SERMON | John 20:1-18 | IN AWE OF GRACE - Easter Sunday "The End that Wasn't" by Rev. Joseph Sanford at Sellersburg United Methodist Church in Sellersburg, Indiana.

Sellersburg United Methodist Church Sermon Podcast

SERMON | John 20:1-18 | IN AWE OF GRACE - Easter Sunday "The End That Wasn't" by Rev. Joseph Sanford at Sellersburg United Methodist Church in Sellersburg, Indiana. JOHN 20:1-18 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark… The WORD of God moves again…and new life bursts forth… He was mistaken for the gardener…a throwback to the first humans… but he wasn’t like any other human who had come before… And then, Jesus says her name… “Mary!” She understands who he is, but he is different. Then Jesus says, “Go tell my brothers…” The disciples had become Jesus’ friends a few nights ago…and now are brothers. And then we hear the good news from Jesus himself to Mary: I’m going to my Father is your Father, my God is your God. The separation of humanity to God has been healed, but in a way that cannot be explained in a Sunday morning sermon. What I CAN tell you is John is making it clear a new creation began that first Easter morning. The first week…all 7 days…had come and gone… and a new week has begun. Out of the darkness sprung forth the dawning of the new week… the new creation… the new humanity perfected in Jesus. Disciples have become more than followers… We have become more than friends… We have become family with God once more. NOW…this is GOOD NEWS. This is literally, the GOOD NEWS. Jesus is Risen. If Jesus is risen, then everything he taught and said is vindicated by God. Jesus rose in a way totally different than Lazarus. Lazarus rose back into a life that would face death. He had to be set free from his tomb by others and unwrapped and unbound by others. Jesus, as the details are told, needed no one to unwrap and unbind him. His rising is not to a life under the rule of death, but of a life that is directly connected with God in what he calls “ascension.” If you are ready to trust in God’s new creation ushered in through Jesus Christ, then know the time is now. You may feel that things have reached an end for you… that you’ve encountered chaos, darkness, and void in your relationships or life… you may feel your hope has ended… you may believe the news cycle and think things are only getting worse… Then, my dear friend, hear the good news… Jesus is Risen! Death holds no power. Darkness is defeated. Chaos and void are on their way out by the power of God’s WORD through whom all things have come into being in a new way. What ended in that tomb on the 6th day and lay still on the 7th… became a new beginning of an entirely different kind… Death did not have the final word then… and it doesn’t now.