04/05/26 Easter Sunday: Everything is Restored

I hope today's homily inspires and motivates you, and I also hope that it leaves you hungry for the one who gave everything to feed you.

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up at ascensionpress.com/sunday, or by texting Sunday 2-3-3-7-7-7-7. You can also follow or subscribe on your podcast app for weekly notifications. God bless. The Lord be with you. I'd like to ask for a reading from the Holy Gospel according to John.

I'd like to ask for twenty verses one through nine.

On the first day of the week, Mary of Baghdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while

it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran, and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved and told them, they have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don't know where they put him. The Peter and the other disciple went out, and came to the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first.

He bent down, and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in. When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that I covered his head, not with the burial cloths, but rolled up in a separate place. Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw,

and believed, for they did not yet understand the scripture that he had to rise from the dead, the gospel of the Lord.

May Jesus do the Lord Jesus Christ.

I should have a seat. So on Holy Thursday, we talked about how everything was given, that Jesus gave everything on, I'm good Friday, so we talk about how everything was taken. So we have these two, everything is given, everything is taken, and the question is what happens next?

“What happens after everything is given, what happens after everything is taken?”

So years ago, there's a man, his name is Lee Strobel. He was a journalist, the investigative journalist in Chicago, and he was an atheist. And he was fine being an atheist. He was wife, they had a decent life, not great. There were some rocks in their marriage, there were some pains in their lives, but he thought

they were doing just fine. At one point, she went to church, and he was like, that's fine as long as you don't bring you church home. Unfortunately, she brought church home, and she kept asking him, inviting him to come with her to mass, or not to mass, but to church.

And he said, no, I said, no, and then finally said this, he said, okay, listen, if I can

prove to you that this isn't true, if I can prove to you that Christianity isn't true, if I can prove to you that Jesus didn't rise from the dead, will you stop going to church in kind of this agreement.

“So he sets out, and he does this, he's investigative journalist.”

And so he does what investigative journalists do. He investigates the evidence, and he talked to historians, he talked to theologians, he talked to scholars, medical doctors, and it all came down to this big question. When it comes to the teaching of Jesus, because everyone would say, a teaching of Jesus, it's incredible.

He's brilliant. He's so insightful. The guy was really good, but the question is this, not just was his teaching brilliant, or not just was the man Jesus good. The question was, was, is the resurrection real?

The question is, did Jesus really rise from the dead because leastroble knew this, that if Jesus didn't really rise from the dead, then none of it matters. But if he did, then it all matters. And after two years of investigating, and two years of trying to disprove Christianity, leastroble came to a conclusion he did not want to arrive at.

It's true. If the resurrection is true, he was man, he set out to disprove the resurrection, and he became a Christian because of it. Not only to become a Christian, but it was this reality that had defined that shaped his life when he came to the conclusion that, oh my gosh, after investigating the evidence,

I can't just be a Christian who sort of goes to church on Sundays. I have to be someone who lets this truth define my whole life. So he wrote multiple books on Jesus. He preaches on Christ. In fact, in some of these struggles preaching, in some of his teaching, I've came across

another man's story. In fact, it's a story that kind of mirrors leastroble story. It's a story of a man named Sir Lionel Lucku. Sir Lionel Lucku died in 1997, so died relatively recently, but he was a lawyer. And he was a criminal defense attorney.

In fact, he is some people say, in the Guinness Book of World Records, for the most consecutive wins in murder trials. He has something like 245 consecutive murder acquittals when it comes to his work.

This man who knows evidence.

“This man who knows what cross-examination is and at one point, someone asks Sir Lionel”

that he will later on begin a judge in a diplomat, but at one point in this life, people ask Sir Lionel. Sir Lionel, are you a Christian? And he said, "Not really." And they said, "Why not?"

And he didn't have an answer. He didn't know why not. He just kind of assumed that it wasn't true. Or he assumed that it didn't matter. And so just like with leastroble, someone challenged Sir Lionel to find out, to look at

the evidence. And leastroble, investigative journalist, look at the evidence. Sir Lionel, look who, defense attorney, judge, look at the evidence. And he just like leastroble took time. And he investigated the evidence and the cross-examination.

At one point, he looked at the gospel accounts. He looked at the lives of the apostles completely transforming in the gospel today. We heard about them, right?

“James, or sorry, John and Peter, who had to run to the tomb and their lives change when”

they saw something happen, the eyewitness testimonies that testified to the fact that Jesus wrote from the dead. In fact, the historical claims, all of those things, the evidence pointing to the truth of the resurrection led Sir Lionel to this conclusion. He said, "How flying is legal standards," Sir Lionel said this.

He said, "The evidence of the resurrection is so overwhelming that it leaves no room for reasonable doubt." The evidence of the resurrection is so overwhelming that it leaves no room for reasonable doubt. And what does that mean for us?

That means that the resurrection is an historical fact. That this is something that we don't just kind of believe in, or like a myth, in fact, same Peter.

In second Peter, you're right, so about this.

Second Peter, he's right. He says, "We did not follow cleverly devised myths. We made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We had been eyewitnesses of His majesty." He's talking about this morning.

He's talking about today when they see Jesus risen from the dead. This is not a myth. It's actually true. And that's why our OCI people, we tell them this again and again and again. The only reason to believe anything is because it's true.

But if it's true, what does it mean? You know, let's see, as Louis said, it's one said, Christianity if false is of no importance. If Jesus didn't really rise from the dead, it's of no importance. Christianity, if true, is of absolute importance.

“He said, the only thing, Christianity cannot be, is marginally, or relatively important.”

It is either unimportant if Jesus didn't really rise from the dead. It's or it's absolutely important if He did. And it's true. And the Jesus really is, who he says he is.

Now here's the net, that's amazing, that's amazing on its own, but we have to realize

there's more. Why? Because Jesus did not merely walk out of the tomb to win an argument. Right? Jesus didn't rise from the dead to prove a point.

Jesus rose from the dead to do something. Why? Because we know this. We know that death has touched everything. That's our experience of life.

Death has touched everything. Go back to Genesis 2 and 3. This year's God will make this world, and God is so good. He makes this world good. He makes us good, and He says, don't eat of that tree.

Why? Or else you'll die. In fact, Hebrew says, if you eat of this tree, you will die the death. I have a friend of mine, go on. He says, actually, the Hebrew literally is, if you eat of the tree, you'll die die.

You'll die die. Which means you're not just that your bodies will die, not just that you'll come to the end of your life, and you'll cease to exist. And like the logic of death, death touches everything, broken relationships, that we

know this, trust dies, and sometimes never comes back.

Death touches shame, where a person carries a past, and feels like that absolutely defines them discouragement. Someone who used to walk with hope, or you'll walk with someone who had dreams, someone had an imagined future, and then that future, those hopes, those dreams are just quieter. And then it's in sin, not just the active sin, but the aftermath of sin, like the fracture,

the damage, the distance, death touches everything, and not just even bad things like this, death, we know this, death even touches joyful things. Even joyful things in our lives have an outline of sadness, our students are graduating in just just over a month, which is exciting. It's joyful, but you're also like, okay, here's what the real work starts, or weddings.

Weddings are incredible opportunities, incredible moments of joy, but everyone in that

you're, we don't know what's coming down the road from you for you, even joyful moments

are just, they have an outline of it, or nations, they said, we're excited, we're grateful, pray the Lord that this person's getting ordained, okay, here's where you really start carrying that cross, because we know, right, we know this, we don't just suffer death at the end of our lives. We live in a world where death is at work, where things break at least a broken, where things

end, and they stay ended, where things that were beautiful and and full of life decay. So the question, is this, what do we need?

“Do we just need advice or reject, we just need something inspirational?”

I think we need something more, we don't, we don't, this is so good.

Jesus is the greatest teacher who ever lived, but we don't just need His teaching.

And Jesus brings forgiveness, but we don't just need forgiveness. If death is the problem, then we need something stronger than death. If everything is given, and everything is taken, then we need everything to be restored. That's the resurrection. That is today.

Here is Jesus, God Himself, not escaping death, not ignoring death, not avoiding death, but Jesus enters into death, and He undoes it from the inside. Jesus doesn't go around it, He lets death do its worst to Him. And then what? Everything is given, everything is taken, and then everything is restored.

“Jesus allows death to its worst to Him, and then He rises.”

And that doesn't just prove something, doesn't just win an argument, it introduces a new reality. It's a life that death cannot touch, it's a life not defined by decay, not defined by shame, not defined by loss. This is our students last night, we had so many, so many students, estimate about 55

our students, but 10 or so were baptized. The rest had made a profession of faith, they were confirmed, first Holy Communion, and

addition to the cathedrals that had like 40 people is incredible, it was amazing last night.

What did they do? Those who got baptized, they said, "Okay, Lord, I'm going to give you everything. God, I'm going to let you take everything, so that everything I give you and everything that you take can be restored."

“And this is what it looks like when they place themselves under the water, the bishop”

is as he baptized in a poor water over them, they're placing themselves, God, here, everything is given, God, everything is taken, so that everything can be restored. If you went to confessional over the last week, that's the same thing, we just come to the Lord to say, "Okay, God, everything, everything I know that is holding me back from you, I give it to you."

And what do you do, God? What does God do? He takes everything, why so that everything can be restored, every one of those people were baptized last night, who were confirmed or receive Holy Communion last night, all of us. What does St. Paul say?

St. Paul's letter to the Romans, he says, "Do not realize that the spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead also lives in you." We don't just believe a true thing. We live the truth. We don't just believe in the resurrection.

We get to live the resurrection. The resurrection is alive in you. The spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is in you. So those places that feel dead, they're not just comforted, God brings life out of them.

Those relationships that are beyond repair, it's not just hate, we'll try harder. It's the reality that new beginnings are possible. And for those of us who have shame with that, that feels permanent, it's not covered, but grace recreates the person. And Jesus didn't rise from the dead to prove that he could.

He did it to begin the restoration of everything that death had touched. Everything is given, everything is taken, so everything's restored. And that of course, that doesn't mean that there's no pain or tears or loss or grief. It just means that in the midst of pain or tears or loss or grief or death, the resurrection

The incredible news is we get to live this now.

“The resurrection, it's not just proof, but it's something we're invited to participate in.”

And we're invited to participate in with our wounds, this is the last thing.

Next weekend, we're going to, it's Divide Mercy Sunday, we're going to read the gospel

“where Jesus reveals himself to his apostles and he shows them his wounds.”

And that is the truth, is this what, after the resurrection, Jesus has wounds.

Resurrection doesn't mean this never happened.

“It just means that what wounded you no longer defines you.”

So our wounds are reminders of the reality and power of death. And there is a reaction, it reminds us of the reality in power of restoration. And everything that you and I hand over to Jesus, everything that you and I hand over to the one who has raised from the dead can be restored, all of it. All we have to say is Jesus, it's yours, all of it.

Everything given, everything taken, and everything restored.