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1 I want to welcome you to Traders Point. Thank you for joining us this Easter. We are really glad that you are here. My name is Aaron and I m one of the pastors here at the church. If you are a guest and you would like more information about the church, then on your way out today you can stop at any one of the Connection Central posts and there will be some very friendly people there to answer questions or give you information about the church. I would like to actually personally invite you to come back next Sunday because I m beginning a two part series of messages called imarriage. We are going to spend a couple of weeks talking about that. I just want you to know that regardless of your marital status or situation, whether you are single, not yet married, don t want to be married, divorced, widowed, separated, wherever you are at in that whole spectrum there is going to be some relevant material for you. So please come back next week for that series. Three weeks from today I m starting a series called Take This Job and Love It. We are going to be spending a little bit of time talking about a theology of work we spend so much time at work anyway so what does God have to say about it and how do we frame that up? But today is Easter! I have one question as we get rolling today: What comes to your mind when you think about Easter? What comes to your mind when you think about this day? I would imagine there are a number of things that pop into your mind. I was spending some time thinking about this last week and there were several things that came up for me. The first thing that came to my mind, as I thought about this day, was eggs. I have plastic eggs here, but my Mom would do the real ones with me. She would go to Wal-Mart to purchase the egg coloring kit that had the little tablet that you throw in the water. We d then boil the eggs and dip the eggs with the little metal ladle. Did this ever happen to you? Inevitably there was one egg that got put in there that wasn t hard boiled enough. It would just make a mess. Here lately, around our house, when it comes to Easter, Peeps come to mind. Peeps - you have to say that word with a higher voice. My daughters love these things and they tear them apart. The Peeps up on stage can listen to the Easter message because it will be the last one they will ever hear. You can pray for them this afternoon does not look good for them. What about the chocolate Easter bunny? It is pretty iconic. I don t know about you, but when I was growing up every year I would pray that Mom and Dad would spring for the solid chocolate Easter bunny. Anybody with me in that? Right? Every year I was disappointed. I would bite into that thing and it was that waxy chocolate that was hollow on the inside. Inevitably they would look at me and say, Now son, just as the chocolate Easter bunny is empty, so is Jesus tomb. I was always like, what? Don t go spiritualizing that. You are cheap. That s what that is. So we get the solid chocolate Easter bunny. So, I want to you to think for a moment this morning what comes to your mind about Easter and I m just betting that from any of us we see this day through different lenses. We have different perspectives as it Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved.

2 relates to Easter Sunday. For many of us in this room, Easter is the recognition and celebration of the fact that Jesus resurrected from the dead. That God became a man, that He lived among us, died on the cross to pay the penalty of our sin, and that He lived again. So we celebrate that. For others of us though, we are not so sure. We re a little bit skeptical about that claim or maybe at the very least we are just kind of apathetic over it. So when it comes to Easter Sunday, you are game for getting up, getting dressed up, and going to a church service, but beyond that it doesn t really mean a whole lot to you. You would maybe not say this out loud, but the only reason you came today was just to make Mom happy. Maybe the reason you came today was just to kind of please your spouse. This is the pregame formalities before going over to Grandma s to have the Easter ham and hide some eggs in the back yard for the kids to hunt. When you fought traffic coming in today, you got the parking spot and came in and everyone is excited and all dialed up to attend and you look at all this with a little bit of cynicism. You say when it comes to Easter I really just don t get it; it is a nice thing to do, but I don t understand why you are so excited. I came across a story last week of a guy that really didn t get it either. In fact this is an illustration of how something can go over your head or you can miss it. This guy went out and apparently bought a bumper sticker to put on his car that read Honk if you love Jesus. Listen to what he writes on the first day he applied the bumper sticker: What a wonderful experience it was that first day that I put that bumper sticker on the back of my car. I was sitting at a stop light, just lost in thought; I didn t notice that the light had changed. Man, that bumper sticker really worked. I found lots of people who loved Jesus. The guy behind me started to lay on his horn, it was clear he really loved Jesus because pretty soon he leaned out the window and started yelling His name. Soon after that, people behind him joined in on the yelling and honking. I began to honk also. I leaned out my window and waved and smiled at each of those loving people. There must have been a guy from Florida because he was yelling something about a sunny beach. I saw him waving at me in a funny way with only one finger so I ask my kids what that meant. They looked at each other, giggling, and said, Dad, that is the Hawaiian sign for good luck. Well a couple of people got so excited that they got out of their cars and started to walk towards me. I bet they wanted to pray. But just then I noticed that the light had turned green so I stepped on the gas and made it across the intersection before it turned red again. I was the only driver that made it across the intersection. I looked back at all my new friends standing there, gave them a big smile and held up the Hawaiian sign for good luck as I drove away. Praise the Lord for such wonderful people. That is just wrong, do you agree? When it comes to that guy, he just didn t get it, right? The whole meaning of that and what those people were doing just went over his head. Maybe for you, when it comes to Easter, you just really don t get it either. I remember for me all through growing up there were so many years when it came to this day - I just didn t get it. I would get dressed in the blue suit that my mom would buy for me to wear and I d go through the motions but the meaning of it was largely lost on me. I didn t understand the significance of this day on my life, but then one day I learned that Easter is about more than just chocolate Easter bunnies, egg hunts and even a church service. That Easter is the celebration and recognition of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. An event that many of us believe actually took place in history. But it is Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 2

3 actually much more than that. And it has to be much more than that. Let me explain to you what I mean. One time in the book of John, chapter 11, Jesus had a close friend of His by the name of Lazarus who died. Lazarus had two sisters, Mary and Martha, and they were understandably very upset. Have any of you had somebody very close to you (a close family member or friend) and they passed away? Once the initial shock wore off you got that nauseating feeling in your stomach that hit you like a ton of bricks where you said This is real. I m never going to see them again. I m never going to talk to them again. I m never going to hear their voice again. There is that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach where you feel hopeless. That is how Lazarus sisters felt. Jesus shows up and He offers some words of consolation to one of them. But what He says is really quite fascinating because it is not what you would expect Him to say. Listen to what He says in Chapter 11:25 27; Jesus words here are going to clue us in why this day means so much. Jesus told her, I am the Resurrection and the Life. That is a really weird way of putting things. Now you would think that He would have said anything but that. Like hey, Martha, it will be ok. After a while life will get back to normal. Hey, Martha, you know what? You can have hope again because one day I m going to resurrect from the dead. Or, hey Martha, here in just a few minutes I m going to resurrect Lazarus from the dead (as He did), but He didn t say that. He says this weird thing that completely goes over her head and she doesn t get it. He says, I am the Resurrection and the Life. Anyone who believes in Me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in Me and believes in Me will never die. What are you talking about, Jesus? This sounds so strange. Then He looks at her and He asks her the question that you and I will answer either directly or indirectly. He says, Do YOU believe this? Martha says back to Him, Yes, Lord. I ve always believed You are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who has come into the world. But did you notice here that she didn t really answer the question He asked her? It just completely goes over her head. She didn t get it. Jesus said I am the Resurrection and she says, Yes, Lord I believe that you are the Messiah. And the meaning of it was largely lost on her. Jesus clues us in on this truth that went over Martha s head and I think continues to go over many of our heads today. Because when you come to an Easter service, once a year when you come, you hear a preacher stand up and say, Hey, Jesus resurrected from the dead 2,000 years ago, then immediately your intellect, your scientific mind, and your analytic mind begins to kick into overdrive and you say, I don t know about that. That sounds like a fairy tale to me. That sounds like a conspiracy where a few religious people got together and kind of doctored up the story to consolidate power. I don t know that it really happened. And that is usually what ends up happening with the resurrection account it degenerates into an argument. The meaning of it largely goes over our head. So you have one side that says there is a resurrection that happened and we ve got proof; here look at the evidence. Then the other side looks at that and says that isn t evidence, it is faulty. Then they battle out back and forth. I saw an example of this just last week when I was reading an article in the Wall Street Journal about a man who was a journalist for the Chicago Tribune and an atheist (this was thirty years ago), and his wife became a Christian. That is like a bait and switch on him. When he married her she wasn t a Christian and then she became one. (Some of you have maybe had that experience.) So he is upset. He decides to flex his journalistic muscles to really investigate the resurrection and prove that it didn t happen and Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 3

4 subsequently destroy her faith. He sets out on this over several months and the whole process ends up backfiring on him because there are so many compelling things surrounding the resurrection account that he actually becomes a believer. He gives his life to Christ. The title of this article was How Easter Destroyed My Faith in Atheism. I read down through the article and I get down to the bottom where the comments are - that is the good stuff. Any of you do that? You read an article on-line and go down to the comments they are so uplifting. You get to them and there are over 200 of them. People are livid and threatening to cancel their subscription to the Wall Street Journal. They say this isn t intellectually honest. This is fairy tale. This is just religious mumbo-jumbo. I don t even think he was an atheist; he was just posing as one. Then you get the defenders who say quit being so mean. They all throw their anonymous arrows back and forth because technology has given us this warm blanket where we don t have to look at each other face-to-face. Usually that is how this degenerates into an argument - did it happen vs. did it not happen. Most of this in this room, if we are being honest, find ourselves somewhere in the middle. Maybe today you wouldn t put yourself in the category of a theist, someone who believes in one God as a creator and sustainer of the universe. You don t know if you would put yourself in that category. You may also not put yourself in the category of an atheist, someone who would deny or disbelieve in the existence of a God or a supreme being. Most of us here today, I m thinking, would put ourselves in the category of an apatheist. Even if we do believe, we are just apathetic over the whole argument. We d say, I don t know, did God resurrect from the dead? Did He not I don t know. And you know what, honestly Aaron, who cares? Because right now, I m fighting for my marriage and I don t have time to think about this debate over some event that may or may not have happened 2,000 years ago. Right now I am fighting for my job, for my kids, for my sanity, for my health and really, what difference does it make? Maybe He did or maybe He didn t; I don t have a dog in that fight - I m not going to get involved. And yet at Easter the best question for us to ask is not Did the resurrection happen?, but Why did the resurrection matter? Why does the resurrection matter? When you begin to give some serious thought as to why the resurrection even matters and you come to an answer on that, I ve discovered that believing the event actually happened is not that difficult when you begin to understand why. I don t know if that would describe any one of you because regardless of what you believe today, regardless of whether you came here against your will or willingly, regardless of whether you are just putting up with this before you can go eat lunch, I know one thing about you. You are looking for at least a little bit of hope. Maybe you haven t even phrased it that way, but what you really want is a full life, you want to know that you matter, and you are looking for hope. Maybe you are butted up against some circumstances in your life that are kind of taking that hope away. If I could get you away from your peers or get you away from your college professor and back you into the corner, I think you would probably say I d like to believe in God. It sounds good; if there is a good God who is looking out for me I d love to believe in that kind of God. You know what, at the end of the day I d love to believe that Jesus walked out of a tomb. But I m in pain. I ve seen some people do some things in the name of God that I can t fully explain and I ve seen so much injustice in the world and I don t know that I can put my trust in a God who seems to allow all of that. I just want you to think about this today: that the very first believers of the resurrection had Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 4

5 their doubts too. That the very first believers that Jesus walked out of a tomb - they had given up hope. They were cynical; in fact, one of them even said This is nonsense. But they all came to believe. I want to look at their story today, so if you have your Bible turn to Luke, chapter twenty-four starting in verse one. There is something that we all really need to understand when it comes to the Bible: the Bible is not just some ancient religious book filled with dos and don ts. The Bible is a collection of manuscripts of separate books. There are sixty-six of them written by over forty authors; twenty-four of these books were written by individuals who saw Jesus live, saw Him die and they saw Him live again. Or they were very close to somebody to saw Him live, die and live again. It might even surprise you to know that even as a pastor, as a Christ follower, I don t believe in the resurrection just because the Bible says so. I believe in the resurrection because there were real people with real stories who said we saw Him live, saw Him die, and saw Him live again. Let s look at one account here from Luke 24:1. Jesus has just died on a cross and we will pick this up a couple of days later. But very early on Sunday morning the women went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. They found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. So they went in, but they didn t find the body of the Lord Jesus. Look on down at verse four: As they stood there puzzled That is probably putting it lightly. Panicked would probably be more like it. two men suddenly appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes. The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the men asked, Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? To which they might have said, oh, I don t know because it s a tomb? Right, like maybe because He s dead? He was in here the last time we checked. But the two men said, He isn t here! He is risen from the dead! Remember what He told you back in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that He would rise again on the third day. Now understand that Jesus had just experienced a Roman crucifixion. For Rome, crucifixions were a billboard that basically said: don t mess with us. One of the common things that they would do after nailing someone to the cross would be to leave the body there for months at a time to allow the birds and animals to totally decimate it. But in Jerusalem things were a little bit different because the Jews had laws against leaving the body on a tree overnight and so Pilate would often times allow them to take the body down but normally the body would just be thrown into a garbage dump or buried in a shallow grave. Two men come to Pilate to ask for Jesus body after it was clear He was dead; it is not two men that you would expect. Like you would expect that maybe this would be two of Jesus disciples, but it is actually a guy named Joseph of Arimathea and a guy named Nicodemus. Joseph was a very wealthy man in this community; Nicodemus was a Pharisee. They were secret followers of Jesus. They didn t really want anybody to know that they were followers, but after Jesus had died they felt so convicted by what they saw that they go to Pilate and ask for Jesus dead body. Which is a risk for them because Pilate could have said, Ah ha! Two more followers! and had them arrested. So they come out that they are followers and they ask Pilate for the body and he gives it to them. Here is the thing that I want you to think about: if they were expecting a resurrection expecting Jesus to come back to life - what do you think they would have done with His body? Take Him home? Sit Him in a chair at the kitchen table? Fix Him a glass of sweet tea, right? Any minute now did His eyes just twitch? He is going to take a breath I think this is going to happen. They weren t expecting it. They did to Jesus body what you do with dead bodies. They washed the body, prepared it for burial and Jesus didn t have a tomb so Joseph said Jesus can have mine (only wealthy people had Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 5

6 tombs). They placed Jesus in this borrowed tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. The sun was going down, the next day was the Sabbath and since they couldn t do any work on the Sabbath they are rushing trying to get Jesus in the tomb. This explains why the women came back a day later. They came back a day later to ensure that Jesus had been properly buried. That is pretty common, right? Ladies, you are always following your husband around kind of redoing what he just did because he didn t do it right. I do the dishes or I fold the laundry and Lindsay is like let s do this the right way. I fix my daughter s hair and she ll come right alongside and fix it again. The ladies are thinking they didn t do this right so we are going to the tomb to make sure that Jesus has a proper burial. Why would they go to the tomb if they were expecting a resurrection? I think in many ways that the very first believers of the resurrection it would have been more difficult for them to believe in a resurrection because they saw Jesus live and they saw Him die. They saw the way He died and they saw His lifeless body. For us, we have this mystical, romantic long time ago thinking. For them, they had just talked to Jesus a couple days ago. They just had dinner with Jesus a couple of days ago. They weren t expecting a resurrection and yet they come to the tomb and the tomb is empty. Pick it up in verse eight: Then they remembered that He had said this. They recalled - Jesus was talking about this and we had no idea what He was talking about at the time and now all of a sudden we are putting two and two together - we are figuring it out. So in verse nine: they rushed back from the tomb to tell His eleven disciples and everyone else what had happened. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and several other women who told the apostles what had happened. Look closely at verse eleven: But the story sounded like nonsense to the men, so they didn t believe it. I remember the first time I read that I thought, That is in the Bible? Isn t the Bible trying to convince us that this really happened? And yet, when these ladies communicated this news to the eleven disciples, their first response was this is nonsense we don t believe it. Here is the point that I want to make: at the very least this doesn t read like fiction. At the very least this doesn t read like someone is making it up. Now I m not saying that it is enough to prove that it happened, I m just saying it is awfully interesting that this doesn t read like fiction. Because if it was fiction there just might be a few details that we would have changed, like number one, you wouldn t have had women find the empty tomb first and then be the first heralds or the proclaimers of that news. Because in the first century, a woman s testimony virtually meant nothing it wasn t even viable in court. So if I was making it up, I would say that Pilate was the one who discovered the empty tomb. Or maybe a high priest in the Sanhedrin, somebody who is important, somebody who could carry some weight. Somebody who could say: you know what, we were wrong - the tomb is empty, Jesus has risen. But they said no, it was a group of women who discovered it and they were the first ones to proclaim it. If I was making it up and the women go back to the disciples and say Jesus is raised from the dead! I d have the disciples say oh, yea, we knew it all along - high five everybody! Here is what I would have done: I would have had them all gather around outside the tomb and then start counting down and all of a sudden the stone starts to rumble and it starts to roll away; there is this bright light that comes out of the tomb and all of a sudden you hear the Queen song come out over the loud speaker, We will, we will, rock you! Right? That would have been so cool. But that is not the way that it happened. In fact when they proclaimed it, it was anticlimactic of Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 6

7 that. The ladies go back and say Jesus has risen and they go Be quiet what are you talking about that is nonsense. And yet, every single one of them - who would say we are having a hard time believing that - would eventually not only come to believe it, but they would give their very lives proclaiming that it had happened. So the question I have is: what changed? What changed between This is nonsense and I m willing to give my very life for something that I believe to be true? What changed is that they saw Him. What changed is that they had an encounter with Him. What changed is they had an experience with Him. So they gave up their very lives for something that they at first disbelieved but then came to believe because they were so convinced. I love what Paul writes to the Greeks in Corinth in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8: 3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: (Aaron speaking - in other words, this is THE most important thing everything hinges on this) that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures (Aaron speaking notice how many times the word appeared happens), 5 and that He appeared to Peter and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, He appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of who are still living, though some have fallen asleep. (Aaron speaking the reason why he says that is if you want to check this out with them, they are still alive you can go and actually talk to them) 7 Then He appeared to James (Aaron speaking now James was the final hold-out. He was a tough sell. James was the last one to believe that Jesus resurrected from the dead. Why is that? Because James was Jesus half brother. Let me ask you a question, what would it take for you with brothers to convince you that they were the unique son of God? Your brother comes over: Hey, guess what? I m Jesus. You are suddenly thinking about the swirlies, the two-for-flinching, and thinking: no way; you re a punk. James is saying, No way; He s my brother; I grew up fighting with Him but this is so powerful, eventually James comes to believe and becomes one of the early church fathers.) then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also What changed? They had a personal encounter. They claimed to see Him. None of their lives benefitted from this claim. They didn t get wealthy off of this. They didn t get cush jobs because of this. In fact, their lives got worse they were arrested, marginalized, criticized and many were put to death. But they were so convinced. In fact, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:14 that the resurrection is so pivotal that if Christ has not been raised then all our preaching is useless and your faith is useless. I just love the intellectual honesty of that. He is very open here and says if this didn t happen, then we are just wasting our time this morning. If this didn t happen, then the preaching is useless, your faith is useless. But if you flip that around- if this did happen then this changes everything. And at the very least, it is worth you not being apathetic over it anymore. It is worth you studying it for yourself and looking at it and searching it out and saying I don t care where the truth lands on this I m at least going to take the effort to figure out if the resurrection really happened. Because everything is riding on this. This one event changes everything. Look, I ll be the first to tell you not to believe in the resurrection because I say so. Don t believe in the resurrection just because the Bible says so. Believe in the resurrection because Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 7

8 there was a group of people who were honest enough to say it sounded like nonsense to us at first too - but we had an experience and we saw Him and it changed us forever. One time Paul was writing to the Christians in Ephesus and he says to them, I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God s power for us who believe in Him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated Him in the place of honor at God s right hand in the heavenly realms. So Paul says to us, Look, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is the same power that is made available for you to live your life. Then he would say to the Philippians in chapter three, verse ten: I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised Him from the dead. So why does Easter matter? It matters because it gives you and me the power to live. So Paul would say to the Ephesians: I want you to understand it. Then he would say to the Philippians: I want you to know it. But sometimes you have to experience something before you can know and understand it. If you get hung up on that, push back on that, think about it: how many of you have ever fallen in love? Before you fell in love you had no idea how to explain it. Even after you fell in love you had no idea how to explain it. How many of you have had a conversation with somebody and something was really funny and you tried to recreate it and then you said the words, You just had to have been there. Trust me it was hilarious in the moment. I realized I bombed in repeating it to you, but it was funny in the moment. Because you have a hard time explaining it. Somebody has to experience it. Paul says to us: I want to you know and to understand. But don t leave with that. I want you to experience. You can begin to experience the power of the resurrection in your life that you can t fully even explain. It is not that difficult to believe that a resurrection really happened. That Jesus wants to give you the power to live your everyday life. This is not some isolated event that happened 2,000 years ago, like: who cares if Jesus walked out of a tomb or not? But Jesus walked out of a tomb to make a point. To say, you know what, when your life is down, when you experience a death of sorts, I want to breathe new life into you. Life is a series of deaths and rebirths. All of nature is screaming the gospel. The changing of seasons we get that here in Indiana. We are in spring and it is new life. But a couple of months ago, it was death. Jesus says that is resurrection; in your life when you feel hopeless I want to breathe new life into you. When we try to live life in our own power it very rarely works. We get frustrated, we get exhausted and we get overwhelmed. Every now and again around my house I m looking for a little extra electric power. So I ll go dig out a power strip. We have forty of them because I can t find one and I go to Lowe s and buy another one and then come home and find them all. The way that works is you have to plug one end into the wall then you plug everything else in. How crazy would it be for you to say, Honey, I got the power strip! and you plug the power strip into itself. And yet that is how I live my life so often. I got this God. I can think my way through this. I can ration my way through this. I got it. And yet we keep coming up bankrupt over and over and over again. The power of the resurrection says there is a power here that is available to you 365. When I was in college, a group of guys that lived across the dorm from me played chess every night. I was not much of a chess player, and I m still not, but I would wander over into their room every night and watch them play. They eventually taught me how to play. The one word I kept hearing Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 8

9 every time I would play chess with them was the word Checkmate. It is not good to hear that. You hear the word checkmate and it is lights out, game over. What that basically means is that they have you cornered. You have no other move. Your king is about to go down. You are going to lose the game. So many of us have checkmate experiences in life. So the divorce papers finally get delivered to you checkmate. Your boss calls you into his office and he says they have been crunching the numbers and we don t want to do this, we hate to do this, you ve been so good for our company but we ve got to cut some jobs and yours is one of them checkmate. You have just come to discover that your child is dabbling in drugs and your husband just got caught on the porn site and one of your co-workers pinned something on you that you are innocent of checkmate, checkmate, checkmate. There doesn t seem to be any other move. For some of you, maybe the reason why this is your first Sunday back in church in a long while is because you had a checkmate experience in the church. Maybe there was a pastor that betrayed you or a Christian that judged you or a fundamentalist that labeled you and you ve basically just said I m done. Game over. Checkmate. Forget it. On Easter we remember that Jesus was nailed to a cross, was buried in a tomb, the tomb was sealed and for a couple of days there, it was lights out. Game over. Checkmate. But the power of the resurrection says the King had one more move. It is a move defined by love, grace, and hope and is available to you. I sometimes wonder if more of us would believe in the resurrection if we could experience the power of a resurrection in our lives. That largely comes through other Christ-followers. Many times we have just totally messed that up. I will never forget a story by Tony Campolo, an author and preacher who has been around a long time. Maybe you have heard this story. Tony lived on the east coast and he was at a conference in Hawaii and the time change was messing him up. Have you ever traveled on business and that happened to you? He kept waking up at 3:00 a.m. and couldn t go back to sleep so he went down to a local diner to get a cup of coffee. As he is sitting there in the booth a group of prostitutes come in and sit down behind him and they start eating. He can t help but overhear their conversation. One of them, her name is Agnes, announces to the others that tomorrow is her 39 th birthday. One of them kind of snarls at her and says, So what do you want us to do about it, throw you a party? She said, Oh no, I wasn t expecting that. I just thought you might want to know that tomorrow is my birthday. They get done eating and they leave the diner and Tony walks over to the owner of the place, a guy named Harry. Harry s wife comes out from the back with an apron on and Tony asks the two of them if those young ladies came in there every night. Harry said, Yes, about 3:00 a.m. they always come in here to get something to eat. Tony said, I would love to throw Agnes a birthday party tomorrow night. I m still going to be in town, do you think we could do that here? Harry and his wife thought that was a pretty good idea so they decided to arrange it. Harry and his wife baked a cake the following day. Tony went out and bought the goofy party hats and had a big banner made that said Happy Birthday Agnes!. The next night at 3:00 a.m. when this group of ladies came walking into the diner they are all standing there yelling Surprise! Agnes is like Who are you? They start singing Happy Birthday to Agnes. She started to cry. Harry s wife handed Agnes the knife and she said, "Cut the cake Agnes. Agnes said, Do I have to? I just live right around the corner where my kids are asleep in my apartment and they would love to see this. I d love to experience this with them. Could I take the cake around the corner and wake them up and show them the cake? I promise I ll bring it right back. They said they guessed so - it was her cake and her birthday. So she takes the cake and runs out of the Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 9

10 diner, leaving Tony, Harry and his wife standing in the diner with a room full of prostitutes at 3:00 in the morning in Hawaii. Tony is looking around because he doesn t know what to do or say. The only thing that comes to his mind is to ask the ladies if he could pray for them. They were all awkward, but agreed he could. So they all huddled up and Tony prayed for every single lady around the room. He prayed for Agnes and prayed that they would come to know God s love and experience God s love and to know God s power and to experience God s power. Then he said, Amen. Afterwards, Harry came up to Tony a little miffed. He said, You didn t tell me that you were a Christian. You didn t tell me that you had an angle here. He asked him what church he belonged to. Tony said, I belong to the kind of church that throws birthday parties for prostitutes at 3:00 a.m. Harry said, No you don t, because if that church existed I d be a part of it. I sometimes wonder if the reason why you struggle with the resurrection story is because you have never really seen or experienced the power of the resurrection in Jesus Christ. My prayer for you this Easter is that you would come to know and understand; but before that night happened that you would come to experience. That today, regardless of what kind of resistance you have built up against God, that maybe there would be at least a small little crack where you would be willing to say to God, If you are really real and there and I can trust You, I m at least open to taking the next season of my life to being open to that, if You would help me experience Your power. Let me pray. Father, we come to You now to thank You for this time. We thank You for the fact that the resurrection is not just a story that happened 2,000 years ago but that Jesus is the Resurrection. That He offers us new life and new hope where we are, right now - today. I pray that we can know that and understand it and experience it. We ask this in Jesus name. Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 10