Remember What You Forgot

Transcript

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[0:01] and our sermon text is Luke chapter 24, verses 1 through 12. You may notice that my voice sounds funny, and it's like two days ago it started like getting kind of hoarse, and it's possible that halfway through I won't have a voice, and then we'll just go, well, bonus, you know, like shorter today, and that's okay. Not the end of the world. I can send you a copy of the sermon by email, and you can just read it or not, and that's fine. But let's take a look at Luke 24. I just want to say a few words of introduction. First off, you know, I wanted to tell you we call this Easter Sunday, but we also call this Resurrection Sunday, which I think is nice. It's kind of a little bit more descriptive, right? It's the day we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. We've been on a journey here through Lent. It started on Ash Wednesday, and through Holy Week, you know, Palm Sunday, Passion Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday. It's been a busy week here, which I love. It's been really wonderful, but all of this has been preparing us for this day. There's no doubt. So the day has arrived. Praise God. This is a day for celebration, and so let's just give a clap right now. This is, you know, it's so awesome that we are here on Easter Sunday, and also we're here in person,

[1:13] those who are able to be. So praise God for that. And sometimes I wonder, like, which day is more important for the church? Is it Christmas, or is it Easter? Somebody says Easter, but I think, like, it's a tie, right? Because you can't have a tie. You can't have a tie. You can't have a tie. You can't have one without the other. And then I would add Good Friday to that mix, because you can't have Easter without Good Friday. So there's like a pantheon of trifecta, or a triumvirate, or whatever you want to call it up there, of three days, Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter. They're all super important, and you don't have Easter without Good Friday. And so we remember, as the children say, Good Friday is when Jesus died on the cross. Easter Sunday is when Jesus rose again from the dead. Now, our reading today is about the women that Luke describes as followers of Jesus. And we're going to see from chapter 8, that's going to be the first thing that we read. Could you show the first slide there? Because that was a little bit confusing. We'll get to that, yeah. Actually, we'll read that right now, and you can only see it, if you look up at the screen, you'll see it. This is Luke 8. So actually, these are the women that Jesus talks about,

[2:11] or that Luke talks about in chapter 8, and they come back now in chapter 24. It says this, Soon afterwards, Jesus went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve, those are the apostles, and the twelve, those are the women, were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities. Isn't that interesting? So these are people who had been touched by Jesus's miracles, and they became followers. And not always are they named, but Luke names them, praise God. So that's Mary, called Magdalene. Mary Magdalene was cured of evil spirits. She became a follower of Jesus in the ministry when he was up in Galilee, from whom seven demons had gone out. And Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward, Chusa, and Susanna, and many others who provided from them out of their resources. And so these were women who had some means, and they supported both the ministry of Jesus and the apostles by probably buying them food and paying their tab at hostels and inns and things like that. But they also went with them everywhere and listened. And so the Bible's way ahead of its time in its description of the role of women in these matters. And so they're named by name here by Luke, which is good. So that's one

[3:24] thing is our introduction is that we're going to see these women again when we read chapter 24, which he put up. Good. And then just a reminder that the women, as we see in this story, they're coming to the tomb, not in expectation that Jesus is alive. This is important. They're coming in expectation that he is dead because they're bringing spices with him to sort of embalm his body to prepare it for burial, right? So the whole mindset is we're going, this is following Good Friday. We're following on from his death. We're going there just to give his body a decent burial. And their expectation is not for the resurrection. Their expectation is for him to be dead, right? But when I read, I want to ask you to think about not just the expectation that they were looking for, but also the reality then of what they experienced and what kind of maybe dissonance that this created for them. They expected one thing and they got another. So be thinking about that. And then you're going to see that they're going to be going to be going to be going to the tomb. And then also they're told to remember that this is actually something that was promised to them. So be thinking about how memory works for them and be thinking about how

[4:34] memory works for us. Memory is a bit tricky sometimes. And so we don't remember things that we should, or we don't remember things that have been told us very clearly. And you don't remember where your keys are and you don't remember where the food is in the refrigerator. You look all over the place and you can look right at it and you don't even see it. So it's a real problem. So memory is challenging, right? So we're going to see how memory is going to be used to remember and expectation are central to how we understand Easter and what it means. So with that, let's go to our reading, Luke 24. But on the first day of the week at early dawn, the women came to the tomb taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground. But the men said to them, why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember, remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee, that the son of man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified. And,

[5:54] on the third day, rise again. Then they remembered his words. And returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb, and he said, I'll tell you what happened. When he came back, he saw the linen cloths by themselves. Then he went home, amazed at what had happened. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word, and we ask that you would add your blessing to it. In Jesus' name, amen. So again, I'm going to ask you to remember something, which is from our introduction, that the women were expecting to find a dead body, right? They were expecting to find somebody completely dead. And so that's why they brought along their spices. And there's another story somewhat like this in the scripture. It's like a little bonus for you today. And some of you know this, and some of you will remember it when I tell it to you. It's a funny story. It's kind of a funny story from the Old Testament. It's from 2 Kings 2, verse 17. And there are 50 people from what is called the company of the prophets. These are friends of

[7:16] Elijah and Elisha, the prophets, right? And Elijah, if you remember, had been taken up into heaven. And he was taken up into heaven. And he was taken up into heaven. And he was taken up into heaven in a chariot. So you know that song, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, coming for to carry me home? That's about Elijah, right? This chariot comes down and carries him away, this fiery chariot, and he goes up. And Elisha tells everybody, look, Elijah's been taken up. And you know, the expectation was that this isn't possible, right, for the 50, or something we have to do differently here. So these 50 friends of Elijah and Elisha are like, well, let's go looking for him.

[7:55] Let's go looking for him. Let's find his body, you know? And Elisha's like, ah, I told you. Like, I can just imagine the conversation, like, do you think they kicked him out of the chariot, you know, while he was up there? There you go. Out you go. You know, or does he have a parachute? You know, they don't have parachutes back then. So if he's going to fall from that height, of course, yeah, you could go look for him. Do you really think God would scoop him up in a fiery chariot and then just drop him somewhere around here? No, he's gone. I'm telling you, he's gone. And they're like, but we really want to go looking for him. Like, they're really connected to this idea that we have to go find Elijah and his body. And they pester him. They pester Elisha so much that Elisha says, fine, go looking for him. Just go looking, you know? And so these 50 people go looking for three days straight. Isn't this funny? It's a funny story from the Old Testament. And then they come back to him and they're like, well, we didn't find him, you know? And Elisha's like, I told you so. I told you so, right? I told you. And I wonder, what did that I told you so sound like when Elisha said it to these 50 people, right?

[9:12] Was it a little tart? I told you so, you know, a little bit, you know, annoyed. Or was it heartbroken because he was heartbroken that his friend was gone? I told you so. You know, you didn't even have to go looking for him. He's gone. Or was it happy because he's up somewhere else better? I told you so. You know, which way did Elisha say it? We don't know. The text doesn't tell us. What do you, you're here, you know, which one do you think? Was it the tart one? Was it like the annoyed one? Who thinks it's annoyed? Yeah. Okay. Who thinks it's like the heartbroken one? Like my friend is gone. Yeah. This is interesting. A few hands up. And who thinks it's like joyful? Like my friend is gone, but he's in a better place. Wow. You know, I wonder if this tells us anything about your personalities or anything like that.

[10:00] So I don't know. I think in the mood that I am today, I think it was, I would choose the tart one. Like I told you so. Like doofuses? Why did you think you would find his body? But maybe he was happy and maybe he was heartbroken. We don't know. And it makes me wonder how the angel sounded to the women, right? Because this is what the angel says to them. And we could put the first slide better, the first slide of the second slide, it would be.

[10:25] Third slide. No, it's actually both at the bottom of that one. This is what the angel says to the women. Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but he has risen. Remember how he told you. That's the line. Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee that the son of man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified and on the third day rise again. So we can put the slide away. Thank you, Caleb. Okay. Remember how he told you. So that's not an I told you so, but it's a he told you so. He told you so.

[11:02] And I wonder how the women heard it or how it was said by the angels. I think angels could be a little salty from time to time, right? So were the angel a little annoyed or was the angel a little reproachful? You know how in the end of all the Narnia books, the Aslan, the lion, he's always a little bit stern. He's like, here's all the parts where you messed up, but I still love you. So I wonder if the angel was kind of like, you know, you should have remembered this, but I'm telling you, you know, or was it joyful? Right?

[11:35] Like, remember you silly. He's not, I remember that thing that he told you. It's so exciting. Like the angel is just so exciting. So again, you know, maybe use your imagination. We're not gonna go around this time, but what did the angel sound like to the women? A little, a little annoyed, a little reproachful or very joyful. Maybe, you know, maybe that's the angel. I don't think it could be all three. It's not possible really. But however the angel said it, they said it right. Okay. There's just great news. There's great news. And you forgot it. You forgot this news. So I wonder then how the word hit them. And we're not told how they respond emotionally. It's very interesting. Luke. Luke sometimes describes emotions. But Luke is a physician. And he often just records facts and things that happen. So this is the very Luke way of describing things. Right. Right? So they remember. Okay, that's good. They remember. Good. And then they go and tell the story to the 11 now apostles. And that's also good, right? This is a very lukewarm thing. They're just reporting the facts. But how did they feel, right? It's just news and memory at this point. They don't actually see Jesus yet. They haven't seen Jesus. So that joy of seeing Jesus alive,

[12:48] that joy and wonder, all they've done is heard. They've heard that he's alive and they've been reminded that they need to remember something. So here are some possible reactions and emotions to the he told you so. That the angel said, I think they could have joy. I think they could have disbelief. Or skepticism, which is similar but different. Or fear. It says they actually did were afraid of the angels when they first saw them. Or wonder. Or perplexity. Perplexity is a kind of a different reaction. And so I know that's a lot. And I think the question is, how would you feel? Take a moment and think about it. How would you feel if you went there to find a dead body, but instead you were told, there's no dead body here and you need to remember why. How would you feel? How would you react? How good is your memory? And I want to stop there right now and I'm going to say that again. How good is your memory? Memory is a funny thing. Do you remember the promises of God? Do you remember the good? Do you remember the good? Do you remember the good news? Always? Or does our memory slip when we go through the dark valley as these people had? I think that's part of the reason. They saw him die. They can be forgiven

[14:05] for forgetting that he said he was going to come back to life. All they could see, and this is how strong emotions are, is all you can see is what's right in front of you. And you lose access to some of these memories.

[14:21] So some of the other things that I want to talk about are the memories of God. And I want to talk about some of the other things that I want to talk about. And I want to talk about some of the Some of the reactions are actually listed in our text. The women are perplexed to find the stone rolled away. That word from Greek is aporeo. And it includes severe anxiety. So they're having a lot of emotions this morning, right? The thing they came to do is now in danger. The stone is gone. The body may be gone. They cannot go through with their plan to treat Jesus's body with spices. And I think we can get perplexed or anxious when our plans don't go the way that we hope. Put yourself in their shoes. Like, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't a small task around the house, like a hobby, and something just doesn't work. You know, expectation is different from reality. Perplexity can kind of jump in, right? The other reaction is wonder or amazement. Now this isn't the women. This is what Peter experiences. He experiences amazement that he looks inside the grave and finds the linen cloths that Jesus had been wrapped in. They were still there, but the body was not there. Which is really interesting. That would tell you that the

[15:22] body wasn't stolen, right? Because what grave robber would take the time to unwrap it all? They would just take the whole thing, and they wouldn't just leave it there. So something else happened, and here's a big thing missing from our scriptures, and I'm okay with it because we can ask God when we get there. How did the resurrection work, right? Did Jesus come back to life and unwrap himself, and he had new clothes, or did he kind of vanish and reappear, or did he just kind of vanish? I mean, I don't know. It's not told to us. This is shrouded in the scriptures. We don't know the actual mechanics of the resurrection, but it's a miracle, and you know, it's kind of like we've been watching a lot of magic shows on Netflix, and people are always like, how did you do that? And the magician's like, ha ha ha, we don't tell you that, you know, and I think that makes it kind of more exciting and fun and magical is when you're not told, and I thought, I like that the miraculous isn't always explained, but that's the miracle there is the cloths are there, but the body isn't. It was not stolen. It's like Yoda, right, and the empire strikes back. You know, he just kind of disappears, and his clothes kind of fall to the ground. You know

[16:38] what I'm saying? Anyway, you don't know what I'm saying. Some of you don't know what I'm saying, and that's okay. So that word that Peter experiences is thaumatso. It's wonder and amazement, this wonder and amazement. These are all the feelings that people are having. These are all the reactions that people are having, but I want to say, you know, today is today. What are we going to say now? And I'm going to ask you again, how is your memory? I mean, this is the important thing. This is a text about memory.

[17:07] Remember, says the angel, what he told you was going to happen. How is your memory? Don't you remember that God calls you his own? Do you remember that? Don't you remember that he loves the world so much that he gives his only son for it? Do you remember that? Don't you remember that he is with you in the dark night of the soul when all is terrible, when evil seems to prevail, when danger is on all sides?

[17:36] Do you remember that he's with you? Do you remember how right David is when he says, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Now, I got to tell you something. This is on my heart deep. The world is so messed up and broken right now. It's darker now than it was two, three months ago. We know why. There's a war in Ukraine and there's horrible things happening. And it's not just in Ukraine, it's all around the world. Evil is on the move. Evil does not seem to be anywhere near being defeated and it won't be in our lifetime. And I think the church is so terribly messed up, especially in this country. I hate to say it. The church is either shrinking or it's becoming an awful parody of itself. I mean, it's just sad. I could tell you more about it some other time, but the church is a mess. The church with the big C. Greed, war, poverty, racial division, they're everywhere. Evil is on the move. Evil has not been vanquished. It has been on the cross, but it's still prevailing in this world at this time. This is all true and it's all serious. And this is the Good Friday stuff that Jesus came to die for. But to our eyes, like the eyes of the

[18:54] women, evil has prevailed and what is precious and innocent has been killed. And if we're honest, sometimes we come with our own spices to this world. We're not here to see a resurrected world. We're here to see a dead world and we're here to prepare it for burial. Sometimes we forget. I'm getting close to that point.

[19:15] I'm getting close to that point. We're close. We'll we'll make it. We'll see what happens. So today God says to us. Why do you look for the living. Among the dead. He's not here, but he's risen remember how he told you. Well, he was still in Galilee. That the son of man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified and on the third day rise again God is telling you this don't look for the dead among the living, or don't look for the living among the dead. The current darkness we are in, it will pass, but guess what? Unless the Lord comes again soon afterwards, there's going to be followed by another darkness. This is the way of the world. Some other war will come in our generation. There's no doubt about it in my mind. I'm not trying to be a pessimist. I'm just the kind of realist that the scripture tells us that we need to be. What does the scripture tell us about evil? What does the scripture tell us about sin? All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Romans 3.23, right? The Lord sees how great the wickedness of the human race has become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart is only evil all the time. Genesis 6.5. It's all in there, right? Remember this. This saying is sure and worthy of full

[20:36] acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the worst. 1 Timothy 1.15. It's all in there. The world is broken, and this is going to stay broken until Jesus comes again. So darkness will come, and it will come again, and that darkness is in us too.

[20:58] It's in us. The thing to remember in this darkness and in this one that are ones that are yet to come is that we're told to remember. Remember today. Remember this. He's risen. Hallelujah. Remember that. He's risen, right? We don't just have his words that he's going to be raised again. We have his resurrection. Blessed are those who believe and do not yet see, but we've seen it, right? Remember this. Darkness does not have the final word. Remember this. Death is swallowed up in victory. Remember you are forgiven. Remember you are freed from slavery to sin. Remember that you are made new, and you are a precious child of God. Remember all these things on Easter. Remember these things. So today we celebrate, and today we remember, Christ the Lord is risen today. Hallelujah. Amen.