T: Matthew 27:45-51; Luke 4:16-21; Colossians 1:20

HI: Beauty can enter your life through a collision at the cross.

P: To encourage those who haven’t yet come to the cross to discover new life in Christ.

Introduction

Bridge: Me

I’ve been here…

Sometimes I’ve been here in pretty trivial ways that seemed pretty big at the time…I’ve been here, my head hung low, wondering how I was going to get out of what I’d just gotten into…

ILLUS: rollover accident ; in the midst of broken pieces flying everywhere, I wondered how I was going to get beyond this collision…

But I’ve also been here when fixing a problem isn’t nearly as easy as calling a wrecker and making up some not-so-believable story about why I wrecked the car. I’ve been here in the hardest of times, too… not in a collision that happens on the road, but in a collision that happens when I wasn’t who I knew I wanted to be… when I did things that could never be taken back that later I regretted deeply. I’ve been here, head hung low, know that the only think that I knew was that “I couldn’t pick up the pieces…”

You know what I wanted at that moment? I wanted to be there… (move to "there" beyond the cross) … I wanted something different, something more in life…I wanted to be a part of something where the pieces were being put back together…where I was on my way to becoming something more…where there was hope… There are a lot of ways a place like this could be pictured… examples… my rock… (move back) … that’s what I wanted…but that’s also what I couldn’t find…and instead, just drifted back here…

Bridge: We

You know where here is…without even looking too long or too hard you can see it all around in others, in your world, and even in yourself.

See it in others…

through the note your friend gave you in HS Biology class saying she’d just done something she regrets and can never take back
in the marriage that’s ending for a couple you know and love…
in the child who’s been abused…
in the friend who lost their job
they can’t seem to pick up the pieces…

See it in your world…examples…so many broken pieces don’t know where to begin…
See it in yourself…examples…you can’t fit all the pieces together…
See it in the inevitability of the loss of a loved one or even, because we will all be there, in our own death.

Transition to body

We know where here is…and we long to be there… (point to "there")

We long to discover something, some way, to move beyond…here and get there.
We long to find hope that extends beyond the broken promises we’ve made or the promises we’ve trusted that have been broken.

Jesus knew what here is like…he lived here…he grew up here…he learned the carpentry trade here…he saw disease, and loss, and poverty, and sin, here…and he, like you and like me, dreamed of taking the world…the people he knew and loved…the people he could see that would be…you and me…there, too.

Body (God)

Jesus dreams of moving us from "here" to "there"

As he began his ministry he stood with feet planted firmly here…right in the midst of the brokenness of life and proclaimed why he was alive…

Luke 4:16-21
Do you see how amazing Jesus’ vision was? His dream? He wanted nothing less than to accomplish what we all hope…that the broken pieces of life would be put back together. He wanted what we want, that life and this collision we have with all that seems so wrong in it would be made better…even beautiful.

The question though…how do you get from here to there…that dream of Jesus…how would Jesus bring about the restoration he hoped for? How would he bring about the change in the hearts of the people of his world and the world that would be?

As his ministry rolled on he put actions behind his words as he journeyed from here to there…

He walked dusty roads sharing the message that though you may have collided with tough times, God hadn’t forgotten. God still wanted to take you from here to there…
On those roads he met a Lame man… [describe encounter and relate to congregation]
He met a Leprous man… [describe encounter and relate to congregation]
He met a woman…caught in the act of adultery…[describe encounter and relate to congregation]

And Jesus did all this in pursuit of there…in pursuit of a dream for others…and do you know where it led him? Do you know where his dream to bring all of us to there led him?

(walk to cross) Right here. It led him to a collision with the cross…

If there ever was a symbol of here…of all that is wrong with the world…the cross was it. It was an instrument of domination, of power, of torture, or terror.
It was an instrument that an unjust state used to carry out injustice on those who wld oppose it.

Jesus' dream brought him to a collision at the cross

Jesus’ desire to bring the world to that place, to the place where healing was happening, the place where broken pieces were starting to be put together, brought him to the cross… And when he was there, we see the evidence of the collision that happened as

Matthew 27:45-51
And then what? …the quiet after the collision…

ILLUS: Rolled my car…you know what I remember so loudly…after all the initial rumblings…it was sooooo quiet…except for the voices in my head… sat…looking at broken glass
It wasn’t different at the foot of the cross that day…after Jesus…with all his hopes and dreams for the world, with his heart of unimaginable love collided with an instrument that symbolized all that is wrong in the world and in our own lives…there was silence…

And in that silence the crowds walked away
And in that silence came a dark grief for those who hoped in him

Why? Why did Jesus’ longing to bring us to where we wanted to be take him to the cross?

Some would say that’s the way of the world…it unjust and crushes those who do right.
Some would say it was an accident and Jesus never meant to
But you want to know the truth? You want to know the secret that Jesus knew?

Jesus knew that the only way to get us all from where we were, stuck in our sickness and sin and longing for the world to be other than it was, to where we wanted to be, healed from all that is wrong in our lives, was the cross.
He knew this truth: beauty enters life through a collision at the cross. (H.I.)

Beauty enters life through a collision at the cross

That seems such a strange thing to say, but it is true… beauty began overturning the ugliness of the world at cross…and if you look closely you can see the shock waves of that collision ripple out through time…

In the moments after Jesus’ collision with the cross a shockwave: Centurion’s trans.
In the next min. and hrs after that a rich man gave Jesus, a poor man, dignity prev. taken
And then another shockwave,

There was a collision, and Jesus died, but then came beauty and three days later: another earthquake…
There was a collision, and Jesus suffered on the cross, but then came beauty and three days later the stone was rolled away
There was a collision, and Jesus did it for all the world, but then came beauty and three days later that grave was empty…
There was a collision, and Jesus cried tears of agony, but then came beauty and three days later death was defeated… a crucified Savior had risen, and an era beauty was reverberating like a shockwave through the world. .
There was a collision, but instead of it shattering all that was good into pieces, it put all the pieces of our hopes and dreams back together. All the broken pieces of your life and mine, of his world and ours, all began to fit together because of His triumph on the cross and over death.

Why did Jesus have to go to the cross to take the world from here to there?…because beauty enters life through a collision at the cross.

Think again about the cross symbolized…all that was wrong…and you know what…the amazing thing that happened in Jesus’ collision on the cross…beauty even entered that…it transformed an instrument of domination and oppression and torture into a symbol of hope and an instrument of grace.
But that’s not all…You know what was hung up on that cross with Jesus that day? (MOVE back to here) All of the stuff of here…everything!*

All your broken dreams and broken promises
All the sin the tears our relationships apart and separates us from God
All the darkness left in our hearts that we just can’t seem to get rid of
All the wrong in our world…Even death itself…it all hung on the cross in a collision that would bring something only God could bring…beauty

Call (You)

Beauty can enter YOUR life through a collision at the cross.

Here’s the message God wants you hear right now…this Easter: Beauty can enter YOUR life through a collision at the cross.

It doesn’t matter who you are…Christian or not… a follower of Christ or someone here who’s never given him your heart and life…I’m speaking to you. Beauty can enter your life! And it enters it at the cross…never forget that.
Every broken piece of your life…EVERY PIECE OR REGRET OR BROKENNESS you carry in your can be brought to that cross…
If you’ve never walked with Jesus to the cross…tonight is the night to bring beauty into your life…you know how you do it? You just ask him to take everything that is here (MOVE back and forth)…all your sins, your brokenness, and take it with him to the cross…and then you let him know that you’ll walk with him to that cross and beyond…that you’ll be his person and he’ll be your leader and healer. And you know what will happen when you do?

He’ll wash away your sins…he’ll make you clean…
He’ll give you a new heart and you’ll desire new things…
And then he’ll walk you through life step by step, leading your from where you are to where you were created to be…from where your heart is now to where you know it was created to be…

From where your world is now…to where it is supposed to be.

But it takes a collision…

It did in my life…this rock…it sits on my bathroom sink and I see it every day… I held on to it one night when I had a collision with the Cross…with God’s dreams for me and for his world… I on that night I gave my heart to him, I gave my past to him, I gave him all of me in pursuit of the dream Jesus had for me and my world. Was it a collision…yes…I gave up running my own life…was it beautiful? Nothing more beautiful in my life…it colors every thing else…my marriage, my parenting, my work, my play, my work against injustice and wrong…everything…am I there yet? No not all the way…but I’m on my way and the past doesn’t hold me down anymore…
For you, tonight, its no different…it takes a collision… You’ve got to deal with it…there’s no beauty if you don’t. You have to come to the cross…you have to let God in on the brokenness of your life…
So go for the collision…collide with all that stuff in your head and heart that says you can fix it on your own…and find beauty at the cross..

The shockwaves from the cross didn’t stop that first Easter…they reverberated on through time…and several decades later a man named Paul wrote these words as he reflected on the cross and the beautiful collision that happened there…

Colossians 1:20-21a (Message Translation)

I love that last part: He says the shockwave continues even to this day: You yourselves are a case study of what Jesus does…
Tonight…leave where you are; leave your “hear” behind with all its broken fragments of hopes and dreams and walk with Jesus into a beautiful collision at the cross…
Prayer…

Easter - A Beautiful Collision