Eastside Church Sermons

Easter Sunday by Houston Tucker

• Eastside Church • Season 24 • Episode 14

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Have you ever sat on the edge of your seat as a heist movie unfurls its master plan in the final act? That moment of awe when the 'big reveal' turns defeat into victory is exactly what my wife, Kinsey, and I cherish in our favorite films. Now, imagine that same rush of surprise and triumph woven into the fabric of the Easter story. Join us as we draw parallels between cinema's most gripping twists and the greatest plot twist in history: Jesus' resurrection. With each chapter of this episode, we unwrap the layers of hope and redemption that define not just the Easter message, but our own personal narratives as well.

As we peel back the curtain on Mary Magdalene's transformative encounter with the risen Christ, we uncover the profound implications of resurrection for each of us. The stories we share are not just ancient texts; they resonate with the power to change lives today, echoing the surprise and wonder of our favorite on-screen heists. We don't just recount the tale—we invite you into the experience, to feel the depth of despair turned to unbridled joy, and to see how this single event reframes our entire understanding of redemption. Tune in for an episode that promises to leave you with a renewed sense of awe and a personal invitation to witness the resurrection's power in your own story.

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Speaker 1:

Hey, good morning everyone. My name's Houston, one of the pastors here. Man, really glad to be with you guys today. I love Ben introduced this when I grew up. I used to love the call and response thing, so, if you'll indulge me, he is risen. Amen, that's a good word, okay, well, I want to start off today by talking to you about heist movies.

Speaker 1:

I'm a big fan of heist movies, big fan of, you know, movies like the Usual Suspects, inception, italian Job. I think this is one of those things like, if this is your jam, this is really your jam and it is my jam. I love these kinds of movies. I love these movies. Every year on New Year's Eve, my wife Kinsey and I, we watch the movie Logan Lucky, which is a comedy, heist movie, and we always time it so that the movie ends right at New Year's. It's a really fun tradition we have. We love these kinds of movies and my favorite of all time series of movies like this is the Oceans movies Oceans 11, oceans 12, oceans 13. I love these movies. I love these movies and I remember the first time I saw any Ocean's movie, any heist movie, I was 15.

Speaker 1:

Ocean's 13 had come out and I went to the theater with my mom and my sister, and they wanted to see a movie that I can't tell you what it is, but I remember it being dumb. And so I was going to see, you know, a man's movie, whatever that means. And so I was going to see a man's movie, whatever that means. And so I wanted to watch Ocean's 13. And so I go alone to this movie and I'm the only one in the theater, right, it's just me experiencing George Clooney, brad Pitt, matt Damon in all their glory. And I remember this is the first time I've seen a movie like this.

Speaker 1:

And if you've ever seen a heist movie, especially the good ones, there's always this moment where it seems like things are going really well. Right, the plane is going off, no problems, maybe small problems, but they're overcoming and without fail. There's that moment where everything goes terribly wrong, and I remember I'm watching Ocean's 13, never seen anything like this before. And there's a scene in the movie where Danny Ocean, george Clooney's character, he and his gang are robbing this casino and their employer has double-crossed them, he's set them up to go down, the FBI has come in and everything seems like it's falling apart. The whole plan is ruined. And I remember, 15 years old, no concept for what's happening, and I think, well, this is dumb, this is not how this movie is supposed to go right. I don't know what's about to happen.

Speaker 1:

And what happens is Matt Damon's character, linus. He's at the pinnacle moment of the heist and he's essentially tricking this woman. He's going to rob her, rob the whole hotel and the FBI storms in and these FBI agents start telling her that he is, his name is Linus, he's a con man, he was going to steal your precious gems and blah, blah, blah. And this moment it's just this perfect. Everything is ruined. And then you see, as the FBI agent has got Linus cuffed and he's pulling him away, it cuts to an elevator and Linus is uncuffed and he's standing there next to the agent and it's dead silent. And Linus is uncuffed and he's standing there next to the agent and it's dead silent. And the agent says I'm just glad your mother wasn't here to see this. And it turns out that this agent is not some FBI agent, but Linus' dad. And it turns out that this guy wasn't a part of the FBI but was actually a part of the heist.

Speaker 1:

And it turns out that the whole plan didn't fail, didn't crumble. This was it all along. This was the big reveal. This was the moment where their plan actually came together. And I love that. And if you've ever seen a movie like this, you know that as soon as there's the big reveal, they always do that same trope right? They replay through the movie and they show you all those scenes that you thought you saw, everything that happened, and they zoom out a little bit. It turns out we had a man on the inside. It turns out we were ready for this. It turns out. I love that. I love that playback, because what it's doing is it's showing that, no, actually this moment was always going to happen and it was always the pinnacle of the heist.

Speaker 1:

And maybe you've picked up by now, but here on Easter morning, we are celebrating Jesus' resurrection and, friends, this moment is just like the big reveal in a heist movie. This is the moment where it seemed like everything was lost. It seemed like everything had gone awry, until we see that actually, this was it, this was the plan all along, because, you know, we've seen Jesus. We've watched him as he goes across ancient Palestine and he's preaching and he's healing people. He's doing incredible things. He's building up a gathering of people who want to follow him, and there's the scene where Jesus is coming into Jerusalem, the capital city, riding on a colt. And this is the moment where we think this is it. He's going to be king, he's going to fix everything.

Speaker 1:

And then the next thing we know, the same crowds who are praising Jesus as king are calling for him to be executed like a terrorist. And we think is this, it, is it done? Did it fail? That's where we come to our passage today you heard Sam read it this moment where Jesus risen from the grave. He's been dead for two nights. This is the third day.

Speaker 1:

Mary Magdalene, she comes to the tomb and the tomb is empty, and then she finds Jesus, she has this incredible encounter with him. He's risen from the dead. There's no trick, there's no con. It's the plan all along, it's the miracle that God had set up from the beginning of time, and now, because of this, everything has changed. The whole story leading up until this moment is finally clear and, consequently, mary's story is finally clear. And so, in our time today, we're going to look at Jesus' resurrection and we're going to see that, just like in a heist movie. This is the big reveal and this is the moment that, when we look back, we see it was always building to this, and we're going to look at this in two parts. We're going to see that Jesus' resurrection is the climax of his story and that it is the hope for our story. I'll say that again Jesus' resurrection is the climax of his story and the hope for our story.

Speaker 1:

But would you pray with me, lord? Jesus, we just thank you, thank you for this day, thank you for everybody here. Lord, I thank you that we have the opportunity to come together and sing songs and praise you and talk about this incredible thing that you've done, and I just pray that, as we open your word today, as we meditate on what it means, that you would just sink these ideas deep into our hearts, that you'd fasten them to our innermost being, and that it would change us. God, we love you and we thank you for all that you give us them to our innermost being and that it would change us. God, we love you and we thank you for all that you give us, and I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts would be glorifying to you, lord, our God and Redeemer. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Speaker 1:

All right, first just two parts today. First, I want to talk about how the resurrection is the climax of Jesus' story, and here's what I mean by that. We should see that all of Jesus' story, and really all of the Bible, was always leading up to Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. And this is the climax of the story, in the same way that in the heist movies, the big reveal is the climax. It's not just the most important point, it's the point that when we zoom out we see affects every other part of the story and connects to every other part of the story. And in our passage today, almost every single thing in this passage connects to somewhere else in the book of John in the Bible. This passage is chock full of connections, but I'm going to focus on just one right now.

Speaker 1:

In the first part of our passage we see Peter and this guy called the disciple whom Jesus loved. This is John. So we're going to call him Peter and John. We see Peter and John. We see Peter and John running to the tomb. And so look, starting in verse six with me, six through nine.

Speaker 1:

Then Simon Peter came, following him and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there and the face cloth which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in and he saw and believed For as yet they did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead. And so when Peter and John, they come to the empty tomb, it was hard for them to process what they were seeing, because we have to remember they did not have a category for Jesus rising from the dead. See, what they see is they see an empty tomb and if you see, it says that the cloths are folded In verse 7, the cloth that was on his head was folded up and placed by itself. This is a neat scene. This is not. This doesn't make any sense to them because this is a neat little scene of who knows what. And so we see them processing the empty tomb and reckoning with it. And they have to reckon with it because, again, this is not where they thought the story was going. This is not where they thought everything was going, because they were expecting a king who was going to come in, take over Israel, kick out the Romans, re-establish good religious practices. They were expecting someone who was going to affect them geopolitically, affect them socially, affect them religiously. They were not expecting Jesus to be captured. They were not expecting Jesus to be arrested without putting up a fight, jesus to be arrested without putting up a fight. They were not expecting Jesus to get a sham trial in a kangaroo court. They were not expecting Jesus' execution. And so they were shook. So when Mary Magdalene comes to them and says the tomb is empty, the the first thing you can imagine their mind goes to is, at best a grave robber, at worst trouble right. And that's why, when Peter and John come up to the empty tomb, their first response was not to celebrate. They have no concept for what's happening and that is why it is so significant that it says John has a aha moment. And do you see what it says in verse 9 or verse 8? The other disciple John. Or verse 8, the other disciple John reached the tomb first. He also went in and he saw and believed For as yet they did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead. And obviously it doesn't say here exactly what scripture is talking about. But here's what's really neat. This is key to see. This phrase is used elsewhere in john. In fact, it's used very, very early in the book of john.

Speaker 1:

In john, chapter two, there's a scene maybe remember it. Jesus is at the temple and and he's clearing house, people have set up shop in there, they're doing things they shouldn't, and he's cast everybody out of the temple. And if you remember there's this scene where the jewish, they come to him and they say how are you going to prove to us that you have the authority to do this? Do you remember what he said? He says destroy this temple and in three days I'll raise it up. And the Jewish leaders are like you're nuts, man. What are you talking about? Because this building that they're looking at took almost half a century to build. What are you going to do in three days? But this is what John says. But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When, therefore, he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this and they believed the scripture and the word that jesus had spoken. So this is really cool.

Speaker 1:

What we're seeing here is we're seeing john put the pieces together. We're seeing him realize that this thing that Jesus said years ago I get it now. It all clicked and he realized, very importantly, this was always the plan. This was always the plan, ever since the beginning, that he would go to the cross, that he would die and on the third day he would raise from the dead. This was always where his story was going. So there are many reasons why this is significant, but I just want to think about one. Today. I want us to see that Jesus' resurrection is not just a neat thing about Christianity. It's not just a facet of our beliefs. This is the core, the core of it all. Think about the connection Again. Think about Jesus in the temple clearing it out.

Speaker 1:

If you're here, if you remember us talking about that passage, we talked about a lot of implications from this. Jesus has the authority to remove things that hinder people coming to God, and we saw that Jesus is the ultimate connection between God and man, and we saw that Jesus is willing to do what it takes to get things out of our lives. He will exercise that right and when he's challenged on this, he refers forward to his death and resurrection. These are his credentials, he says. And so what that means is that, clearly, when we consider these aspects of Jesus. When we consider this and what he will do for us, what he can and will do for us, we should see the resurrection is like his credentials, his stamp of approval. I can do this, I have the authority to do this. In other words, the ultimate proof that Jesus has this authority to disrupt our lives, to clear out the temple, is he rose from the dead, but even more so in the resurrection. We see not only that, he has the authority. We see Jesus is going to do it. He's going to do it Because death didn't stop him, he didn't let death slow him down. He's going to do it. He doesn't just have the authority, he has the intention. So we go through everything in the book of john, we could pull on every thread, and, and, and really everything in the bible, and we would see that it all comes to this moment. This is the pin that holds it all together. It's the resurrection at the center of it all. And so we have to see, as Christians, man, we have to cling to Jesus' resurrection, we have to hold on to this.

Speaker 1:

Easter is not just the holiday where we get together and have great snacks and we celebrate a good thing happening. This is it. This is when we celebrate a good thing happening. This is it. This is when we celebrate the thing that happened, the thing that is at the center of our faith. This is what it all orbits around, guys. That's why we pull out all the stops at Easter. That's why this is it. This is the big ordeal once a year because we remember the day that Jesus rose from the dead and tied our whole story, his whole story, the Bible's, creation's whole story together. This is it. This is the climax of it all, and that's why Jesus' resurrection is not only the climax of his story, it's the climax of all of creation's story, and that's also why it is the hope for our story. It's the hope for our story because it makes a promise. It promises that God will do the same kind of big reveal in our lives, and there's a great picture of that in the second half of our passage, when Jesus meets Mary Magdalene. Look at verses 11 through 16 with me.

Speaker 1:

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb and as she wept she stopped to look into the tomb. She saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one of the head and one of the feet. They said to her woman why of the feet? And they said to her woman why are you weeping? And she said to them they've taken away my Lord. I don't know where they've laid him. Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was him. Jesus said to her woman why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him sir, if are you weeping, whom are you seeking? I was opposing him to be the gardener. She said to him sir, if you've carried him away, tell me where you've laid him and I will take him away. Jesus said to her Mary. She turned and she said to him in Aramaic, rabboni, which means teacher.

Speaker 1:

We don't know much about Mary Magdalene. She's not mentioned very much in all the gospels. In in john she's only mentioned one other time as being one of the witnesses of the crucifixion, and so there's the sense in which mary is just not a very significant player in this story. And, and in fact, really the only thing that we do know about her we see in the other Gospels, and it says that she's described very simply she's called a woman from whom Jesus cast out seven demons. So what's her story? What was she like? How did she make a living? Does she have a family? We don't know. We don't know any of this. But we do know that her life was largely marked by being severely disturbed mentally, emotionally, spiritually and that it must have been just absolutely terrible. And we get the sense from the scenes where they mention her that she kind of had a lonely life and you can imagine she doesn't really fit into society. She has very serious problems and things that she's dealing with.

Speaker 1:

So you can imagine what it must have been like for Mary Magdalene. She doesn't imagine you are her. You don't feel very significant in this world. You deal constantly with very deep, dark things affecting your life. It does not seem like your story is going in any kind of a positive direction and then suddenly you meet Jesus and he frees her. And it must have been like living under storm clouds your whole life and the clouds part and you see sunlight for the first time and then imagine you've had this glimpse of sunlight and it is taken away.

Speaker 1:

This is Mary Magdalene's story and I can't imagine how crushing it must have been when Jesus, the one that changed her life, probably the only one who ever saw her, the only one who ever gave her any hope that her story was going to be different, died. Can you imagine that Everything is ruined, everything is dark, there is no hope. And then, outside the tomb, jesus meets her again. And then, outside the tomb, jesus meets her again and she doesn't recognize him at first. How could she imagine how scrambled your brain has got to be with that much grief and sadness? The only thing she can do is just stand and look at the empty tomb and cry. And she sees Jesus and in what is, I think, the most tender moment in the whole Bible, he says one word to her. He says Mary and she sees him. And again her story is completely changed.

Speaker 1:

Friends, jesus' resurrection is the hope for our stories, if for no other reason than we see the way that God writes stories. Think about how Jesus' story went. It seemed like it was going in one direction. It seemed like this is good, this is promising, and then, all of a sudden, everything seems lost, until it was revealed that no, actually God was in control the whole time and he had a very good plan, better than we could have imagined.

Speaker 1:

It's like a heist movie, but here's the deal, you know it's. I don't think it's like a rom-com. It's not the kind of movie where things are kind of trucking along and then there's a big conflict but we overcome our problems and the couple ends up together in the end. No, or you know, as much as I love these kinds of stories, it's not like you know, epic fantasy, where the heroes are overcoming adversity and getting stronger and growing and changing and then finally they beat the bad guy. No, that's not what the story's like. Finally they beat the bad guy. No, that's not what the story's like.

Speaker 1:

No, jesus' story is the one where he let himself lose, where he let himself be destroyed, one of those stories where, just as everything seemed lost, all of a sudden we take a step back. We see that there was a plan all along. They talk about this all over the Bible. Paul in Romans 8 says we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. Or there's this incredible scene in the Old Testament Joseph is talking to his brothers who had literally sold him into slavery, and he says to them you know, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good To bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today. You see, this is the kind of story that God writes. These are the kinds of stories he writes, the kinds of stories where it seems like evil is won, where there's that moment where you think there is no way, there's no way this is going to be redeemed. And then he does, and then it turns out he was in control the whole time, and here's the deal.

Speaker 1:

I wonder how many of us this morning are in that part of our story. I wonder how many of us are in that scene where we look around and we say, yep, this is it. The plane has gone awry, everything is falling apart, everything is crumbling around us. If that's you, I want you to hear this. Jesus' resurrection is the hope for your story too, because, just like Mary Magdalene, who thought that she'd lost everything just as soon as she'd gotten it, jesus' resurrection will redeem your story, because his resurrection shows us that death is not the end of the story for those who are united with Christ. And, more importantly, it shows us that those things that it seems like are so bad and terrible, the things that the enemy intended for evil, jesus intends for good. It shows us that sin, that chaos, death, these things do not have the last word. Jesus does. I'm going to end with this.

Speaker 1:

Over the course of this series, we've kept asking this question who is Jesus and what is he about? Friends, this is it. When Jesus was asked that question, his answer was come and see. And friends, this is it. The invitation is still the same Come and see. Because here in this passage, we see the answer to the question who is Jesus? Just what Mary said at the end. The question who is Jesus? Just what Mary said at the end. She said I have seen the Lord. Who is Jesus? He's the risen Lord. What is Jesus about? It's about resurrection, life. Would you pray with me?