Easter Sermon
Easter Sermon
Hey folks, with this being a pretty big weekend I thought I’d send you my Easter sermon. Keep in mind this is very much a work in progress, with content edits to come, but I thought it would help for you to see how I am processing at this stage. Feel free to use as much of this material as you’d like without giving me any credit.
He has risen!
Who is Jesus? How the resurrected Christ sets us free
John 5
(Image of the Scarecrow from The Wiz) Surely we all have seen, The Wiz…not the Wizard of Oz, but its more soulful interpretation, starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson. In one of the early scenes, we are introduced to the Scarecrow, who is bound to his pole and longs to come down, but he just can’t. To make matters worse he is surrounded by crows who mock him and tell him he will never get down. Then they twist the knife and force him to sing a song. Look at the lyrics with me, “You can’t win, you can’t break even and you can’t get out of the game. People keep sayin things are gonna change, but they look just like they’re stayin the same. You can’t win. You’re in over your head and you only got yourself to blame. You can’t win child (You can’t win child). You can’t break even and you can’t get out of the game”.
Who is Jesus? He’s drawn to those who can’t seem to win- John 5:1-7.
Ever felt like this? Ever had moments, seasons or an area in your life where it felt like you just can’t win? Sure you have. We’ve all been there, where it felt like I can’t win in my marriage, can’t win in my singleness, can’t win on my job, can’t win in my career, can’t win with that child, can’t win with this addiction…I just can’t seem to win. As our text opens up we are going to meet an ancient version of the Scarecrow- an invalid of 38 years, immersed in a sea of hopelessness, where if you listen closely to the background music of our text, you can hear the crows singing, “You can’t win.” Oh but he will.
As our passage opens up we are told that the events to come happen during the feast of the Jews. We don’t know what particular feast it is, but it’s a time of rejoicing, and everyone is headed to the temple, but Jesus doesn’t stop at the red carpet on his way into the temple, instead, he goes to an unlikely place, he goes to the pool of Bethesda. Archaeologists have actually discovered this exact site in recent years, and this was the place where you gathered when you had some sort of sickness or disease, because it was thought the waters, when they were stirred, would bring healing. So in walks Jesus, and he encounters a man in verse 5, who John, while he doesn’t give us his name, does give us what seems to be the most random of details- he’s an invalid of 38 years. Now this is telling, because the average life expectancy in Jesus’ day was between 25-30 years, so the fact he would be an invalid of 38 years makes him the epitome of hopelessness. In this sea of hopelessness, Jesus locks in on the most well known and hopeless of all, and initiates a conversation which would result in his transformation.
Jesus begins by asking him, “Do you want to be healed”- John 5:6. On the surface this question seems to be silly if not outright insensitive. It would be like Jesus walking into someone’s hospital room at Wake Medical, pulling up a chair and saying, “Do you want to get better?” But you have to know that when Jesus asks questions it’s not for information, but to expose. We know this because the man responds with the epitome of self-pity when he says, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me”- John 5:7. Hear the hopelessness and self pity? This is the life he’s known for 38 years, and it’s a life he’s grown comfortable with. As Trevin Wax says, his illness has become his identity.
Jesus’ question, “Do you want to be healed,” is more relevant today than ever before. Trevin Wax points to this when he says, “There’s a tendency today to place our identity in our illness; to find solace in our sickness.. Sometimes the hardest thing about sickness is that it can threaten the self we have come to know. Sometimes we would rather cling to the comfort of the familiar than face the freedom of the unknown. So we live this kind of life where we always want our wounds nursed, but never healed. We just keep picking at the scab”- Trevin Wax. This plays itself out in many directions. For some your identity is in your depression and anxiety- very real things that I do not make light of- but the problem is these diagnosis have come to define you. Others of us our identity is found in the hurt someone has inflicted on us. Again, I don’t make light of this at all, and we need to grieve it and get all the help we can to overcome and grow through it, but the problem is you’ve gotten comfortable with it, and it’s defined you. Others, your identity is in your sin. You speak more of your addiction, your sexual choices, and brokenness to the point where it’s become you. And Jesus is gently moving towards us today and asking us the same question he asked this invalid, “Do you want to be healed”. Do you want to be set free? Hear that again- no matter where you are, Jesus sees you, and is moving toward you right now, with the offer of healing and freedom.
Who is Jesus? The One who frees us- John 5:8-9, 14.
Jesus doesn’t wait for another word from this man. He simply commands him to, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk,” where, “And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked”- John 5:8-9. Now let’s put ourselves in this man’s shoes. You’ve been an invalid for all these years, and now you’re healed…you can walk. What’s the first thing you are going to do? Me, maybe go for a long walk through the local park, or a jog on the beach, or maybe kickboxing class. Not this guy. What’s the first thing he does? “Afterward Jesus found him in the temple”- John 5:14. Wait, what? The first place he goes is to the temple? Are you for real? Why? Because the law restricted any invalid from going to the temple to worship, so for all of these years he has been separated from God, and just like that, Jesus heals his legs, so now a second and more important thing is healed- his relationship with God. Jesus uses his felt need- healed legs- to get to his real need- a restored relationship with God.
A few months ago all of our boys, who are in their 20s, were home, and I asked them a really vulnerable question, What do you most remember about your relationship with me when you were kids? They said the weekly breakfasts we did when I took them to school. So simple right? All I did was take a felt need- their need for food- to address a greater need- their connection with me. You know what a tragedy is? It would be a breakfast table packed with food, but an empty chair with no dad. And you know what a tragedy is? For this man to have healed legs, but a heart far from God. You know what a tragedy is? For Jesus to rid your body of cancer, set you free from anxiety and depression, end your journey of infertility by blessing you with a child while you have a soul that spends an eternity separated from him. Jesus wants to satisfy way more than your felt needs, he wants to get to your real need, which is a relationship with him. Our real problem isn’t an addiction to alcohol, or some felt need, but a soul far from him.
Who is Jesus? He’s not a religion- John 5:9b-18.
Things take a turn in our text, and we get a sense of this with a “little” detail John throws in at the end of verse 9, “Now that day was the Sabbath”- John 5:9b. The Jews now see this man who was healed, and instead of rejoicing over his healing, they, like referees, throw a flag and call a penalty, when they say, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed”- John 5:10. The Sabbath prohibited work, but then this brought up the question of what exactly is work? So the Jewish leaders wrote something called the Mishnah, which was around then, which one of its purposes was to explain what was work. And in the Mishnah they came up with 39 things you couldn’t do, and this was one of them. Instead of rejoicing over his healing, they call a foul. By the way, I’ve never seen a referee rejoice over some miraculous play. It’s the NCAA tournament- March Madness as they call it- and we’ve seen last second shots (I won’t say against whom), and not once has a referee rejoiced. In the same way, religious people don’t rejoice, how could they, when they have a whistle in their mouths waiting to call a penalty? And into all of this Jesus enters, and he actually makes a reference to the Mishnah, when he’s confronted about violating the Sabbath, “But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is working until now, and I am working”- John 5:17. See, the Mishnah said the only one allowed to work on the Sabbath was God. Jesus acknowledges this and then adds a wrinkle- His Father is working, and so is he. It’s his way of saying he’s innocent of the charge of breaking the Sabbath because he’s God. Jesus is not a religion, he’s a person, he’s God, who emphasizes relationship more than rules.
When Michael Jackson was a little boy, his dad picked up that he and his brothers had a lot of talent, and there was some real potential for them as a singing and dancing group. Everyday after work, Joseph Jackson, the dad, would come home, push the furniture in the living room to the side, and make his sons go over the dance routine, while he stood there with belt in hand, where if they missed a step they were met with severe consequences. Now, did it work? On one hand it did, as MJ became arguably the greatest performer ever. But on the other hand it didn’t. I don’t know if you picked up on this with MJ, but he never called his dad, “dad,” only by his first name, “Joseph”. In a 2001 Oxford University speech, MJ reflected on his dad, and in tears he said in essence, how he longed for a dad, but all he got was Joseph. He learned to perform and do the steps, but missed out on the relationship.
And that’s my fear for some of you Summit church, or others of you who attend church regularly, read your bible daily, and do all the things. Learn from the Jews- they memorized the first five books of the bible, prayed the Shema 18 times a day, and totally missed out on a relationship with Jesus. They performed well, but were far from him. Here’s the irony of this text: The invalid who was away from the temple, ends up closer to God than the religious leaders who spent a lot of time in the temple. Heed the message of this passage- religion doesn’t set you free and save you, only Jesus does.
Who is Jesus? He is God- John 5:19-47.
So here is Jesus, having just had the audacity of healing a man on the Sabbath which triggers the anger of the religious leaders, leading to a huge confrontation. When Jesus, in verse 17, equates himself with God, John tells us their response, “This is why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God”- John 5:17. The message of our passage, and the message of the whole gospel of John, and the message to all of the Christian life is that Jesus is God. How was he able to heal both the invalid’s legs and his relationship with God? Because Jesus is God. How could Jesus do this on the Sabbath? Because Jesus is God. And how in the world can Jesus free me from my sins and give me eternal life? Because Jesus is God. Jesus goes deeper into this when he says, “For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives him life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will”- John 5:20-21. When his friend Lazarus died, and his sisters were angry with him for not coming sooner to heal him, Jesus says in so many words he’s not limited by death, when he says, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”- John 11:25-26. Do you not see that when Jesus says he is the resurrection and the life he is making a claim to deity? Because of our sins, we had wracked up a debt with God we could not pay. On the cross, Jesus paid that debt when he died in our place and for our sins. So his death paid the bill. But had Jesus stayed dead in his grave, death would have won. But because he resurrected the third day according to the Scriptures, death was defeated. And because Jesus defeated death, for those of us in Christ, we too will rise from our graves to eternal life, defeating death. This is exactly what Paul said when he wrote, “Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”- I Corinthians 15:50-55. All of this is made possible because Jesus is not just a good man, a prophet and an articulate, compelling teacher. Jesus is God.
You know, in American history we have had many cult leaders who claimed deity; people like Jim Jones and David Koresh. Have you noticed these cult leaders claiming to be God all wore glasses? I’m sorry, you can’t be my Savior and go to Lens Crafters! Jesus is not wearing glasses when he claims to be God. Now, many of you are here and you would not call yourself a Christian, and here’s what I ask of you: Don’t do the intellectually dishonest thing and put Jesus in the category of nice guy, who was a historical figure and lived an exemplary life in some ways. No, anyone claiming to be God is either a liar, or just what he says. There’s no middle ground.
The Five Witnesses
You need some evidence, and that’s completely reasonable. I know this, because Jesus doesn’t just make the claim to be God in our text, but he ends by calling some witnesses to corroborate his claim. The Law said no one’s testimony was credible unless there were 2-3 witnesses. Jesus doesn’t just give us 2-3, he actually gives us five witnesses that all testify Jesus is God. Jesus calls God to bear witness about him, “And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me”- John 5:37. Do you know God only speaks twice in the gospels, and both times he says of Jesus that he is his beloved Son in whom he is well pleased. One of the things God has to be well pleased with is Jesus’ repeated claims of being God. If God bears witness about Jesus, then to reject Jesus is to reject God. In verse 33, Jesus says John the Baptist testified about him. The Jews loved John the Baptist, flocking to him in droves to be baptized. But had they forgotten these words of John about Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”- John 1:29. Jesus is like, I’m him. Then in verse 36, Jesus calls his third witness- his own works testify that he is God. Granted, many people have been healed throughout the years by God through other humans. But one of the works no human can ever do is the forgiveness of sins. Several times in the gospels we see Jesus forgiving sins, and it triggers the anger of the religious leaders, why? Because they knew only God could forgive sins, which is exactly the point. And today, some of you will say yes to Jesus, and immediately you will receive the cleansing and forgiveness of your sins from Jesus, because he is God. His fourth witness is the Scriptures, which in that time is what we would call the OT: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me”- John 5:39. The OT is filled with hundreds of prophecies about Jesus. Isaiah says that a virgin would conceive- yep that points to Jesus. Isaiah 53 talks about a suffering servant who would be wounded for our sins. Yep, that’s Jesus. The Bible loudly testifies of Jesus. And finally, Jesus says Moses, the most revered person in Jewish history, testifies to Jesus. How? Moses left the comforts of the palace, and rescued Israel who was enslaved to Egypt. And Jesus left the comforts of heaven, to rescue us who were in bondage to our sins. So there it is: 1. God; 2. John the Baptist; 3. The works of Jesus; 4. The Scriptures; 5. Moses- all testify that Jesus is not just a good person, prophet, compelling speaker or historical figure. Jesus is God.
Gospel Conclusion
And that’s how our text ends. It’s kind of awkward. No resolution; it just ends. In my imagination there’s awkward silence between Jesus and the Jews, and in the silence I can hear Jesus saying, “Now after all of that, what are you going to do with me? Will you believe or will you reject?” And he’s asking that question of us today.
Tom Holland, the British historian, wrestled with this question. It was the contemplation of history that as he was writing books on ancient cultures, he was struck by how his natural inclination to many of their practices was to be shocked, and even find them grotesque and laughable. So where did his values come from? He reached the conclusion that so many of his values could be traced back to a Judeo-Christian ethic, which he did not want to be true. This changed his life and he wrote a whole book on it called, Dominion, in which he says the values we hold dear in our culture come from this man, Jesus. When in earlier interviews he was asked if he was a believer he would respond by saying, “No, but I find the values and the life of Jesus to be captivating, because no one changed history like this man.” And then in a recent interview someone asked him, “Are you a Christian,” and he said, “Yes, I believe I am.” He got to the point where Jesus was not just a curiosity, but the king. There was too much evidence.
THEO OF GOLDEN/BIOGRAPHY/TEXT BOOK (I would like all three books on a table in this order from top to bottom, and this is the place for the vamp). Call to salvation.
