Slide 1
You can be completely familiar with something… and still not really see it.

Slide 2
What if Jesus is so familiar that many people have stopped really seeing Him?

Slide 3
John 20:1-14
Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. 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. Then the disciples went back to their homes.
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 

Slide 4
We rarely see what we are no longer expecting to see.

Slide 5
Sometimes we reduce Jesus to who we’ve already decided He is.

Slide 6
Jesus is just a moral example.
He’s here to teach us how to be a better person.

Slide 7
Jesus is just a comforting idea.
He’s there when life gets hard. 

Slide 8
Jesus is just tradition.
He’s family history. He’s Christmas and Easter.

Slide 9
Jesus is just inspiration.
A symbol of hope. A symbol of sacrifice. A symbol of love.

Slide 10
He comforts me but doesn’t confront me.
Forgives me but doesn’t rule me.
He helps me but doesn’t command me.
Encourages me but doesn’t call me to repent.

Slide 11
But Easter will not let us keep a reduced Jesus.

Slide 12
Easter does not present Jesus as:
– A life coach
– A mascot
– A symbol
– A religious accessory

Slide 13
Easter presents Jesus as the crucified and risen Son of God.

Slide 14
Jesus is alive
Jesus is victorious
Jesus is personal
Jesus is Lord

Slide 15
We miss Him because familiarity can create the illusion of understanding.

Slide 16
You can stand at the tomb, weeping, looking straight at Jesus… and not realize it is Jesus.

Slide 17
John 20:15-16
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 you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). 

Slide 18
Mary saw Him when He called her by name.

Slide 19
Christianity is not about people clawing their way to God through effort, morality, or religious familiarity.

Slide 20
Christianity is about the risen Christ revealing Himself to blind, broken, grieving, confused people.

Slide 21
A risen Jesus will not stay in the background.

Slide 22
Isaiah 61:3
To those who have sorrow in Zion I will give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes. I will give them the oil of joy instead of sorrow, and a spirit of praise instead of a spirit of no hope.

Have you ever had one of those moments where somebody points something out to you, something that has been really familiar and you’ve seen it a whole lot of times, but all of a sudden when they point something out to you, you have a light bulb moment and you see it in a way that you had never seen it before. Maybe it’s one of those pictures where you look at the picture and it can actually be two things at the same time. And you see one thing and then they point out to you that it can actually be this other thing. Or, or maybe it, it is with some type of a logo that you’ve seen that you didn’t know that the logo had some type of a hidden message. For me, that was true with the FedEx logo. I’d gone my entire life, I’d seen thousands upon thousands upon thousands of the FedEx logo.

I’d seen it on trucks, I’d seen it on packages. And then somebody points out to me, well, do you see the arrow in the FedEx logo? And I said, I don’t know what you’re talking about. The, the arrow, which represents what they do, they are a delivery company. They point out the arrow. And once you see it, it’s like, oh, how, how had I never seen that before? And here’s the crazy thing, is once it was pointed out to me, now every time I see a FedEx truck, the thing that my mind, my eyes are drawn to is in fact the era. It’s been there the whole time. And yet somehow I had missed it. And maybe the reason that it was so hard to see is because it had become so familiar to me. You see, you can be completely familiar with something and still not really see it.

I had seen that thousands upon thousands of times and mist the arrow. And I think that the same thing can be true about Easter. Same thing can be true about the person of Jesus. That the Jesus is familiar. That, that everybody in this room has heard about Jesus. That, that, as a matter of fact, today, all over the world testimony that over 2 billion people will celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. So, so Jesus is very familiar. Our our whole calendar is wrapped around the person of Jesus. They, they, you know the story when we come at Christmas and, and we talk about him being born in Bethlehem, born in a manger. And probably, you know, a lot of his teachings, so much of our culture, a lot of things that we value are, are based off of the teachings of Jesus. And then, you know that he died on the cross and then you know that he rose from the dead.

But what if Jesus is so familiar that many people have stopped really seeing him? Now what if you’ve just heard so much about it that he’s familiar, but there’s a difference between being familiar and being personal. And so my prayer for us today is that we can experience the personal part of Jesus. And if you think, well, that just seems crazy. It seems crazy that, that somebody could know about Jesus, but still somehow miss the point of Jesus. But that’s exactly what happened on the very first Easter, on resurrection Sunday, when, when Jesus rises from the dead. And when we read the account of what happens at the tomb, the people, the very closest to Jesus, the most familiar with Jesus, in fact, miss him. If you’ve got a Bible turn, we meet to John chapter 20. John chapter 20. We’re gonna start in verse one.

Here’s what it says. Now, on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, and while it was still dark and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. Now, now pause for a moment. ’cause I, I think it’s interesting that John points out the fact that it’s dark. I think he’s doing something for our mood more than just pointing out the fact that literally outside it was dark. The sun hadn’t come up yet. But, but he’s trying to help us to understand that, that Mary is grieving, it’s dark on the outside, but for her it’s also dark on the inside. And sometimes when we are grieving, it makes us, makes it more difficult for us to see clearly. Verse two. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, they have taken the Lord out of the tomb.

We do not know where they have laid him. So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. Both of them were running together, but the cloths lying there excuse me. But the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first and stooping to look in. He saw the linen cloths lying there. He did not go in. Then Simon Peter came following him and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloth lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloth, but folded up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in and saw and believed for as yet they did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to their homes. But Mary said weeping outside the tomb, as she wept, she stooped to look into the tomb.

She saw two angels in whites sitting where the body of Jesus had laid one of the head. And one of the feet, they said to, to her woman, why are you weeping? She said to them, they have taken away, my Lord, I do not know where they have laid him. Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. That’s the power of the resurrection story. And all around the world today in churches just like this one, there are gonna be pastors that stand up in front of congregations and they proclaim that he has rid risen, and congregations will respond with He has risen in Jesus. Let’s try it again. He has risen, he’s risen the key, because we remember back to that first Easter morning, the power when Jesus comes back to life. And yet Mary who knew Jesus had followed Jesus.

And Mary scripture tells us had been possessed by seven demons. And then Jesus heals her. And then she spends the next few years following Jesus and hearing his teachings that she’s there at the cross, that she’s very familiar with Jesus. And yet Jesus rises from the dead. It says that he’s standing right in front of her, and she does not know that it’s him. He’s not distant, he’s not far off. He is present. He is alive. He is right there. And she misses him. Why? It’s because we rarely see what we are no longer expecting to see that Mary in her mind, she had watched Jesus die. She didn’t have a concept of an alive Jesus. She expected Jesus to be dead. That’s why she was there. And so when she sees in a alive Jesus, in her mind, she just can’t wrap her mind around that concept.

And oftentimes, we do the same thing that with Jesus we have preconceived ideas, preconceived expectations of who we have predecided Jesus is. And sometimes we reduce Jesus to who we’ve already decided that he is. Now, for example, sometimes we say, well, Jesus is just a moral example. Like that’s who Jesus is. Maybe you’re coming in here today and, and you’ve heard a lot about Jesus, and it’s really hard for you to wrap your mind around all the teachings that the church says about Jesus, that he died and rose from the dead. And and so you say, well, well, okay, I don’t know that I can buy into that, but I can buy into the idea that well, he’s, he’s a really great moral example that he’s here to teach us and, and helps us to be a better person. Or maybe your concept of Jesus is that he’s just a comforting idea that, that if we go through difficult seasons or we’re sad, that that’s a good moment to really think about Jesus.

That, that he’s there when life gets hard. Or maybe your concept is that, well, Jesus is really just tradition. Maybe I believed it when I was a kid, but, but now I’ve kind of moved on from things like that. But, but he, he’s good family history, that he’s Christmas, he’s Easter. We like to celebrate together. Or maybe you think of Jesus as just inspiration that, okay, well, he’s an inspirational figure. He’s a symbol of hope or a symbol of sacrifice, a symbol of love. But, but here’s the challenge is that when we reduce Jesus to, to these preconceived ideas, then it minimizes who he wants to be in our life. So as a result of that, here’s what we do. We say, okay, well, Jesus, he comforts me. But, but I don’t want him to confront me or, or I want him to forgive me, but I don’t want him to rule me or, or I want him to help me.

But I don’t want him to command me. I want him to encourage me. But but don’t, don’t call me to repent. And that’s, that’s a little stepping on my toes. And so we, we try to compartmentalize Jesus, Jesus, who has become so familiar in the concept of Jesus that we try and put him into a nice little package. But Easter will not let us keep a reduced Jesus. And the reason why is because he has risen. Yeah, he has risen Jesus. He has risen. He is risen. Jesus. You see, here’s the thing. When we look at scripture and we really look through who Jesus is and who the Easter story presents Jesus to be, Easter will not let us keep a reduced Jesus. Because scripture, the story of Easter does not present Jesus as simply a life coach. It doesn’t present him as simply something like a mascot or someone like a symbol or, or someone like a religious accessory that, okay, I’ve got him on my, my necklace or he’s on my bracelet.

That that’s not who Jesus is in the story. Instead, when we look at scripture, Easter presents Jesus as the crucified and risen son of God. And, and that part of the story can make us a little bit uncomfortable because the story of Christianity, the, the story of the gospel is that God, the creator of the universe, steps out of heaven into this earth, lives a perfect life, does not sin. And then he willingly chooses to die on a cross that he is crucified from my sins and your sins, that he didn’t deserve it, but he took our sins upon him on the cross because he loves us. And that’s the part of the story that makes us slightly uncomfortable because we see the justice of God simultaneous to the lovingness of God, that God is both just and loving and he’s not one or the other.

That that concept of justice sometimes makes us a little bit weary because I love justice for other people, but I have a hard time with the idea of justice for myself. A great example is of that is, is that if I am speeding and I get pulled over, I don’t want justice in that moment, like in that moment. I want mercy. I want grace. I want love. I’ve got an explanation for why I happen to be going a little bit fast. I had stuff going on that’s very different than when somebody else gets pulled over. I remember one time I was on the, the toll road and there was a guy behind me, and I was going a little bit above the speed limit. So I, I was going the way I, I was going with the flow of traffic, as we like to say.

And so I was going the right speed, but the guy behind me decided I was not going nearly fast enough. And so they just kept getting closer and closer and closer to my bumper. I mean, he is right on top of me. And then eventually he gets tired of me not going fast enough to the speed that he wants me to go. And so he illegally, ’cause Toll Road has that, the double white line, he illegally flies around me, crosses the double white line, and then he cuts me off to where I have to tap on the brakes to not hit him. And, and have you ever had that happen to you? And you just, there’s a part of you on the inside that, that you just are just all that person. They deserve the worst. That’s the worst of humanity, right? There’s no part of me that’s like, maybe, maybe he’s in a hurry because something bad is happening.

Maybe he’s a heart surgeon and he’s going to say like, that’s not where my mind goes. My mind goes, this person deserves to get arrested right now. Like, that’s, that’s what should happen. And then here’s what happened. Top five moments of my life, about about three minutes later, I’m driving and I see that a police officer has pulled somebody over. And before I can even see the car, I’m just hoping, I’m praying. I’m like, maybe this is the day where someone who deserves justice actually gets justice. And I, I slow down ’cause it was a police officer and I kind of very, very, very casually drive around. And I’m, I’m very intentionally looking in and it is the same car that it tailed me with the same driver. And I shouldn’t have done it. But I waved at that guy <laugh>, and it felt good to see justice done to somebody else.

And so we all agree that justice is right in the right circumstances, but it makes us uncomfortable when we think about justice for ourselves. But that’s what God does. God recognizes that he’s a just God, that wrongdoing results in punishment, that our sin deserves death. So because he’s a just God, he cannot let sin go un punishment because he’s a loving God. Instead of us dying on the cross, he takes our place. But that’s not the end of the Easter story because when we look at the Easter story, something that’s so familiar, it’s, it’s easy for it just to be commonplace. But there’s nothing about Easter that is commonplace because Jesus is alive and Jesus is victorious and Jesus is personal, and Jesus is Lord because he has risen, he is risen. I think one of the most profound parts of the Easter story is the fact that he wants to have this personal relationship with us as he is Lewis, who was this brilliant author, but started out as an atheist.

And actually in his writings is kind of brilliant. He talks about how he didn’t want to become a Christian, but, but intellectually, just the more he sought after God, the more he decided, well, I have to become a Christian. And, and then he has this line that’s a profound line. He says, how would Shakespeare ever meet Macbeth? And for anybody in the room under the age of, I dunno, 40 Shakespeare was an author. And, and Macbeth is a character in one of his stories. And he says, how would Shakespeare ever meet Macbeth? And then he gives this brilliant line. He says he would have to write himself into the story. And that’s what God does, that God writes himself into the story of his creation in order to have a personal relationship with us. You see, here’s the danger of Easter, that we miss him, Jesus.

Because familiarity can create an illusion of understanding. Like I’ve decided, oh, I know the story. I’ve heard the story. I’ve got it. I figured it out. And yet the Easter story tells us this, it gives us this warning that we can stand at the tomb that we can be weeping and looking straight at Jesus and still not realize that it is Jesus. Because that’s exactly what happens with Mary. In verse 15, it says, Jesus said to her, to Mary woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? Supposing him to be the gardener? And now pause for a moment. ’cause There’s this beautiful imagery that John is creating for us at the very beginning of the Bible, that we have God’s creation. It says that, that God is walking with Adam and Eve in the garden, and then you have the fall, you have brokenness.

And now what John is doing is he’s trying in this imagery that they’re in a garden. She mistakes him for the gardener because there’s this new creation. There’s this new earth, there’s this new picture of God redeeming that was, that which was broken and creating something fresh and creating something new. And so when he says that she thought he was the gardener, that there’s some poetry connected to that. And then she says to him, to Jesus, sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him and I will take him away. Jesus said to her, Mary, she turned and said to him, an Aramaic rabbi, which means teacher, it’s fascinating to me. It’s one word, it’s a single word. And everything changes that Mary saw him when he called her by name, the familiar, all of a sudden was very personal, that that’s what God wants with us.

He, he wants something that can become so familiar that we miss it to become personal. The Easter, the story of Easter, the story of Christ crucified and in conquering death is a story for each and every one of us individually. And yet so often we miss it. So often we get the wrong idea of what Christianity is. And let me tell you that Christianity is not, it’s not about people clawing their way to God through effort, morality, or religious familiarity. That’s what oftentimes we reduce it to. We think, okay, well, if I’m gonna be a Christian, I have to do all the right things and I have to eventually accomplish things to get to God. But that’s not the Easter story. Instead, the Easter story is that Christianity is about the risen Christ, revealing himself to blind, broken grieving and confused people because he is risen.

He is risen, risen. He, he, here’s the, the truth of Easter that arisen Jesus. He will not stay in the background that, that he’s a gardener coming in and trying to collect brokenness and redeem it for his glory. There’s a really powerful story. I heard a true story, not just a made up story, true story about the Winchester Cathedral over in England. It was built around the year 1000, 1079 is when they finished it. And then for the next 500 years, they kept adding to it and doing really cool things to it. And then in 1642, England has a civil war, and Winchester was right in the middle of that civil war that, that you had kind of these opposing sides, and geographically it was kind of in the central. And so as a result of that, it ended up being a place that there was lots of battles and lots of fights and lots of war that was happening all around them.

And so the people that were part of that city, they just kind of got caught in the middle of it. And there was this day in December, 1642 where the soldiers ransacked the church. They think that they’re gonna find a whole bunch of loot and and rewards, but there’s nothing in there. And so they get frustrated because they were hoping for gold and they didn’t find gold. And so they ransack the building and there’s this beautiful cathedral wall. It’s the west end wall, and it had this amazing mosaic of different biblical characters and features. And so because those soldiers were upset, they took their muskets and they decided to just shoot out the windows. Here’s the outside picture of that cathedral. So they shot out all the windows. They were f frustrated, they were mad. And so you had the people that lived there, and they were broken hearted because this was the center of their town.

It was beautiful. People came from all around to see it. And so here’s what they did, is that, that when the soldiers weren’t paying attention, they started collecting their broken pieces of glass. All the people that lived in the town, they just started, they, they stowed them away. And so they, each person had just hundreds and hundreds of pieces of broken glass that they had somewhere stowed away in their house. And they, they thought, maybe someday we will get to rebuild that stained glass window. But that someday did not come quickly. The window was not rebuilt for 18 years. And now imagine that you’re in the city and you see the broken stained glass, and probably every day it’s just empty. There’s nothing there. And you’re thinking, oh, oh, I, I have that broken glass and it’s, it’s hidden away in my house, but someday maybe we can rebuild it.

18 years later, finally, the war has subsided. And so they take all their pieces of broken glass and they come together and they have some artisans and artists, and they start piecing it back together. But they said, Hey, there’s no way that we can piece it back together the exact way that it was before. And so instead, they, they just started piecing ’em together wherever they could, broken pieces of glass put together to create something new and create something beautiful. In addition to that, they didn’t have quite enough glass to fix the thing. And so they started breaking their own windows, taking just broken pieces of glass, bringing it to the cathedral, and then the artist went to work. What I love about that story is in so many ways, that story is the story of Easter. It’s the promise for me and you that maybe you feel like a box of broken glass. Maybe it’s been a really long time, maybe it’s been 18 years, and you’ve been looking at the brokenness and you’ve been saying, what am I supposed to do with this?

What am I supposed to do with all these pieces that the life hasn’t gone the way that I hope that it was going to go? But, but look at what God prophesized in the book of Isaiah that we see revealed in the person of Jesus. In Isaiah chapter 61, verse three, it says To those who have sorrow in Zion, I will give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes. I’ll give them the oil of joy instead of sorrow and the spirit of praise instead of a spirit of no hope. But when we hear culturally that phrase beauty from ashes, it’s coming from that verse that the idea of the Easter story is that we see Mary Magdalene, that, that her life was ashes, it was broken. And then we see beauty that comes from it. And we see the Easter story that Jesus eyes on the cross, and that morning it was dark and it was broken, and it seemed hope, hopeless.

And yet Jesus comes back from the dead conquers death, beauty from ashes. And that that Easter story is very familiar to all of us. But, but here’s what God wants, is that he wants it to be personal. And so there’s never been that moment in your life where you say, God, I, I’ve got these broken pieces. I’m not sure what to do with them. The personal side of Easter is God saying, Hey, give them to me and let me redeem it. Let me create something new. Let me heal what you never thought could be heal. We’re gonna be done in just a moment. And when we are done here, here’s what I’d give you a challenge is if you’re in this room, you’re not a Christian. Maybe you’ve come to church your whole life hundreds and hundreds of times, but you’ve never had a moment in your life where you took that next step and you put your faith, your trust into Jesus, making it personal.

We’d love to have that conversation with you today. When we’re done with service. Back to my left, to your right is a place called Trailhead. We’d love to have a conversation with you at Trailhead about what it means to be a Christian. Maybe you’re here and you just need prayer. You are a Christian, but your life feels broken. We’d love to pray with you. We’d love today to be a day where you see the hope, the personal side of Easter. I think the best evidence for Christianity is not in the intellectual arguments, although there are profound intellectual arguments if you really do pursue it. Last week we had Lee Strobel case for Christ. He’s the guy that tried to disprove Jesus, and as a result of it, intellectually became a Christian as a result of it. But I think that the best testimonies are the proof of Christianity that I’ve seen over and over and over again. Life change, people whose life was broken and then they were redeemed through the power of the cross. One of those stories we wanna share with you today, let’s take a look.

My name is Grant. I have a new life in Christ, but that’s not how my story started.

I had amazing childhood amazing parents. Both Christian went to church often, not often enough to where I really had a relationship with Jesus. I knew what it was, Easter, Christmas, all that good stuff. I always knew there was a higher power, but life just got busy. I went the direction of, of sports and chasing women. Had a couple of relationships through high school. The second one that ended really difficult. And my dad was in Iraq at this time, and he came back from my sophomore and junior year, and then my senior year he left. That’s really when I started to, to drink nightly. My binge drinking was crazy at this point in time. I’d drink for many months on end and then, you know, take a month off just to kind of work myself in good standing, get back in the gym and all that good stuff. Then just fall, fall apart. Deep down, I just knew something was off. You’re not supposed to drink every night. There was something going on in my heart that, that I couldn’t fix. You know, I wasn’t happy in the relationship I was in. I was really, really not happy with who I was. When I would look in the mirror, you’re overweight, you’re you’re unhealthy, you’re a piece of junk. Why would anyone love you? You should be doing better.

Had a really, really bad weekend that didn’t just involve alcohol. It involved, involved some drugs, and knew that something needed to change. The first time in my life, I kinda reached out, tried to find a group here, and there was actually this amazing that God facilitated this. There’s a guy and he, he eventually brought me into to region here at Cherry Hills Community Church. And he said, man, just come, just show up. Sure enough, I did. It felt uncomfortable. It felt like, why would I be doing this? But I did. And, and that was the start of just something beautiful. It, it was amazing just to be with this group of men who

Had so much in common with me, even though they had different struggles, but at the heart of their issues was, I’m a man and I’m broken. Well, that’s really where I kind of figured out what the weight of Jesus’ sacrifices did for us. He looked into the future. He saw every one of us. He saw me, and he said, you’re worthy. It was amazing. But I still struggled. I would go three months or four months or five months, but ultimately I’d always fall back into that pattern. I remember sitting on the couch just telling my friend, Hey, I, I think it’s time to go to the hospital. I had been in this state of going through withdrawals probably 50 times, and something was different about that morning where, and I know it’s God, it, it’s just that slow and steady work that he was doing in my heart to, to accept that. I just didn’t want to go through that pain and that withdrawal again. But it was on my heart. Hey, you gotta, you’ve gotta bring this to the light. You gotta tell everyone.

I wrote a letter to my boss and coworker I asked for, for forgiveness. I mean, knowing wholeheartedly that people have lost their jobs for, for far less. And just the, the love and support that I got is, is truly a, a miracle. It’s not anything that I ever would’ve thought would’ve happened. I go through all of the same things. There’s, there’s financial struggle, there’s family stress. There’s just life stress. But I, I have this peace that surpasses all understanding. It’s a huge reason as to why I wanna stay sober. I so deeply want everyone to feel the joy that comes from yes, being sober, but more importantly what comes with relationship with Christ. ’cause That’s where true freedom comes. You may struggle with alcohol, but that doesn’t define you. What defines you as our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, Romans eight 18 says, yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. Easter’s proof that addiction, shame, death. Those don’t have the final say. Jesus does.