Beautiful Eternity

True Beauty Sermon Series

Over last couple of weeks we’ve been talking about Beauty, True Beauty. Beyond skin deep.

That which is good, beautiful, working exactly way it’s supposed to.

Really, the beauty of Jesus - who lived a beautiful life, and as we looked at last week, died a beautiful death.

Now, if you think about stories, a good story will tease your sense of hope

Romantic comedies - you want the couple to get together, it’s so obvious they belong together. But something always gets in way…there’s some huge misunderstanding, or one of them won’t share their true feelings in that crucial moment - and then just when it looks like they’re never going to get together, they realize they they can’t live without each other, one of them is chasing the other down at airport or stopping their taxi or interrupting a wedding so they can share how much they love each other.

Legal dramas are same way - usually the good guys are the small, ragtag legal group taking on the huge corporate lawyers - every time they think they have what they need to win the case, something goes awry. Until the last minute when that crucial piece of evidence emerges and they win, justice prevails.

Adventure movie, good guys trying to defeat the bad guys, save their family, world, universe…bad guys keep proving to be stronger, until finally, by some clever move or by sheer will power and gritty determination spurned on by love, they win.

All these stories keep teasing us along until finally, our hope is rewarded, everything turns out as it’s supposed to, and, as the saying goes, everyone lives “happily ever after.”

Those stories work because they tug on deepest desires, what most of us believe should happen in life. Good wins. Love wins. Justice wins.

Because I believe we were made for this. We were made for “happily ever after.” What I would call, a “beautiful eternity.”

I think all of these stories we tell are simply pointing us to the one great story, one true story of reality - the Gospel. The Easter story. Story that promises us hope of a beautiful eternity.

Prayer / Scripture - John 20:11-18

Crown of Ashes

I want you to put yourself in Mary’s shoes here for a moment

We don’t know much about Mary Magdalene - really, just two things for sure

Her name tells us where she’s from, Mary of Magdala - she was from the town of Magdala, town along Sea of Galilee.

Second thing, in Luke 8, we learn that Jesus had freed her from demon possession, from seven demons

By way, if you haven’t discovered The Chosen TV series, second season premieres tonight - first season includes an episode that tells story of Mary Magdalene.

So, it’s easy to see why Mary was so devoted to Jesus - to be so imprisoned, so trapped by forces you can’t control - I can’t even begin to fathom what demon possession would be like. But we can at least think of things that have similar effect, of being trapped, helpless.

Feelings of depression or anxiety, or when we find ourselves consumed with anger towards others (even when we don’t want to be)

Or compulsive behavior - you know you shouldn’t, don’t want to - but you do (and you kind of know you will)…eating, pornography, being taken over by fear and worry

Have some sort of sense of what that might be like

Then, to be freed of that. Unbound - how incredible! You’d be filled with gratitude, so joyful, so hopeful. This is the one. This Jesus, he’s for real. True beauty. That was Mary’s experience.

And then, it all comes crashing down. Like a train wreck happening in slow motion, Mary watches the whole drama of Jesus’ death playing out before her eyes - and she’s utterly helpless to stop it. Jesus is arrested in middle of night and before sunrise, he’s already been condemned of blasphemy by Jewish leadership. Then he’s rushed before Pontius Pilate, Roman governor, before you know it, Pilate is washing his hands of whole mess and giving into the crowd and their cries for his crucifixion.

By 9:00 in morning, he is hanging on cross. By 3:00 in the afternoon he’s dead. Buried before sunset.

Like all disciples, Mary is in utter shock. All that takes place on Friday - next day is Saturday, Sabbath, and no work can be done. So early on Sunday morning, as soon as daylight appears, the women head to tomb.

Trip to tomb with other woman feels more like urge simply to do something because they feel so helpless in their grief and pain. Since his burial was so rushed, they’re going to make sure the body was properly taken care of. Except his body is missing.

Talk about adding insult to injury -somebody’s taken body. Who would do something so cruel?

For Mary, all this must have been absolutely devastating. When she was healed, freed from the demons, she had such great hope. Now it’s just been smacked down.

Perhaps you know that experience…person fighting cancer, having it go into remission…and then the dreadful day when it appears again. Your beloved child, who finally gets their life in order…until that day when they relapse and are using again.

All that hope you had, gone in an instant.

That’s where we find Mary, standing outside the empty tomb, just weeping. What else can she do?

For whatever reason, she bends over to look again inside tomb - and this time there are two figures sitting there…which makes no sense at all.

And they ask her why she’s crying?! Why wouldn’t she be crying - they killed my Lord and now they’ve taken his body. I just want to find his body.

At that moment she turns around, and there’s someone else. Looks like the gardener. And again -why are you crying? Why does everyone keep asking her why she’s crying?

If you took the body, I don’t even care why…just tell me where it is and I’ll go get him.

Then, in that moment, one single word, one simple word - the man she thinks is the gardener says her name…”Mary.” Everything changes.

It’s Jesus. He’s alive! He’s standing right there in front of her. She has no idea what happened or how it happened - all she knows is that he’s alive and with her - her great hope, her beautiful Jesus.

She does most natural thing in world at that moment, she runs to him and grabs a hold of him.

The type of hug that says, I am never letting go of you again.

It’s hope, she’s clinging to hope of Jesus.

We all cling to hope, don’t we?

When you’re trying to get that new job you really want, constantly trying to evaluate how everything went - the interview, how good were my answers, I wish I’d said this, how was the manager responding to you? Did she laugh at your little joke? Did she seem positive about your resume?

Or how we’re so eager for report from the doctor when someone we love is seriously ill. We want that doctor to come in and tell us good news, hopeful news - we hang on to every word, parse every sentence, trying to discern his tone - was it optimistic?

When we find hope, we hang on, don’t we? Mary is no different.

So it seems a little strange, doesn’t it - that Jesus tells her not to hold on to him. She gets to see him and now he’s taking off again?!

Listen to what he says next, this is so important, “Don’t hold on to me., for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Here’s the question, What’s Jesus doing here? What’s this all about?

Jesus is telling her that he’s ascending into heaven, he’s going back up to Father, their Father, their God.

Jesus is taking his rightful place on throne. The crucified King is now the risen King. The King who has defeated. sin. He has taken death itself and conquered it. You want to know what’s happening? The Kingdom of God is happening!

God’s rightful reign over everything. The true King is on throne. Everything is going to be made right. Everything is going to be made beautiful.

Mary knows it! That’s why story ends so differently - at beginning, she’s standing there outside tomb, weeping. At the end, she’s running back to other disciples, “I have seen the Lord.”

In Isaiah 61, a passage Jesus quotes about himself in gospel of Luke, it reads, “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me…to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.”

Jesus is taking our ashes, our mourning, our spirits of despair - and instead covering us beauty, joy, praise.

What If You Knew? Beautiful Eternity

Here’s what I want to leave you with this Easter Sunday…what if you knew? What if you were absolutely convinced of hope of Easter? That Jesus really did conquer sin and death. That he really is now on throne as King of all. That he really is making all things good and beautiful?

That God really will turn ashes into a crown of beauty, mourning into joy, despair into praise?

Most of you have probably heard Ecclesiastes 3 before, it’s that famous passage, about time for everything, a season for every activity under heavens

Time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal...

Passage that really captures all ups and downs of life, all our victories and defeats, our good times and our pains and struggles. That’s usually the only part of the passage we look at.

But if you go a little further, writer of Ecclesiastes asks question, well, if that’s true, what do workers gain from their toil? In other words, what do we make of life if it’s just an endless cycle of ups and downs, goods and bads. You live, you work, you get old, then you die. He concludes, “This is burden God has put on human race.”

But then he says this…vs. 11…God has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Do you see what he’s saying there? Our hearts long for eternity. We have a deep sense of Happily Ever After. Why we love those stories. And God’s going to do, he’s making everything beautiful in its time. Beautiful Eternity.

What if we really knew that? All of us are going to go through the difficulties in life (some more than others). But what a difference it makes to know the ending.

That in midst of all these times, a time to weep and a time to laugh, to mourn and to dance…that one day they will all be made beautiful. It will only be laughing and dancing. Everything…your deepest griefs. Your greatest pains. Your biggest failures. All redeemed, made beautiful.

That, as Psalm 23 says, surely goodness and mercy will follow me all days of my life.

We watch those movies and read those books because we kind of know up front how they’re going to end. I mean, what if they didn’t!

Can you imagine a Hallmark Christmas movie where the couple didn’t get together? I want my money back!

Superhero not ultimately defeating villain and saving earth?!

Mary Magdalene thought it had all ended terribly. She was standing at the tomb, weeping. Hope was lost.

And when Mary Magdalene first saw Jesus, she couldn’t see him for who he was, thought he was just the gardener.

And in that moment, that one moment, when he spoke her name, she realized it was him. I have seen the Lord!

Same person. She didn’t have eyes to see it.

But when she did, when she finally recognized and saw it was Jesus, risen, alive - her good and beautiful God, it changed everything. She knew.

What if you knew? this is what it means to be a follower of Jesus. To be a part of Kingdom of God - my Father and your Father, my God and your God. To live with confidence that everything will be made beautiful in its time. Beautiful eternity.

Let me encourage you this week, as you encounter beauty, let it be a reminder to you that the promise of the resurrection is promise of beautiful eternity. There’s so much ugliness in world, it can be so easy to be consumed by it.

I took Patty & Ruth Ann to get their vaccination shot - nurse was kind and patient, act of beauty.

Moment of laughter at family gathering over good meal.

Beautiful spring day, flowers bursting forth

Let’s live with that hope. Those moments will come and go (a time to …), but on this day we remember that one day, when Jesus returns, it will all be good and beautiful. Happily ever after. Beautiful eternity.