A New Day Dawning

Introduction During seminary I had a 200km weekly commute to class in Toronto. To avoid the worst of rush hour traffic, I had to be on the road by 5 am, even though that usually got me to Tyndale by 8 am. During the winter months, that meant that almost the entire drive happened in the dark. When I left in the morning, it seemed like the dawn was an eternity away, and that nothing changed. But at some point, late in the drive, the blackness started to look like an inky blue, where you could vaguely distinguish the sky from the ground. When that happened, it was still a long way from daylight, but it was the first sign that the coming dawn was inevitable. It might still be an hour before it was fully light, but the new day was on its way. So maybe it's fitting that many believers gather at first light to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, because Easter itself is the first light of God's new day, breaking into the night of our worries and sorrows. While on Easter we often look at how the resurrection of Jesus was the great victory that frees us from condemnation before God, today I want to look at Easter from a different perspective. I want us to understand how the resurrection of Jesus serves as the pattern for our future hope of resurrection. On the first Easter, God showed that he is able to save even from death itself. If we believe this, then it allows us to patiently endure hardships and sorrows with hope because we know that God has promised to do for us what he has done for Jesus. I. Resurrection: The Prototype Let's first look at the resurrection as a prototype On Palm Sunday, Jesus' followers were on top of the world. Jesus proclaimed what his miracles had been hinting at for the previous three years: He was the anointed one, the king the prophets had foretold would come to save his people. Jesus even rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, acting out the vision that Zechariah had of the king entering the city. But a week later, the heights of their elation have been transformed into the very depths of despair. Jesus hadn't mobilized and army to overthrow the Roman occupiers. And in a shocking twist, the leading priests and teachers of the law had conspired with the hated Romans to arrest, try and crucify Jesus. As the first easter dawned, the disciples didn't know how to understand what had happened. They believed with all of their hearts that Jesus was the promised king. And yet his revolution had ended not with the overthrow of Rome but with Jesus' death. How could God have failed so spectacularly? Its not that they were blind to potential opposition. During the years of Jesus' ministry, they had often been opposed. But in the week after Jesus triumphantly entered Jerusalem, the opposition overwhelmed them and ended with what I'm sure was the worst day of their lives-when Jesus was crucified like a common criminal. Now the saviour of their people is dead, and death as we all know, is final, right? The hope that Jesus represented died with him on that terrible Friday afternoon. But then, things took an unexpected twist. Early on Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. She ran and found Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. She said, "They have taken the Lord's body out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!" Peter and the other disciple started out for the tomb. They were both running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He stooped and looked in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he didn't go in. Then Simon Peter arrived and went inside. He also noticed the linen wrappings lying there, while the cloth that had covered Jesus' head was folded up and lying apart from the other wrappings. Then the disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in, and he saw and believed-for until then they still hadn't understood the Scriptures that said Jesus must rise from the dead. Then they went home (John 20:1-10 NLT). Even though Jesus had tried to tell his disciples in advance what was going to happen to him, they weren't prepared to believe, so when they were shown the first evidence of the resurrection, Peter and Mary are bewildered. The beloved disciple (traditionally identified as John) puts it together. John's and Peter's responses show the difference faith makes. John believes while Peter doesn't know what to believe. Our experience is likely the same too. When we encounter hard times, if we don't believe, we likely experience bewilderment. We wonder where God is and how he could let this happen to us. On the other hand, if we have faith in his resurrection power, we can face the challenges with confidence. That's not to say that we'll enjoy it. Some things are just hard, but we can endure hard things without despair when we are confident of a positive end result. Now, after Peter and John wander away, Mary has an additional encounter: Mary was standing outside the tomb crying, and as she wept, she stooped and looked in. She saw two white-robed angels, one sitting at the head and the other at the foot of the place where the body of Jesus had been lying. "Dear woman, why are you crying?" the angels asked her. "Because they have taken away my Lord," she replied, "and I don't know where they have put him." She turned to leave and saw someone standing there. It was Jesus, but she didn't recognize him. "Dear woman, why are you crying?" Jesus asked her. "Who are you looking for?" She thought he was the gardener. "Sir," she said, "if you have taken him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and get him." "Mary!" Jesus said. She turned to him and cried out, "Rabboni!" (which is Hebrew for "Teacher"). "Don't cling to me," Jesus said, "for I haven't yet ascended to the Father. But go find my brothers and tell them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' " Mary Magdalene found the disciples and told them, "I have seen the Lord!" Then she gave them his message (John 20:11-18 NLT). The empty tomb was compelling evidence itself. But the disciples-starting with Mary, but then later, the rest of them-saw the Lord. And this gave them the power to cary out the work he gave them with confident assurance of God's victory. That is the prototype, now let's look at the promise II. Resurrection: the Promise Most Jews in Jesus' day believed that at the end of the age, God would raise the righteous to new life with him in a renewed creation. Though Jesus' resurrection doesn't fit neatly into this expectation, that didn't negate the Jews' hope in a future resurrection. The New Testament writings, especially Paul's letters, develop the theme that what happened to Jesus at easter was a sneak peak at God's eventual design for all creation. A. New Life (The Individual) The resurrection-in-two-parts, begun on Easter, understandably causing confusion among many who hadn't anticipated it. This led to a lot of speculation about what was going to happen at the end, with some people saying there would be no future resurrection. Paul understood how important clearing up this misunderstanding would be the spiritual health of the fledgling church. He clearly thought it is important that Jesus had been raised and that this is tied to our future hope of resurrection. Writing to the Corinthians, he says: But tell me this-since we preach that Christ rose from the dead, why are some of you saying there will be no resurrection of the dead? For if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless. And we apostles would all be lying about God-for we have said that God raised Christ from the grave. But that can't be true if there is no resurrection of the dead. And if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins. In that case, all who have died believing in Christ are lost! And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died (1 Corinthians 15:12-20, NLT). Paul is saying that while Jesus' resurrection is unique at this moment in history, it is a pattern that predicts a wider resurrection at the end of the age. Jesus is the first of a great harvest. A more literal translation would say he is the first fruits. This was an offering given to God out of the first of the harvest in anticipation that there would be much more like it. So Paul is saying that when we look at the risen Jesus, we see a template for our future hope. A little further into the chapter, Paul explains it more explicitly: "Christ was raised as the first of the harvest; then all who belong to Christ will be raised when he comes back" (1 Co. 15:23). Why is it so important for us to believe in the resurrection anyway? Because without hope in the resurrection, our Christian walk doesn't make sense. God asks us to be faithful, even when faithfulness comes with great risks or sacrifices. Why make those sacrifices without any hope of a reward: As Paul says, "if there is no resurrection, "Let's feast and drink, for tomorrow we die!" The resurrection is what makes the sacrifices worth it and the challenges endurable. Having an imagination infused with the possibilities presented by Easter can give us strength and purpose even when we face adversity. B. New Creation (the Cosmos) Of course, the promise of the resurrection isn't just good news for individual believers. The New Testament talks about God renewing all of creation itself. Why is this so important? If God renews us but we live in a broken world, we experience the disconnect as pain. God serves as an example: He is perfect, and his perfection makes our imperfection heartbreaking to him. Or, in the same way, if our life is going well, but we have a child who is hurting, despite all the good things happening in the other areas of our life, we hurt with them. Love, in the presence of brokenness, hurts. But when the world is put right, we can experience love not as pain, but as boundless celebration. When we are perfected in love and so is everyone and everything around us, There is no longer anything to be sad about. This is the picture John paints for us at the union of heaven and earth in the New Jerusalem after God's final judgment of evil: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, "Look, God's home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever." And the one sitting on the throne said, "Look, I am making everything new!" (Revelation 21:1-5a, NLT) The New Jerusalem is a picture of a new creation set free from the bondage of sin and decay. The resurrection of Jesus is the sneak peak of God's great finale when the creation that had been spoiled by sin is perfected in love. We see this in the transformation of Jerusalem. The city had been a place of great promise and profound disappointment. On one hand, God had chosen the city as the place for the temple, his presence with the Israelites, But on the other hand, the city was also a place where much evil was done, culminating in the crucifixion of evil. But just as we will be transformed and resurrected, so Jerusalem (and all creation with it) will be transformed and renewed by God. John goes on to describe the New Jerusalem. It is a cube 12,000 stadia (about 2,200 km) on a side. It has streets paved with gold. These aren't literal descriptions, they are symbols meant to give us insight. In the OT, there are two things that were cubes - The Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle, and the Holy of Holies in the Temple. The Holy of Holies was overlaid (or paved) with gold. 12,000 stadia was a picture of the known world: Jerusalem is a city with divine purpose. So the New Jerusalem It is a picture of the whole of creation becoming a place where God's presence is manifest, and where his purposes are finally realized. In this renewed creation, God lives in intimate union with each of us (mirroring the way he lived in intimate union with Jesus) and we will live in harmony with one another. That is the promise of the resurrection. Now, let's turn to the Practicality of the resurrection III. Resurrection: the Practical God has given us a glimpse of the end of the story because knowing the end gives us the power to endure in the often difficult space between now and then. God doesn't guarantee that this life will be easy. Being a Christian doesn't protect you from the same hardship that everyone faces living in a broken world. We can get sick. We can experience financial reversal, or life-altering injuries. We can struggle with addiction, depression, anxiety or other mental health disorders. And it's not just us. When the people we love hurt, we hurt. When this is our lot, faith in the resurrection profoundly changes how we experience the challenge. Think of a person who has decided they want to get fit. Every day they suffer for the goal. They deny themselves the food they'd really like to eat. They go to the gym and push their bodies to the point of exhaustion. It's not a fun time, but many people do it because they have a vision of a healthier body, and the end of that story sustains them during the many difficult workouts and meals of eating tasteless food. When we suffer in this life without faith in the resurrection, we may conclude that our suffering is pointless, and we can't help but be discouraged. But we can find hope in the promise of the resurrection, a hope that says that whatever I'm going through, as awful as it is, is something God can fold into his grand plan. That doesn't mean God willed for you to go through it, but that God can still use it. We see Paul demonstrating what such hope looks like in 2 Corinthians, a book that often examines how as God's people we understand suffering. Paul knew suffering: During his missionary journeys he was mocked, shipwrecked, flogged, imprisoned, stoned and left for dead and, eventually, executed. But as much as Paul suffered in the work he did for Jesus, he endured it because he learned to see it as part of the bigger picture. In the opening of his second letter to the Corinthians, he tells them: We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead. And he did rescue us from mortal danger, and he will rescue us again. We have placed our confidence in him, and he will continue to rescue us (2 Corinthians 1:8-10, NLT). Paul may be talking about the opposition he faced from some of his Jewish opponents that led to him being constantly harassed and eventually stoned at Lystra. Notice how Paul grounds his hope in the resurrection: He says he "learned to rely on God, who raises the dead." He is able to stand because he knows that his opponents can't take away his future which is held firmly in place because of God's promise of resurrection. Later in the letter, he meditates on how God brings life to people like the Corinthians through what Paul and his fellow apostles suffer. In the incarnation, Jesus entered into our condition. But when we are joined to Jesus by faith, we enter into his condition: a life of suffering, but also glory. Paul explains: We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you.... That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won't last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don't look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever (2 Corinthians 4:14, 16-18 NLT). Paul had allowed his imagination to be captured by the promise of the resurrection. Because he believed in his bones in the promise of the resurrection, he was able to face the kind of opposition that would incapacitate mere mortals. This confidence is not just something for spiritual giants like Paul, it's also for us. We all suffer in our own unique way. We all face the temptation to conclude that God has abandoned us, that he doesn't care, or that our problems are too big, and his power to small to save us. But the promise of the resurrection changes the math. To be sure, difficulty still hurts. But if we focus on the end, then we can find hope in the present and hope makes suffering much more tolerable. For the person who struggles with a disability, it's understandable that they feel like it's not fair. They experience a limitation that others don't have to contend with. But the resurrection promises that in the end, they will be set free from the disability. To a person who struggles with an addiction, they may feel like it defines who they are, but the promise of the resurrection isn't just the promise of life after death, but a life free from the power of death, where the addiction will finally be a thing of the past. The Resurrection is good news to every person a person who feels insignificant in this life, who wonders why they weren't given to ability to do something truly noteworthy. They know they'll never be a great thinker, an inspirational athlete, a captivating performer, a visionary entrepreneur or a celebrated politician. To such people, the promise of the resurrection means that what they accomplish in this life isn't all that important, because the things we consider accomplishments of this world won't matter much in the age to come, but being shaped in the image of Christ (who lives a humble and simple life) will be worth a lot. If we can learn to trust that God will do for us what he did for Jesus on the first easter, we can see many of the things that make our lives seem so dissatisfying in a new light. Conclusion Jesus' resurrection isn't just a historical reality we celebrate each easter, it is what gives us the power to push through the challenges we face in our lives. If Christ, were not raised, our sacrifices are meaningless and our sorrows inescapable. But, thank God, Christ has been raised. He is the firstfruits of a harvest that includes us. So we can know that the struggles we face in this life-bodies that fail, minds that are anxious, life feeling small-don't get the final word. All our stories will eventually lead us to God's grand finale. So when you face that old temptation again, remember the resurrection. When you receive that difficult diagnosis, or feel the ache of a empty house, remember the empty tomb. Fix your gaze not on darkness we see all around us, because it won't last, but on the day that will soon break, when the shadows will flee, and we will finally see the glory that was concealed in our long night. The resurrection means that day is coming as surely as the sunrise. A New Day Dawning | A New Day Dawning By Peter Law | Crossings Community Church, Kirkland Lake, ON | April 5, 2026 RCL: Year A Easter Resurrection Sunday | John 21:1-18