Sin, Suffering, and Death Redeemed and It is Utterly Amazing

This Easter season I want to talk to you about something that is so important that without it we would have no hope for the world or for our lives. Of course, because it is Easter I want to talk to you about the cross, the empty tomb, and the resurrected Jesus, but I want to pinpoint on one idea, one result, and one all-surpassing hope. That is redemption. We all know that friends and family hurt us sometimes. Without redemption, relationships could never be restored. We all know that the world and culture have aspects where they are immensely broken. Without redemption, we would be living in chaos and endless loss. We all know that we don’t do what is right, so without redemption, what hope do we have for a better life? There is no better vision of God’s redemption at work then Easter. Today, with the resurrection of Jesus, we see sin (which is evil), suffering, and death redeemed. Today, we watch our greatest weaknesses, our greatest fears, and our greatest enemies becoming things that instead leads to a transformed life, a new hope, strength, and grace. As we watch this at work, we know that God can truly redeem and transform anything.

Here is my simple definition of Godly redemption: It is God taking something evil with negative consequences and turning it into something good with positive consequences. Or as Joseph once said to his brother in forgiveness, “What you meant for evil, God meant for good”. Remember, this was way back in Genesis, thousands and thousands of years ago. God’s redemption has been at work from the beginning and it is still at work even to this day. God wants to redeem everything about you. You know that anger, God wants to transform it so that you might see the hurt behind it, to see our need for Him and find a greater strength in Him instead of leaning on our weakness. You know that addiction, God wants to transform it so that we are addicted to His presence, His love, and His bottomless joy. You know those ambitions and dreams, God wants to transform them so that they become a shared dream for his kingdom, so united in our drive for a beautiful world. These are actually just three examples of God’s redemptive work on my own life and I could tell you stories about each.

The only problem to this amazing and all surpassing hope is that we stand in the way of God’s redemption. We so hold onto our sins, so that we let them turn us against God, one another and even ourselves. We so hold onto our hurt that we struggle forgiving, trusting, or letting go. We so hold onto our death, that we react in fear to so many aspects of life and then struggle to see what God really wants for us.

This is where Isaiah comes in. Remember Isaiah lived over 700 years before Jesus. Isaiah saw, long before Jesus was ever born that Jesus was needed and what he would need to do. Isaiah’s prophetic edge at this moment is to look at the reality of the world. To see the rampant sin, the monstrous suffering, and all too common death. Isaiah knew that God can and will overcome and redeem all things, but with things so enormous and destructive as sin, suffering, and death, the question is how will God redeem them to make them into a good thing?

The first part of the solution is simple and yet horrifying. We needed someone to take all of our sins, evil, suffering, and death off our hands. We couldn’t even carry our own evil as it leads to our death, let alone carry it for those around us, so all that was left for us was to be buried under these evils. We needed someone pure, willing and beyond us to do what we couldn’t. Isaiah presents to us what this means. Here is a man (Jesus), who was despised and rejected, a man of suffering, whose only friend is weakness and loss, who people don’t want to look at or be seen by, we account Him as nothing, struck by God. This was only the case because Jesus was the one that took on our weakness, sickness, he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our wrong action, he took the punishment that made us whole.

This already points to the redemptive power of suffering and death in God. As Jesus willingly takes on suffering and death, it leads to our wholeness and life. To a lesser extend God can work this in us too. When we suffer and/or die for God, it can have amazing redemptive power for the lives of those around us. An example from a long time ago, when Rome was killing Christians. A Christian woman was burned alive for her faith. As the centurion watched this punishment that he had inflicted hundreds of times, he saw her strength and faith, compared to the horrendousness of the moment. He supposedly thought, “if this God can give her strength to die like that, this is a God I want to believe in”. So, he went from being a persecutor, practicing outright evil and defiance against God, to becoming the opposite as he shared God’s goodness. I have seen the same kind of witness as I have watched people die in hospital rooms. The words, strength and care of those dying becomes a testament to me and to all those that witness it, whether it be their family or health practicioners.

God’s redemption becomes even more amplified in these moments, because it becomes a vision of God’s grace and love. Sin, though we should never purposely practice turning away from God, becomes a space for us to see God’s grace. Think about it. If sin is us turning away from God, sometimes walking or even running away. When God chases after us, or brings his gifts to us, we haven’t deserved it one bit, so that is a pure gift from God, it is his love and grace. The cross and resurrection is the greatest act of grace and love we could ever imagine and more, because it was when we showed ourselves to be the greatest enemies of God, that he gave us his life and then offers us eternal life on the other side of death. God gives up everything for us and yet somehow gives us more. As I said on Friday, we have not even come close to loving God as much as he deserves and yet he loves us far more than we will ever deserve.

Here we have touched on God’s greatest redemptive power working through death. Death that is an end, is a void, nothingness, absolute loss, in Christ has become the opposite. Death in Christ, becomes the way we overcome the nothingness, and the chaos of our sinful lives and the way that we are reborn, transformed, transfigured into the image of God.

Even if it feels obvious to me in hindsight that Jesus would have to do it, it is at the same time utterly amazing to me that Isaiah sees all of it. Isaiah tells us, through Jesus' sacrificial death, he shall prolong his days, (he predicts the resurrection). Though he had no friends, suddenly he has offspring, people made in his image, transformed to become God’s image and living out God’s goodness. He speaks about seeing the light, knowing fulfillment, and righteousness so Hope and peace shall be known and we will be restored to a right relationship with God. I wish I could talk more about all of this, but I want to take my last few moments to look at how we see this in the Easter story.

As the women approach the tomb, there is an earthquake and the stone is rolled away. We might just think these are examples of God’s grandeur and power, but they are far more. An earthquake is literally the earth shaking, it is shifting and changing. In this moment, even the earth itself is being changed. We don’t yet know how, but then an angel descends and the stone is rolled away. The earthquake at Jesus’ death was marked by saints rising from the dead. This earthquake is marked by a little bit of heaven descending to earth and the heavy stone that trapped us in death being removed. Jesus death and resurrection has forever changed the world by bringing heaven close and removing deaths hold on us. Small note - the angel appears like lightning and white as snow. This resembles strongly Christ’s transfiguration and prophetic texts. It would appear as if even heaven is transformed by Christ’s death and resurrection.

Then there are those at the tomb. So remember, Jesus was a lot of people’s hope. He was creating a following and a group where God’s love was known and practiced in miraculous ways. His death would have meant for them the death of this hope. Suddenly, the tomb is open, empty and they learn that Jesus is alive. What was there greatest hope for a changed culture, now becomes their surpassing hope for a changed world and reality and for us too. The disciples had already been doing some amazing things, but between this and the gift of the Holy Spirit, suddenly their ministry and lives become amazing. They are redeemed as they also redeem. Even the soldiers, the visible sign of tyranny and Jesus’ killers, is thrown down before God’s might.

Most of you have probably heard this story a hundred times. It is so ingrained into our culture like any common idea, that it doesn’t always feel special. The truth is that what God did through the cross and empty tomb is utterly astonishing. It isn’t just that God died, it isn’t just that someone rose from the dead, it is everything that God does through it and what it has done in this world and can do in our lives.

The angels first words are: “Do not be afraid”. This is the most common thing God says to us in Scripture. Again and again, God says to us in every situation: “Do not be afraid”. We know this is important, especially in the moment we hear it, but until this moment we haven’t realized that God was actually saying. He is saying, “Do not be afraid, ever”. As I have redeemed sin, suffering and death, you no longer have anything to be afraid of. The unknown, the grand, the horrifying, and the end, all of it can be and will be redeemed through our relationship with Jesus Christ. There is nothing left to be afraid of. Instead of fear, God has replaced it all with hope, love, and grace, if we can have faith enough to see it.

I want to make this practical for you, but any example I can give just limits this immense potential to a moment. Instead, I want to challenge you to make it practical for yourself. What is it you are afraid of right now? What is it that you are struggling with or that hurts? What is the loss that weighs on you? Trust God as you move into that fear, hurt and loss and watch for his amazing redemption. Trust as Isaiah did that God can and will redeem all things. That includes you and everything that surrounds you. AMEN