Life without hope for tomorrow is sad and dark and lonely. If God is God, if He really loves us, then surely, He’d want us to have hope for the future. Wouldn’t He?

Have you ever been in a place where you’ve lost all hope? Hope as it turns out is a precious, precious commodity. We all need things in our lives to look forward to; to hope in – the deep sense that we have a future; we know where we are going. When there’s no future, it’s tragic; when you lose all hope, well, it feels like life’s over.

And that’s the problem with death, we all die at some point. Some die young, others watch their bodies progressively give up the ghost. But if God’s God; if He really loves us the way the Bible says He does, then hope would have to be very high on His list because the last thing He’d want is for us to experience hopelessness. And it turns out that hope is very high on His list. That’s what this whole "resurrection of Jesus Christ" thing is all about.

It’s a funny thing, when things are going really bad in our lives, hope evaporates very quickly. And look at the twelve disciples: over and over again Jesus told them that He would be crucified and rise again; He told them over and over and over again. Yet, when it happened, they scattered to the four winds. They deserted Him and they completely lost sight of His promise – the promise of the resurrection. Actually, most of them needed convincing when, in fact, it happened. On that Easter morning, a lot of them went, “Really?” and it’s not surprising, I mean, it’s a pretty hard thing to come to grips with.

In a sense we are just the same. Life takes a turn for the worse and the first thing to go out the window is hope. It’s kind of natural. In the Old Testament, in the Book of First Chronicles chapter 29 verse 15, it says:

Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope.

I want to get in you face right now for a bit because we need some good teaching on hope. When we put our trust in Jesus in the good times, what happens is we lay down our lives – we love Him, we adore Him, we worship Him, we follow Him with our lives. I tell you what happens when the storm clouds start rolling in, something strange and new and wonderful happens in our hearts.

This light of hope in Jesus Christ shines out and it won’t go out and you know, I didn’t understand that until I read this small verse in the New Testament, in the book of First Peter chapter 1 and verse 3, and Peter writes this:

Blessed be the God and the Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ because by His great mercy He has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for us who have been protected by the power of God through faith, for a salvation ready to be revealed in that last time. In this we rejoice even though for now, for a little while, we have had to suffer various trials.

Now the people that Peter was writing to here, they were being killed, they were being tarred and feathered, they were being set alight, they were being tortured; they were being thrown to the lions. These people were gong through serious stuff and Peter writes, “It doesn’t matter what you are going through – it doesn’t matter – because you have a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

Over and over again, the New Testament talks about Jesus being the first born from among the dead, in other words it points back to His resurrection. The death of Jesus is a historical fact but so is His resurrection. Death couldn’t hold Him down. And when we put our trust in Him, that’s what we put our hope in – it’s a certain hope.

Jesus was raised from the dead by God and one day when you and I breathe our last breath and our body give up the ghost, we will stand before Him and we will have that same resurrection – an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, being kept in heaven for us, who right now are being protected by the power of God through faith for what He has got to give us in that time.

You know what our problem is? Kind of, sometimes we know that the resurrection is an historical fact; we know that in our heads but we spend so much time hoping in a pay rise or some temporal bauble here on earth or on a new car, we loose sight of the living hope we have through the resurrection of Jesus.

Jesus was raised from the dead; He’s the first born from among the dead; the first of many. And that promise is for you and for me if we believe in Jesus Christ and we don’t loose sight of that living hope we have through the resurrection of Jesus. One day when I cast off this mortal body I will stand for ever and ever in His presence and have eternal life. That is rock solid and you know the basis of that promise? The resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Look at your life at the moment – the things that are going well for you and the things that aren’t – the things that you would want to change. And the reality is some of them we can’t change; maybe God will change them and maybe He won’t; I don’t know and you don’t know but in the meantime, He wants us to live a life of certain hope. And you know, what God has for us for all eternity, just doesn’t compare with anything we can have here on earth that we can see and touch today. It doesn’t compare with a certain hope of eternal life in Jesus.

The Apostle John gives us a revelation of that in his book, Revelation, where we get a glimpse of this. He writes this:

I saw a new heaven and a new earth, because the first had passed away and there was no longer any sea. I saw a holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men and He will live with them and they will be His people and God Himself will be with them and be their God. And He will wipe every tear from their eyes; there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old things have passed away.

Nothing else comes anywhere close to that and we spend life wandering around in the weeds and down in the murky mire and God says, "Look, look at the resurrection of Jesus Christ." This is God’s call to set our eyes and our hearts and everything we are, all of our hope on this heavenly promise because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In Colossians, in the New Testament; the Book of Colossians chapter 3 verse 1, Paul writes this:

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are here on earth because you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life, is revealed then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

If you believe in the resurrection, seek the things that are above, set your mind and your eyes and your heart and your hopes and everything on heavenly things – on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is time today to start living life from a different perspective, from an eternal perspective. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is something that gives us a certain hope – a certain hope in eternal life, in our resurrection – in the future that God is keeping safe, undefiled, perfect for you and me, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

If Jesus really rose from the dead all that time ago, if it really happened….well, what does it mean to us today? What’s the relevance? What’s the point?

This week on the program we are taking a bit of a look at this whole "resurrection" thing, because on the one hand it’s so central to everything that Jesus talked about, and everything that Christians believe. But on the other hand, well, it can be hard to relate to that. I mean, how does it fit into real life today?

I’m not sure where you are in terms of believing in Jesus and in particular in His resurrection. But let’s assume for a moment that He did rise again from the dead; that’s certainly where I’m at, it’s kind of at the centre of everything I believe. Well, if He did rise from the dead, what does that mean to you and me, here and now, what relevance is there in all of that? Can the resurrection of Jesus Christ have an impact on your life and my life, here, now, today?

Good questions! I mean why have a resurrection at all? Why did God plan it that way and why did He make it central to believing in Jesus? Yesterday we saw how the Apostle Paul said it was absolutely essential. Without faith in that there’s no point. In Romans chapter 10 verse 9, he says:

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead you’ll be saved.

And in First Corinthians 15:17 he says:

If Christ hasn’t been raised, then you faith is futile.

OK, well, that’s the theology, if you like, let’s take that at face value. But why is it so important? Why does God put it right at the centre of believing in Jesus – eternal life!

I’m a pesky bloke; I keep asking these questions because people never really explained this stuff to me, in terms that I could really understand and grasp. And that made a difference in my life. All these Christians were talking about this whole "resurrection" thing like it was really important and I thought "that’s great, but why?" Believing in Jesus for me is a process, it’s a whole life long thing. At some point I took a step of faith to believe in Him. I didn’t understand everything, but what I discovered was there were lots of different parts of my life that just didn’t fit with Him – selfishness, anger, being judgmental, all stuff that actually stunted my life.

It’s crazy how we want to hold onto that rubbish for dear life. But you know we do and it turns out all along, it’s robbing us of life. I used to spend most of my time being angry with people because they didn’t measure up to my standards – I’m a perfectionist – and they didn’t see the world my way, and so I’d be angry with them all the time. And you know it robbed me of life; instead of peace and joy I always had anger and resentment in my heart. It’s not rocket science but so many people do this stuff.

It’s one thing to believe with our head or our hearts in Jesus but it’s quite another to believe with our lives. And to do that requires change and that’s where the resurrection comes in. The Apostle Paul writes this in Romans chapter 8, he says:

If the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through His Spirit that dwells in you.

Let’s unpack that for a minute. There was the death and the crucifixion of Jesus where He paid for our sins. He paid for the fact that we turned our back on God and we went our own way, and we missed the whole point of creation which was to have a relationship with God. And before you jump down my throat and say, "sin" is an old fashioned word. That the Greek word that the Bible uses for sin, literally means, "to miss the point”, and we looked at that last week.

God is a loving God but He’s a just God and we have all fallen short of His standard and His plan – we’ve all missed the point. And when we believe that Jesus died for us, the slate is wiped clean; we are forgiven completely by God, we’re forgiven; we’ve a fresh start. And that’s fantastic! But you and I know that getting rid of that rubbish that God calls ‘sin’ is a life long process. Come on, we are naturally selfish, we naturally hang on to the things – I wanted to be self-righteous – I still have someone pull in a car in front of me and I’ll be angry with them and I want to blow my horn and I want to…you know, that’s me.

Someone does wrong and somehow we want anger and revenge and we want to pay them back, and Jesus said, “Well, you want to believe in me, believe in me with your life. Show me, go and love your enemy, in fact, go and pray for your enemy.”

I don’t know about you but that way of living just didn’t come naturally to me. It’s a process of changing but changing those things is hard. It’s very, very hard, and in fact, in some areas, it’s downright impossible. We just want to hang on and hang on and hang on and let the poison get in our system and ruin our lives. Paul bemoans that very thing in Romans chapter 7, he says:

I can will to do what is right, I just can’t do it. Who will rescue me from this body of sin and death?

Then he says, “Jesus Christ". The resurrection is about bringing Jesus back to life. See what Paul wrote about in Romans chapter 8, we read about it before:

If the Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead with give life to your mortal bodies also through His Spirit that dwells in you.

The resurrection of Jesus is something that’s a deep mystery but it lives on in us through the presence of the Spirit of God. If we place our faith in Jesus; we say I believe He is the Son of God; I believe He died for my sin and I believe He rose again, and then God does something amazing; something supernatural; something powerful.

God puts His Spirit inside us and that same Spirit does the same thing in us – He brings life. He starts to deal with that rubbish inside us. He starts to convict us and to heal us and to fill us and to change us in ways that we can never do ourselves. The resurrection is learning to live again. When we believe in Jesus in His death, we put the old person inside us down with Jesus on the cross but when we believe in His resurrection we have new life – resurrection life.

If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your body also through His Spirit; bringing life back into our bodies, colour into our cheeks, colour into our world. How many people need that change in their lives today? How many people are looking for that change in all sorts of strange places, people who are broken inside, people who have been abused, people who are suffering from low self-esteem, people who are dealing with anger, and people whose marriages are falling apart?

Come on, we need the resurrection of Jesus Christ to be real in us and there is a power that comes only from God to change us. Not some theory, this is an actuality. The same Holy Spirit who breaths life back into Jesus dead body is the Spirit who will come in us and bring victory over the sin of our humanness and breathe life back into our bodies and victory over our sins.

Come on, this is great stuff; this is a great plan; it’s God’s plan. It’s here for you and me now!

There’s not a serious historian alive today who doesn’t acknowledge the life and death of Jesus Christ. But the resurrection…..well that’s another thing entirely. Did it really happen?

Over this week on the program, we are looking at and exploring the whole question of Jesus’ resurrection. It can seem fanciful and even irrelevant, something that may or may not have happened a couple of thousand years ago and let’s face it – Jesus was crucified and then they said He’s alive. I mean, it’s pretty hard to believe, you know.

What’s the proof, what’s the evidence? I mean, if we look at it like a sane, rational person, can you really come to the conclusion that this Jesus, died and rose again? And if so, what does that mean for you and me, here and now? Today on the program, we are going to step back in time, into Jerusalem, into those days and weeks that followed the death and alleged resurrection of Jesus Christ and just take a look at some of what happened. The rest is up to each one of us, you and me; we have to make up our own minds.

Ok, well, let’s start with the facts. I mean the whole Jesus crucifixion thing is no mystery. I mean, Jesus became very popular, He made sense, people flocked to hear Him speak and the religious leaders of the day, they seriously got their noses out of joint and they plotted to kill Him; they whipped up the crowd and we looked at that earlier on in the week and last week.

Pontius Pilot had Him crucified, He was dead – there’s no doubt about that. I mean, no historian seriously disputes the facts to this point and probably, none of us would have any difficulty with the story thus far. It’s horrible how they crucified Him but that’s what happened. Now, then comes the whole story, though, of this resurrection of Jesus. They crucify Him, they put His body in a tomb, they put a stone and some Roman soldiers there guarding it, and what we celebrate now as being Easter Sunday, was about an empty tomb.

Now, we have a resurrection mystery – not a murder mystery – but a resurrection mystery. What happened to the body? All right, let’s think that through. What are the options? Option one is that the Roman authorities or religious leaders took the body and hid it. But why would they do that? You see, it wasn‘t in their interest. Jesus had been predicting His own resurrection and if the Romans or the Pharisees or Sadducees – those religious leaders of the day – had they taken His body and stolen it and hidden it, that simply would have opened up the possibility for a rumour of Jesus resurrection. So there’s no way that the Romans or the religious leaders, who had Him killed, would have taken the body and hidden it.

Number two – Jesus’ followers stole the body! It’s a possibility; they could have done that to create that rumour. I mean, He was dead, if He didn’t rise again, the disciples take the body, they hide it, they go round and tell everyone, "Jesus has risen." There are just a few things that work against that theory.

The first one is security. Have a listen to what it says, “The next day,” we are in Matthew 27, towards the end, beginning at verse 62:

The next day, the one after the preparation day, the Chief Priests and the Pharisees went to Pontius Pilot - they said, “Sir, we remember that while Jesus was still alive, He said, “After three days I will rise again,” so why don’t you give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day, otherwise His disciples might come a steal the body and tell the people that He has been raised from the dead.

You see, the religious leaders figured out this potential as well, so Pilot said, “Take a guard, go and make the tomb as secure as you know how.” So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard, right? So here you have the religious leaders figuring out the possibility of deception by Jesus’ disciples – I’m being just totally objective, investigating the mystery – and they go to Pilot and say, "we had better stop any possibility". So, Pilot goes and has a huge stone rolled in front of the tomb, a seal put on it so that if it is broken, they know what’s happened and he puts some guards on the tomb.

Well, it’s a little bit hard for the disciples who weren’t armed to fight armed Roman soldiers and steal the body. And secondly, you’ve got to look at the state of mind of these disciples, they were in disarray; they were in a daze.

Now you read any of the accounts in the Books of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John – just the last couple of chapters of each – they didn’t believe this stuff about the resurrection. These disciples had just seen Jesus killed, they were afraid, they were fleeing for their own lives. It didn’t enter their heads that Jesus might have been resurrected. In fact, when some of them came back and said that it had happened, others said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me, it just doesn’t happen.’ In any case, you had that security.

And all of these disciples went on to die the death of a martyr, because they went out and proclaimed that Jesus had risen. One by one, over the next thirty or forty years, each one, as far as we know, died the death of a martyr. Now would they have done that for something they knew to be a lie? Not likely. So I don’t see the potential for the disciples to have stolen the body as really being a possibility.

The other key possibility, whether you like it or not, was He actually rose again. Now He appeared to over five hundred people at once – you can read that in the letter that Paul writes; the First Letter to the Corinthians chapter 15 verse 6.

Now that’s a huge percentage; that’s like two or three percent of the population of Jerusalem; that’s the equivalent these days of filling a huge stadium in a city. And Paul wrote this at a time when many of the people who were alleged to have seen Jesus, when He rose again, could testify as to the truth or otherwise of such a claim.

Account after historical account – I don’t know, as I look at this stuff, I just skimmed over it – I guess today, it’s not that hard to believe the evidence. What’s hard to believe is that God would actually do something like this, to bring Jesus back to life. The truth is I’m not sure that I can convince anybody; we can’t have a coroner’s inquest to look at the evidence for the resurrection today. The people who were there, they are not around any more but what I can do is encourage you to do this: read the accounts for yourself.

We are just talking about a half an hour – the last few chapters of the Books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the New Testament.

I mean, ask the questions, look at the evidence, make up your own mind and in your heart, once and for all, if you look at the evidence and you say, "You know something, if this God is God and He is as powerful as He is, He can do this. And when I read these accounts, you know, everything points to it." If that’s you; if that’s the conclusion that you come to, can I ask you to pray something like this: "God, if this is true, do something in me and show me? Do something in my heart and put a certain faith in me that will never, ever again waver."

You see, for me it’s very rational; I’m your IT consultant type of person and I look at things fairly logically and I have to tell you, with everything I am, I believe in my heart that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. There doesn’t seem to be any other logical possibility and God keeps telling me, through His Word; through the Bible, that’s exactly what happened. Paul writes in Romans chapter 10 verse 9:

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

It’s that important, so take the time, read it, turn it over in your head, draw your own conclusions, believe in your heart – Jesus is alive!

It turns out that coming to grips with the resurrection of Jesus wasn’t easy for the disciples. And to tell you the truth, it can be difficult to come to grips with it here and now as well.

They say that there are two absolute certainties in life – death and taxes. Well, let’s leave taxes for another day – that leaves death. One day, you and I will breathe our last breath on this planet, that’s pretty much certain, despite all the hopes and dreams and plans that we have for next week and next year and the next decade, most of us simply don’t know when that moment will come, when we breathe that final breath.

And then what? What comes after that? Well, there are basically two schools of thought. One is that at that point it’s all over – nothing – a big emptiness. The other school of thought has many different flavours, but many people – in fact most people on this planet – believe in some sort of afterlife, whatever that may look like to them. If there’s an eternal life, what is it, what does it look like, and is it worth having?

There’s some good questions there to ask and here we are in the week after Easter so we are going to unpack and explore a little bit, particularly looking at the resurrection of Jesus; this new life; this eternal life. Jesus over and over again said:

Believe in me and you will have eternal life.

Now, some people say, "Well that’s nice but really, these days, all roads do lead to Rome. I mean you believe in a good God and you’ll make it; you’ll have eternal life. Kind of doesn’t quite matter which flavour of God you happen to believe in."

But not according to Jesus. He didn’t leave that option open; He didn’t intend to. Here’s this carpenter from Nazareth, an ordinary man and somewhere in His early thirties He begins a three and a half year public ministry. He heals people; He does amazing things; crowds follow Him; He upsets the religious leaders and there’s a murder plot and ultimately He is crucified and He rose again. And lots of people saw Him after He rose again and we’ll have a look at that on the program tomorrow.

But in the competitive world we live in, there’s a notion that’s deep ingrained into who we are, that if you and I are going to attain this eternal life that Jesus promised, we’re going to have to work for it. I mean, it makes sense after all, at school, it’s competitive, you get the grades, you go and do certain classes based on your grades, you compete for a limited number of good jobs and you compete for promotion. Nothing comes easy; you have to work for things. You have to get out there and achieve and take them and make it happen; they’re not just going to come to us on a silver platter, all of those good things.

And then God turns around and says, “Well, I’m a God of grace and this eternal life thing is free, because Jesus bought it for you on the cross.” Now I study this stuff every day. I do what I’m doing right now, right, and I have to tell you, the concept of God’s grace still doesn’t come naturally to me. The notion that Jesus paid for everything is sometimes hard to embrace with my life. How about you? I mean, what are the things in your past; things that we have been taught about life; things that have hurt you; things that have been about conditional love; things that hold you back from wrapping your heart around God’s grace; God’s free gift of eternal life; life with God for ever and ever and ever. What’s that look like?

Well, Jesus was praying – and you can read it in John 17 in the Bible. He was saying eternal life is being with Him; eternal life is knowing Him; eternal life is seeing His glory for ever and ever and you know, all that seems to be too good to be true sometimes. And if that’s true today, it was true back then. I’m going to read you a small passage that comes from John’s Gospel, chapter 6 verse 28:

The people ask Him, “What do we have to do? What are the works that God requires?” And Jesus said, “The work of God is this - that you believe in me; in the one whom God has sent.” So they asked Him, “What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe in you, what’ll you do?” I mean our forefathers ate the manna in the desert, as it is written. God gave them bread from heaven to eat.

And Jesus said to them, “I’ll tell you the truth, it’s not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven but it’s my Father, who gives you the true bread from heaven because the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” “Sir,” they said, “from now on, give us this bread,” and Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life, he who comes to me will never be hungry; he who believes in me never be thirsty. But as I have told you, you’ve seen me and you still don’t believe."

All that the Father God gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me I will never drive them away, for I’ve come down from heaven not to do my will, but to do the will of Him who sent me. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that He has give me, but raise them up on the last day, for my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life and I’ll raise them up on the last day.

What will we have to do? What do we have to do Jesus? What does God want us to do? And Jesus said "just believe in me!" And they said, "Oh, ok, prove it, show us, do the ‘manna’ thing. You know, remember how God did the manna from heaven and there was bread on the ground for the Israelites when they were wandering through their forty years exodus. Go on, do the manna thing.” You know what manna is? Its stuff that came down from heaven and the Israelites looked at it and went, "manna, manna". "Manna" means, what the heck is it?

Isn’t it amazing? Whenever God provides something for us, and it’s free and it’s grace and it’s life and it’s blessing, we want Him to explain it. We just can’t enjoy what He is doing, we have to go, "manna" – what is it?

That desert and that bread coming down in the desert to feed them is a picture of our lives. They want this bread and engaging them He says, “Don’t you get it? It’s me, I am the bread of life and this is the will of Him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given me but raise them up on the last day, for my Father‘s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life and I will raise him up on that last day.”

God is so passionate about you and me, He looks at us and He says, “You are to die for” and He does exactly that through Jesus. It’s a powerful thing; it’s not just death, its resurrection and we can muck around half our lives – all our lives – and miss the point. "Oh, I don’t know."

Well, either it’s true or it’s not! If Jesus rose for the dead; if that’s true, let’s live our lives passionately, wrapped around that reality. There are people wandering around this world with broken lives and low self-esteem and a list of a thousand maladies, all the time the answer is staring them in the face. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.” Never hunger, never thirst, He’s alive and His passion is for you and for me to have eternal life, here and now and for all eternity.

Wake up! What’s the matter with us? Look at Jesus with the eyes of your soul and take time to rest and delight in Him and believe in Him and to feast on the bread. Come on, what’s the matter with us?

So what was it like that first Easter morning? He’s alive. Is He? I don’t know. The others say they’ve seen Him. Hmm. What do you think?

Let me paint you a picture. Just the other day, someone that you loved passed away. You really admired and trusted this person. I mean, you'd seen him in operation and now they're gone! It's a shock! It shouldn't have happened! They're so young and so full of promise ... had a future. And now, that person is gone. Take some time to come to grasp to that – the shock and the sadness, and the deep sense of loss and even anger.

We go through so many stages in that grieving process. You wake up with a dull ache in your head. What is that about? And then, you remember your loss. The phone rings. It's a friend, they are ranting and raving ... the person who is dead ... what are they saying? He is alive again? Wait! Hang on a minute ... what sort of crackpot, what is going on? Is this a sick joke?

But your friend is adamant, he is alive! I mean it's an incredible claim ... it's incredulous ... it's mad ... it's sick - there are a lot of words to describe it. You saw him die with your own eyes – arrested, crucified, buried, definitely, very definitely dead!

In one sense, you know, it's almost easier to believe if you read it in the Bible. It happened 2000 years ago, it was Jesus. It's long enough ago to make it safe ... you know what I mean, when you could almost sort of half believe it and half see it as a fable and go, "well yeah, okay, I believe it! It happened back then. Sure, God can do anything. I mean God did that sort of things back then. Well, it's 2000 years ago."

Question: If you believe that Jesus rose from the dead again, just transpose that into today, here and now. That phone call comes, "Jesus is alive". Come on, tomorrow morning, you get that phone call in the morning, is it possible?

Let’s put ourselves back in the shoes of these disciples, right there in that place, in Jerusalem, with the Jesus that they knew. Do you get it? It’s a lot harder to believe when it’s close. It was a bit like that for Mary Magdalene. She went down to the tomb on that morning we call Easter Sunday, to embalm the body of Jesus. They had herbs and spices and they were going to embalm Him. Sunset Friday and all day Saturday was the Jewish Sabbath. That means they weren’t allowed to work and they couldn’t embalm Him, so they went down on the Sunday morning:

But Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept she bent over to look into the tomb and she saw two angels in white seated where Jesus body had been – one at the head and the other at the foot – and they said to her, “Woman, what’s the matter, why are you crying?” “They’ve taken Jesus away; my Lord, they’ve taken Him away”, she said, “and I don’t know where they’ve put Him.

At this she turned around and she saw Jesus standing there but she didn’t realise it was Him. “Woman,” He said, “why are you crying? Who is it that you are looking for?” Thinking it was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried Jesus away, tell me where you have put Him and I’ll go and get Him?” And Jesus said to her, “Mary,” and she turned toward Him and cried, in Aramaic “Rabboni” - which means ‘teacher’.

Jesus said, “Do not hold onto me for I have not yet returned to my Father. Go, instead, to my brothers and tell them, “Jesus is returning to His Father and your Father and to my God and your God.” And Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news, “I’ve seen the Lord; I’ve seen Jesus,” and she told them that He had said these things to her.

She wasn’t the only one having problems; I think you and I would have had problems with it all. And after that Jesus appeared to His disciples, all of them that is, except Thomas; he wasn’t there that day. Now Thomas was one of the twelve, he wasn’t with the other disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, “We’ve seen Him; we’ve seen the Lord,” but he said to them, “Look, I’m sorry, unless I see the nail marks in His hands and I put my finger where the nails were and put my hand into His side where they pierced Him, I sorry, I just won’t believe it.

A week later, Jesus’ disciples were in that house again and Thomas was with them this time, and even though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Shalom, peace be with you.” And then He said to Thomas, “Tom, come here. Put your finger in here, see my hands? Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” And Thomas said to Him, “My Lord and my God.” And then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you’ve believed, but blessed are those who haven’t seen me and yet have believed.”

I don’t know, I think I’m with Thomas. I can imagine the phone call and someone saying to me, “Jesus is alive,” and I saw Him go to the electric chair the other night and I think, “this is just too much". It’s hard to believe when you’re close to it. Can I ask you, what do you believe? Maybe it’s an uncomfortable question?

It’s easy to consign this whole "resurrection of Jesus" thing to the past, but, kind of like a fable to which we give some moderate level of logical, in-cognitive assent – kind of a vague half-belief, insurance policy thing. The apostle Paul takes it pretty seriously. In Romans chapter 10 verse 9, he says:

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you’ll be saved.

And First Corinthians 15:17:

If Christ has not been raised from the dead, then your faith is futile.

For Paul, the resurrection wasn‘t some optional extra; it wasn’t some distant myth, it wasn’t something that we could kind of half believe. Historians agree that Jesus was a real historical figure. I mean there’s no serious historian who doubts that. They agree He was killed, the question is, was He raised again from the dead? Paul said:

Believe in your heart, that God raised Him from the dead, you’ll be saved, and if you don’t, you’re wasting your time.

We are going to have a bit of a look throughout the week on the program, as to why we should believe that, but today I just want to ask you really simply – what do you believe? The resurrection can seem, really, I don’t know, incongruous amidst the day to day realities of life; the things that we all face.

I mean, I still do some IT consulting work, it’s my professional background. I travel into the city and work up on the thirty eighth floor, looking down over this great city and deal with managers and lawyers and important people and we talk about this and talk about that. You stick the resurrection of Jesus Christ right into the middle of that day-to-day reality and you ask me, "Berni, in the middle of all this, do you actually believe this stuff? Do you believe that this Jesus was raised from the dead? I mean, come on Berni, it’s incongruous, it’s an outrageous notion, it just doesn’t fit. Do you still believe this stuff?" And my answer to you is, "Absolutely!"

With every fiber of my being; in my heart, I believe that Jesus Christ was crucified, that He died and that He rose again so that we might have eternal life. I believe with my heart – that’s me – what about you?

People talk about “the real meaning of Easter”.  OK.  So for some people, Easter’s more than chocolates, eggs, bunnies and a long weekend.  But – well, how do you react to the real meaning of Easter?

This week we've been looking at Easter which is not surprising since it’s Good Friday today. Jesus, in his last week, spent a good amount of his time encouraging his disciples, here was a man under an enormous pressure, heading to a gruesome death and yet His main concern was on encouraging those twelve men, one of whom would betray Him.

But of course on what we now celebrate as Good Friday, well, that first Good Friday was far from good at least for Jesus. Beaten, brutalised, nailed to a cross through His hands and feet, He suffered incredibly and died. I don't quite know who came up with the name Good Friday but it doesn't seem to fit, are you with me? So let me ask you here and now, a couple of thousand years on, how do you react? What does Good Friday mean to you?

Well, we celebrate Easter today, a long weekend, fluffy bunnies, Easter eggs, sweet chocolate, more chocolate and yet more chocolate. And all that stuff is great but it couldn't be further from the grim, brutal reality of that first Good Friday, could it?

Today you see so much bluster and self serving behaviour. I love to watch the news every night on the TV and you see politicians and business people talking up this and putting spin on that. I was talking to a young man, a mature Christian and in his Church, he said there are couples who are burning out through work and mortgages and demands of being involved in Church.

Marriages, he said, are falling apart. So much, when you look at it, so much is about external appearances, conforming to whatever it is in our society that people say equals success. Yet on the inside, people somehow aren't satisfied, they're not fulfilled, and they’re not happy and peaceful and looking forward to tomorrow. An Easter bunny, chocolate egg Easter is a bit like that, you may have heard me talk before about the thing that symbolises all that in my life.

Some years ago, before I became a Christian, I bought this really up market, expensive car. It was burgundy, it was a beautiful car, it had light tan leather inside, that smell of leather, it was really classy. And it had four wheel steering so you could turn it around on a pin head and it was so empty and so hollow, it was just a lump of metal and leather and so what?

I tried so hard to live this outside thing and yet I was dying on the inside and two occasions each year, Easter and Christmas, things that we celebrate on the outside, the chocolate at Easter and the presents at Christmas, the holidays, they're supposed to be fun and enjoyment and rest. And for a lot of people in the middle of those things, there's this kind of deep, distant awareness of this stuff these Christians are talking about, of Jesus. Let’s get right to the point, Jesus/Easter.

This was the Passover celebration back then; it was a festival to remember the wonderful things that God did in saving Israel when they were in slavery in Egypt centuries before this first Easter. Would have been just as easy back then to get carried away with the social and cultural aspects of the Passover celebration as it is for us today at Easter don't you think?

I mean, everyone came to Jerusalem and they had feasts and they roasted lambs and they had unleavened bread. It was a big festival going on and it would be so easy to get lost in all the cultural trappings of that festival Just as it is today to get lost in what we call Easter.

But in the middle of all that is Jesus Christ, superstar, this Jesus who was just so well loved and liked, who did so many amazing things and healing and the way He spoke, He made sense and people followed him and then all of a sudden the mob turns on Him. At Easter they bay for His blood, He's beaten and spat on and crucified.

We looked at that from a medical perspective yesterday on the program. Supposedly He's the Son of God and Christians tell us this was all to pay for our sin and the Bible says:

He who knew no sin became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God.

What the heck does that mean today? It comes right down to this, according to God He made us, He loves us and He gave us free will and the point of all that was for us to know Him and have this fantastic relationship with Him, here and now and for all eternity and it doesn't matter which way you cut it, each one of us in our own way has rejected him.

I know I have, more often than I can possibly recount and in doing that we miss the whole point. That's exactly what the Greek word for sin, which is what the Bible uses, means, to miss the mark or to miss the point. Truly I tell you, I used to think of sin as some kind of old fuddy-duddy concept, something that priests and ministers talked about in the 1950's but it's not relevant today. It's old fashioned, it's religious moralising, get rid of it, get over it but when you come back to Easter, God’s Easter, the central point, the central problem of all creation is that we rejected God, we turned our backs on him and on that cross He calls us home.

The consequences of our rejection of Him, our sin, are paid for by His own Son, Jesus who died and suffered for us so that we could have a new life, a life of giving and sacrifice and a fresh new life, a wholesome real life with joy and with peace, all because out of His great love He reached out to us through Jesus.

Fifteen years ago that message hit home for me, I'm going to spend eternity coming to grips with what Jesus did for me but in my heart I know that I know that I know that I know that God is my God, that He loves me just as He loves you and that changes our whole lives, it opens the door to a real, dynamic, exciting, beautiful, wondrous relationship with God. So how does that impact you? What's the reaction in your heart, in your life, in your here and now, in your future? If you would like to accept Jesus Christ today as your Lord and your Saviour, why don't you just stop and pause and pray this prayer with me.

Father, we've heard the story of Easter, we've heard the story of Jesus and we can scarcely believe or understand or comprehend that You would send Your Son to pay the price of our sin, the price of our rejection of You but as we look at that story God, we just believe it in our hearts and we want to say thank You, we want to praise you and worship you and say thank You that you sent Jesus to save us from a life of missing the point that You came to save us from Your judgement.

Father,  I am so sorry for all of the things I've done wrong, I just can't begin to list them all but You know because You felt each one in Your heart. I'm going to turn away from that now Lord, I can't be perfect except in You and I know that Jesus died so that You would forgive all my sin, past, present and future and I give my life to You today as Jesus gave His life for me back then. Father, give me this new life, show me Your love, show me Your future, show me Your grace. Father, I pray these things with all that I am in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

You see people wearing gold crosses on chains all the time. Even earrings. But on that first Easter – what really happened on that cross.  I mean, what did Jesus actually go through?

It's almost Easter and this week on the program we've been taking a bit of a look at the goings on in the week leading up to the first Easter. There's been nothing about chocolate or eggs or bunnies. Nothing’s wrong with any of those things, they just don't fit into any of the events that first Easter.

Today I thought it would be interesting just to have a look at the real physical suffering of Jesus. Churches and theologians alike make much out of the spiritual suffering of what went on, on that cross at Calvary. But Jesus wasn't and isn't just the Son of God, He was also the son of man, in fact, that's how most he often referred to himself. What did Jesus the man, go through at Easter and why is that so important? Stick with me over the next few minutes as we unpack that just a little bit.

I remember going to the dentist when I was young. His name was Dr Champion, Harry Champion and his surgery was up on the first floor of this building, I'll never forget it. You walked in this door and it was fairly dark and there was these steps – the steps seemed like they went up forever into the sky to me – and they had this dark pink swirly lino with black capping on the stairs, and I remember looking up at those stairs with complete dread every time I went there.

I remember, back in those days, I don't know how it is where you live but there was no fluoride in our water here so we used to have fillings all the time and place had that unmistakable smell of a dental surgery. I don't know what chemicals they used there but you know what a dental surgery smells like and I'd get this sick feeling in my stomach days before going. It all came to a head every time when I stood at the bottom of those stairs, that long interminable walk up, maybe you can relate to that, it was all about pain, it was all about physical pain.

Back then they didn't use any anesthetic for fillings, they just drilled. You know that little gadget that blows the air to get rid of saliva and bits of tooth and that cold air would just blow on the open, raw nerve of the tooth. All the water that comes out of the drill, that cold water just onto the nerve of the tooth, makes you feel queasy, I tell you, every time I think about it I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and I feel queasy.

I had a filling replaced recently and these days they even put a swab of anesthetic in your mouth before they give you the injection so that the needle doesn't even hurt its great stuff. But I have to tell you I still hang on to that chair for dear life. That fear and trepidation of physical pain of those childhood visits to the dentist haven't left me; maybe you can pay for my deliverance. You get the point though, physical pain and emotional pain are closely linked, and it’s a big deal.

Imagine for a minute that it's not a flight of stairs up to Dr Champion’s dental surgery but an exorable journey to the brutal crucifixion on a cross, how did Jesus feel? I read recently an article by a physician, written some time ago, Dr Truman Davies and he was analyzing the crucifixion from a medical perspective. He talks first about Gethsemane.

In Luke, chapter 2, verse 44, you read about Jesus' sweat turning to blood. He says it's very rare but it does occur and it's well documented in the medical literature: under great emotional stress tiny capillaries in the sweat glands can break, mixing blood with sweat, that would have produced a marked weakness and quite probably shock.

Now, next after the arrest He had the trial of the Sanhedrin in front of the High Priest. And a soldier struck Jesus across the face for remaining silent when questioned. Palace guards blindfolded Him and mocked Him, they taunted Him and they struck Him across the face. Have you ever been struck across the face hard? Maybe you haven't been struck across the face but you know when you go into the kitchen and one of the higher cupboard doors has been left open and you whack your head on the corner of the kitchen door, it really hurts doesn't it?

Imagine being beaten across the head and the face multiple times, just one knock hurts but multiple times must have been brutal and then early the next morning, battered and bruised and dehydrated and worn out from a sleepless night.

Jesus is taken across to Jerusalem to the Praetorian of the Fortress of Antonia, the seat of government where Pontius Pilate was, and Pilate tries to duck shove the case to Herod Antipas the Tetrarch of Judea. But he sends it back to Pilate and there's a crowd outside baying for his blood, it was Barabbas or Jesus, when they said, "We want Barabbas." And of Jesus they shouted, "Crucify him, crucify him."

Now, crucifixion was common in those days so Jesus knew what crucifixion was all about, he didn't know first hand at that point but he knew how brutal and painful and ugly that death would be. And Jesus was condemned by Pilate to a scourging and a crucifixion. Now we often skim over that scourging bit but let’s just have a look at that.

When a prisoner was scourged, he was stripped of all his clothing; his hands were tied to a post above his head. A Roman legionnaire would step forward with a flagellum, a whip consisting of several heavy leather thongs with small beads of lead attached near the ends of each and he brought it down with full force again and again and again across Jesus' shoulders and back and legs. And first they only cut through the skin but as this continues they cut deeper and deep into the subcutaneous tissue, first producing an oozing of blood from the capillaries and veins of the skin and finally spurting arterial blood from the vessels and the muscles. The skin of his back was hanging in long ribbons, the entire area unrecognisable as a mass of torn and bleeding tissue, many prisoners died in the scourging.

Then he was mocked and beaten, they shoved a crown of thorns that pressed into his head. Imagine that? And there was more beating and driving the thorns deeper and deeper into his tissue and skull and then he had to pick up an incredibly heavy cross over his shoulder and bloodied, remember his back, drag it through the streets up the hill, about a 650 meter journey and he collapsed and a man who was watching, called Simon was conscripted into carrying the cross.

Then they threw the cross on the ground and they threw him on top of the cross and they drove nails through his wrists into the wood, blow after blow and nails were driven through the arch of each foot and now he was crucified and then the cross was erected and his full body weight hung on the nails. It must have been excruciating and the way people died was through chest cramps and the muscles were unable to act to breathe, they were able to draw air in but they couldn't exhale and ultimately they suffocated and died.

No greater love has any man than to lay down his life for his friends.

And Jesus said:

They aren't taking my life from me but I lay it down.

Father, I've just heard the story of Jesus' crucifixion and Lord, it just touches me deep inside. Father I know that what You did there was You paid for my sin, for all my failings and Lord, I just want to say thank You. I just want to say thank You and I'm sorry for the things that I've done wrong and right now I just want to give my life to You. I want to take You and accept you as my Lord and my King and my Saviour. Jesus, thank You, I turn away from all the things I've done wrong in the past and I give my life to You. Jesus, You're my Lord, You're my Saviour, I want to live my life, the rest of my life here on this earth for You and then to spend the rest of eternity with You. So Father, thank You for your forgiveness, thank You for the future I have. I pray in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.

When you see the way someone reacts in difficult circumstances, under pressure, when they’re betrayed and rejected – then you discover what they’re really like.  So how did Jesus react?

One of the hardest things in life is when we're betrayed and rejected. Basically, we all want relationships of trust, and basically, we all want to be liked, okay some more than others but it's a pretty natural thing, isn't it? What we'd really like is for our life to cruise along with great relationships, people we can depend on, people who like us.

But it's not always like that, so often there's betrayal, so often there's rejection and that hurts. My hunch is that if I did a word association with a hundred people and asked them to give me the first word that pops into their mind that relates to Easter, for most it would be chocolate or Easter bunny or something like that. Rejection and betrayal, I think they'd be right down at the bottom of the list.

It's amazing you know, Easter has become a really sweet, chocolaty, fluffy, kiddy type of thing. Easter bunnies, chocolate eggs, more chocolate, yet more chocolate. There's nothing wrong with any of that except it's replaced the reality of Easter with something that isn't real, something sweet and sugary that's not the reality.

Easter's about Jesus, the Son of God, this Jesus who did amazing things, the miracles and people He healed and He spoke and made sense. Somehow when Jesus spoke, you can read about it in Matthew or Mark or Luke or John, the four Gospels, the records of his life, when He spoke somehow he just resonated with people, the truth is like that, it's like a tuning fork, it just hits the right pitch in your heart.

I really encourage you, if you've never done that before, grab one of those books in the Bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke or John and just read it through from beginning to end; it's only a few hours to read one of those. I remember when I first read the book of Mark, it's the shortest of the four Gospel accounts, and it just blew me away.

Things jump out at you, at least they did for me. The stark difference between the rule based organised religion of the day and this earthy, real, compassionate, passionate Jesus and whenever someone comes along and threatens the status quo, this rule based religion, this power thing that was going on at the time and that's what Jesus did, He was a religious and political subversive, whenever someone does that then feathers are going to get ruffled.

Powerful people don't like their power bases being threatened or eroded. You see it today in politics and business and yep, even in religion, there's nothing new under the sun and that's exactly what happened to Jesus. I'm just going to have a read of a story because often we don't do this, let me just read this story, the historical account of this in John, chapter 18:

When Jesus had finished praying he left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley. On the other side there was an olive grove and he and his disciples went into it. Now, Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place because Jesus had often met his disciples there, so Judas came to the grove and guiding a detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and the Pharisees.

They were carrying torches, lanterns and weapons. Jesus knowing all that was going to happen to him went out and asked them, "Who is it that you want?" "Jesus of Nazareth," they replied and he said, "That's me," and Judas the traitor was standing there with them. When Jesus said, "That's me," they drew back and fell to the ground and again he asked them, "Who is it you want?" And they said, "Jesus of Nazareth." "I told you that's me," Jesus said, "If you're looking for me then let these men go."

This happened so the words he had spoken would be fulfilled, "I have not lost one of those you gave to me." Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it off and struck the high priest's servant, cutting off his right ear. The servants name was Malchus. Jesus commanded Peter, "Put your sword away. Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"

Then the detachment of soldiers with its commander and Jewish officials arrested Jesus, they bound him and brought him first to Annas, who was the father in law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year, and Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it would be good if one man died for the people.

Simon Peter and another disciple were following Jesus. Because this disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the high priests courtyard but Peter had to wait outside the door. The other disciple who had known the high priest came back, spoke to the girl on duty there and brought Peter in. "Aren't you one of his disciples?" The girl at the door asked and Peter said, "No, not me."

It was cold and the servants and officials stood around a fire they had made for themselves and Peter was standing there too, warming himself. Meanwhile the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching, "I've spoken openly to the world,” Jesus said, "I always taught in the synagogues or at the temples where all the Jews came together. I said nothing in secret, why do you ask me questions?”

Ask those who heard me, surely they know what I said." When Jesus said this one of the officials nearby, struck him in the face, "Is this the way you answer the high priest?" He demanded. "If I've said something wrong." Jesus said, "Testify to what is wrong but if I spoke the truth why do you strike me?" Then Annas sent him, still bound, to Caiaphas the high priest.

And on it went, Jesus was tried several times in these kangaroo courts, ultimately He was tried by the people, Pontius Pilate and Barabbas was set free, the guilty one and Jesus, Jesus was the one that was crucified. He was beaten, reviled, spat upon, dragged his cross up onto that hill called Golgotha which means, "Skull" and nailed to it.

You know what really hits me about this? Jesus was betrayed by so many people, not just Judas, Judas is the number one betrayer but by Peter who denied Him. All of the disciples deserted Him, the crowds, the people who had been so amazed by His teachings and had seen his miracles, they were the ones who ultimately bayed for His blood, they said, "Let Barabbas go and crucify Jesus". And the religious leaders, the people who should have recognised the Son of God, they were the very ones that plotted to kill him.

Jesus knows betrayal and rejection better than anyone and that's how He chose to pay for our sin, mine and yours, to be rejected and betrayed. I use that word deliberately, our rejection of God, He chose to allow this to happen to Him so that you and I would be set free, so that our debt would be paid, so that we would be forgiven. It's not some pantomime, it's not a stained glass window, it's not an Easter egg or an Easter bunny, it's a brutal reality to deal with the greatest problem of humanity; your rejection and my rejection of God. If you've never accepted him as the Lord of your life, why don't you pray this prayer with me now?

Father, I've heard about this Jesus, this Jesus who was betrayed and reviled and beaten and yet still went to the cross for me to pay for my sin. Father, thank you so much for that, I just confess the things that I've done wrong, I'm sorry for them Father and I give them to you, I turn away from them. I can only do that in your strength and I pray for you to help me but I want to follow Jesus with all my life, with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my spirit. I want to live the rest of my life here and have a fantastic relationship God with you through Jesus. Thank you that I can believe in Jesus, the one who suffered and paid my price. Thank you that I have forgiveness and Father, I just pray that you would show me your face, that you would show me how to live my life. I ask that in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.

That week leading up to the very first Easter was a torrid time for Jesus.  Imagine the stress and the pressure.  So it’s interesting to see how He spent those few days.

Let me paint a scenario for a moment. You're dying and you know it and the time is drawing near, you only have a few days, perhaps just a few final hours with the people who mean the most to you. You know something; you know that when you're gone they're going to go through some really tough times, trials, fears, persecution.

In those final days and hours what would you talk to them about? I mean, you have a short time left, that’s all, you have a sense of what's about to befall them, you have the opportunity to speak to them, what would you say? It's a good question and that's exactly what we're going to look at today, in those final hours, what did Jesus say to those who were closest to him, his disciples?

So, what would you say? What would I say? I guess we'd start with the most important things, whatever we could do for them to ensure their survival. Whatever we could say to them that they would recall in the days and the weeks and the months ahead, during those trials, that would support them and comfort them but given that the time was short you'd stick to the really important stuff wouldn't you?

You wouldn't waffle around with a whole bunch of other stuff, you'd keep it simple, lay it out straight, equip them for what they were about to face. Jesus was an amazing miracle worker, people had seen his miracles, they'd heard him speak, and this guy Jesus made sense. He wasn't like the religious leaders of the day, those guys were busy making up ridiculous rules to oppress the people and to line their pockets and to enhance their positions of power.

No, not Jesus, he was so different, He spoke with authority, somehow what He said rang true and made sense and people knew this guy wasn't in it for himself, he was different, He was in it for them. He stood up for them, He reached out to them, He spent most of his time with them, they just knew.

Now, those same religious leaders, who were so threatened by him, were plotting to kill him. Within just a few days He'd be hanging lifeless, bloodied, beaten, and dead on a cross. What does He say to his disciples? Well lets tune in and have a look, if you have a Bible you can have a read of it, it's in chapter 15 of John’s Gospel. Jesus says:

I am the true vine and my Father's the gardener, he cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit while every branch that bears fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

"You're already clean because of the words that I've spoken to you. Remain in me and I'll remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself, it has to remain in the vine and you can't bear fruit unless you remain in me." Jesus said, "I am the vine, you're the branches."

If a man remains in me and I in him he will bear much fruit because apart from me you can do nothing, if you don't remain in me you're a branch that's going to be thrown away, you'll wither, we pick those branches up and we throw them into the fire and they get burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you ask whatever you wish and it will be given to you.

This is to my Father's glory that you can bear much fruit showing yourselves to be my disciples. Just as Dad loved me so I love you. Remain in my love. If you obey my commandments you'll remain in my love just as I've obeyed my Fathers commandments and I remain in his love. I've told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

My commandment is this; love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he laid down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I'm not calling you servants anymore because a servant doesn't know his masters business; instead I call you friend because everything that I learn from my Father I've made known to you.

You didn't choose me but I chose you and I appointed you. Go and bear fruit - fruit that will last and the Father will give you whatever you ask for in my name. This is my command, love one another. Now if the world hates you keep in mind that it hated me first, if you belong to the world it would love you as it's own but as it is you don't belong to the world but I've chosen you out of the world. That's why the world will hate you.

Remember the words I spoke to you, no servant is greater than his master. If they persecuted me they're going to persecute you too. If they obeyed my teaching they would obey yours too, they will treat you in this way because of my name for they do not know the one who sent me, my Father. If I hadn't come and spoken to them they wouldn't be guilty of sin, now however they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me hates my Father as well.

If I had not done among them what no one else did they would be guilty of sin but now they've seen my miracles and yet they have hated me and my Father but this is to fulfill the law where it's written ' they hated me without reason' and when the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, comes who I will send to you from the Father, this spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me and you also must tell people about me for you have been with me from the beginning.

All this I have told you so that you don't go astray. They'll put you out of the synagogue; in fact the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God, they will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I've told you this so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you.

What a beautiful discussion between Jesus and his disciples. Isn't it incredible, the things that He says in those final hours, He talks about bearing fruit, "I'm the vine, you're the branches – hang in there, hang with Me. Pruning is going to happen, whoever God loves He is going to prune but the whole point is if you hang in there with Me, hang in you'll bear fruit. And just as they're going to persecute Me, they're going to persecute you. They won't be pleased about you telling them about Me and it's not about winning here on earth but it's about your relationship with Me."

I meet so many … so many people who believe in Jesus Christ from a distance but who never draw close to them, people who want an insurance policy but never accept him as the Lord, the King of their lives. You know why? Well its right there in what Jesus said to his disciples, because when we accept him as Lord, when we obey him, when we live our life for him there’s a price to pay.

Branches who hang close in Jesus and they are part of Him are going to get pruned. That means change, that means laying down the "me, me, me, me" thing. No matter that this pruning is like cutting cancers out of our souls, no matter that after the pruning we're so much healthier and better off and bearing fruit, we don't want to be pruned and we want everyone to like us. What if they know that I'm a committed Christ follower? What will people think? No, much better to keep Jesus at a distance, a kind of eternal life insurance policy that I keep in a filing cabinet. The real Easter has nothing to do with chocolate, look again; there is a price to pay.

Father, I've just heard Jesus speaking now and he said to abide in him, to hang in there with him. Lord I want that, I want Jesus in my life, this Jesus who in the last days before he was crucified, loved his disciples so much, I want that Jesus. Father, forgive me for all the things I've done wrong, I just turn away from them now and I want to make Jesus truly, truly the Lord of my life. My coach, my king, my leader, my first love. Father I pray that in the name of Jesus. Amen.

That week leading up to the very first Easter was a torrid time for Jesus.  Imagine the stress and the pressure.  So it’s interesting to see how He spent those few days.

Easter means different things to different people. Chocolate, of course there's chocolate, eggs, bunny's, a long weekend, a chance for a bit of a breather and that’s great.

We have a funny way though of reinventing holidays, there's something so amazing about Easter, Gods Easter and since we're right now in the week leading up to Easter I thought why don't we have a look at that week leading up to that very first Easter, what was going on? What was it like? What was Jesus doing? How were his disciples feeling?

So whatever Easter means to you, wherever you might be in your spiritual walk, why don't you join me each day this week as we take a look at Easter from a different perspective.

I love a good movie, I really like movies with some mystery or intrigue, it really gets my interest and mind going, where there are complex things, I love it. Now Easter, when we get to Easter the last thing we really think of is what was actually going on, what was the plot, what was the mystery, what was unfolding at Easter time? Well, what was actually going on?

Here is this Jesus, He's in his thirties, he's grown up, He was a carpenter in Nazareth and about three and a half years before what we now celebrate as Easter, He began his public ministry. He came down, He was baptised in the Jordan River by John and then He went around on what can best be described as a preaching and healing tour for three and a half years. He went right up to the north, up to Galilee and He went down to the south to Judah where the city of Jerusalem is and by any standard He was astounding, He had rock star status.

If you've ever been to Brazil and you see how they treat their football team, if you've ever been to India and see how they treat their cricketers, if you've ever been to South Africa and see how they flock around Nelson Mandela or the Queen in England, you know what I'm talking about.

Jesus was huge in his day, He drew massive crowds, nothing like this had been seen before, thousands upon thousands of people and remember back in the first century cities weren't populations of multiples of millions, Jerusalem was somewhere between 15 and 20 thousand people so when 4 thousand people or 5 thousand people go to one of his outdoor preaching things, that was huge, that was like the quarter of the population went.

Easter week was Passover festival; the crowds came to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. Centuries before when Israel had been captives in Egypt as slaves and God heard their cries, he sent Moses to Pharaoh to say, "Let my people go!" And Pharaoh of course wouldn't so God sent these plagues upon Egypt and the last plague, as we saw last week, is when God killed the first born of every family and in fact their animals in Egypt.

But God said to his people, who were slaves in Egypt, what you do on the night of the Passover is you take a lamb and you kill it and you paint it's blood on the top of your doorpost and then when the angel of death comes across to kill the first born it will pass over your house because you are God’s chosen people.

And then Pharaoh finally sets Israel free because of that plague and they spend forty years in exodus in the desert before they make it to the Promised Land, the land of Israel that we know today. And so Israel was celebrating, in fact they still celebrate today, the Jews still celebrate the Passover when we celebrate Easter.

Jesus had been threatening the religious establishment, the religious leaders, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, these sects of leaders, the scribes that had a cushy relationship with the occupying Roman forces. Israel was occupied by the Roman empire as was the rest of the known world at this point and religion kind of became something to oppress the people, nothing new under the sun is there?

When you take God’s love and you twist it into a bunch of man made rules that manipulate people it becomes a really horrible thing and Jesus comes along and Jesus is like a breath of fresh air, He cares about the people, He stands up for them, He's not into religious rules or establishment, He just loves people and you know, there’s something inside us, when we meet someone who's authentic and real and genuine and honest and a great leader, there’s a switch that flicks inside of us and we just know that we know, that we know that he's good.

I remember when I worked in the consulting world and after I sold my business we put various other managers in charge of the business because I was leaving the business to come and do what I'm doing now and I saw people who were put in management positions who tried to manage through rules and fear and domination and people just didn't respond to them but when you put someone there who is genuine and real and honest and decent, people would work their backsides off for someone like that.

So the contrast between the organised religion, the manipulation and the oppression of people that occurred under the religious leaders was such a stark comparison to this genuine breath of fresh air they called Jesus. Jesus came to set the captives free so by the time of this Passover there was a murder plot on.

How do we do away with this Jesus? Jesus knew it, the religious leaders were threatened by all that Jesus was doing. Jesus knew it, the disciples knew it, there was tension in the air, there was fear in the hearts of the disciples, were they going to arrest the disciples too? What happened when Jesus went?

This Jesus, this miracle worker, the only person that ever made sense and now it looked like he was going to be murdered. How did Jesus handle the pressure, the plotting, the knowing, the brutal crucifixion was coming? You really find out what someone's like when the going gets tough, when they're under pressure, that's when the real person comes through. Well, how did he handle it? Have a look; he says to his disciples, you can read it in John’s gospel, chapter 14:

Don't let your hearts be troubled, trust in God, trust in me. In my Fathers house there are many rooms, if it wasn't so I wouldn't have told you. I'm going there to prepare a place for you and if I go to prepare a place for you, I'll come back and I'll take you to be with me where I am.

You know where I'm going and Thomas says, "Lord, I haven't got any idea where you're going. How do we get there?" And Jesus said, "Come on Thomas, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life. No-one comes to the Father but through me, if you really knew me you would have known my Father as well.

From now on you do know him because you have seen him. If you love me obey what I command and I will ask the Father and he will give you another counsellor just like me, to be with you forever, the spirit of truth." And Jesus said, "If anyone loves me they'll obey my teachings and my Dad will love them and we'll come and make a home with them.

He who doesn't love me won't obey my teaching, these words you hear are not my own but they belong to the Father who sent me. All this I have spoken with you while I am still here but the counsellor, the Holy Spirit who my Father will send in my name will teach you all things. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. I don't give as the world gives, don't let your hearts be troubled, don't be afraid."

Isn't this amazing, what strikes me about this is right at a time when He's walking inexorably to a brutal crucifixion, His thoughts are not for himself, He's not lashing out at people and worrying about himself, He's looking to the future, He's looking after his disciples. He knows what’s coming and He gives them comfort and peace amidst the turmoil. By any standard, that's remarkable don't you think? Jesus is not some "rule based" religion however much people try and turn him into that, he's the Son of God, He has sacrificed himself. All this and not a chocolate Easter egg in sight.