“Leave You Death Cloths Behind!!…”

April 16, 2017

Stetson Memorial UMC

Resurrection Sunday!

Psalm 113

John 20:1-18 NLT

Acts 10:34-48 MSG

Isaiah 25:6-9 NLT

“Leave You Death Cloths Behind!!…”

The Lord be with you, and also with you…let us pray…(Prayer of illumination….)

Please stand as you are able from the reading of the Gospel according to John, chapter 10, verses 1-8…

It was a morning like no other. Mary trembled as she made her way to the tomb of her teach and friend. “How could all of this had happened” she thought. “How could they have called for Barabbas instead of Jesus?” She continued on her way to the place she never thought she would have to go…at least not this early in Jesus’ life. All of the sudden the earth shook with a violent convulsion. It knocked her to the ground. She got up wondering what could have caused such a ruckus.

She began to think about the events of the past 3 days and how she stood with Jesus’ mother by the cross as her world was torn apart by the last breath of her teacher. “How could have the others ran away and leave Him to be alone…let alone Peter’s actions?” Then she remembered the stone in front of the tomb. “How am I going to be able to give Jesus a proper burial? I can’t move the stone away myself. But I must try. It is the least I could to for the one who saved me from the demons inside.”

As she neared the tomb she couldn’t believe what she saw. The stone had rolled been rolled away. Then she thought “Oh no…His body!” She ran to the tomb and it was as she had feared. Jesus body was missing. Everything else was there…the death cloths and the cloth that wrapped His head. But the body…it was missing… What was she to do…where on earth could they have taken Him…?

Good morning! Happy Resurrection morning! We have come to the end of our Lenten journey and now here we stand at the empty tomb. This is the foundation of our belief. Without resurrection morning, there is no faith…without resurrection morning, there is no forgiveness of sins…without resurrection morning, there is no victory over sin and death…without resurrection morning, Jesus’ life didn’t matter. This is probably my favorite day in the Christian calendar as well as Pentecost Sunday…but don’t let me get started on that…

When I think about the empty tomb I just want to shout from the mountain tops…Christ has Risen…Christ has Risen indeed! I love this day because it is the day that humanity was given the chance to come out of their tomb, remove their death cloths and come into the glorious light of our God in and through the Light of the world, our RISEN, Lord Jesus Christ

In Isaiah 25:6-9…the prophet Isaiah talks about the day that God will remove the gloom and gloom of death and bring joy and hope. The gloom of death hung over all of humanity and there was no end in sight. But God, in His infinite love, could not leave humanity in the pit it was and is in. He alone brings salvation in and through the frailty of His Son. We now are invited to the banquet with the best of everything we can think of… Death no longer has a grip upon us and we are set free in and through the empty tomb. If we choose to come out and leave behind our death clothes…

When I think about the John scripture from this morning, what stood out for me are these facts:

1.  Jesus death clothes were left in the tomb…

2.  Reminded me of Lazareth being raised…

3.  It represents victory over sin and death…

4.  People are like Mary…not know where He is…

5.  Jesus calls our name as He did Mary’s (she was blinded by the world and what she saw that was temporal)

6.  We are to go and give the message to those who are waiting…as Mary did…

In Acts Peter…the Rock…proclaims the resurrection…read Acts 10:34-48. What can we see from Peter’s reaction that is also for us today?

·        He proclaimed Christ’s ministry of healing and peacemaking (36-39)

·        Proclaimed that God raised Christ from the dead (39-40)

·        Proclaimed that they ate and drank with the Risen Christ (41)

·        Proclaimed Christ is the judge of the living and the dead but there is forgiveness in and through His name…

Resurrection Sunday is not just the end of the Lenten journey but only the beginning of the story, the beginning of the new life…the beginning of a new age. Christ went to the cross not just to save you and me but to save all of humanity and there is so many who need the hope and forgiveness of the cross I just can’t imagine Jesus wanting us to keep it for ourselves. God wants all of humanity to be saved and we are here to share the good news so that it is. That’s part of mine and your mission here…part of the purpose of why we were created…to love, to share, to be Christ for the world. But how can we bring the Good News if we are still in the tomb wearing our death shroud?

Resurrection people. It is resurrection morn and we are now given a new life. We have come from the ashes of Wednesday and have come up from those same ashes as a phoenix into the glorious light of the Son. We are being called from our tombs to a new and redeemed life. We are given the robe of righteousness for the death cloths sin had us wrapped in. The question is…will you come out?

Amen…

“G.W.E.”

August 3, 2014

Stetson Memorial United Methodist Church

Sermon Series on “All My Day: A Summer of Prayer”

Inspired by Marcia McFee

Sermon 6 of series-

“Spiritual Struggles”

Genesis 32:22-28 Common English Bible

Psalm 139:1-14 NIV Bible

“The Long and Winding Road” The Beatles

Let us pray… (Pray for God’s illumination…)

I remember growing up I used to always hate Saturday afternoons. My brother and I would be watching T.V. together and all of the sudden wrestling would come on the T.V. I hated wrestling but my brother loved it…the old W.W.E….World Wrestling Entertainment. Well my brother would get entertainment out of it and all I would get is bored. I think he liked it so that he could learn some moves to try out on me later that day. What is so mesmerizing about wrestling any way? Two guys throwing each other around the ring. I just don’t get it.

Some times when I think about it…our faith walks can be kind of like a wrestling match with God. We wrestle with God over this or that…instead of W.W.E. I like to call it G.W.E….God Wrestling Entertainment… Boy I am sure He must get some entertainment out of me sometimes. He knows He will win but the way I struggle must make Him giggle sometimes. Why do we wrestle at times in our Faith Walk? God usually wins out but we still have to try to put Him in some type of Suplex or something trying to have our own way…

This summer, we are invited to pray “All My Days” and to make a habit of prayer wherever you are. Each Sunday in worship we have focused on one of the steps of the prayer beads but you are encouraged to pray these categories all summer long. I would ask that you take out your beads if you brought them with you this morning. My continued hope is that our Summer Sermon Series “All My Days: A Summer of Prayer” will help us learn a way of prayer that will bring us closer to the maker of all we see.

I don't know about you but I have had an awesome time so far as we have been going through the beads on the string.  Remember…the Gold Bead…which reminds us to begin with adoration and the second bead….the bumpy beady….that is to remind us to let go and let God. The “holey Bead” invites us to sit in silence, listen for what God has to say. Then the steeping stone bead, our journey of faith. What a hard bead it is. To think our Faith Journey can lead others to God as He illuminates our walk for others to see. The next bead is one that is very important in our journey of life. The black...the black and white...the grey bead...it represents our struggles in our faith. What do we struggle with each day...what are we struggling with spiritually?

So…why do we struggle so much? Through experience we know that God will win out in the end. There is no hiding from God as the Psalm I read this morning tells us. No matter where we try to go…no matter where we try to hide…God finds us… As Paul says…at times “we know what we should do but we do what we shouldn’t do.” I guess that is human nature. We want to be in charge and we know better than anyone else what we should do. But there are those times that while we are “doing our own thing…thinking our own ways” God breaks through and we begin to wrestle with Him about our thoughts and attitudes.

There is a story in the Bible that talks about a wrestling match. It is one that I think of when my hip starts bothering me at times. I think to myself…OK Lord, what am I wrestling with you on? It is the wrestling match between Jacob and God. It is found in Genesis 32 verses 22-28. Listen to the commentary on this match and see if you can put yourself in Jacob’s place from time to time…

Jacob wrestles with God

Jacob got up during the night, took his two wives, his two women servants, and his eleven sons, and crossed the Jabbok River’s shallow water. He took them and everything that belonged to him, and he helped them cross the river. But Jacob stayed apart by himself, and a man wrestled with him until dawn broke. When the man saw that he couldn’t defeat Jacob, he grabbed Jacob’s thigh and tore a muscle in Jacob’s thigh as he wrestled with him. The man said, “Let me go because the dawn is breaking.”But Jacob said, “I won’t let you go until you bless me.”

He said to Jacob, “What’s your name?” and he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name won’t be Jacob any longer, but Israel, because you struggled with God and with men and won.”

Jacob…now Israel…won but at what cost. He walked with pain and a limp for the rest of his life. It can be like that sometimes when we wrestle with God. God usually wins in the end and we walk away limping. God wants us to bring those things that we struggle with to Him in prayer so that He can help us with those things that can take us away from His loving care if we let them. He wants us to be real with Him with our struggles. Remember as the psalmist wrote…God knows everything about us so we shouldn’t try to be something we are not.

So…what are you struggling with today? Being judgmental or gossiping…maybe causing another to walk away from the church…being harsh on yourself and on others…un-forgiveness or envy…how about not spending alone time with God…no matter what it maybe, God wants us to come to him with our struggles so that together they can be conquered. As we come to God, through our Risen Lord, Jesus Christ, in prayer we will find our burdens lifted and our struggles ended. So what are you struggling with? Take it to the Lord in prayer and feel the wrestling match end and come away stronger, wiser and closer to God. Or…we can go along in life limping as our spiritual life has been “put out of joint.” The choice is yours and mine to make. Which will you choose?

Let us pray…pray about those things we struggle within our spiritual life…

Amen