Easter Sermon 2020- “Five ways the Resurrection Fights Fear” John 20:19-23

INTRO> The emotions that I feel today are many. Not hearing you, the congregation respond with “he is risen indeed” Seeing everyone with their smiles and Easter joy is, well, heart breaking. These are strange days indeed. The year was 1939 and the British royal government printed off 2.45 million of these now, famous flyers that read, “Keep Calm and Carry On” with the crown on the flyer. This was the way that the British government encouraged it’s citizens who where living in fear of air strikes from the War, they put these in all the shop windows to “lighten moods and dispel fear”

APP> When ever there is fear, people search for Peace. Just this week we where at my wife’s grandmothers house, fixing dinner and she had a stroke, couldn’t talk, paramedics came, kids were around. We need something in this season, with the griefs, the burdens and the chaos… all the fear.. we need Jesus.

CONTEXT> In John Chapter 20 we see the glorious resurrection morning but we don’t hear a lot about that evening. Here is the context, the disciples are isolated away, locked in a room and they are afraid! Does that sound familiar? Talk about context! That’s you and me right now on this easter Sunday!

APP> Just like the British government tried to give their people something to fight fear with, we see 5 things that Jesus gives us to fight fear with in this season.

1. We fight fear with the presence of Jesus. v19

“On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” John 20:19

• • • Jesus passes through a locked door! Mystery!
    • With the term social distancing being thrust upon us, this means so much!
    • Nothing can stop Jesus from getting to you!

*ILL> Our kids being scared, “Dad will you come with me”

APP> One of God’s most repeated promises, “Fear not… for I am with you!”

APP> Our goal shouldn’t be the absence of our current circumstances but the presence of Jesus in our circumstance.

2) We fight fear with the peace of Jesus. v20-21

“Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 20 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you…” John 20:20-21

• • • The word peace is translated “shalom” it’s the perfect peace of God!
    • Do you know who is in the room? Peter… remember his denial? Jesus doesn’t scold him or the disciples, he tells them, “Peace”

APP> Peace isn’t a place or position it’s a person! Jesus IS peace!

• • • Jesus showed them his scars, the cross! The last words they heard him say were “it is finished” the first words they hear him say are, “Peace!”

APP> You can’t have the peace of God until you have peace with God.

3) We fight fear with the purpose of Jesus. v21

“Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” John 20:21

• • • Fear causes physical, mental, emotional and spiritual reactions to us 1) Fight 2) Flight 3) Fright… all of them are reactions… to this answer, “what do I do now?”

*ILL> Governors call during pandemic, worried about peoples mental health. Why, jobs are taken away, during this season we are finding what are hope is!

• • • Jesus says the purposes that he was sent, the purpose he lived for is the same purpose that his followers live for, Good news!

“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” v23

*ILL> Rebecca Pippert had the opportunity to audit some graduate-level courses at Harvard University, one of which was “Systems of Counseling.” She asked the professor how to help patients pursue forgiveness in relationships, the Professor stated that wasn’t her job, “If you guys are looking for a changed heart, I think you are looking in the wrong department.”…

4) We fight fear with the people of Jesus. v21

“As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” John 20:21

• • • The “You” here is plural, it’s “yall”!
    • We need each other now more than ever

APP> There is no such thing as the “lone Ranger” in Chrisitinaity.

5) We fight fear with the power of Jesus. v22

“And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

• • • Do you see the irony here? The whole entire world is afraid of breath right now! We cover our faces in masks and friends that’s all the world can offer you is DEATH.
    • Just as God breathed into our first Father Adam, Jesus sends his Spirit to breath life into us! Just as Jesus was sent by the Father, conceived by the Holy Spirit, live a Spirit filled life, and raised by the Spirit, so the believer is born again by the Spirit, lives a spirit filled life, gets gifts and resurrects in the end!

Big Idea > We can fight fear because Jesus faced the greatest fear, death, and won!

Close>

• John writes again many years later.
• Isolated on an island, can’t gather with his people.
• Jesus appears!

“When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.” Revelation 1:17-18