Embracing Redemption: The Transformative Power of Easter

I have selected 20 spiritually significant quotes from the sermon transcript, each between 50 and 125 words, and included the starting timestamp in hh:mm:ss format:

The hallmark of every western movie is a poster that says wanted. Often during the movie, someone will show up and pull out a folded piece of paper and they will unwrap that paper so gently with words stamped across saying wanted dead or alive and often with a large cash prize that is attached. They'll be convinced that whoever is on that piece of paper who, by the way, could be any single person on the face of the planet happens to be the cowboy that is standing in front of them. [00:00:20]

Being wanted means being on the run. It means ducking in and out of shadows, being afraid that someone will soon recognize you and turn you into the authorities. You are living on the run, doing everything you can do to delay the inevitable, avoid the impending confrontation. Being wanted means that you can never ever be yourself again. [00:02:44]

Easter morning is a wanted notice that has been issued for you and me. As Joshua just read for us in just a few minutes ago, the account of the resurrection morning has the women going to the tomb with spices, and yet they return from that tomb with the unbelievable news that Jesus Christ is alive. The women were not sharing something that was hearsay; they had seen for themselves the empty tomb. [00:04:35]

So you can imagine what was going on in Peter's mind when he's told Jesus is looking for him. This was scary and disorienting news, not because Jesus is the head of a crime family and is looking to exact revenge on him, but because Peter knew that a few days ago he had betrayed the one person in the world that did not deserve to be betrayed. [00:06:40]

And now Jesus is looking for Peter. That was going to be bad. Peter's blood must have run cold as the women mentioned his name and singled him out in particular. I don't know about you, how would you have felt? What would have gone through your mind and maybe your heart as the women say to you, "Tim, Jesus is looking for you." [00:08:52]

Jesus had been looking for Peter not to condemn him but to redeem him, and I don't think that had crossed Peter's mind. Neither do we. We often assume that God is out looking for us, and it cannot be good news. Our first response is to avoid the encounter altogether. We will do anything we can to postpone that conversation with Jesus. [00:09:41]

Peter knew that if Jesus had a fistful of wanted posters in his hand when he left the tomb that morning, surely it had to be a long, long, long list of people that he needed to bring to justice. Pilate's name would have been on it, the people that shouted "Crucify him!" would have been on it, the religious leaders' names would have been on that list, and of course, Peter who betrayed him. [00:11:13]

But wait a minute, my name would have been on that list. In fact, all of our names would have been on that list. Our faces would have been stamped across that list with the word wanted, and Jesus would not have quit until he found you, until he found me. Because here's the thing, Easter is not the end; it is just the beginning. [00:11:44]

Jesus is alive, and he's waiting on the road just ahead of us. He is waiting in this very place not to catch you and condemn you and say, "Aha, finally." Rather, to redeem you. His arms are stretched out wide, no longer on the wooden cross anymore, but this time they're stretched out wide as an eternal invitation to all that will come. [00:12:19]

Good news, Jesus is looking for you. John the Apostle tells us that when Mary found Jesus after he mistook him for a gardener, he tried to hold on to him as if not to let him get away ever again. And Jesus said this to her, "Do not hold on to me, for I am yet ascended to the Father. Instead, go to my brothers and sisters and tell them I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." [00:13:07]

Jesus comes back, and the first people he's looking for are those who turned their backs on him in this hour of need. And not only that, he does not call them deserters, spineless chicken men, betrayers. He calls them my brothers because he loves the people that we would hate, those that have betrayed us, those that we may have written off or unfriended or canceled. [00:13:46]

Annie Lamott says, "You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do." Let's flip that around and say it this way: you can safely assume that God is recreating you in his image when you love all the ones that God loves. And guess who God loves? Everybody. [00:15:10]

The women went looking for a dead Jesus that day. What they didn't realize was two things: one is that he was no longer dead; he was alive just as he had said. But two, that they had not, in fact, believed the promise he had said to them in Luke 18:31-33, one of many accounts. [00:16:20]

They went looking for a broken, defeated, dead, and crucified Jesus, but what they found was that the stone had been rolled away. What they found was an empty tomb. What they found were angels attesting to his absence from the land of the dead. What they found were his folded clothes, which signaled in the land of carpentry that his work was complete. [00:17:26]

What they found was the victorious, living, resurrected, and glorified Son of God. He was not dead. Amen. They went searching for him, the women to embalm him, and the disciples came to see for themselves if he was indeed alive. What they found was that he was the one that had been looking for them since the foundations of the world. [00:17:55]

The entire story of the Bible is the account of a God that is looking, desperately looking for us. The account of the children of Israel in bondage and God sending a redeemer in the name of Moses is a foreshadowing of a God that is always looking. The account of the prophets, the account of the judges, all the way into the New Testament to the last trumpet in the book of Revelations when he comes. [00:19:02]

He said to the disciples, "You did not choose me; I chose you. You may think it's you who's searching for him; he has been searching for you." They came ashamed, sorrowful, defeated, afraid, and lacking purpose, only to be greeted with joy, emboldened, given a new sense of identity as part of the eternal family of God. [00:19:25]

At some point, the doubt, the fear, and the confusion of the apostles gave way to a deep-seated conviction that led these men and women to go tell the good news to the point that many of them were killed for their testimony of faith. So I believe the belief of the women who were the first evangelists and first proclaimers of the good news. [00:21:38]

I believe the four accounts of the gospel writers who give us four consistent accounts of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That plus the account of more than 500 people who saw him alive on a single account attesting to the fact that Jesus is not in the grave, but he is alive. [00:22:29]

And so with readers and believers around the world, I join that Easter chorus, and I hope you join too in saying, "Christ is risen, and he is risen indeed." Praise be to God. [00:22:49]