Read Receipts

Transcript

Good morning, family. He is risen. Amen. You are probably under the assumption that I’m wearing a suit and tie because it’s Easter and you would be partially right. But honestly, the real reason why I’m wearing a suit and tie is to distract you from this. Yes it is true. The eyes have given out. Yes. If you’re visiting this morning, we’re so glad that you’re here. At Trinity Church, we preach the Bible every single Sunday and the way we do that is simple. We take a book of the Bible, we start at the beginning and then we work our way through it a few passages at a time until we get to the end. Right now we’re doing that with the Gospel of John. So there’s no special themes picked for a season. There’s no series built around our preferences. Just whatever comes next in the text, week after week, in order. Which means this morning we’re preaching whatever passage is next in our John series. That being said, with a lot of prayer, a lot of planning, and honestly a whole lot of creativity in terms of how we’ve paced the sermon series, we’ve arrived at Easter Sunday sitting right at John chapter 20, which is the resurrection account. The very passage that reveals what Easter is all about. So in one sense, there’s nothing unusual about what we’re doing this morning. Same approach we use every week. But in another sense, this is anything but a normal Sunday. Because the passage that comes next just happens to be the passage that changes everything. So it is a good morning to be here. I want to start with something I’m pretty sure every single one of us has experienced. You send a text message, and then you wait for a response. You type it out. You hit send. You watch the little status update change to delivered. And then, if the person is bold enough to have red receipts turned on, those people are crazy. But you watch it change again to red. Now for those of you who don’t know what this is, a red receipt is a feature that tells you exactly when someone opens your text message. So there’s no plausible deniability. No more, oh man, I must have missed your text. No, it’s right there. Red, 2.47 p.m. Which sounds helpful, and it is, right up until the moment it isn’t. Because here’s what nobody tells you about red receipts. They only tell you half the story. They tell you the message was opened. They tell you when the message was opened. But they don’t tell you what happens after the message is opened. So let’s say you’re supposed to meet someone somewhere. And you arrive at that place, and the person you were supposed to meet is not there. You grab your phone, and you send the text message, delivered. Then red. And then nothing, silence. And in the silence, your brain does what most human brains do. It fills the gap with the worst possible interpretation. Did I get the date wrong? Did I get the details wrong? You start replaying the last conversation you had, and then you quickly look over your last text. Did I get it wrong? What did I say? What did they say? And so you text again. And again, red. And still nothing. Now you’re spiraling. Wait, why are they ignoring me? Did I do something wrong? Did I say something that offended them? I mean, clearly they saw my text, it’s red, and they’re choosing not to respond. Now maybe you’re more emotionally mature than me, and you don’t do that. But for most of us, if we’re honest, we go to the worst place first. Because absence is uncomfortable. Silence is uncomfortable. And our brains are wired to resolve discomfort as fast as possible. Even if the conclusion we land on is wrong. Even if the silence means something completely different. Because sometimes the person on the other side isn’t ignoring you. They’re just busy. They’re holding a baby. Or they’re on another call. Or maybe they’re on their way. Already in the car, pulling out of the driveway, heading towards you, and they’re being a responsible driver. So they read it and didn’t respond, not because something is wrong, but because they were already coming. The silence isn’t the absence of response. It’s the space between reading and arriving. Same notification, same timestamp, same silence, but two completely different meanings. And everything depends on how you read it. In our text this morning, Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb of Jesus early on the first day of the week while it’s still dark. And she sees that the stone has been rolled away. The body is gone. And her mind does exactly what our minds do. It fills the absence with the worst available explanation. They have taken the Lord. She doesn’t even know who they are. Just they. Whoever they are, they took him. And so she runs. And listen, her conclusion isn’t irrational. It’s the most reasonable conclusion she can come to. I mean, bodies don’t just leave tombs. Stones don’t just roll away themselves. If something is missing, someone must have taken it. That’s the logic. That’s what most of us would think. But in this moment, she’s dead wrong. And John chapter 20 is the story of what happens when you learn to read the silence differently. Not as loss, not as theft, not as the worst possible explanation, but as the space between reading and arriving. The tomb is not a ransacked room. It is in every way a red receipt. And the one who hasn’t responded yet is on his way. If you have your Bibles, would you please turn with me to John chapter 20. Thank you, Becca, for reading the text so well for us. If you’re visiting with us this morning and you don’t have a Bible, there are some Bibles in the front seat basket. You’re welcome to use that Bible. We’re going to be looking at page 852 in those pew Bibles. And if you don’t have a Bible, you’re welcome to take that Bible home with you as our gift to you. Before we dive in, would you take a moment to pray with me and we’ll ask the Lord for help as we open up his word. Our Father and our God, we do thank you for your word. We recognize, Father, that without the help of the Holy Spirit opening our eyes, we could not see any truth contained in your word. And so this morning we are desperate people. We need help. We need the eyes of faith and the help of the Holy Spirit to see the truth contained in your word this morning. So we pray that you would give the help that we so desperately need. Meet us here this morning and as we see the text clearly, would you use the text to crack open our hearts, to convict us, to challenge us, to conform us more into the image of our resurrected Lord Jesus. And it’s in his mighty and powerful name we pray, amen. Well, because it’s Easter Sunday and because there are probably many of you in the room who have not been tracking with us through this series, let me just give you the 30 second version of where we are in the story so far in John’s gospel. For the last three years, Jesus has been engaged. in public ministry. He’s healed the sick. He’s taught with an authority no one could explain. He’s confronted the religious establishment for its gross hypocrisy and he made a claim that has set his death in motion. His claim was that he was the Son of God. Now that claim infuriated the religious leaders and so they lied about him in a plot to kill him. They had him arrested and they handed him over to the Roman governor and he was condemned to die for a crime he never committed. On a Friday, Jesus was crucified outside the walls of Jerusalem between two actual criminals. His followers watched him die not knowing that his death would pay for the sins of the world. Then they took his body down from the cross, wrapped it in linen and laid it in a tomb in a nearby in a tomb in a nearby garden. And a great stone was rolled across the entrance of the tomb. Then came Saturday. Silence. Nothing. Now if you had been following someone for three years, if you left behind your family, your business, your whole life believing that this was the one who was going to set everything right and then Friday happened, Saturday would feel like the worst day of your life. Not because of the grief, I mean grief is painful, but grief by itself is not the hardest part. What makes Saturday unbearable is what starts to move into the grief once the shock begins to wear off. And that is the doubt. Maybe I read this whole thing wrong. Maybe we wanted it to be true so badly that we stopped asking hard questions. Maybe it was always going to end like this. Saturday is the day when hope starts to feel foolish. When belief starts to feel embarrassing. When you begin to wonder if the last three years of your life was built on something that just collapsed into the dirt of a Jerusalem garden. And that is exactly where the disciples are when John 20 opens up. That’s the emotional ground out of which this chapter begins. And it’s right there in the silence of Saturday, in that collapsed hope, in the disoriented grief that Sunday morning comes. This morning we are going to walk through this passage in three scenes. The evidence, the encounter, and the effect. And in every scene the same question is going to keep surfacing. Are you reading the silence correctly? Because the disciples aren’t. At least not yet. Mary certainly isn’t. At least not yet. And neither are any of the men locked in the room. Not yet. And John is going to walk us slowly and carefully through what it looks like when the worst available interpretation gives way to the true one. When the red receipt finally makes sense. Not because the silence simply ended, but because the one they thought was absent showed up. So let’s begin in scene one with the evidence. Look at verse one. Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. Now I want you to notice two things right away. Number one, it’s the first day of the week. At the beginning of John’s gospel, the very beginning, he opens with the words, in the beginning. It’s the same words that opened up the book of Genesis. In the beginning. So creation began on the first day and now on the first day of the resurrected Jesus, the darkness of the early morning fades and a new creation is about to begin. Mary doesn’t know that yet. She’s not coming from a sunrise service like most of y’all came from this morning. She’s coming to a tomb. Secondly, John tells us while it was still dark, and that’s not just a time stamp, that’s John doing what John does. His whole gospel has been tracing the tension between light and darkness. In fact, John 1.5 says the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. When Judas left to betray Jesus, John tells us that it was night and now Mary comes to the tomb while it is still dark. She’s still living in Good Friday. She doesn’t know the sun is about to rise on a world that has changed forever. So she shows up, she sees the stone rolled away, and in panic she runs. She runs back to Peter and John, who is the beloved disciple. And her conclusion is both reasonable and completely wrong. Verse two, they have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don’t know where they have laid him. Again, she doesn’t even know who they are. Just they. All she knows is absence. The body is gone. And for Mary, absence only has one explanation. Somebody took him. And that’s where a lot of people live on Easter Sunday. They hear about Jesus and the empty tomb and the only reasonable explanation they can come up with is someone must have moved that body. Somebody tampered with the evidence. The idea that absence might actually mean presence hasn’t even occurred to them. So Mary runs to Peter and John and the three of them head back toward the tomb. Verses three through five. So Peter went out with the other disciples and they were going toward the tomb. Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Now John tells us something that almost feels unnecessary or competitive. He tells us that he outran Peter. Now you might read that and think, why include that? Who cares who won the foot race? But this is exactly the kind of detail that shows that this is eyewitness testimony. When people make up stories, they don’t include details like that. They don’t insert themselves as outrunning the most prominent apostle in the gospel. That’s not legend language. That’s memory. John gets there first and he stoops down, he looks in, he sees the linen cloths, but he doesn’t go in. Then Peter shows up. And being Peter, he just dives straight in. No hesitation, no caution. That’s Peter being Peter. And it’s here where John begins to slow everything down for us. Verses six and seven. Then Simon Peter came following him and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there and the face cloth which had been on Jesus’s head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded up in a place by itself. Now don’t just rush past that as if that’s an insignificant detail. I mean think about this for a second. If someone had stolen the body of Jesus, what would the scene look like? Christian, you’re a detective. What might this look like? I mean if they did steal the body, they would have either taken everything or left it a complete mess. That’s what criminals do. No one pauses to neatly fold the linen cloth or fold the face cloth. No one arrives and, you know, steals something and then arranges things in such an organized way. No, they grab the body and they dip. But this here is order. This is calm. This is intentional. The face cloth is folded and set aside like a napkin after a meal, like a quiet signal to those who would see it that says, I’m done here. This is not the worst available interpretation. This is a red receipt with a message behind it. Now some of you were here when we walked through John 11, the story of Lazarus. Lazarus, a close friend of Jesus, had died and was dead for four days when Jesus came to his tomb. And Jesus said, Lazarus, come out. And he walked out, but still wrapped in his grave clothes, which is why Jesus said, next, unbind him and let him go. Why did Lazarus come out still wrapped in his grave clothes? Because Lazarus was resuscitated. Same body, same life, same death waiting for him down the road. He was brought back. But Jesus wasn’t brought back. He went through. No one had to unwrap him. The body passed through the grave clothes like light through glass. And the difference between Lazarus and Jesus is written right there in the linen. One was brought back, meaning resuscitated. The other went through. And that difference changes everything. Look at verse eight. Then the other disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in and he saw and believed. So John makes his way into the tomb. He sees the scene and he believes just like that. What’s interesting is that John uses different words for seeing through this passage. John tells us that Mary glances. She looks only long enough to draw a quick conclusion. He tells us that Peter examines. He looks long enough to study the details. But John, the beloved disciple, he sees. And his seeing becomes believing. Three people, same tomb, same evidence, same scene. One glances, one investigates, and one sees with the eyes of faith. And listen, this is not just grammar. That’s a mirror. Because the resurrection doesn’t invite just a glance. It doesn’t just invite detached analysis of evidence. It invites the kind of seeing that recognizes everything so that you might believe. In fact, John tells us the reason he wrote this gospel in John 20, 31, that these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name. What’s interesting is that immediately after, John tells us that he believed, look what it says next in verse nine. For as yet they did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead. Okay, so what is it here? John just said he believed, but now he says that they didn’t understand, speaking of himself and Peter. So does he understand or does he not understand? Well, here’s what’s happening here. John had real faith, genuine faith, but his faith was ahead of his understanding. He believed what he saw, but he did not yet see how all the scriptures had been pointing here. The Psalms, Isaiah 53, what we unpacked at Good Friday. He didn’t see how the whole story of the Bible points to Jesus. He didn’t realize yet that this wasn’t an accident, but that this was always the plan since Genesis. And what that means is that you don’t have to have everything figured out for your faith to be real. You can believe without understanding everything about the Bible, but the Bible still matters. The evidence gets you to the door. The Bible tells you what you’re looking at. So we need both. Evidence without the word is incomplete and the word without evidence feels abstract. So God in his kindness gives us both. An empty tomb, real evidence, and genuine faith, not yet full understanding. And I do think it’s important to understand something here. Belief in Jesus is not merely intellectual agreement. It’s not just lining up with a set of data points. It’s not saying, yeah, I think that’s probably true. You can agree with the facts and still miss Jesus. You can examine the evidence thoroughly and never actually see him. Because real belief is not something you manufacture. It’s something God gives. The Bible says we are blind apart from him. The natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God. And that our problem isn’t a lack of evidence, it’s a lack of sight. So what has to happen? God has to open your eyes. He has to give you what the scriptures call the eyes of faith. The ability not just to look, but to see. Not just to process, but to perceive. Not simply to acknowledge, but to trust. And that’s exactly what we’re watching happen here. John sees and he believes. Before he understands everything, before he connects the dots, before he can trace every thread from Genesis to the resurrection, faith comes first, understanding follows. And that is the order for many of us. God gives sight and then over time, he teaches you what you’re seeing. This is one of the reasons why we come together every Sunday and open up God’s word so that we might see Jesus more clearly. So friend, if you’re here this morning and you’re thinking, I don’t know if I have all my questions answered. You don’t need all your questions answered to come to Jesus. But you do need your eyes opened. And that’s something you don’t achieve. It’s something you ask God for. Ask him this morning, Lord, help me see. And he will help you see. What I find so interesting is verse 10. Look at verse 10. Then the disciples went back to their homes. It’s just crazy. After this whole scene, everything they observed, after the evidence, after John is like, I believe Peter and John just go home. I guess, I mean, what else would you do, right? You just go home. But notice, Mary stays. And what happens next is, in my view, the most personal moment in this entire resurrection story. Scene two, the encounter. Look at verse 11. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. I want you to feel the full weight of what John means by the word weeping. This is not like a polite grief or quiet tears and sniffling. This is a word that’s used for bodily anguish, having deep, heavy sorrow, loud groanings. It’s deep agony. In other words, Mary is in no way composed. She is undone. And listen, it makes sense because she’s lost the one person who changed everything for her. And now even the body is gone. She can’t even grieve properly because there’s nothing left to grieve over. And yet, she stays. When the other disciples leave, she just sits there in her grief. And so the first resurrection appearance does not go to the one who ran fastest. It does not go to the one who figured it out first. It goes to the one who would not leave. Verse 12 and 13 tell us that she looked into the tomb and she sees two angels and they ask her, woman, why are you weeping? And she gives them the same answer she gave before. They have taken away my Lord and I don’t know where they have laid him. And listen, she is so deep in her grief. Just think of the extent of her grief. She is so immersed in sorrow that she fails to recognize that there’s two angels standing before her. Two angels and she can barely register them. And that’s because she’s not looking for a resurrection. She’s looking for a body. And her tears are impeding her ability to see the scene for what it is. But then she turns around. Verse 14, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. So in the same way she failed to recognize the angels, she failed to see that it was Jesus standing right before her. She doesn’t recognize him. And so Jesus speaks. Verse 15. Why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? Look at how Mary responds. This is interesting. Supposing him to be the gardener. She said to him, Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him and I will take him away. Now just pause here for a second, because what John is doing here is remarkable. Where is the tomb? In a garden. John told us that back in chapter 19. So Mary is standing in a garden next to a man standing in the garden, and she assumes he’s the gardener. And honestly, she’s not wrong. In fact, she doesn’t know how right she is, because where did the whole story of humanity begin? In a garden. Genesis 2, God plants a garden in Eden and he places the man there to work it and to keep it, the first Adam. He was a gardener. He was called to cultivate life, to guard what God had made, but he failed. And so sin entered the garden and death followed and the garden was lost. The gates were shut, the angels stood guard with a flaming sword. Humanity was exiled, cut off from life. And now here we are again in a garden. The first day of a new week before the sun rises and a man is standing in the garden. Only this time it’s not the first Adam, it’s the last Adam. The one the apostle Paul says came to undo what the first Adam ruined. The first Adam brought sin into the garden and died. The last Adam walked into death and walked out of it. The first Adam hid in the garden. The last Adam stands revealed in the garden. The first Adam was told to keep the garden and he failed. The last Adam has come to reclaim it. Not with the sword of judgment, but by way of bearing that judgment himself. So when Mary looks at him and thinks he’s the gardener, she’s not seeing less than the truth. She’s seeing more than she realizes. Because Jesus is the true gardener. The one who has come to restore what was lost in the first garden. To bring life where death had taken over. To begin a new creation in place where the old one fell apart. But in that moment, though she sees in part she missed it. And she’s not alone in missing it. The world does the same thing. The world gives Jesus titles they can manage. Things like good teacher or spiritual guru. Or a good example to follow or a moral guide. Something they can fit into categories they already understand. But he is always more than what we understand. More than we imagined. More than our categories can hold. He is not just here to improve your life. He is here to remake it. But Jesus doesn’t leave her in her misunderstanding. Notice in verse 16, Jesus brings clarity by speaking one word. Jesus said to her, Mary. That’s it. Just her name. And it changes everything. Not because she sees something new. Not because the evidence has shifted. But because she hears her name in his voice. And she knows that voice. So she responds back with one word. Rabboni. Which means my teacher. This is a personal and affectionate term of endearment. You remember what Jesus said in John 10? The sheep hear his voice. And he calls his own sheep by name. The good shepherd laid down his life and passed through death. And he still knows his sheep. He still calls them by name. Mary doesn’t recognize his face. Likely because of the tears. But she recognizes her name in his voice. And that’s how the shepherd works. Recognition didn’t come through sight. It came through his voice. Most of us know what this is like. You hear a familiar voice in a crowded room. You turn before you even see the face. Because you know that voice. Faith in this moment doesn’t look like solving a problem. It looks like recognizing a voice. And if you’re here this morning. Standing in grief. You can know this morning. Not because your faith is strong. But because you feel lost. You don’t know where else to go. That this scene is for you. He does not wait for you to compose yourself. He does not wait for better words or stronger faith to meet you in the garden. In the darkness of the early morning. While you are weeping. While you can’t tell the difference between a risen Lord and a gardener. He calls you by name. Because he knows it. And you can respond to his voice this morning. Look at verse 17. Jesus said to her. Do not cling to me. For I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them. I am ascending to my Father and your Father. To my God and your God. Mary responds to the voice of Jesus. And her instinct is to grab hold of him. Which makes sense. She lost him once. She’s not trying to let him go again. But Jesus says, don’t cling to me. For I have not yet ascended to the Father. Now to be clear. This is not rejection. This is redirection. Jesus is not pulling away. He’s actually expanding her access. The relationship isn’t ending. It is about to deepen. Because what comes next is better. You remember what John said? You remember what Jesus said in John 16? He said, it is to your advantage that I go away. Because his departure means the Spirit is coming. His presence will no longer be limited to one place at one time. It will be with all his people everywhere at the same time. Mary wants what was. But Jesus is giving her what will be. Which is exceedingly better. And then he sends her. He says, go to my brothers. Do you hear that? My brothers. This is the first time that Jesus calls them that. Not servants. Not students. Not disciples. But brothers. He says, my father and your father. My God and your God. And you understand what this means? It means that the resurrection creates a family. The resurrection is not only proof and power and presence. It’s a people. A family bought by his blood and secured by the resurrection. We have been made brothers and sisters by the finished work of Jesus. Amen. And so Mary goes to her brothers. Verse 18. Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples. I have seen the Lord. And that he said all these things to her. Mary goes to her brothers and speaks four words. And those four words in every way capture the Easter message. It’s not an argument. It’s not an apologetic defense. It’s not a system. It’s a testimony. I have seen him. He is alive. The first witness of the resurrected Jesus is a woman whose testimony in that culture wouldn’t even count in court. And John doesn’t feel the need to explain it. You know why? Because the resurrection doesn’t operate on human credentials. It sends who it sends according to God’s purposes. But Mary is not the only one who needs to see him. That same evening behind locked doors there are others still sitting in the silence. And what Jesus does next changes everything. Scene three. The effect. Look at verse 19. On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, Peace be with you. you. Let’s just pause here for a second because this verse is really the center of gravity for this whole passage. The doors are locked and John tells us why. Fear. And honestly it makes sense. They just watched Rome execute their teacher in the most horrific way. They know the authorities are coming next. So this isn’t paranoia. This is prudence. I mean you lock your doors at night. Not because you hate the outside world but because the outside world isn’t always safe. So don’t read this as spiritual failure. Read this as reality. But notice how John explains it. The doors aren’t just shut. He emphasizes they’re secured. They’re bolted. Fear turned into architecture. These are the same men who heard Jesus say, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. They heard it but now they’re hiding. Because the promise of peace and the experience of peace are not the same thing. And this is where the red receipt resolves. Jesus came and stood among them. How did Jesus stand among them when the doors were locked from the inside? Well Jesus came through the doors the same way he came through the linen cloths. He passed through the bolted room. He doesn’t knock. He doesn’t wait outside. He doesn’t call through the wall. He just appears. You see the silence was never absence. He was always on his way. And now he’s there in the room. And the first thing he says is not, hey I told you. It’s not, where were you? It’s not, why did you run? There’s no rebuke. There’s no lecture. He simply says, peace be with you. And this is so much more than a first century greeting. This is the covenant blessing of the risen King spoken into a room full of fear. You see the cross achieved peace. We talked about this on Friday. The cross brought us peace but Easter delivers it. It is finished was the purchase. Peace be with you is the receipt. And notice the doors are still locked. Rome is still Rome. Nothing out there has changed. In fact the only thing that has changed is the fact that Jesus is now with them in the room. And the peace he gives is not the peace of changed circumstances. It’s the peace of his presence. So it’s not the world is safe now. You can roam about the cabin freely. It’s I’m here with you. I’m with you. And that is always how it works with him. He doesn’t fix your life first and then show up. He shows up in the middle of your life as it is. The storm is still raging when he says peace be still. The disciples are still afraid when he says peace be with you which means the peace he gives is not simply an upgrade to your situation. The peace is himself risen and undefeatable. And to provide them with the certainty they need in the face of fear and to know that he is in fact the risen Jesus present with them. Look at what he does in verse 20. When he had said this he showed them his hands and his side and then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Notice he shows them his wounds because the risen Christ is still the crucified Christ. The resurrection doesn’t erase the cross. It doesn’t hide the scars. It glorifies them. The marks of shame become the beauty marks. They become the marks of victory. These wounds are not liabilities. They are credentials, receipts. Family you don’t get the resurrection without the crucifixion and you don’t get the empty tomb without the cross. And Jesus makes sure that they see that. This is the same body, the same flesh, the same wounds but alive. The death was real. The wounds are real but the resurrection is real. And this is why their sorrow is now beginning to turn to joy. Not because the argument somehow convinced them but because they saw him. Verse 21. Jesus said to them again peace be with you as the Father has sent me even so I am sending you. Jesus says peace again on purpose. Why does Jesus say peace twice? Because he wants to guard them in peace before he sends them out into danger. And the structure of that sentence matters. It’s as and then so. As the Father sent the Son so now the Son sends the church. How was the Son sent? Not with political power, not with military might, but in humility into the darkness with a message. And what this means is that the kind of church the resurrection creates is not a fortress church. It’s not a political church. It’s not a locked door church. It’s a sent church. Sent into Portland, into Vancouver, into your neighborhood, into your workplaces, into the places you would rather avoid. Into the darkness. And notice again the order. This is important family. Peace first, then mission. You don’t go to find peace. You go because you already have it. Family we need to be a church that brings the peace of the gospel into this dark world so that the world might know him and have the peace of God that comes only by way of his glorious gospel. And the thing you need to understand is that he doesn’t send us empty-handed into a dark world with you know your skill set. Oh you’re such a dynamic speaker. Oh you’re so relational. That doesn’t mean anything. He sends you with the very resource you need to bring peace into this broken world. Look at verse 22. And when he had said this he breathed on them and said to them receive the Holy Spirit. That’s the resource we need. This word breathed is a loaded word. This word breathed only shows up like this in two other places in scripture. In Genesis 2 and Ezekiel 37. In Genesis 2 it tells us that God breathed life into Adam and the dust came alive. Ezekiel 37 tells us the story of dry bones, dead men and the breath of God made them alive. And now Jesus stands in a room full of fearful lifeless men and breathes. Breathes life into them. This is new creation breath. He is the last Adam and we are being remade by the spirit. So this is not simply an encouragement. This is resurrection life entering people. Not an upgrade but new life. And he calls us to go with that resource into this dark world and breathe new life into people. To speak the message so that the Spirit of God can quicken the hearts of men and make them new. It doesn’t matter how gifted you are. Dead people don’t come to life because of gifted speakers or how delightful you are to be around. The Spirit of God quickens people and makes them alive. And I want you to feel how close this is. You know you can speak across a room. I can shout to the balcony up there. But breath requires closeness. Face to face. This is grace at the closest possible range. He gives them peace and then he gives them new life through the Spirit. And then he gives them a mission. Verse 23. If you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven them. If you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld. Now that I know this sounds confusing, but essentially what Jesus is saying here is this, the church doesn’t create forgiveness, it declares forgiveness. We don’t generate grace, we announce it. When we say repent and believe and your sins are forgiven in Christ, we are speaking what heaven has already accomplished. We are heralds and that means you carry a message that can open heaven to someone. Not a program, not a system, but a proclamation that God has acted in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. Friend, if you are here this morning and you don’t know yourself to be a Christian, I want to take a moment to make this as clear as possible. Because this is not something you just understand, this is something you need to respond to. The Easter message is not simply that the tomb is empty, it’s that your sins can be forgiven, your guilt can be removed, that the distance between you and God can be closed. Not by what you do, but by what Christ has already done on that cross. He lived the life you could not live. He died to death, you deserve to die because of your sins and he rose again so that forgiveness would not be just offered, but secured. And this means that you don’t have to clean yourself up first. You don’t have to fix everything about your world. You don’t have to get your life in order before you come. You come just as you are, with your sin, with your confusion, with your questions, with your guilt. And what you need to understand is that when you come, you are coming to a person, not an idea and not a philosophy, not even a religion. You are coming to a person, a risen Savior. And his call is simple. Repent, turn from your sin, and believe. Just like John. Just like John. He saw and he believed. And what belief means, it means to trust him. Trust that he is who he said he is, who he claimed to be, the Son of God. Not partially, not intellectually, but personally. Entrust your life to him. And if you do, your sins will be forgiven. Not slowly, not eventually, but fully. All because of Christ Jesus and his finished work on the cross. So if you’re here this morning, hear his voice. Don’t stay behind locked doors. Don’t keep analyzing. Don’t wait until you understand everything. Come, believe, and you will have life in his name. The empty tomb is your evidence. Something happened. The grave clothes are there. The face cloth is folded. It’s not chaos. That’s intentional. He is a God who calls Mary by name and meets her in her grief, and he will meet you this morning. Hear his voice calling you to himself and respond. And listen, if you have questions about Jesus, if you’re curious and you want to know more about Jesus, ask any member in this church and they will love to help you understand what it means to follow Jesus. In fact, if you’re a member, just raise your hands in the air. Look at any of those people whose hands are raised and they would love to talk to you about what it means to follow Jesus. Amen? Family, I want to close this morning by reminding you that the resurrection is not just an event to believe in. It is a presence to live in. Mary was weeping, disoriented, grieving, unable to make sense of what she was looking at, and Jesus met her there. Not after she composed herself, not after she figured it out, but in the middle of her weeping. And he calls her name. That’s presence. The disciples were hiding behind locked doors, fear exceedingly high, uncertain about what was coming next, and Jesus meets them there. Not after they get courage, not after they step out in faith, but in the middle of their fear, he’s there. That’s presence. That’s not just presence, that’s peace. And this, family, means wherever you are this morning, he meets you. Not the future version of you, not the cleaned-up version of you, the real you in your grief, in your mess, in your fear, in your uncertainty. The resurrection means he is not distant, he is present, and the peace that he gives is not the absence of trouble. It is the presence of Christ. And some of you need to hear that this morning, because nothing about your circumstances have changed. The diagnosis is still there. The health is still fading. The depression is still a reoccurring passenger. There’s still tension in your home. There’s still questions that are unanswered. But hear me, family, Jesus is in the room, and that affects everything. It changes everything, not because it fixes everything immediately, but because you are not alone in it. He breathes, and he’s given you his Spirit, which is the greatest source of comfort and his presence wherever you go. Which means the resurrection is not just something that happened to Jesus, it’s something that has happened to us. New life, new strength, new courage to help walk through the very difficult and dark circumstances of your life. Family, he gives you his peace, his presence, and his Spirit to be your comfort, but he also sends you into this world, not to retreat from it, but to walk dead into it, not in your own strength, but with his presence, and his peace, and with his Spirit. Dear Christian, you don’t have to be afraid, not of your circumstances, not of the future, not of this world, and not even of death, because the worst thing that could happen to you has already happened to him, and he walked out of it. And because he lives, you will live one day, finally and fully, face-to-face with the same God who breathed his Spirit on you. But even now, you can walk with him, you can know him, and you can have his peace right here, right now, not because the world is safe, but because Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Let’s pray.