Tag: resurrection

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Questions at the Tomb – John 20:1-29

Things have been changing in ways that are hard. For many of us it is harder and harder to be optimistic about the future.

This is what Mary Magdalene was facing at the beginning of this chapter. Jesus has died, life as she knew it is over. She comes to anoint the body, having been delayed by the Sabbath already. Then she finds the empty tomb but does not immediately realize why. She tells the disciples who (after footrace) confirm that the body is gone, but they don’t understand either. And so Mary is standing outside the empty tomb, confused and sad.

Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus’ disciples. Luke 8 puts her on an equivalent footing with the Twelve male disciples, with the caveat that she and other women supported the ministry of Jesus materially. Jesus cast seven demons out of her, healing her in a way that gained her undying loyalty, bringing her to this moment of grief and confusion.

Lingering at the tomb, Mary is asked three questions. The other disciples have gone away but she stays there with her own questions, sitting in her grief and weeping. First, the angel asks “Why are you crying?” Then Jesus asks again “Really, why are you crying?”

As ever, Jesus pushes deeper – what is the state of your heart? Mary is desperate – she asks him, thinking he is the gardener, where they took the body? She is about to go sling it over her back and carry him back to his rightful resting place.

Jesus also asks her “Who is it you’re looking for?” Where are you seeking your solace, where are you seeking your meaning? In the Old Testament, the people were looking for a king, seeking the strength and power they saw leading the peoples around them – something that feels all to familiar in this current era. But Jesus comes to tell us that this material, temporal power is unimportant. What we should be looking for is exactly what – and who – May is seeking. And like her, He stands right in front of us.

He cuts through the grief and confusion with a single word, the name he called out of oppression, the name he loves. In that instant she sees Him for Who He is and cries out in Aramaic, her heart language, “Rabboni!”

Jesus, especially in these last chapters, is deeply compassionate and vulnerable. As we look around the church today, that compassion is seen as weakness, that vulnerability is seen as a flaw.

But Jesus came to turn our understanding of these things upside down. Wealth impoverishes, the last are first, the poor in spirit will inherit the kingdom of heaven, we must die in order to live.

This is the world Mary thought was lost, but that Jesus resurrected with a word, with the love and compassion bound up in just the simple statement of her name.

Many of us may feel similar grief and confusion. We may have lost hope, lingering outside an empty tomb that seems like it still stinks of death. But standing before us is Jesus, asking “Why are you crying? Who are you looking for?”

–Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, April 20, 2025

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Road to Emmaus – Luke 24:13-33

This story comes on the same Sunday that the women discovered the empty tomb. The angst and wonder and confusion was still incredibly fresh. This pair of disciples – possibly husband and wife – were trying to sort through their grief and confusion over the course of seven miles. If it was Cleopas and his wife, she had just seen Jesus on the cross alongside his mother and others.

One question, though, was why they didn’t recognize him? He certainly looked differently than he did the last time they saw him, suffering on the cross. It’s always difficult recognizing people out of context. Also, if they had been expecting a resurrection, then they would have been expecting something much grander than just a quiet stranger on the road. But there is a supernatural aspect of this as well, with them being prevented from recognizing him.

One possible reason is to let Jesus directly address the loss of hope that the pair were experiencing. “We had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.” They are clearly teetering on the edge of despair, while still focused on an expectation of political revolution.

And so Jesus, still unrecognized, begins to teach. He walks them through the whole Old Testament, no doubt familiar to them, but weaving the story of the messiah and the gospel through it all. This new event was not the end of the Old Testament, but the fulfillment.

Something in his teaching led them to invite him to join them for a meal. When he broke the bread at their invitation, their eyes were open and they saw Jesus for who He was. There are many angles to take here, all of them beautiful.

When we sit down at a table together and break bread, we are better able to see Jesus for who He is. When we engage in community, His face becomes clear.

And of course they had very recently seen Jesus break bread at the Last Supper – this was His body, broken for them.

And then, he dissappears! This is making it clear to the disciples that Jesus will not be interacting with his disciples in the same way that he had before, or that they would expect. We run into this as well, with our own expectations of how Jesus will show up and how God will demonstrate His love.

Can we feel the love of God through struggles? See Jesus in the face of someone we dislike? Hear the words of Christ in the mouth of someone we are in conflict with.

This story is also a reminder that the scriptures all by themselves do not do the work of God. In fact, the Bible has often been used to justify oppression and sin. It is when Jesus works through the scriptures that His will is done. It is when we hear the scriptures through the lens and person of Jesus that we get real truth and real power.

And so they leap up from their unfinished meal and immediately head back to Jerusalem, even though it is already night. They have a word of hope to share with those who need it and they do not wait around to share it. Can we do the same?

Is there an area of your life when you were expecting God to show up, where you may need to pray for your eyes to be opened to see his He is working in ways that you may not expect? And when you see it, will you run to tell others?

— Sermon Notes, Alison Robison, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, April 14, 2024

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The Perplexing Resurrection – Luke 24:9-12

We’ve just wrapped up a series going through the book of Mark, ending on Easter with Mark’s rather abrupt finale. We’ll now pick up the story as told in the gospel of Luke.

One thing to note is that the two accounts of the resurrection have some differences. In fact, all four of the gospel accounts of the resurrection have differences – which women went to the tomb, what angels were there, where was the stone, things like that. It’s important to understand that there is one true gospel story and four different accounts of it. Each author noted different things and considered different things important for them to include or highlight. It’s left to us as a puzzle to put together.

That mirrors the confusion that we see in the story itself. The women are perplexed, Peter is wondering or marveling. That wonder, that confusion, that questioning is the first step towards understanding. This is why children ask so many questions – so let us come as little children, wondering and marveling even, maybe especially, when we are confused by events or what God has to say.

Asking these questions puts us in a position of humility, which is one of the reasons it can be hard for us to do as adults. Even Jesus, when taking the ultimate posture of humility on the cross, asked His Father “why?”

Sitting in wonder and questioning together can be a holy thing. When we want to put out simple answers instead of living in the question, it can lead us to race ahead to wrong and even harmful conclusions. Life is not a race to get to the right answer first.

While there is value in answers, in truth, knowledge and understanding, but there is also value in the process in that direction.

Back to the story – the women were perplexed. Paul used the same Greek word in his second letter to the church in Corinth:

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

2 Corinthians 4:8-10

The word “perplexed” in both places is aporeō, and the contrasting word “despair” is exaporeō. So while we can live in confusion, questioning and wonder, if we keep ourselves focused on the person of Jesus, we can avoid despair. The women and disciples were confused, but they were looking for Jesus – and Jesus eventually found them.

Are you in a place where you don’t have answers? Are there those around you? Don’t race ahead to find pat answers, and don’t veer off course to despair. Instead, be ready to live in the questions while seeking the ultimate Answer to all our questions.

–Sermon Notes, Alison Robison, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, April 6, 2024

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The Morning Everything Changed – Luke 24:1-12

Each gospel brings out a different view and perspective of the resurrection. Luke’s emphasis is on more everything is different now that Christ is risen, about how the world changed overnight, and how the news of that change went out from the disciples.

The moment was like the first time a deaf person is able to hear after a cochlear implant, or a colorblind person sees color for the first time. Or even something traumatic, like a car accident, or sprinting down a hall in the dark and hitting a new checkin desk at a full sprint. Everything changes in an instant, and it takes a moment to understand that the world will never be the same.

The group of women who made the first discovery were heading out after Sabbath in order to prepare the body in ways that there was not time for after the crucifixion. What they found confused them.

Sometimes the search for Jesus is confusing and elusive. But that’s because he is a person, not a doctrine. Meeting Jesus is more like a conversation, a relationship, then it is a set of rules, beliefs and rituals. We are seeking a living, breathing, resurrected Savior.

These women knew the living, breathing Jesus, but even after all that time they did not know the fullness of Who he really was and what He came to offer. Jesus can be confusing, and in response we all tend to create imagined Jesuses in our own image. To the extent that confusion can lead us away from those mistaken perspectives, that confusion can be a good thing. Here, it certainly was – they thought Jesus was dead, but confusion eventually led them to the truth of His resurrection.

And then, suddenly they were met with two men in dazzling robes. They ask a question we can ask ourselves still – “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” We can do this easily – looking for the living Christ among the dead things of the world, in dead religion, in dead ritual, in dead culture.

But they also provide the way to address the women’s confusion – pointing back to the words of Christ Himself. That is always the answer.

The disciples respond with doubt and disbelief – Thomas gets the bad wrap, but he was certainly not alone. Peter, though, responds differently – leaping up and running to the tomb. This Peter, who had just denied that he even knew Jesus, must have seen some small opportunity to make right what he had broken. Like says that Peter “marveled” or “was amazed.” We can see an echo of this in both the hymn “Amazing Grace” and the life of its writer, John Newton.

The reality of this story continues to confuse and amaze, and we continue to have the opportunity to meet the risen Christ and watch the whole world change.

– Sermon Notes, Bart Hodgson, Seed Church, Lynnwood WA, April 4, 2021

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The (Super) Nature of the Resurrection – 1 Corinthians 15:29-58

Last week, looking at the first part of 1 Corinthians 15, we covered the idea that humans were created to live in bodies. God Himself came in the form of a human body. But many early Christians struggled with this notion, because the physical world was seen as impure and lesser than the spiritual. The notion of the resurrection of the dead was hard to swallow.

Paul addresses that in chapter 15, beginning from the one thing they all agreed on – Jesus rose from the dead. But if resurrection is impossible then, Paul argues, Christ couldn’t have risen, the gospel is meaningless, faith is meaningless, the martyrs died for nothing, we’re all still under the curse, all believers are still in heel and being a Christian is the dumbest idea possible.

It is, in some ways, a call back to Ecclesiastes – life without Christ is meaningless. But because of the resurrection of Christ and of the dead, Paul has hope.

Then he moves on to a (loose) description of how the resurrection works. He uses the metaphor of the seed, which is an entirely different kinds of thing from the plant that it becomes. Transformations like this are a real thing in the world that we already understand, and if there is a world and dimension beyond this one, it is perfectly logical to imagine that there are transformations that we do not know about or understand.

Some of this brings up questions. Much of this talks about resurrection as a future event at the end times, which seems to contradict other things Paul wrote about regarding being “absent from the body, present with the Lord” and so forth.

There are a number of interpretations of this – maybe resurrection happens immediately but spiritually, or maybe we go to heaven with temporary bodies before the resurrection gets us our permanent ones. This is also where ideas like “soul sleep” and purgatory come in. Or, it may be that we do resurrect immediately, with our new body, because we move outside of time at that point, making questions of present versus future moot.

Regardless, we are told that the final resurrection will be one cosmic event, swallowing up sin and death with finality and transforming that flesh and blood into something new.

Paul here quotes two Old Testament prophecies that come in the context of God’s people Israel constantly rebelling and finally being rejected despite God’s great love for them, and served as a final promise that in the end, God would fully rescue them from the grave.

The fulfillment of this prophecy started with the death and resurrection of Christ, and will be completed with the resurrection of the dead.

This means that life does have meaning. It is the hope of a glorious future that gives us the strength and motivation to live for Christ today. We can push through the struggles because know that the future is glorious. Living the Christian life on earth is difficult if we are doing it right. But if we have just a small understanding of the rewards that will be coming to us in eternity, we can have a blessed hope that pulls us through.

– Sermon Notes, Brent Rood, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA

1 Corinthians 15:29-58

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Over My Dead Body – 1 Corinthians 15:12-28

In the 19th century, there was a trend of fear of being buried alive, mistaken for being dead. An entire industry of “safety coffins” with bells and other mechanisms to avoid burying someone alive sprang up. This story is a window into our relationship with death.

What does it mean to be alive? What does it mean to be dead? Plato believed that it was a return to the pre-incarnate collective mind. Others believed in soul-sleep, annihilation or reincarnation. The two things all these views have in common is that your personhood is lost once your body dies, and that your body and soul are separate things.

Orthodox Christianity, though, teaches that God created humans to live forever in bodies. Unfortunately, much of these other concepts have crept into Christianity. We think more about “going to heaven” than we do about the resurrection of the dead. We think about a spiritual heaven, but usually with the implication of bodily things (taste, touch, emotions, etc.).

These sorts of confusions crept in early and helped lead to a number of early heresies about the nature of Christ’s relationship with God, including Adoptionism and Docetism. The latter in particular rejects the idea that Christ died and rose again. In this passage, Paul makes clear that Christ was in fact a man made of flesh and bone and DNA, a counterpart of Adam, who lived and died just like Adam, but who rose again to break Adam’s curse.

The Word became flesh, it did not just put on a layer of flesh. Christ then died, and did not just put on a dumb-show of death, and then truly raised.

The logical Corinthians believed this, but struggled with the notion that people themselves would physically resurrect. They were tempted by a philosophy that said their spirit would raise, not their bodies. But if a physical resurrection is illogical, then so is Christ’s physical resurrection. And if that didn’t happen, then we see all in trouble. All the apostles who saw Him were lying. If Christ didn’t rise, we have no proof that Christ’s sacrifice was accepted, and we are all still in our sins.

But that’s not what’s happening, Paul says. Christ’s resurrection, in fact, is the beginning of story, the “first fruits” of a much greater harvest, the remaking of creation into a new heaven and new earth, where we will live in resurrected bodies. Death and Satan will be destroyed, and everyone will acknowledge Christ as Lord.

The vision God has for our future is not that we can be free from our bodies and free from this corrupted earth, but that we will live forever in better bodies and a better earth.

What does this mean for us? It means we should treat our bodies well, because we are our bodies. They are not simply shells, but they are us. The female body (and male, for that matter) is not shameful. How we treat our bodies matters, and we can sin against our bodies. Who we are starts right now, both physically and spiritually. How we treat other people’s bodies also matters, so the work done to heal, rebuild, maintain and preserve bodies and health is a vital thing. The church, too often, has taken a gnostic view of the body, prioritizing the spiritual only and neglecting physical needs.

All this brings up lots of other questions, many of which we and Paul will address next week.

– Sermon Notes, Brent Rood, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA

1 Corinthians 15:12-28

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