Hope in the Midst of Hopelessness: Easter 2008 Sermon John 20:1-18

O Lord, your Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. Give us grace to receive your truth in faith and love, and strength to follow on the path you set before us; through Jesus Christ, Amen.

Oh Hello. I didn’t expect to find anyone else on this pathway. Are you followers of our Lord Jesus also? Well I have great news for you. He is risen. Our hope is restored and our future is assured. I haven’t seen him with my own eyes yet, but I have seen the empty tomb. Let me introduce myself. My name is John Son of Zebedee. My brother and I were fishermen until the Lord Jesus came and told us to become fishers of people and so we have. We have seen and heard many wondrous things since we have been with Jesus but none as emotional and incredible as the last few days.

This is all new to us, we are still unsure of what to do or what to say. Jesus told us over and over again that he would be handed over, killed, and crucified, but to be honest with you, no matter how many times he said it, I never really believed it would happen. It seemed impossible. We had seen him perform so many miracles and we had seen him escape so many times from the clutches of the religious authorities in Jerusalem we could never imagine Jesus dying at least not in the foreseeable future. The Thursday night came…

We had come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, but some of us thought it wasn’t a good idea. We had narrowly escaped so many times from the people and the authorities that some among us thought it was foolish to return there, but we always followed where the Master lead us. So we were sitting in an upper room here in the city and we were eating and drinking as usual and then Jesus said something so strange at the time. He said that one of us would betray him. We all looked at one another and wondered who could it be, surely none of us could betray Jesus. We all looked within ourselves and wondered could it be me. Then he did something very unusual he took off his outer garment and took a bowl and some water and began to wash our feet like a slave would. He told us that we might not understand it now but we would eventually understand what he was doing. He also told us that if we wanted to be like him and love like him that we had to be like servants and wash one another’s feet. I think I understand what he was saying now. We have to love each other like he loved us. Then Jesus took a cup and some bread. He broke the bread, gave it to us and said that this was his body. Then he took a cup with some wine and said that this was his blood and that we should remember him each time we broke bread and drink from the cup. It was strange at the time, but maybe it was Jesus’ way so showing us that he would always be with us wherever we would go.

Then he took us out of the city to the Mount of Olives and he prayed with us and for us. He took Peter, James, and I up on the hill and told us to stay awake, but I must confess to you that I couldn’t stay awake. When I woke up Jesus scolded us for sleeping and then said his time was at hand. Then we saw Judas with some soldiers from the Temple. We didn’t know what was going on and then Judas kissed Jesus and the soldiers grabbed him and arrested him. Peter grabbed his sword and began to fight for Jesus but Jesus stopped him and said that he must drink the cup that God had given him. I did not understand what he meant until now. What happened next is almost too difficult to talk about.

They took him away to the High Priest and they tried him on some false charges and found him guilty of blasphemy. Imagine the Son of God being accused of blasphemy. But they began to beat Jesus They could not put Jesus to death without permission of the Romans and so they took Jesus to Pilate. Surely, we thought, that Pilate would have sense enough to let Jesus go free. But the crowd was too much for him. They swayed his judgment and he pronounced it…crucifixion. We could not believe what was happening. They were going to execute this poor man who did so much good in the world, who never hurt anyone, they crucified him.

I was there; I saw it with my own eyes. They hammered the nails into his hands and feet and raised that hideous cross to the sky. I was there with Mary Magdalene, Jesus’ mother and a few others. Then soldiers mocked him and placed a plague above his head in Greek, Hebrew, and Latin that read “Here is Jesus, King of the Jews.” While he suffered on the cross I could not look at him. They had beaten and flogged him to where he was almost unrecognizable. The he called to me and he told me to take care of his mother and to my last breath I will do it. The Sun darkened and the earth began to shake and I know he was alone on that cross because I heard him cry for God. He seemed to think that God was not with him. I began to think the same thing too. How could God allow this to happen to his only Son? Then he cried in a loud voice and breathed his last. He was dead and it seemed our hope had died with him. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus took his body and buried him in a stone tomb according to our custom.

Our hope was gone. It was such a cold, empty feeling. Have you ever felt like that? Like the world was going to come to an end and you would be crushed in the blackness. Maybe you have watched a loved one suffer and died or maybe you have suffered in some way. You might know how we felt. It seemed like the world was going to crush us and we thought that we might be next on the hill of Calvary and so we hid back in the upper room where we meet last Thursday night. Those were the longest days of my life. None of us spoke to each other or ate anything. We just sat there and prayed and simply stared in disbelief at one another.

We were hopeless. We were in the midst of darkness. As King David put it in the psalm we were in the valley of the shadow of death. There was nothing that we could imagine that could bring light to our darkness or hope to our hopelessness. Have you ever been in a place like that? Do you know how we felt? It is almost funny now looking back. We forgot. We forgot what Jesus was telling us the whole time he was with us. With God there is always hope.

After the Sabbath was over Mary went down to the tomb. She wanted to weep and mourn there at the garden tomb. When she got there she saw that the stone covering the tomb had been rolled away. She immediately came back to us and reported what she had seen. Peter and I quickly got up and ran down to the tomb without any fear of the Roman soldiers. We wanted to see for ourselves. I was a little faster than Peter and so I got there first. I saw the tomb empty just as Mary had told us. Peter got there a few minutes later and went into the tomb and I followed in. In the place where they laid him there were only the linen wrappings and head covering folded neatly.

At first we didn’t know what to think or what to believe and then I remembered what Jesus had told us over and over again, on the third day I will be brought back to life. I remembered what happened at Lazarus’ tomb only a few days earlier. And it hit me for the first time; He is Risen and our hope is restored. Our Savior is resurrected. Oh I wish I could have been there with him to see it when it happened. I can just imagine a blinding light coming from the tomb. Then to see Jesus slowly rise from the grave and put off those grave clothes, renewed, restored, resurrected. Death no longer has a prize. Hell and Satan have not won the day. He Lives. He Lives. Our hope has returned in the midst of hopelessness.

Peter and I stunned at what we had seen went back to tell the others. Mary stayed behind. She was weeping for the Lord. She did not yet understand. Only a little while after Peter and I had returned to the upper room Mary came running in saying. “I have seen Him! I have seen the Lord!” She said that Jesus came to her not as a ghost or in a dream but as flesh and blood. She said that he told her to come back to us and to tell us that he is going back to his God and our God.

Our God, and then it hit me again. Through all that happened in the last three days, Jesus dying on the cross and then through the power and love of God resurrected from the grave, God who then could only be approached by the priests was now available to us all. God is now our God, my God and Your God. That is the true miracle of this day. God loves us so much that he sent his Son to us and demonstrated that love on the cross.

My head is still swimming right now and I have to get back to the others. I know that this is an incredible story and many will not believe it. I hope that you will believe it. When hope seems lost, when times seem the darkest, I want you to remember this story and believe. Remember that He lives and our sins are forgiven. Remember he lives and God and Heaven is open to all people. Remember he lives and that God’s love is stronger than death. If you ever feel hopelessness, remember that he lives and that our hope lives on.

Let us pray…

Grant, O Lord,

that what has been said with our lips we may believe in our hearts,

and that what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.