Tetelestai - Sunrise
Notes
Transcript
What has been the most crushing moment of your life?
Can you remember it?
Does it still live like a ghost in your mind, sometimes poking it’s specter head into your consciousness?
To haunt you for a minute, an hour, a day, a week.
Dragging you down deeper and deeper into darkness as it feasts on your soul.
I know what I’m talking about - we all have ghosts.
They sit on your chest like an invisible 800 pound gorilla.
Suffocating you under the weight of - what?
The defeat?
The depression, the pain?
The rejection, the abandonment?
The sheer loneliness of facing a phantasm that just won’t die.
I’m dredging up memories for you so you can properly understand this story.
Mel Gibson gave us a great image of the crucifixion of Jesus “The Passion.”
We see his mother standing there, beside Salome, Mary Magdalene, and John.
Maybe even off in the distance just a bit, Peter and the others.
Jesus is on the cross, about dead.
John tells us what he saw:
After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.”
A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth.
When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
It is finished.
In Greek, it’s Tetelestai.
3rd person singular verb, perfect tense, passive voice, indicative mood.
Perfect tense - the action has been completed in the past - it has been finished for all time.
Passive voice - the action happened to Jesus, Jesus did not do the action.
Indicative mood - to quote Bill Murray - “that’s a fact, Jack.”
I’m sure you’ve heard untold sermons on the seven last words of Jesus.
Each of those sermons were written with 20 centuries of theologians, pastors, teachers, academicians explaining, examining, parsing every single word to mine out every ounce of meaning.
Peter didn’t have that luxury - none of them did.
Peter watched as the hope of his life got crushed.
Think about this - He was just a fisherman.
A common, ordinary nobody.
Indistinguishable in Ingle’s from any other person except to his friends and family.
Just an ordinary working stiff - who for three years allowed himself to dream.
This daily drudgery of mending nets with rope torn hands.
Of the sting of water in fresh cuts.
Scraped shins and elbows from falling on slime soaked boat decks.
Seeing the disdain in the eyes of the priests and the tax collectors and the power brokers every time they smelled him coming.
He spent nights laying in the open, staring at the vast expanse of the milky way, seeing stars more clearly than you and I ever have.
Peter would allow himself to dream.
Jesus, decked out in royal robes - sitting on the throne once occupied by King David himself.
Ruling over the nation of Israel.
Leading that nation to a peace and a glory it had never seen.
Elevating it to the richest, most powerful nation in the world.
With it’s borders encompassing every single step of land that God had promised to Abraham.
No one would be hungry.
No one would be poor.
No one would be mistreated ever again.
King Jesus - with Peter - smelling like incense instead of fish - standing right beside him.
What would Peter be?
What would Peter become?
What territory would Jesus make this common fisherman the ruler of?
It’s a dream we’ve all had.
One day I’ll escape this.
One day, I’ll be free.
One day, I’ll be somebody.
Then, Tetelestai.
Peter knew what those words meant.
The dream was dead.
Peter - big shot Peter - who left everything his family had accumulated - everything his father and his father’s father had built.
To follow this miracle working carpenter.
Tetelestai.
Go home.
Hang your head like the chump you are and take your lumps.
Get out on the boat where you belong and get busy.
We told you, Jesus was only human.
They buried Jesus.
Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus had political connections.
They asked Pilate if they could have Jesus’ body.
And for whatever reason, Pilate said yes.
Mary, Salome and other women went with them.
It’s funny - they knew the stress of a deadline.
Sundown would start the next day and the next day was the Sabbath.
They could not work on the Sabbath - work including burying their dead.
It was a rule - a hard, fast, inviolable rule for good church going women.
They did what they could do right that moment and they agreed they would come back on Sunday and finish the job.
Regardless of what “It is finished” did to their hopes and fears, they still loved Jesus.
He had been a good son.
He had been a good friend.
They wouldn’t leave the job poorly done.
The Roman guards came.
Brusquely, without manners or care, they muscled aside Jesus’ friends.
They joined side by side to heave the heavy stone into place.
Every grinding sound of rock upon rock was one more knife into heart of Jesus’ followers.
Like Peter, their every hope and dream was being crushed by that stone as it was rolled into place.
Jesus was truly, completely, undoubtedly dead.
Their dreams were buried in His tomb.
When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him.
And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb.
And they were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?”
They woke up early - maybe hardly sleeping.
They met, each carrying the burden of the things they would need to finish the job they had started on Friday.
As they talked softly in the early morning light, one of them stopped:
“Ya’ll. How in the world are we going to move that stone?
“Who will roll away the stone for us...”
But like you, they kept going figuring, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Once again, not having the accumulated wisdom of 20 centuries to advise them.
They figured they’d just deal with it somehow.
They walked on in dreadful silence.
Almost 40 years ago, one of my most favorite Easter songs was released.
It was written by Jim Croegaert.
A man who knew the ghosts and phantoms of misbegotten dreams.
He contracted polio as a child.
A weakened and diseased leg caused him to spend many hours and days all by himself.
Separated by time and space from family and classmates by surgeries and long, painful recoveries.
He grew to love baseball and played in the sandlot with his pals to the best of his ability.
The best of ability of a crippled boy.
When he was in high school, his mother - his rock and teacher, died.
He became a musician.
He traveled the road many musicians travel - until one day the faith his mother instilled in him started to call.
He wrote a song - Sandi Patty recorded it - she won multiple awards for it.
And if I let it, the song will still move me to tears.
It’s about the time between when Jesus walked out of that tomb and the women got there.
The song asks the question, “Was It a Morning Like This?”
It was the same time of year as today.
The average temperature in Israel in April is 70 degrees - much like here.
Was it a morning like this?
We can hear cars going down West Clinton, Dolly and North Jefferson street.
They heard foot traffic and animals hooves.
It was the first day of the week.
Bakers were up making bread.
Milk carts were getting filled to make their deliveries.
Carpenters, builders were up, getting on their way to job sites.
Mama’s and babies were up getting fed.
Young children were getting ready for school.
Women were going to tend to their dead.
It was early on the first day of the week.
Outside the town, the night stillness was fading away.
Light was peeking over the mountains - the sun just cresting the hills.
Maybe a breeze, ever so slight wafted through the graveyard where Jesus’ body lay.
And the soldiers were gone.
A Cohort of Roman soldiers had stood watch over the tomb all night long.
A tomb with the official seal of Rome on it - not to be broken by human hands.
And it wasn’t.
If you’ve ever been in a graveyard after dark, you know it’s the spookiest place on earth.
As manly men as the guards were - they were still in a graveyard.
As they watched, lights and angels and shaking ground.
A sight so amazing, so terrifying that these bravest of men, these killers of killers, ran for their lives.
And in the ensuing early morning stillness, footsteps coming out of a tomb.
The song says, “Did the grass sing?
“Did the earth rejoice to feel you again?
“Over and over like a trumpet on the ground
“Did the earth seem to pound “He is Risen.”
“Over and over in a never ending round
He is Risen!
Every step Jesus took was a song of triumph for all of creation.
The angels of heaven had never seen such a thing.
The powers of the cosmos were shaken.
The prince of the power of the air saw with his own eyes that his most powerful weapon was powerless.
By the very power of God Himself.
All of creation shuddered.
The stars of a million galaxies sang out in delight.
Over something that the women had yet to discover.
And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back—it was very large.
And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed.
And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him.
But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.”
And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
They didn’t stop and talk to the baker or the milk delivery guy or anyone headed to school.
They had to get to the disciples and do what they were told.
And they did.
This is where my abilities fail me.
There is nothing in the vocabulary of my life to draw a comparison to this.
Because there is nothing to compare.
What everyone knew to be reality was turned on it’s head.
Jesus was dead.
But now He is NOT.
There will be a number who hear this message today who will not believe Jesus was raised from the dead.
I’ll not try to build a case for you.
I read this week there is more attestation to the literal, physical resurrection of Jesus than there is to the existence of Caesar.
Believe the evidence or not, that’s on you.
But for me, the song brings tears to my eyes for three reasons.
First, because of Jesus, we will one day get it right.
Death isn’t the punctuation mark on a life stamped “did not meet expectations.”
Now death is nothing more than a doorway.
Unpleasant for our body to endure - but exhilarating for our spirit.
Second, because of Jesus, we are free.
All of the things the evil one has used against us, to condemn us, to put an 800 pound gorilla on our chests.
Those things are gone.
Our only rule is to follow Jesus as best as we possibly can and don’t worry about the rest.
Loving Jesus - following Jesus - everything else falls in line.
And the third reason.
I’ve seen you hurt.
I’ve seen so many people struggle with demons that are indescribably horrible.
But because of Jesus, I know you can be free, and you will be free.
And every now and again, as a reward from my master’s table, He lets me catch a glimpse of you becoming free.
Because of Jesus.
And that’s very good.
Was it a morning like this?
Probably so.
Probably so.
Let us pray.