Easter 2022 - From Chaos to Order

Introduction

Christ brings resurrection when everything feels out of control. (Pause) Back in February of 2020, I had a night when everything went wrong. My carefully ordered plans for the night turned into chaos. It started well. I arrived at the previously agreed on restaurant for dinner, as did the young woman that I was quickly starting to like. Dinner went great. We had a great conversation, and we connected well. And then, everything went wrong. The plan was to then go bowling followed by coffee. So we leave the restaurant and head to the bowling alley. When we get there, we learn that it was a league-only night. Since there wasn’t another bowling alley close by, we move on to the next part of the date. We drive to a coffee shop in Kent that I had picked out earlier. After unsuccessfully searching for a parking spot, I drop off Kim at the door and continue looking for a parking spot. Eventually, it takes so long that I give up and park behind a building in a no-parking spot. A date is worth a parking ticket, right? So we go in, grab a couple of coffees, but only stay a short time since I need to move the car. So we get back to my car where miraculously there was no parking ticket. So now I have yet another problem. Since the last two went much quicker than planned, we had more night left than I had plans remaining. All of my plans for the date night were complete. In desperation, we even attempt to go on a nice, quiet walk through a cemetery, only to find out that even the cemetery had been closed. It was a first date where everything went wrong.

For Easter we are taking a pause from our series in the book of Joshua to look at the events that we celebrate. Instead, we look at the story that is the hinge point of the Christian faith. Everything that has occurred up to the death and resurrection of Christ points forward to the death and resurrection of Jesus. Meanwhile, every story, every letter, every missionary journey that follows is in light of, you guessed it, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christ delivers order from chaos. How does God take us from chaos to order? There’s a progression in this passage from chaos to order. Luke provides a path from chaos to perplexity to order and hope, which is exactly what Christ offers to each one of us today.

Mourning/grieving

Luke says in verse 1, “but on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared.” It had only been one week earlier that Christ had triumphantly ridden into the city of Jerusalem, riding on a donkey with the waving palm branches and shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” Four days later he would be arrested. The next day, Good Friday, he would be executed. And then Saturday would be silent. For the family and disciples of Jesus, the silence of Saturday was a day of shock, confusion, and mourning. What just happened? How did we get here? What is next?

In her book First We Quit Our Jobs, Marilyn J. Abraham writes: "We signed up for a hike with a ranger, who told us a remarkable thing: when a tree's life is threatened, stressed by the elements of fire, drought, or other calamity, it twists beneath its bark to reinforce and make itself stronger. On the surface, this new inner strength may not be visible, for the bark often continues to give the same vertical appearance. Only when the exterior is stripped away, or when the tree is felled, are its inner struggles revealed." God can use our grief to strengthen us in ways that are not visible to the world.”

Every time we suffer a loss, there are many losses within that one loss. When someone passes away, the loved ones lose the safety and security that person offered. They may lose emotional support and financial security. They can lose plans for the future, which is especially true in the death of Jesus. They thought that he would win a war against the Romans granting their nation independence once again. They thought that he would rescue them from their oppressors. In an instant, at the Cross, their hopes of a speedy removal of the Romans died as Christ’s body went lifeless on the Cross. His followed, family, friends, went from hope with a plan and an order for the next phase of their life and the life of their nation to chaos. In fact, only one of the twelve disciples were at Calvary. The rest had fled for their lives, assuming that they would be next. Grief and mourning mixed with fear. Grief, mourning, fear, hit them all at once.

Life can spin out of control so quickly. One moment, everything is normal. Then, you get the note, like I did. The order of marriage turns into the chaos of separation. Order in terms of health can turn into the chaos of a positive test result. The order of work can in an instant turn into the chaos of a layoff. As the women went down to the tomb that day, they went in mourning. They went to complete the work that they had been unable to complete previously. And then, they arrived at the tomb. And their mourning turned into something else.

Perplexity

Luke says in verses 2-4, “ And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. But when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel.” So the women go to the tomb to complete the burial process, carrying with them spices and ointments to place on the dead body. They expect to see Romans soldiers guarding the tomb with a stone firming standing between them and the body of Jesus Christ. The Gospel of Mark tells us that on the way the women said to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” Well, they turned out to not have to worry about it. When they arrive, the stone was rolled away, and Jesus’ body is not there. In an instant, their grief and mourning turns into being perplexed by what they see and frightened by the men in dazzling apparel. The two men are angels, and they tell the women, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” To put it more simply, he’s been telling you All along that this is what would happen, why are you perplexed?

Something that can be forgotten about in this story is why the stone was rolled away. After all, in John 20:19, we learn that “on the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.” Jesus’ resurrected body wasn’t restricted by walls or even a large stone. It could pass through walls and simply be among his disciples as he did that evening. Therefore, this means that the stone didn’t need to be rolled away for Jesus to exit the tomb. Instead, the stone was rolled away for the women to see that his body was no longer there. Instead of the women getting excited and realizing that what Jesus had been predicting this Entire time had come to pass, they respond instead with perplexity over the events and fear of the angels they find in the tomb.

In the darkest days of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in the Old Testament, God asks Jeremiah to go and buy a piece of real estate—complete with witnesses, a deed, and money. At the time, in the middle of a seige with a foreign army attempting to kill you and take over your land, the act seemed to make no sense. Judah was about to be conquered and its people taken into exile. What’s the point? But seventy years, as God predicted to Jeremiah, the people would be set free and return to the land to rebuild homes and replant vineyards. Jeremiah’s purchase of land was to provide a beacon of hope during the long years of captivity.

One author, who we’ll call Dan, remembers that his father, at age seventy-five, planted a number of small fruit trees. “What an optimist,” Dan said to him, somewhat mockingly. Well, the dad passed away a few years later. When Dan returns to the old homestead, he had an option. He can go to the grassy cemetery on top of the hill and look over his dad’s grave, or he can eat the fruit of his trees and reflect on a man, reflect on a father, who knew a great deal about hope.

On Thursday, we celebrated a tenebrae service here that included eight different stations. The first seven stations concluded with a candle being snuffed out to symbolize a move into the silence and reflection of Jesus’ last Supper and his crucifixion. But at the final station, with all seven candles out, two candles were then lit. Christ’s body may have gone into the grace lifeless on Good Friday, but the hope of Christ was still alive. You might be scratching your head today. After all, God takes us from chaos into order. But in between there tends to be perplexity because God meets us in perplexity. That feeling of, okay God, I understand that you are good, that you are at work, and that you are with me. But, I don’t understand how this will end up. That’s right where the women were between the chaos of their morning and the order of Easter Sunday morning. For me on that first date, it might have been more along the lines of, why do things keep going wrong?

Marveling

Luke says in verses 10-12, “Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened.” Dead men don’t rise from the grave. It simply doesn’t happen. Except, before Christ went to the grace he raised Lazarus from the grave. And then, the Holy Spirit raised Jesus Christ from death. John Stott says that, "Christianity is in its very essence a resurrection religion. The concept of resurrection lies at its heart. If you remove it, Christianity is destroyed.” On the other hand, the resurrected Christ has changed the world. After he rose again, a small group of apostles took his message from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria, and then, to the end of the earth. The message of the gospel of Jesus Christ has been rescuing people from sin and selfishness, from pride and brokenness, from addiction and deceit ever since.

The story of the gospel is the story of Jesus rising from the grave. But added to that is also an untold amount of stories of lives having been changed. Moving forward from that night where everything went wrong, God was at work. In June, 2021, God brought Kim and I together in marriage. And then God reminded me that life rarely has a nice, tidy ending. Life isn’t a Disney movie that ends, happily ever after. In the happily ever after, there are days when everything seems to go wrong. today in marriage continues to show me areas in my life where I need the power of the gospel to be at work. We have the goal of seeing every national park in the country. On our honeymoon, we visited Congaree National Park in South Carolina, which I like to call mosquito national park. Earlier this year, we visited Everglades National Park. But we’ve also decided that there are a very few that the time is not right to visit yet. what are the few I’m referring to? Well, here’s a picture of one them? It’s the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon is one of tiny number of National Parks that are so awe-inspiring, so grand, so breath taking, that we are holding off with the hopes that if we have kids one day, we can all go them and experience the grandeur of God’s amazing creation together.

That’s the God that we serve. A God of such wisdom, holiness, and awe that he would send his Son, Jesus Christ, to rescue us from our sin. As you think of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and his resurrection within each of us, I want to leave you with two simple questions. Christ takes us from our grief and meets us in our moment of confusion and perplexity. Finally, we marvel at what he has done and will do within us. Christ delivers order out of chaos. Therefore, what is the chaos in your life where you need Christ to create order from the chaos? Second, what is one place in your life where you have lost the awe for God? Our God is in the business of resurrection, wouldn’t you like to experience it today in your life?