Philippians chapter 2 verses 1 to 11. Therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any come from His love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, rather in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage.
Rather, He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven, on on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledged that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. John 20. Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb, and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.
So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, they have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don't know where they put Him. So Peter and the other disciples started for the tomb, both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of Lin and lying there, but did not go in. Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb.
He saw the strips of Lin and lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus' head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. Finally, the other disciple who had reached the tomb first also went inside. He saw and believed.
They still did not understand from scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to where they were staying. Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
They asked her, woman, why are you crying? They have taken my Lord away. She said, I don't know where they put Him. At this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
He asked her, woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for? Thinking he was the gardener, she said, sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him and I will get him. Jesus said to her, Mary.
She turned towards him and cried out in Aramaic, Rabone, which means teacher. Jesus said, do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news.
I have seen the Lord and she told them that he had said these things to her. On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you. After he said this, he showed them his hands and side that disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again, Jesus said, peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. And with that, he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone since they are forgiven, if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. Thomas, also known as Didymus, was not with the disciples when Jesus came, so the other disciples told him, we have seen the Lord.
But he said to them, unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, I put my hand into his side, I will not believe. A week later, his disciples were in the house again and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, put your finger here, see my hands, reach out your hand and put it into my side, stop doubting and believe.
Thomas said to him, my Lord and my God. Jesus told him, because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet who believed. Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not recorded in this book.
But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Thank you, Jane.
Let's pray. Let's pray. Father, as the Psalmist says, show me your ways, Lord. Teach me your paths.
Guide me in your truth and teach me for you. I guide my Savior and my hope is in you all day long. God's people said. Amen.
The C.S. Lewis wrote the famous Chronicles of Narnia, the Chronicles of Narnia in which four children in London are shown a brand new world, Narnia, a world in which the true King Aslan reigns and evil is destroyed where the world is eventually put to ruts. And the door to that world, the door to Narnia, I was, as you know, a wardrobe, a wardrobe. I quote, Lucy pushed the soft fold to the coat to side and found herself stepping not under the floor of the wardrobe, but into a wood.
Alice Demigra in his biography on C.S. Lewis argues that Lewis consistently presents the everyday world as porous in between the world you live in and the transcendent. That ordinary reality can sometimes open up into a deeper one, the ordinary as a place where the miraculous can happen, where God acts. You have to go to the moon, cue Artemis, comment.
But in the ordinary, and for Lewis, the wardrobe is the clearest expression that transcendence can be hidden among the familiar. I believe that the garden tomb of Jesus Christ on that first end of the day is such a door to a new life for all humankind, a kind of window you walk through into new life, not the actual tomb, not the one that you might be able to visit today and no one really knows where it is, you know, their arguments. But because on that first Easter morning it did not contain the body of Jesus Christ, it did not contain the body of Jesus Christ. And the body could be procured either, which would have stopped the movement and it tracks something everyone wanted to do as Mary discovered early on the first day of the week while it was still dark.
She went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. Now knowing what happened that day, and I believe, well, I know, I mean, something happened that day. I mean, I've got all my reels and they come up, I can even see the atheist saying something happened that day. But knowing what happened that day then can and will change your life because it changes everything.
And it might even allow you this evening to step into that, this wardrobe, in order to crown him the Lord of life. The only term of Jesus is the testimony that Jesus is alive. The death could not hold him down, that sin did not win the day, that governments, important as they are, and policy is important as it may be, are infinitely smaller than God. And every despot, infinitely smaller than Jesus Christ as Lord, that life, not death, is the mode in which God operates, that God loves me, that my sins are forgiven, that I can live in joy, that hope can be, that which governs my life, not the spear.
I believe that when you look closely into that empty tomb as a door-eyed God, it answers the deepest questions a human being can ask. For example, is there meaning in the universe? Yes, there is. Does evil win?
No, it doesn't. You can't say that without God. You know, it's just wishful thinking without God. Will the meek inherit the earth?
The answer is yes. Is God interested in matter? Stuff, things, creation, yes. Will there be a new kind of physics, a better kind of physics?
One we can barely understand now when you see him walking through doors. The answer is yes. Is grinding politics all there is? No.
Is there a path through suffering? Yes. Is death the ultimate end? Yes.
Can I be forgiven? Yes. Does God love me despite all the muck in my life? Yes.
Yes. Yes. Yes. The resurrection is God's yes to life.
So I stack my life on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I stack my life on it. When I was 18, I chose who to live for and therefore who to die for. Jesus is my first love, frail as I can be in that love.
But I was 18 when I chose to crown him Lord of my life. Not because I personally saw the empty tomb. Of course I didn't. But rather than I believe the testimony of the eyewitnesses, that's how John frames it.
They saw Jesus and were touched by God or rather they touched God. And I believe them. So I have been touched by God in the present. He's a holy spirit.
I have life in his name. I think that's what's meant by these words to believe in Thomas. He was only doubting for about a week. Jesus told him, because you've seen me, right?
Touch my hands, reach out. My side. Because you've seen me, you have believed. I've blessed others who have not seen.
I count myself among them. And yet I've believed. I count myself among them. Why?
Not because of blind faith. That's how that's often framed. But rather because I believe the testimony, which is the very next verse, Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not recorded in this book. John says I could have recorded lots more.
But the stuff I did record, they're written that you may believe that Jesus is the eternal Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. This is the gospel of the Lord. So I stake my life on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And I know everybody you can never know until you get there.
But I do believe that if I was forced to give up the resurrection, if I was forced to give up my first love, Jesus, if I was forced to give up the resurrection on the pain of prison or death, I believe, I hope, I believe I would choose to go to my death every time. By the way, it's happening all over the world today. Which means by the way that I cannot be captain of my soul. I cannot be captain of my soul.
I also believe that the resurrection is the lens by which I view everything. The lens God gives me to view everything. Jesus is who I am. Again, famously, Lewis, I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Son has risen.
Not only because I see it, the Son Christianity, but because by it I see everything else. And I do wonder if the same could be said of the resurrection by it. I see everything else. And if this is what Paul means in Ephesians 1 when he says, I pray that the eyes of your heart, who knew the heart and eyes.
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, opened, in order that you may know the hope to which is called you. And his incomparably great power for us who believe that power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead at work in you. By the way, I think that verse 20 there, I think that's the only, I've got to test this. I think it's the only verse in Scripture that gives you an insight into what happened between Saturday and very early in the morning on Sunday.
There's no record of it. There's just later in the term, very early, the stones rolled away. That verse, the mighty strength, God exerted, the Father exerted when he raised his son, the Christ from the dead. In any case, may the eyes of your heart be opened.
So let me unpack this power now. The weekend that Jesus died and rose tells a story, and it's the story of humanity. It's the story of God. It's woven together in the life of Jesus, and it's my story.
It's why I take red and white. Because if you look again at Good Friday, well look again, and imagine for a moment that there was no commentary. Imagine you were there when they could survive, my Lord. But there was no commentary.
They're just looking at the events itself. There's no inside knowledge, no knowledge of what is coming next. There's no gospel of John to read alongside of it. That's what we have.
We have a gospel of John to read alongside the events. Because you read the gospel of John and pack a Bible and read it. You'll see that the gospel of John is just thick with irony. And all that thick irony is meant to lead you to faith.
Have a read of it. Imagine you don't even have the prophets who spoke with the resurrection. What do you see? You see a lot of blood.
You see a man arrested. You see a sham trial, a weak governor, a manipulated crowd. You see beating and mocking. You see a crown of thorns, a purple robe, and the cry, Hey, oh, King of the Jews.
It's warm mockery. And then of course you see a cross, you see a very large nails that can pierce bones and a bloody death. And if you stay on that track, in other words, you just open your eyes. You know, the eyes of your head, not the eyes of your heart.
These ones. That's all you've got to go on. And by the way, people live their lives as though that's all they have to go on. As though it's a virtue.
If you stay on that track with just your eyes open, the conclusion is obvious. This is in many ways of life as we know. There's a drive to life, but there's also a culture of death. And quite frankly, it wins in the end.
I read this stunning book on King's of England called Unruly. David Mitchell is a comedian. And he said during the Black Death, it seemed like death was more prevalent. He said, of course it was an illusion.
Death was then and is today exactly the same. One for one. Never changed. One for one.
You see the death of Jesus and you say, this is how the world works and it can't be resisted. The bullies win. They always win. This man is finished.
The movement is over. The authorities thought that the movement in the bud. Pilate thought he'd solved the problem. The disciples did not expect a resurrection.
The spite being told. I mean, who would? The women went to the tomb expecting to embalm a body. So on the visible track, this is just another failed life.
One for one. Another crushed hope. Another dead end. And we know that track, the track of dead ends, the culture of death, because we know suffering and bullying and sin and injustice and loss.
I do love this cartoon from Michael Loonig that I put up every two years in the hope that you'll forget. Look at that. He says the Roman soldier. Brilliant.
He killed the leader and you nipped the whole movement in the bud. And yet here you are. And yet here you are. John will not let you stay there with your mere eyes, because running underneath everything is another track, a divine one.
And you begin to see it with the eyes of your heart when they're opened. The crown of thorns is not mere mockery. It's a coronation. Just not like any coronation you've seen.
It's part of why I believe it, by the way, because if every coronation is exactly the same, a thing of beauty to express power. And the world just keeps going on with this culture of death. I need to find some other path. It's crown of thorns.
It's robe. It's not mere humiliation. It is royal clothing. The sign above his head is not just a joke.
It's the truth. The cross therefore is not defeat. It is in fact a throne. And Jesus says, it is finished.
It didn't mean I'm finished. But rather the work is finished. Sin dealt with judgment absorbed under barrier to God removed. So on the visible track with just your eyes, death, on the hidden track, the eyes of your heart, life.
Greg Sheridan talked about the cross of Jesus Christ being a whole stack of death. And he says in the Australian yesterday, he said, there's a paradox in Christian belief. Christianity hates death. We're all about the death of Jesus.
But it hates death. It becomes the defeat of death. That's the message of Easter. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians in Corinth, the Christians in Corinth, proclaims the last enemy to be destroyed is death.
It wasn't Harry Potter. It was the Bible. So we don't just celebrate Easter. We live Easter.
We live it. God chose Mary Magdalene to be the first witness of the resurrection. She's not simply present. At the resurrection, she's entrusted with the resurrection.
The reason Jesus appears to her, speaks her name, and then sends her to the others. As some of us heard about a month ago from this pulpit in the morning, the amazing Dr. Jennifer Power-McNup, she wrote, Mary Magdalene stands at the centre of the resurrection story as its first witness and its first preacher. At first Mary weeps, still on the visible track, until he says her name, Mary.
And maybe he's saying your name tonight. And everything changes. Mary with her mucky past, like your mucky past, like mine, her life of following Jesus, she crowns him the Lord of life. So can you.
We're about to see in a moment's time Matthew Bridges, crown him the Lord of life who triumphed over the grave and rose victorious in the strife for those he came to say. That's it, by the way. That's the message in a nutshell. I'm more excited than this, but that's good to start.
He tells us what to do, crown him the Lord of life, the Lord of life. It tells us what he did. He triumphed over the grave, how he did it, and rose victorious in the strife, the muck. And he tells us who he did it for, for those he came to save.
All rights in 2 Timothy 1 verse 9, he writes, he saved us and called us to a holy life. He saved us, not because of anything we have done. That's important, by the way, if you see yourself as a moral person, not because of anything we've done, but because of his own purpose and grace. This is divine love, and it has an eternal origin.
Look at this. This grace was given in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but has now been revealed through the appearing, the door, the wardrobe of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who has destroyed death and brought life and immortality to life through the gospel. This is the good news. It is the biggest victory there can be.
The New York Times columnist Ross Douthat at the end of his book, Believed. He asked his readers, life is short and death is certain, one for one. And what account would you give of yourself if the believers turned out to have been right or long that you took pointlessness for granted in a world shot through with signs of meaning and design, that you took pointlessness for granted in a world shot through, it's porous, the signs of meaning and design. Ultimate sign of meaning and design is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
But it needs to be true. Despite how good the message is, how much the message has shaped the world and has shaped the world, Greg Sheridan again, Easter only really counts if it's true, if Jesus actually rose from the dead and lives forever with his father in heaven, waiting to welcome us, if it's not actually true, if Jesus didn't rise from the dead in his body, I'd rather be at the races. He'd drink to be married before tomorrow we die. So this evening I ask, what if it's all true?
And I'd like to invite you to ask that question quietly now and in your own heart. What if it's true? What if the resurrection of Jesus isn't just a religious quirk for religious people, separated off from life or a debating point for board clergy, there's plenty of them. Or even the undeniable beginning of a world changing movement, it may be those things, but what if it's more?
What if the resurrection of Jesus is not for those who are afraid of the dark, as Richard Dawkins says, but rather hope for those who are drawn to the light? What if the resurrection of Jesus is the hope of the world? So this evening I invite you to crown Jesus the Lord of life, to see the empty tomb of Jesus and step through the folds of the cloth, step into the kingdom of God and to crown him Lord of your life. And we do that by prayer and even in a while taking the bread and wine.
So would you now pray with me? We're going to sing to the moment, awake my soul and sing of him who died for thee and hail him as thy matchless king through all eternity. Lord Jesus, eternal son of the eternal Father, we worship you, we give you thanks, we praise you for your glory, you take away the sins of the world, you're the Lamb of God, you take away my sin. And so this evening I follow you.
Amen.