02: You have wide birth to do what you want to do, exactly how you want to do it.
SPEAKER_02: And I just want to have a front row seat.
SPEAKER_02: And when the time is right, to jump up and shout, see the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: In a moment, we're gonna pause and really get down to an invisible conversation, but a conversation between you and Jesus Himself.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna have some questions that, and Clyde's gonna play and sing some words.
SPEAKER_02: Part of this is for you to come to face-to-face and realize nothing that has happened is wasted.
SPEAKER_02: Nothing that God is painting on the very perimeters, barely visible in your story, is wasted.
SPEAKER_02: And maybe he's painting four or five pictures at the same time.
SPEAKER_02: Not one bit is wasted.
SPEAKER_02: Not one pedal of a bike, not one step of a stair, not one load of laundry, not one email, not one word heard or word said, not any bit of it is wasted.
SPEAKER_02: All of it he is wielding to make Jesus look incredible and glorious.
SPEAKER_02: Lord Jesus, would you in these next minutes not let us hide from you?
SPEAKER_02: And would you expose what we know is going on, what you know is going on?
SPEAKER_02: Speak your answers, these questions.
SPEAKER_02: Convince us you aren't just in control, you are immediately, completely involved in what we're facing.
SPEAKER_02: God, you are loving and you are wise, and in your economy, you are doing things precisely right, precisely on time.
SPEAKER_02: So forgive our mistrust of you, help us trust you.
SPEAKER_02: Forgive our unbelief, help us believe.
SPEAKER_02: Finish what you are painting.
SPEAKER_02: That we would proclaim this.
SPEAKER_02: Look at my God, loving and wise.
SPEAKER_02: Come believe in him.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: I want to turn your attention to the video on the screen.
SPEAKER_02: It'll bring some important things before you, one of which is introducing you to our mission partner in Lyon, France, the Marshall Family, which we will be leading a trip there in April.
SPEAKER_02: And all the details of that will come out next month.
SPEAKER_03: Here's a look at what's happening at Grand Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_03: Lay pastors are leading men among the brothers at our church.
SPEAKER_03: These are men of integrity and theological orientation who can be a resource to you should you need someone to pray with you, speak into a problem, or serve as a listening ear.
SPEAKER_03: To find a full list of our lay pastors, check out our website.
SPEAKER_03: Here's one of them, Brian McKee.
SPEAKER_00: Earlier this year, one of our elders and I had the opportunity to explore a mission relationship in France, where we can be involved in planning churches and spreading the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: I would like to invite each of you to pray about how you can help carry out our core value of mission.
SPEAKER_01: Grand Parkway Church, we are the Marshall family, and we are your missionaries in Lyon, France, and we just want to thank you for being a part of this.
SPEAKER_01: So, my name is Steve, and my wife Sabrina.
SPEAKER_01: Hi, my name is Alexis.
SPEAKER_01: Hi, my name is Theo.
SPEAKER_01: Hi, my name is Owen.
SPEAKER_01: Hi, my name is Louis.
SPEAKER_01: And these guys love to play soccer.
SPEAKER_01: So hopefully, one day we'll be playing soccer with you.
SPEAKER_01: Now, you guys get out of here.
SPEAKER_01: I just wanted to show you beautiful aqueducts of the Roman Empire times.
SPEAKER_01: And this fresh water went all the way down, and you kind of see in the far ground Lyon.
SPEAKER_01: Lyon is about two million people, and this water brought freshness and life to the people.
SPEAKER_01: But today, spiritually speaking, Lyon is a very desert area.
SPEAKER_01: And we desire through God's word and through our lives and through your lives and everybody that's trying to help to bring fresh water, the living word, into people's lives.
SPEAKER_01: And so thank you for being a part of that.
SPEAKER_01: Um, as I said, there is a spiritual desert down there.
SPEAKER_01: And one another way is we love to start new churches throughout the area.
SPEAKER_01: So there are about uh 15 churches in a city of over 2 million people, and so we desire many more churches to start, and thank you for being a part of this.
SPEAKER_01: So God bless you guys and hope to see you soon.
SPEAKER_03: If you're new, be sure and check out our website at grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_03: If you're on social media, you can find us there too.
SPEAKER_03: If you would like someone to pray with you or you have a question about anything you have seen or heard today, some of our pastors and elders will be available at the front of the stage after our service.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe ready to not stop hiding.
SPEAKER_02: There's some cards in the chairs in front of you.
SPEAKER_02: You can fill something out and let us know.
SPEAKER_02: All right, come come come holler at me.
SPEAKER_02: Uh you can leave those in the boxes, uh the doors where you exit.
SPEAKER_02: If you're part of our body, and this is a Sunday where you practice biblical giving, uh, these also in those boxes where you take care of that.
SPEAKER_02: And we end up in our service with a benediction and a blessing.
SPEAKER_02: So uh should you lift up your hands?
SPEAKER_02: I'll speak a blessing over us.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus does not set you up for failure.
SPEAKER_02: What you are buried by is for his maximum glory and for your maximum good.
SPEAKER_02: Depart now, knowing he will raise you from this grave and make you able to shout, I have seen the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.