Easter Sunday: The Narrow Gate - Luke 24:1-12 - Walt Quick

Friends, how many of you are tired, striving, straining, flailing? How many of you are tired of wondering, am I enough? Will I be enough? Am I lovable? Have I succeeded enough? Have I done enough? How many of you are tired of constantly coming up against a wall and just saying, I just might not be cut out for this world because everything I try to do just falls apart. So what hope do I even have? Jesus says, come to me all you who are weary, and I will give you rest. [00:29:29] (48 seconds)  #RestForTheWeary

But the Christian story asks us, why do you look for life in places that will only bring you death? Why are you looking for the living among the dead? But here's the amazing twist. The women came to the tomb that morning expecting to find death, and the miracle of the first Easter was that there is no death to be found. It was the the proclamation of new life, the evidence of new life, the hope of new life. They thought they were coming to a tomb where death was the final word, but instead life had exploded out of it. [00:19:21] (40 seconds)  #LifeNotDeath

And what do you think his first words were to them after defeating death itself? I'm back. I told you. I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed. You guys are the worst friends ever. No. Jesus' very first words to the men who had utterly abandoned him just a few hours, few days earlier were this, peace be with you. Peace. This word for peace doesn't simply mean an absence of conflict, it means wholeness. Like a broken bone that has been set right and mended back together. [00:26:59] (53 seconds)  #ResurrectionPeace

It's a life that doesn't let unresolved relationships, conflicted relationships be the last word. It's life that points towards reconciliation and restoration. This is a life in which sickness and death and despair themselves are not the end. But there is hope that Jesus could conquer even death itself. Is that not the life that so many of us yearn for? Jesus famously said, I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live even though they die, and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this? [00:22:21] (46 seconds)  #ResurrectionAndLife

as a result of all the choices we made, all the things we had put our hopes in that failed us, all of the mistakes we made in our lives. He sees us sinking. Spiritual, relational, and physical death. And he jumps in after us. Jesus steps in to the deepest places of human pain, and failure, and death, and to bring us out to life. Jesus dove into the tomb because that's where we were. And you go after what you love. But for Jesus, the tomb was not the end point. The tomb was just the beginning. [00:24:26] (59 seconds)  #JesusDivesIn

Here's the irony of our lives that the Christian story points out. All too often, we spend our whole lives looking for things that will give us life, meaning and purpose. Only they don't. They ultimately end up in death and destruction. As the song says, we go looking for love in all the wrong places. And many of us think that this is the only way to do it. This is the the only way to live life is to pursue these things that we hope won't let us down, but they do. [00:18:47] (34 seconds)  #SearchingWrongPlaces

And perhaps Jesus is inviting you to wake up to the reality of his full life today. Friends, this is the hope of Easter, That we are loved. That God is with us in the darkest of moments, and that Jesus gives us the kind of life that will satisfy the kind of life that we have been created to be, whole, full, abundant life, resurrection life with him and his people forever. [00:32:26] (39 seconds)  #EasterHope

Jesus has not come just to give us some, like, pro tips, some words of wisdom, some rules to live by. Jesus has come to bring us out of death itself. When I was a kid, I remember walking with my dad along this pier over a body of water and I remember asking him, like, hey dad, if I fell in, would you jump after me? And he's like, yes, I I would. And I said, okay. What if you were wearing a tuxedo? [00:23:07] (37 seconds)  #HeWouldJumpForYou