Speaker 1 0:18

[inaudible]

Speaker 2 0:35

Well, I have to tell you, I love that I've had the opportunity to watch John's transformation story and just what Jesus has done in his home and his life. And I love that I'm going to get to continue to fall that you guys got to see that story, but he also wrote his song is a lot longer. So later today , uh , we're going to actually post that up on social media. If you wanna check it out, they think it's just a beautiful testimony to his story and what God is doing in there. So, but for today, this is Easter Sunday. And so we say he is risen. All right. Some of you guys got it. This is an old churchy thing. Um, well you're supposed to say, I don't know why you're supposed to it just what you do. They always a miss , as you say he is risen. Indeed. That's your response. So I got to say he is risen. Amen. Yeah, that's what's up. So, Hey, what an honor it is to be with you to be with you and your home. If you're with us in San Francisco, wherever you're coming from, as we celebrate the Epic event of Easter, this is the death and resurrection that literally unhinges us from our limited capacity. Our limited human capacity from fear, from all kinds of things, from sin, from death and all the things that have oppressed humanity forever. The events that we're celebrating this weekend, friends literally changed everything everywhere for everyone, including you, but how I love how Napoleon puts it. He says he didn't say that part. He said, I know men. And I tell you that Jesus Christ was no mere man between him and every other person in the world. There is no possible term of comparison, Alexander Caesar Charlemagne, and I founded empires, but on what did we rest on , but what did we rest the creations of our genius upon force? Jesus Christ founded his empire upon love. And at this hour, millions of people would die for him. I love that. I love that empire of love or Jesus . His preferred term would be kingdom of love. And what can that kingdom of love do I want to just briefly talk this about the death and the resurrection of Jesus and what it means in our real lives today, particularly in this situation that we've found ourselves over this last year, right now, for all of us around the world, there are two snapshots that I want to kind of lean into. We're going to a snapshot of the death and the resurrection of Jesus. And we're going to zoom in on this a little bit so we can contemplate so we can figure this out together to celebrate, but also walk into participate in the death and resurrection of Jesus this weekend in John's gospel

Speaker 3 3:34

Chapter 19

Speaker 2 3:36

Verse 38. There's this curious little story that just kind of sandwiched right in the middle of it. All right after Jesus's death, it says this

Speaker 3 3:43

In verse 38 says later,

Speaker 2 3:45

Joseph of [inaudible] asked pilot for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders with pilot's permission, he came in , he took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus. The man who earlier had visited Jesus at night, Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes about 75

Speaker 3 4:12

Pounds

Speaker 2 4:15

Taking Jesus' body. The two of them wrapped it with the spices and strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial,

Speaker 3 4:23

Customs

Speaker 2 4:25

At the place where Jesus was crucified. There was a garden and in the garden, a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid because it was the Jewish day of preparation. And since the tomb was nearby, they laid

Speaker 3 4:38

Jesus there. Now

Speaker 2 4:41

This is a fascinating little tiny snapshot of what the death of Jesus might possibly mean in terms of liberating power. Here's what I mean, of course, we just saw that Joseph and Nicodemus had spelled out there in scripture that they were secret disciples. They had been motivated by fear that kept them stuck in this oppressive state, in this cycle, in their own life. But they are also participants in the body of these religious leaders that actually crucified Jesus. They were a part of this whole thing, whether they were complicit personally or not, they were part of the system of oppression that ended up with Jesus on the cross. And they could deem is particularly, I love that John's gospel actually adds Nicodemus to this story. It's a throwback. This is supposed to remind us of John chapter three. So if you go back to John chapter three, you'll see this conversation that was had that Jesus had with Nicodemus. Who's a Pharisee, a religious leader, and he comes to Jesus in the middle of the night for fear of what the community would think. If they saw them communing together with the religious leaders would think about this meeting and he's dominated by this spirit of fear. And he asked, Jesus has all these questions. I just love this whole chapter. You also see the most famous verse in the Bible, at least in our time in this chapter, which is John three 16 for God. So loved the world that he gave. His only son that whoever believes in Jesus would have eternal life. This one, if you don't even go to church or you've never really been to church, you've probably seen it at a football game, or if you've ever been in and out, you can just look at the bottom of the cup. You can read it. There it's the most famous verse. But you know, this is also in this chapter where there's this fascinating conversation with Jesus and Nicodemus where Nick Demas is saying, look it, I'm watching you. Just , how, how do you live this way? How do you lead this way? He notices that Jesus, isn't just a teacher, but there's something actually going on there . Something other worldly, there's something divine about him. He's not afraid. He's free to love. He's absolutely free to do what it is that he knows his best self would do. He's been liberated and Nicodemus is saying, what is that? Tell me the secret to that. How do I get there? And Jesus says to him, we know you gotta be born again. And that's another Christian term it's really, really popular. Are you born again? And Nicodemus is like, what are you talking about born again? And Jesus says, no, no , no, no, not humanly born again. But divinely born again spiritually, born again. You need to be born of the spirit. You need to live a new way. There needs to be a regeneration. Something that happens inside of you, that liberates you from your own human condition and Nicodemus is still scratching his head. And then just before the most famous verse in John three 16, you get John three 14. If you have your Bibles, you can look at that. Or you can open that up in your app. You can read the whole chapter. I recommend it. It's fascinating, but Nicodemus is scratching his head saying like, what's going on here? I just still don't understand this. And Jesus kind of throws him a bone, like kind of throws them as precursor to the crucifixion. And he says this in John three 14 says justice , Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness. So the son of man must be lifted up. Now when you're reading us, most of you just , and most of us just kind of go like, okay, what does that? I don't know. And we just move on, right? But what is that to a Jewish leader, to a Pharisee, to someone who has studied the scriptures and considers themselves a disciple of Moses. What that is is this little story in numbers, chapter 21, or if you go back in the Hebrew scripture, it was called in the desert. This was a time in the old, the Israelites were wondering around the desert and they're being bitten by these poisonous snakes. And actually they think that this is punishment from God. And so they cry out. They say to Moses, will you please help us figure out what to do about the suffering and the death that we're in right now in this moment? And God, and then some Moses says to God, please help your people who are suffering from the result of these poisonous States snakes. So Moses says to God, help them . And so God tells Moses, here's what you do. I want you to actually make a bronze statue, like a bronze image of a snake, and then put it on a pole and then hold it up. And so when all the Israelites see it, they would be healed. And it's like, what, what is happening right now? This is such an obscure story. And just a couple verses in numbers, 21, that Jesus has referencing where it says, make a bronze statue of a snake and then hold it up. And you're like, out of all the things you would make a statue or like an image of right. Especially a snake. I don't know about you guys, but I like snakes are bad.

Speaker 3 10:01

Right? I don't

Speaker 2 10:03

Do snakes. I'm like a big guy, but you want to see me scream

Speaker 3 10:06

And run. I'll tell you

Speaker 2 10:08

One little quick example, people here bullies, right? I got some bullies on my staff. If you have never been to our campus, we're surrounded by open space. And there's all kinds of critters, including snakes that wonder in this space. And I remember a couple of years back, there was a woman who had come to my office and she was having a conversation with me and there's a couch in there. And my back was to the window I was sitting there. And then all of a sudden she's like, Oh my gosh. Right? And that makes you go like, what , what, like, what are you talking about? And you could tell it was something right behind me in the window. So I proceeded to turn around and someone thought I was really funny . They're holding this huge, like snake that they had caught right at next to the window. So I scream,

Speaker 3 10:50

Jump up, grab she's

Speaker 2 10:52

Up now, standing up. And I literally took her and used her as a human shield and for the thing,

Speaker 3 10:59

Oh gosh, right now

Speaker 2 11:02

You were inside of a building with a window there's furniture. And now a woman in front of me to protect me from the snake.

Speaker 3 11:10

So I would like

Speaker 2 11:12

To think that you would want something else represented in this image, like some sort of hope or crown or alpha mega or Yahweh or something. Wouldn't you want it to be something else. But Jesus is trying to tell Nicodemus that there's something that needs to be done to be liberated. You need to actually find to be, you need to be willing to , to see the source of your suffering and see what I think that number is 21 is about, as God is trying to communicate that even then, that he's not the source of our suffering of their suffering. That actually it's the snake. That's the source of the suffering suffering. And just like that, you could, I could can imagine nicotine is sort of going over in his mind, the words that he shared with Jesus and the truth that Jesus taught him.

Speaker 1 12:02

And then

Speaker 2 12:03

He wasn't still yet getting it. But he, he now he sees Jesus lifted up on a cross and he sees what the cross and Jesus on the cross represents. He sees a mirror, he sees truth. He sees this insight that the cause of our suffering, the cause of her pain, the cause of Jesus's death is not God,

Speaker 1 12:30

God it's us. It's me. I help the males .

Speaker 2 12:40

It's me. It's the thing that the cross represents. The death of Jesus is so liberating because it's the truth, but it's the truth and love. So when Jesus was lifted up on the cross, it's like two things happen to corresponding truths at the same time happened here. The first thing that we see is we see our own human capacity. It leads to a great evil, our own human capacity. At least the human brokenness. It leads to our own human selfishness, to our grasping, for power, for our taking of charge, our wanting to control things. And all of that stuff actually leads to the crucifixion, at least the death. But when at the same time, Jesus demonstrates this incredible power. This is love that actually can overcome evil with good on the cross. Jesus utters the words on the cross. Forgive them. Even as he's being crucified, father, forgive them. A Nicodemus has all of a sudden realize it's like the penny drops. And he goes,

Speaker 1 13:57

Oh,

Speaker 2 14:00

I don't know exactly what happens. But all I know is that when Nicodemus sees this, something changes, Nicodemus is liberated. He's set free from his fear in so many ways. It's unbelievable. If there was a list of things that you shouldn't do, if you were afraid, if you were afraid of your reputation or you were afraid of your future, your peers, like it's like Nicodemus just started doing all of those things. If he was afraid of the religious leaders, he here comes now out in broad daylight. When it's at the epicenter , when everyone literally is watching, what's going on and now Nicodemus has like a scorecard and it's an incident . You go check. He's no longer afraid of his peers because he has to go to pilot. If you're afraid of Rome and you're afraid of the governor and you're afraid of political implications of being associated with Jesus check , he's now shown up with Joseph for permission to take his body. Now, it's really fascinating about this is that nobody really collected bodies of crucified people. They were thrown in this one area like this mass grave, because nobody wanted to be associated with crucified people for all kinds of reasons. One often they were criminals . So they were already dislocated from things, but often there was political descendants. And if you were connected to them, then you would be implicated. And you're not gonna want to be a part of that bad reputation. And not only that, but you would have to Wade and crawl through and walk through this terrible scene of like suffering and death and walking over bodies and going through all sorts of stuff. That's what that would require. So if Nicodemus was afraid of suffering, if he was afraid of death, if he was afraid of being associated with Jesus, he's checking off the scorecard. Can I ask you this one question, friends, what would you do if you weren't

Speaker 3 15:49

Afraid? So we see this transition

Speaker 2 15:53

Formation happened and Nicodemus , and we're not even at the resurrection yet. We're just at the death of Jesus, but there's something so liberating about seeing the source of your suffering. So let's be clear. God is not the source of your suffering. God is not the source of punishment. He's not mad at you. God

Speaker 3 16:20

Love you.

Speaker 2 16:23

And actually as soon as you can come to see the result of your own human capacity for evil, you can also see in Jesus on a cross, a demonstration of how power greater than you, a power greater than any other force that would try to keep death at the center of our conversation. It's a force of life. It's a force

Speaker 3 16:49

Of love. When you see that, when you give in to that, when you absorb that, when you see the demonstration of no greater

Speaker 2 16:58

Love than this Liberated from a life of fear, I love reading this story. It was a hard story to read , uh , uh , father Gesepe. He was a priest in Italy when everything got real bad. This last year in Italy and his , um , um , parishioners, they had raised that money to buy him a ventilator. He had ended up getting COVID. He was 72 years old because there was just not ventilators available there. And he's now in the hospital and he sees a young man suffering and going through this , uh , disease that didn't have a ventilator. And it says they watched and without hesitation, he took his ventilator and gave it to this young man, which ultimately then led to his death. But life for this young man, and you sit there and go, why? Like how

Speaker 3 17:51

Many are , Oh, there's

Speaker 2 17:54

Power greater than fear. There's power. There's a

Speaker 3 17:56

Love that can manifest itself.

Speaker 2 18:00

Even in suffering father Gesepe, who was a father, was not afraid. Fear wasn't driving him. It wasn't afraid of death. He wasn't afraid of suffering. He wasn't afraid anymore. He was liberated

Speaker 3 18:15

Because he knows the power of love. And that's what love is friends, and can do that. The death of Jesus.

Speaker 2 18:25

So I hope you can look at the cross Jesus on the cross as a reflection of the end of yourself. I know that anyone who's ever done any recovery work knows that the way into a new life is first by acknowledging the limitations of your own power, right? Because left to your own devices. What I end up with is crucifixion. What I end up with is the violence. What I end up with is fear. What I end up with is death, but thanks be to God that there is a power greater than me in his,

Speaker 3 19:01

My name is Jesus. That's love.

Speaker 2 19:06

And that's the power that Jesus displays in the cross. A power that I can actually give into that will liberate me from a life of fear. Several years ago, my oldest daughter, she was about six or so at the time. And we had been starting to do these good Friday experiences where it's like a really gruesome service. Like it's very dark, it's very death . It's very remember the , the stations kind of , of the cross. And even before we started doing that for the congregation, why I was doing that actually with students beforehand. And so I had dragged her with me , uh , one night she's like six and she's super well behaved, but she was not that night. Right? And so like, I'm even trying to experience this and this, you know , good Friday moment and just be present in all of this. And honestly, it was just frustrating. I couldn't kind of get, it was just one of those nights. And so I had to leave early and I remember I was buckling her in the car and I was like, Hey girlfriend, what's her problem. Right? And I remember Maddie looking at me in the face and she goes, my problem, my problem. She said, what's your guys's problem. Doesn't anybody realize that Jesus isn't dead. That he's alive. And I said, well, that leads to this resurrection Sunday. So here we go. So we have now talked about the death, which is important, but now let's take a peak into a little snapshot of the resurrection of Jesus, the death and resurrection of Jesus matters so much to the way that you live your life and the way that I live my life in John chapter, just the next chapter, a couple paragraphs later, there's this appearance where Jesus appears to his disciples. Now, can I just say that the first appearance in the resurrection is to Mary is to a woman, Jesus instructing a female disciple to go tell the good news. And I love that we at North gate are keeping the tradition that Jesus established that on that first resurrection to allow women to preach the good news everywhere. But in verse 19 chapter 20, it says this on that Sunday evening, when the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear, the joy of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace, be with you. After he said this, he showed them his hands and aside his disciples were overjoyed and they saw the Lord again. Jesus said, peace. Be with you. As the father has sent me, I am sending you. And with that, he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy spirit. You know, I think that we can all relate like the disciples to be in stuck inside of a room. I think we can all relate to even being stuck inside because of fear, even being stuck inside of ourselves, even the disciples of Jesus in the moment find themselves and mobilized in the spot. And Jesus suddenly is a man among them. He is among them. In other words, friends, Jesus is with us, the resurrection that makes it possible for Jesus to actually show up for Jesus, to be in places that we just don't think that maybe he's just not for Jesus to show up inside of our Holmes . He's resurrected he's life. He has no more boundaries. There's no physical limitations to the, his presence anymore. And he's suddenly among them. And I pray. I pray that in your homes and in this room and your space, wherever you find yourself or you're feeling locked up or places where you're feeling stuck, or just in a mess, the relationships that you would know that Jesus is with you. And what Jesus says is so key. He says, peace, be with you. He says it two times, and I really don't want to miss this peace be with you. The last thing that Jesus actually said to his disciples in John 14, when he was talking to them about the Vince that we're going to take place, he was trying to explain this to them and they can't really comprehend it. And they saying , it's going to be hard. You're going to be confused. Don't be afraid. And he says, take courage. Cause I'm going to give you peace. And he tells his disciples in John 14, 27. Peace. I leave with you. My peace I give to you do not give, I do not give it as the world gives, do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. The peace of my presence is with you. Of course, it comes down to peace. You know, we're, we're so used to peace being the absence of conflict. Aren't we, when everything is fine, then everything will be fine. That's what peace look like. But let me tell you, it doesn't matter. The circumstance, even in the presence of great suffering in great difficulty in great fear, Jesus is among us. He is saying peace. Let me tell you peace friends is not the absence of conflict. It's the presence of him. It's the presence of love. Somebody needed to hear that when you're sitting there going, I just need peace. Please pray for peace. It doesn't mean the conflict is going to go away. It means he's there. He's going to show up and you need to recognize that he's there because he is love. That's what love can do. It can bring peace in the midst of suffering in the midst of pain. It can bring peace. Even when we're afraid and stuck. It can bring priests when we're suffering and friends, we don't know what the future holds. I don't know what the future holds, what your future holds. What's going to happen tomorrow the next month. But peace be with you. And then Jesus does something kind of awkward. He breathed on them. I was like reading this story. And I was like, this is weird. Like you just breezed on them. Like, I don't understand. I immediately went to this scene. I don't know many of you. I saw this, but when Lance Stephenson blew and LeBron James ear in the middle of a basketball game, right? I don't know how many you guys have seen this.

Speaker 1 25:47

Yeah. Like what's even happening right now. Right?

Speaker 2 25:59

Greediness . And I was like, Oh my gosh, Jesus breathed on . I was like,

Speaker 1 26:04

What do we do with that

Speaker 2 26:06

Peace be with you. So it's actually what Jesus says. And with that, he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy spirit. Now let's pay attention. Friends,

Speaker 1 26:21

Breath.

Speaker 2 26:24

The breath of God. You remember the way that humans were created, not by some sort of cosmic accident, but actually designed by God himself. You were designed as a human by God to actually Stuart the world. As part of imaging to God, the order in Genesis chapter one, you see this, it gives the story of the human creation account that when God himself, it says in scriptures, breathes his spirit into humanity and they come alive. And here we are in this room, the disciples are like locked up and Jesus says, don't be afraid.

Speaker 3 27:08

Peace. The presence of God is with you.

Speaker 2 27:15

The presence of love that can liberate you now receive

Speaker 3 27:21

My spirit,

Speaker 2 27:25

Creating a new humanity. He's restoring us to what he originally designed us to be, where we're no longer limited by fear. We're no longer limited by our own human capacity. There is a power greater than us in Jesus to fill us

Speaker 3 27:42

With breath, to fit .

Speaker 2 27:45

Tell us with the newness of life. And here's, what's interesting friends. I, I have so many friends that are counselors. Let me tell you, they have been busy this last year. You know, like we're just all dealing with just things we never thought we would deal with before when it comes to just our mental health and our emotional health and even things that I've experienced and shared before that I never imagined I would experience it. And I think it's so fascinating to ask them like, Hey, how are you dealing with this? And they told me, you know what, the number one thing that we're telling people to do ,

Speaker 3 28:15

You breathe to take a deep breath,

Speaker 2 28:21

Slow down into breathe. And it's because that , that we've been in the season when we're facing crisis of our own or just all together. And there's just so many things coming at us faster than we can respond to it in this life. And we get in this kind of panic, survival mode, and there's this reptilian part of our brain. That's actually in the back that like neurologically creates this shallow breathing in us. And it triggers our brain and our body into this survival mentality mode where it's like fight or freeze or fight flight get away. And we get into these defensive modes. I don't know about you, but it seems like maybe some of us have like a little bit of a shorter temper. We don't even know why this year. And I've , I've called it with my youngest daughter. We called it like the lava explosions of like where that come from. Right. And just, and you're like, Whoa, slow it down, breathe.

Speaker 3 29:15

Right.

Speaker 2 29:16

And so they said, I've just been instructing people to , to just deeply take deep breaths.

Speaker 3 29:25

What do you need to be breathing today?

Speaker 2 29:31

The resurrection of Jesus tells us to breathe

Speaker 3 29:35

Peace . So this week,

Speaker 2 29:38

As I've been just preparing and walking through this Holy week, I even got away to Dillon beach for a little bit, just like walked miles. It felt like, and just breathing peace, be with you, peace, be with you, Jesus breeze on his disciples who are in this survivor mode. They're like stuck in that part of their brain, even neurologically. And Jesus is the creator of humanity. He knows how our body works. He knows how our emotions are wired and he knows what we need when we need it. He says, receive the breath of God. And he breathes on them, reminding them that this was always his plan to have humanity. That would image him to the world for us to be the kind of humans that he was. You see, Jesus isn't meant to be this like far off thing leader that we admire, but his presence of love in our lives that enabled us to be in the types of humans that we are always designed to be free, loved whole peace. Be with you. All of us are dealing with some kind of crisis or a crisis is on the way. I wonder if we could just take a couple of moments and invite Jesus into our space. Some of you are watching with us right now. Maybe with relatives, you got this link or you don't even know why you're watching this . Or maybe you're one of the CEOs that are here, the Christmas and Easter, only people I see you

Speaker 3 31:21

Welcome. I am glad you're here,

Speaker 2 31:28

But you don't even know if you like believe or understand this whole Easter thing or this thing that people are celebrating literally around the world today. I want to speak to you. I want to speak to you. You don't have to live in a life that is dominated by fear. You don't have to live a life where your own human capacity is on display by all the things that are messed up by all the relationships that are messed up in this life. The crucified Jesus was the end to your own human capacity. Now you get to live a life as liberated from a fear you can live and tap into the power. That's even greater than you. The power of the love that Jesus demonstrated by his death and more specifically his resurrection, you can allow the love to bring peace, right where you are and breathe life into you. John chapter three, it's all coming back full circle. Nick is , James is like, so how can I be born again? That doesn't make any sense. And Jesus says, Oh no, no, not of human capacity, but of the spirit. Let the spirit of Christ. The breath of God, the divine breath of love,

Speaker 3 32:52

Phil you, and then you, you, you as disciples go on and demonstrate life of love

Speaker 2 33:08

No longer marked with fear. There's no locking them into rooms and more. They have become liberated to live love and spread love and let love transform everything

Speaker 3 33:21

Everywhere. Friends. I want to live a life that's transformed. And if you do too,

Speaker 2 33:30

Why are we remembering the death and resurrection of Jesus? We're not remembering just some historical event today. We are entering into present day reality friends, where Jesus is alive, where Jesus is with us, where Jesus is bringing peace, where he's bringing forgiveness, where he's bringing freedom, where he's bringing renewal. Jesus is inviting us to receive the divine breath of love.

Speaker 3 34:05

The love , peace with you.

Speaker 2 34:13

And the thing about this is you don't have to be qualified. You don't have to be some kind of like special person right now, even in your own living room on your laptop, your car, wherever you are, you're sitting in here and you're kind of waking up right now. This is accessible. This is accessible to every single human. You just have to receive the breath of life because of the resurrection to life. You just have to look at the truth and get to the end of yourself. With that being said, I want to walk us into communion right now where you can take this out at home or you've got this. And this is the example where Jesus got to the end of himself,

Speaker 3 34:58

Literally for love,

Speaker 2 35:01

Where you sat in a room with his disciples any, and he took this piece of bread and you can open that up. He took this piece of bread and he says, this bread, this is represents my body. That's going to be broken

Speaker 3 35:16

Then for you, for your brokenness, to the end of you, I will break fully and completely for love.

Speaker 2 35:31

So, as we remember today, the sacrifice Jesus made before the resurrection happened, would you take the bread?

Speaker 3 35:48

He then sat around in this room with those whom he beloved. And he took this cup. And for them it was probably wine. This is juice technically. And he took this and he said, this is going to represent my blood. That's going to be shed for you. And this is really going to be the end of the sacrificial system, but there has to be blood that is shed to sanctify, to reconcile, to redeem. And so it's my bloody said that I'm going to shed for you because I've love you. I'm going to suffer for you and then friends. You don't get any air right now, but I'm going to come back. I'm going to breathe and give you my spirit and be with you because I love you. And so today, as you take this, would you remember the sacrifice that Jesus made for you? He is resin . Hey friends, we'll , let's stand up and respond in our communion to worship to God.