How to (Clumsily) Practice Resurrection with Pastor Ryan Braley

Easter isn’t asking you to admire a nice message about springtime. We’re talking about a claim that is either breathtakingly true or totally disruptive: Jesus is raised bodily, seen and touched, and that resurrection is the first sign that God is making everything new.

We lean into why humans ache for endings and closure, then we trace how Scripture dares to give one. Revelation 21 describes a renewed world with no more death, mourning, crying, or pain, and with God present among people. That vision is not escapism and it is not a floating-soul-afterlife. It’s resurrection, restoration, justice, and healing on a cosmic scale, a new heaven and new earth where chaos and evil don’t get to stay.

Then we sit in the tension we all feel: the future has dawned, but it’s not fully here. We still grieve real losses, face real diagnoses, and watch real destruction on the news. Christian hope doesn’t minimize any of it. It argues something sharper: the worst thing is not the last thing. Because we know the ending, we can practice resurrection right now by bringing life where things are dying, standing with people facing injustice, sharing with those in need, and doing small faithful acts that participate in the renewal of the world.

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Transcript

Opening Prayer And Greeting

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Yeah, let us pray. God, we give you thanks this morning for your presence here with us. And this morning, God, we uh as we read about this story of resurrection, I just pray simply that you would fill us with resurrection life this morning in all the ways we need it so badly. And we pray these things in your holy and precious name. Amen. How many you be seated? Morning, everyone. Christ is risen. All right, hallelujah. Yeah, good. Fantastic. By the way, this is the last gathering of four. So I'm doing okay, but I need you to bring some energy this morning, if you don't mind. It's like the last gathering on Christmas Eve. It's usually the rowdy bunch. I'm trusting it'll be the rowdy bunch today. So help me get through it because I'm gonna feed off your energy a little bit. Um, but uh yeah, Christ has risen. So it's a wonderful morning. And um, I love the end of the story that you heard Gary and David read. This is the end of the story of Jesus and Matthew's gospel, and it's a far cry from the way things were a couple nights ago on Friday night in the story, anyway. By the way, my sermon is called The Resurrection or How to Clumsily Practice the Resurrection. And uh the story on Friday, a couple nights ago in the story, everything looked lost. It was bleak, it was dark. Jesus dies on the cross, and it was so bad, and they had lost so much hope that everybody took off running. They all abandoned Jesus in that moment. And it looks, for all intents and purposes, like they had lost everything. And then this morning, though, Sunday morning, the women go to the tomb to take care of his body and to visit and pay respects. And when they go there, the tomb is empty. Like, where did he go? And then they run into Jesus, like body Jesus, like his body, his physical body. He's up walking around, he's not a ghost floating around as a spirit. They run into the physical person of Jesus, but he's resurrected. His body's sort of made new again. His fingers, his bones, his flesh, his blood, his hair, his eyelids, and his organs, it's all there, like sort of made brand new. After he had gone into death and kind of come out the other side, it's an incredible ending of the story in Matthew's gospel. And I love it. And I'm reminded I love a good ending of a story. Are you with me? You guys are not with me. Are you with me? All right. Maybe you hate good endings. Fine, that's fine if you don't like them. But I love it because a good ending, I mean, it can redeem uh even a mediocre story. I'll read a mediocre book or watch a mediocre movie, but if the ending is good, I'm like, oh, I'm all in. I'm all for that. I love it. And conversely, a bad ending can like ruin a pretty decent movie or story or book. You know what I'm saying? And uh I crave a good ending because a good ending provides resolution. It sort of like provides uh closure and it actually can color our perception, perception of the whole thing, and it can reframe all the events that happened before it. So you can have like tension and conflict, and like it looks like the bad guy's winning and that kind of thing. And then at the end, it can redeem all of it by reframing the whole story. And I think as human beings, we psychologically we crave good endings because they provide closure and they provide resolution for us as well. Because you and I are meaning-making beings, right? We we uh we long for meaning, we long for things to make sense, and even our own lives want there to be closure and resolution and for things to make sense. And and I know this because human beings naturally turn events, any event, into a story. This is before uh, you know, social media as well, but like we love turning normal events into stories. And if you don't believe me, just watch any young man who's practicing his basketball shot in a gym or on a driveway somewhere. Because it's just a kid shooting hoops, but invariably, I guarantee you, at one moment, that kid will turn that into a story. Five seconds to go, NBA championship, inbound to Ryan Braille. He takes the last shot. Two, one, shot goes up, and I shoot. Now you have to know about myself, I was not a good shooter, I was more of an inside game kind of guy, so I would shoot that last second shot and it would clank out. But I'm making the story up here. One second, it's on the clock, he gets a rebound miraculously, he shoots it again this time, it goes in. All right, all right. You had to be there, you had to be there. But we love turning events into stories. And so this is why when a story doesn't have an ending or a good ending, it feels incomplete. And actually, we feel incomplete because we long for closure. This is why, too, uh, when you're left on red, it feels like a personal crisis. You know what I'm saying? Oh, by the way, for those of you that were born in the 1900s, left on red means that you texted somebody and they saw it but didn't respond back. It's an existential crisis, you know what I mean? Like, why won't they respond back? What's going on? Like at that point, like the anxiety is so bad. Like, I don't even need a second date. I just need closure. Please help me for the love of God, help me respond back. You know, I don't, I don't care if you don't like me, but just uh I need to know why you don't like me. I need closure, you know what I'm saying? We mean closure. Uh maybe you've been binge watching a show and you feel guilty about it, like everyone's giving you a hard time. Just tell them. I'm not binging a show here. I'm trying to get as fast as I can to the end of it to provide closure. I'm searching for meaning in my life, okay? Leave me alone, mom. Uh maybe you're the person who never begins a project because you, you know, because you're like, I can't begin it unless I finish it. So I got I gotta be able to finish the project. That's why you don't ever start one because you know you won't finish it. But we long for closure. I love a good ending. Uh, here's some examples, too. I don't know if you've ever seen this movie, but this is a great ending of a movie. Anyone seen this movie? Know what this movie is? Or read the book? Man, you guys, this is all four gatherings. No one's ever seen Fight Club. I know the first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club, but a great book and good movie. And the ending sort of says this like all throughout the movie, these young men are looking for meaning and and like purpose in their lives. They can't find it, and they begin to sort of sort of like uh ebb into this existential nihilism and into destruction. The very end is them blowing up buildings, and it's sort of, oh my, it's a shocking ending. Like, hey, young men and women too, but who don't have meaning in their lives will resort to nihilistic philosophy and blow stuff up, and they always end in destruction. It's a very uplifting movie, if you go see it. Okay, how about this one? Another good ending. Anyone know what this movie is? Gatsby. Yeah, I love the ending of this book. He says, in the end, F. Scott Fitzgerald says we beat on boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. In other words, like we we try to go on into the future, but the past keeps sucking us back, and Gatsby longed to recreate the past, but you realize you can't do it. You can't go back and recreate the past, it always leads to destruction as well. Okay, how about this one? Yes. This this movie, this scene, reshaped the whole movie. And it re-fra- Oh, I gotta go back and re-watch the whole thing because this this twist, if you haven't seen it, go watch it. This is a really old movie, uh, The Sixth Sense. It reframes the whole movie, and you have to watch it almost twice. Okay, how about this one? Great ending. This is uh Ziwa to Nail. What movie is this? Close Shawshank Redemption. Yeah, it's hope finally restored. He finally gets what he's hoping for, the whole movie. Okay, now I told you a bad ending can also ruin a movie. Here's a terrible ending of a very famous play or piece of uh literature. It's it's a horrible ending. I hated it. This is Romeo and Juliet. I don't care if it was Shakespeare, it's a terrible ending. Terrible. This is not a love story, it's a tragedy. I'm gonna read this garbage. And I like Shakespeare, but how about this one? How about this ending? Terrible ending, terrible. A whole bunch of folks die. Come on. But also, like Ben and I both agree on this one. Like, Rose, move over. There's tons of room on that door. What are we doing? This is also not a love story. This is a this is like selfishness. Move over, Rose. Share the life jacket too. Come on. Terrible ending. I hate this ending. Here, though, is the ending of the Bible. I'm gonna give it to you because you heard the ending of the Jesus story, but the whole Bible ends and it's dramatic. Pump your fist if you're a fist pumper. We know who you are, fist pumpers. Uh, like yell from the mountaintops, like screw stand up and cheer, kind of an ending. It's awesome. Here's the ending. Are you ready for the ending? Here's how the whole Bible ends in this way. The author, John, is taken to this place where he can see reality for what it really is. And he sees this. He says, Then I saw a new heavens and a new earth. This is the end. And he's gonna get a glimpse of it like kind of early on. By the way, a new heaven and a new earth is language that was used way back earlier in the Bible in a book called Isaiah. And Isaiah is giving you a hint of the ending way back here. Oftentimes the best stories will give you a hint of the ending in the middle of it somewhere. It's pretty great. So he sees a new heaven, new earth. The old one or the first ones have passed away. There's no longer any sea, which is a weird thing to say. But what he means, like the sea is a symbol of evil and chaos and darkness and disorder. So at the end of the story, a new heavens and new earth, and he will take care of the chaos and evil, and he'll do away with it. It's beautiful. There's a new city, a holy one, the new Jerusalem coming down from God and prepared to be a bride for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Look, God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They'll be his people, and he'll be with them and be their God. He'll wipe away every tear from their eyes. It's good news, if you ask me. There will be no more death, no more mourning, no more crying, no more pain. That's also from Isaiah. So way back then. For the older order of things, the old way of doing things, the old functioning way of the world has passed away. And the one on the throne, who is Jesus Himself, says, I am making everything new. Come on now. I'm making everything new. What? An ending. Take your breath away. How many of you could use everything to be made new again? I mean, you turn on the news, you're like, for the love of God, somebody do something. And Jesus promises the end of the story to make everything new. It's an incredible ending. Now, an ending by definition is something that will come later. It's a future reality that will come down the road. You're not there yet. But here's where things get interesting. The early Christians believe that this ending that we see in Revelation, that God makes all things new, wipes away the tears, takes care of the sea, uh, does away with evil and disorder. That ending, they believed, had actually dawned or begun or exploded forward in Jesus. That in his resurrection, when he overcame death and the grave, that that was the new creation. God making all things new in that moment. The ending of the story, this beautiful breathtaking moment, had somehow burst forth into this moment here and now. That's what they thought. This changes everything. By the way, the resurrection meant this. It was a new idea in the ancient world or in the first century for these people in this way. Um, that his body had sort of come back to life. He wasn't a ghost coming back to haunt them. It wasn't like he was like sort of describing death from a different angle. No, no, no. He wasn't dead, and he had gone into death and had conquered it, defeated it somehow. I don't know what happened, but he defeats death. He comes out the other side and he reverses death. He cancels death, you could say. Now, the metaphysics of it all, I don't know. I think I will know on the other side of things, but like, I don't know. He he defeats and reverses death. And I know it because a bunch of people saw him. He's walking around, they're touching him, they're they're looking, they're talking to him, the real bodily resurrected Jesus. It's not just death from another angle, it's not just his soul floating around, it was the body of Jesus walking around, made new. Revelation had come true in Jesus. I love it. Now, Paul, who writes a few decades later, Paul's making sense, trying to like figure out how what does this mean that he rose from the dead? Because the earliest, the earliest disciples are, we don't, what does this mean? And they were trying to figure it out. Paul says, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what happened to Jesus? That being made new. Um, that's a hint or foreshadowing, another good storyteller, of what will happen to you and to me. Paul writes this Christ is indeed raised from the dead. Christ is the first fruit of those who've fallen asleep. By the way, they use that language, fallen asleep, because they believe that death wasn't forever because of the work of Jesus. So yeah, you fell asleep, but but that's just uh, you know, you're just uh it's just a holding sort of pattern here. For since death came through one man, Adam, in the story, resurrection of the dead also comes through one man, Jesus. For as in Adam all die, in Christ all will be made alive. I don't know if you're a farmer, any farmers in the house today? No. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, so he can agree with me. Tell me if I'm wrong. First fruits, it's like the beginning of a coming harvest. Am I close on that one? Yeah, all right, yeah. I got the farmer's approval. You're the first farmer all morning. I love it. This is great. So if I was wrong, nobody could have corrected me, but now I could be correct. No, but Paul's saying, hey, what happens at the end of the story? This great harvest, Jesus is like a first fruit. It's like the it's like the beginning of that harvest. It's happening right here and right now. And by the way, it includes you and it includes me. Because Jesus' resurrection was not just an isolated event. No, no, it was like his body being resurrected. And Paul writes, oh, yeah, and your bodies will be resurrected and made new. And in fact, according to Revelation and Paul and other places, the whole thing will be renewed. It's not just bodily either. It's actually the whole cosmos, the whole world will be made new. Jesus said, Behold, I'm making all things new, a new heavens and a new earth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. The whole thing made new, resurrected, put back together in proper order. And if that's not big enough for you, how about this one? Yeah. The whole world will be resurrected. By the way, the universe is ever expanding, science tells us. It's incredible. This is a vast, enormous, unthinkably big kind of a place. And the promise is, now I don't know if Paul had this in mind when he wrote that, because Paul wasn't a scientist, but we do. And Paul says, hey, all things, John writes, all things will be made new, a new heavens and new earth. Yeah, this whole thing will be made new. That's the story of Christianity. Resurrection means healing, restoration, things being put back into proper order, justice doled out. Remember, Jesus died innocently. He wasn't even a criminal. He dies as a criminal, but so him coming back is justice being done for the whole entire world. Yeah, Christianity says it's not just your bodies that are being resurrected. It's that too. See, some Christians believe that, oh, heaven means just a soul floating around in a cloud, playing a harp all day after you die. No, it's not in the Bible. The Bible is a bodily resurrection. And not just your body, but the whole thing is going to be restored and renewed. And that is good news. Paul writes it this way. I love it in Romans 8. Paul says about the whole entire creation. The creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration. Look around. The creation is indeed subjected to frustration. Not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated, set free, restored, renewed from its bondage to decay and brought into freedom and the glory of the children of God. Also in Colossians, Paul writes, by the way, our next sermon series will be on Colossians, so come check it out. It's called, we're calling it underneath it all. It's awesome. So come back. And through him in Colossians, Paul writes, Jesus will reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or in heaven, by making peace through his blood on the cross. So in Christ, in this resurrection, God was making all things new. Now, but here's the tension. Because we see pockets of it, you can see life and resurrection and things being made new again, but you also see death and destruction and hopelessness and sorrow and pain and war. So what's the deal with this? Well, it's kind of like this, it's dawned in Jesus, but it's not fully here. It's like this now but not yet kind of a tension. And we live in that tension. It's kind of like, have you ever seen the sunrise? When you get up before the sun comes up and it's dark, it's like it's dark, dark. It's darkest before the dawn, they say. It's a true story. And you wait for the sun to come up over that horizon. You're hoping it comes up because I don't know if it will. Will it this time? You know, maybe this time it won't come up. I was in Colorado a couple years ago in the mountains, and it was summertime, but it was still cold at night in Colorado in the mountains at summertime. And I was by myself camping, and I came out of my tent and it was freezing. I'm like, not literally freezing, it was just cold. And uh, I'm like waiting for the sun to come up, and it's dark and it's like it's quiet. And I'm like, please, God, let the sun come up. I need to get warm, I was so cold, you know? And I look at the horizon, and if you've ever watched the sunrise, you just watch it. And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, you see this thin line just barely beginning to sort of illuminate the horizon. You're like, Do I is that what I do I think I see it? Is that is that what I think it is? Like, oh, is that real you're blinking? Like, is that is it really there? Is it and then it keeps growing and growing. And even though it's not the sun itself hasn't fully come up yet, you're seeing just like the light, like the photons of the sun come over the, but like not the full body of the sun just yet. It's not fully bright just yet. Like you see it, and it tells you, oh, the sun's gonna come up any moment now. And that morning, I think, oh, it's filled with hope. Oh, I'm gonna be warm very soon. I can already feel it a little bit. And I was like taking my clothes off, getting warm, you know, not all of them, just the you know, yeah, that's what it's like. The sun is peaking up in Jesus. And if this, my friends, is true, if Jesus rose from the dead and the future is dawned in Jesus, then we're gonna be okay. If you look out on the world, you've lost hope today. I just want to tell you that we are going to be okay. The great thinker Tim Keller, when he had cancer and was dying of cancer, he said this. He said, you know, if Jesus was raised from the dead, if he really got up and was seen by hundreds of people and talked with them, if he was raised from the dead, then you know what? Everything is gonna be alright. Whatever you're worried about right now, whatever you're afraid of, it's gonna be okay. Because you have to remember that we're not just talking about a resurrected people, but a resurrected world. God will put things back into proper order. And now it should be. Yeah, this world cleansed of evil and sin and sorrow and suffering. This is a man dying of cancer. And he says, look, me and Kathy, as well, we still cry and we weep and I lament that I'm dying of cancer, but I know the hope of the resurrection. Yeah, we're gonna be okay. And we're gonna be okay not because our problems aren't real. They're real problems. He died of cancer. He's actually with Jesus now, but we're gonna be okay not because your your thing isn't real, like your thing is real. Pain and sorrow and heartbreak and betrayal and lostness, loneliness, those are all very real things. And the Bible doesn't say, oh, just buck up chum. It's just look for the silver lining. It doesn't say that at all. It calls bad things bad. They really are bad. Things we should push against, resist, fight against. But that isn't what it's saying. We're gonna be okay, not because your problems aren't real. They're real, but we're gonna be okay because the resurrection means that the worst thing is not the last thing. I'll say that one again. The worst thing is not the last thing. How do I know? I I know the ending. And trust me, the best thing is the last thing. So if we're not to the best thing yet, then we're not to the end yet. The worst thing is not the last thing. Yeah, whatever your worst thing is, that prayer that feels like it hits the ceiling, that's not the end. That diagnosis you didn't see coming, that's very real, but it's not the end. That's not the last thing. The worst thing is not the last thing. Yeah, the unraveling of a marriage, the friendship that just disappears, the moment you realize you become someone you don't like, the the guilt you can't seem to shake, the night you can't turn your mind off, the silence after a loss, the regret that keeps replying over and over again, the feeling that God is nowhere to be found. That's Good Friday, by the way. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But I know that the worst thing is not the last thing, because I know the ending. So in this tension in between, we we we cry, we we rail, we lament, we weep, we shake our fists at the heavens, we do it together, but we also remember the resurrection and the hope that the light is just dawning over the horizon. I can see it. It's not fully here, but I can see it, man. I know it's coming. And also we hear embedded in the resurrection the invitation to participate in the ongoing renewal of the world. So in the resurrection is an invitation to live the resurrection now. However, Things will be when it's fully here, that Revelation 21 with no more crying, no more weeping, no more. Live that now. As the great Wendell Berry says, he says, Hey, it's we can practice resurrection. I love that. So wherever there's death, whenever you see or encounter death, bring life. The Bible calls you salt and light. Salt is a preservative, it keeps things from dying. So when you see and encounter death, bring life. When you see poverty, help. Share. Get in there with them and help out a little bit. When you see pollution, clean it up. This is not a small feat, but like when you're walking around, you see garbage, go ahead and pick that garbage up. And if someone's like, what are you doing? Just tell them, I'm practicing the resurrection. And then put it in the garbage. And I'm not joking. Wherever you see or encounter hopelessness, yeah, point them to hope. When you encounter injustice, don't just get online and tweet about it. No, stand with the person who's experiencing injustice, real injustice, and help out. And by the way, you gotta know that your actions, although they might seem small or inconsequential, they're not done in vain. Paul writes this says, Hey, look, therefore, my brothers and sisters, stand firm, hold your ground, do what you know is right, and don't lose hope. And here's why. Let nothing move you, he says, because always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord. So always, I would say it this way, practice resurrection. Live as though the resurrection was real and true, and participate in the ongoing renewal of the world. Because you know that your labor, whatever actions you do that contribute to the renewing of the world, it's not done in vain. I love to recycle because I feel like recycling is participating in the ongoing renewal of the world. I'm a conservationist, like, yeah, we're gonna recycle. And the other day I was in the kitchen holding this can, like, look at me, man. I am gonna recycle this bad boy. And I am participating in the ongoing creation of the world and the resurrection. And then I turned on the news that night and I saw this image of air traffic control over LA during the Oscars, and I watched all these private jets of these billionaires and millions flying in and out of LA just from up the road, not far. And they had like two or three people on each jet, and there's just dozens of them emitting carbon, you know, and ruining. And I'm like, man, how is my meaty little one can I recycle? How's that gonna help anything? That's funny, if you ask me. But I do it anyway. Because I know that every action of love, no matter how small, is participating in the ongoing healing and renewal of the world. So when I say, hey, we're gonna be okay, I'm not saying, hey, kick up your feet and do nothing. No, no, no, we've been called, invited. It's our mandate as people who want to follow Jesus to participate in the creation, this ongoing renewal of the world, to live revelation here and now, despite the circumstances. So we grieve, we grieve 100%. We grieve, we cry, we we when our friends die or when things go awry, we we grieve, but not without hope. We do it with hope. We can see the glimmer of light coming over them over the horizon. And we work and we we we try to promote good healing things in the world and resist poverty and rebuke and push back and help out, and and we do all these things, but not in despair. Because again, we know that even every little thing, even that little measly can that may not override all those private jets flying in out of LA, but I still do it because I know that this is me practicing the resurrection. And we trust, even though we can't see fully, we trust that I know that light, I know the sun will come up, I know it will. And I know that everything will be okay. Because I know in the deepest parts of myself, and I hope you do too, that the worst thing is not the last thing. Amen.