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Love

Teaching Text: John 20: 1-23

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 have put him!”

So Peter and the other disciple 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 linen 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 linen 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, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around 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 toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (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. The 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’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

Easter

Formation

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

“You get out of bed, wash and dress; eat breakfast, say goodbye and go away never maybe, to return for all you know, to work, talk, lust, pray, dawdle and do, and at the end of the day, if your luck holds, you come home again, home again. Then night again. Bed. The little death of sleep, sleep of death. Morning, afternoon, evening—the hours of the day, of any day, of your day and my day. The alphabet of grace. If there is a God who speaks anywhere, surely he speaks here: through waking up and working, through going away and coming back again, through people you read and books you meet, through falling asleep in the dark.”

– FREDERICK BUECHNER

Buechner goes on to define the grace of God as if God was speaking....

“The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's for you I created the universe. I love you. There's only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you'll reach out and take it. Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.”

– FREDERICK BUECHNER

Where are you living in the story of the world?
Look at 3 questions this Easter…
- Why did Jesus die?
- What does Jesus’ resurrection mean?
- How could you find yourself in the story?
So first, Why did Jesus die?
- We mark and commemorate this death of Jesus, in all its brutality, in all of its psychological trauma, in all its poetry and grief because we are saying this death is a part of the most important stretch of events in all the world.
- The way the Scriptures understand the problem that is behind all the other problems of the world is a relational fracture.
- C.S. LEWIS in one of the great descriptions of the framework of faith in Christ called Mere Christianity
  - “What the [enemy of our souls] put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could ‘be like gods’—could set up on their own as if they had created themselves—be their own masters—invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of human beings trying to find something other than God which will make them happy.”
    – C.S. LEWIS
- Lewis goes on to say… paraphrasing…
  - “The reason why it can never work is. God made us: deigned us inside of a relational framework as an overflow of God’s own character. You and I we made to function properly on and in the love of God. Without that, our spirits will burn through any other option looking for what is our true home. We will live always with a searching restlessness. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without faith. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”

The problem behind the problems of the world is that we are living separated from God.
The Scriptures say this fracture is caused by sin. A difficult and maybe seemingly old fashioned word, but its…
- Going against the nature, character, and choices or God. We go our own way.
- But if God is the source of life then to be separated from God means death.
- Death has ripped though and is ripping through the world.
There is no way to simply ignore this separation from God and the death it causes.
God cannot simply act as if it isn’t there. But God also refuses to simply leave us stranded without Him.
God says I will show you the cost of our separation, but then I will bear the cost of our separation.

What does Jesus’ resurrection mean?
- Resurrection means it worked.
Again Jesus said peace.
- Shalom. Well being. Hope. Unstoppable Life.
Everything Jesus had said about the Kingdom of God has been proven true by His resurrection.
Jesus says receive my Holy Spirit in the inner sanctuary of your heart and soul.
- Share in the resurrection

How could you find yourself in the story?
- Start where you really are.
  - Mary came in the dark. Devastated, grieving, crushed.
  - Peter raced in his shame on the wild possibility of the impossible
  - Jesus’ friends were hiding behind locked doors.
- How did any of this group become the small force of loving people who change the known world?
  - That’s an unimpeachable historical fact.
  - These untrained, regular folks changed the face of the Roman empire and the world
  - They saw something. They saw Someone. They heard their name called.
  - They were embraced by the risen Jesus.
- This is your Easter invitation.
  - Allow yourself to be embraced by the risen Jesus.

All you have to bring is nothing.
- But we really wanna add something.
- Bring nothing and receive Peace, Shalom.
- Bring Nothing and receive utter forgiveness
- Bring Nothing and receive the Holy Spirit - God’s very presence in your life.