Rick Warren - The Answer Is Easter - Part 1
Now, the resurrection of Jesus accomplished a lot of different things. Of course, it split history into AD and BC, but the first thing that it did is it validated Jesus’s identity. It proved that he was who he claimed to be. Throughout history, lots of people have claimed to be God. Lots of people have claimed to be God. But Jesus said, «I’m gonna prove it by letting them put me to death. I’m gonna die on the cross, and then I’m gonna come back three days later, alive, and I’m gonna walk around,» you know, «Jerusalem for another 40 days».
Can you imagine walking down the street, and you put him on the cross, and they go, «He’s back». That’d be kind of strange, you know. Jesus also proved by the Resurrection, that there is life after death. That death is not the end of the story, but what I want us to look at this weekend is the fact that Jesus gave us a model in his death, his burial, and his resurrection. He gave us a model of how to handle pain in life. 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 21 says this, «God has called you to endure suffering,» in other words, to go through tough times, «because Christ suffered for you». And, he says, «He left you an example so that you could follow in his footsteps».
In other words, through Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection, he modeled what you should do in the worst days of your life. When you go through the tragedies, the terrible pain, circumstances, the days of doubt and depression and despair, he says, «You need to follow the model of what Jesus did when he suffered». Now let me explain. Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection happened over three days. Friday was the day of pain and suffering and agony. Saturday was the day of loss and grief and confusion and misery. Sunday was the day of joy, celebration, and victory. Now, here’s the thing. In your life, you’re going to go through all three of those days, over and over and over again. Some of you right now are in a day of pain. Some of you are right now in a day of confusion and doubt.
You say, «I haven’t the slightest idea what I’m supposed to do next with my life». Hopefully you’ll get to the day of joy, but you’re often gonna go through these three days, and when you do, you’re gonna ask three fundamental questions. What do I do in my days of pain? How do I get through my days of doubt and confusion? How do I get to my days of victory? That’s what we’re gonna look at today. Now, I hate to tell you this, but you need this message. You may not be in a problem right now, but you will have tragedy, you will have loss, major loss, in your life at some point, and so if in any week you need to take notes, this is the week, because I’m gonna teach you what Jesus did in the worst days of his life, so you can know what to do in the worst days of your life, and you don’t know when they’re gonna happen. Last Easter, I had no idea what was about to happen five days later.
On Easter, I spoke and taught at I don’t know how many services, about 50, 55,000 people came to Saddleback Church in all of our campuses, and it was a great, wonderful day. Many people gave their lives to Christ. I had no idea on that Easter that five days later would be the worst day of my life, and on that day my 27 year old son, who had struggled his entire life with mental illness, would take his life. It was the worst day of my life, and this last year was the worst year of my life, and I went through the Saturdays and the Sundays over and over and over again. The days of pain and the days of confusion. The days of pain and the days of loss. The days of suffering and the days of grief. Over and over.
What I’m gonna teach you this weekend are the things that I learned from the Easter story that you can use in your own life, because many, many times over the past 365 days, I’ve been asked, «How are you getting through this? How are you handling the loss of a child in such a severe way? How are you getting on through your grief,» and every time I would say, «I’m looking at the example of Jesus». The answer is Easter. I’m just following the model he did. We begin with the day of pain. Friday was the day of pain, and Jesus experienced pain at the ultimate level. Let me explain. First, he experienced physical pain.
The Bible tells us that he was beaten. The Bible tells us that he was whipped, that he was wounded, that he was spit on, that he was slapped, that they plucked out his beard just to be mean, that they stuck a crown of thorns down into his skull, that he was scourged, and what a scourging is different than just a whipping. It’s a long whip with a kind of a cat of nine tails at the end of it, and they would tie little bits of bone, rock, and glass at the end, so that every time they would whip you, it would tear at your back.
So 9 times 40 stripes, you can figure the number of wounds that were on Jesus’s back before he went to the cross, and then they took him, and without sleep, without food, without water, he’s been up all night, and they take and they nail him to a cross, which is one of the worst forms of torture you can imagine. I don’t have time to get into it, the explanation of it, but the death of crucifixion is death by suffocation, and that’s why they would often break the bones of your legs, so you couldn’t stand up anymore and you couldn’t breathe anymore. Jesus experienced the ultimate in physical pain, but he also experienced the ultimate in emotional pain and psychological pain, because the death on the cross was a death by humiliation.
How’d you like to be stripped naked and nailed like this, and then let people watch you die? It was a death of humiliation, a death of degradation, a death of shame. He went through the pain of rejection, he went through the pain of betrayal, and many of you know the pain that that causes. He experienced that. But then there was another level of pain that none of us have ever experienced to his degree, and that is spiritual pain, because Jesus died on the cross for all the sins of mankind, which means he took the guilt of every evil crime and every ugly sin throughout history, all that guilt on him at one point, and so he takes, you know how bad you feel if you feel guilty over one thing? How would you like to carry the guilt of every murder, every rape, every child molestation, the Holocaust, every genocide, every evil thing, every inhumanity to man?
He took all of that guilt on himself, and he went through the hell of separation from God when he cries out on the cross, «My God, my God, why have you forsaken me». Let me show you a couple of verses from the Bible up here on the screen. The Bible says in Hebrews 4, «(Jesus) understands our weaknesses, for He faced all the same trials and temptations we do, yet He never sinned». And the Bible says in Hebrews 2, «Since Jesus went through suffering and temptation, he knows what it’s like when we suffer and are tempted, and,» here’s the key, «he is able to help us». He knows the pattern, the pathway, and he has the power to get through the Fridays and the Saturdays, the days of pain and the days of confusion, in your life. So what do you do in your days of pain?
You do the two things that Jesus did on the last day of his life. You need to write these down. The two things that Jesus did, and he modeled for us to do, you follow his example. Number one, this may surprise you, reach out to friends. That’s the first thing Jesus did. Their presence can be helpful in your life in sharing your pain. On the night that Jesus knew he was gonna be arrested, tortured, and executed, the last thing he did on planet Earth was gather his closest friends together and say, «I need you guys to just hang out with me. I don’t need any sermons, I don’t need any speeches. I don’t need any advice. I just need you to be with me». This is the ministry of presence. And he says, «I need to go pray,» and he goes to his favorite prayer spot. It was called the Garden of Gethsemane.
Now, Gethsemane is an olive grove on the Mount of Olives, and so it would, really, you could call it an olive garden, but that’s a restaurant, so we’ll just call it a, we’ll call it a grove of olives, and this is where Jesus regularly went to pray, and so he takes his 11 closest guys, Judas has died, these people spent three and a half years with him, they’re his most intimate friends, and he says, «In my day of deepest need, in my hour of greatest pain, I just need my friends to hang out with me».
Notice what the Bible said, Matthew chapter 26. «Jesus took his disciples with him to Gethsemane and he said, 'Stay here with me».' Just circle that, «Stay here with, I just need you to be present with me while I pray». And, «Then he took Peter, and James, and John a little further, and he was filled with anguish and deep distress,» 'cause he knows what’s coming, «and he said to them, 'My heart is so overwhelmed and crushed with sorrow that I feel like I’m dying. Just sit here and just watch with me.' And then Jesus took a few more steps, and he fell to the ground and he prayed». Now that passage in the Bible tells us two startling facts. Even the Son of God need friends in the middle of pain. Even Jesus needed friends to be around him.
You see, this is the exact opposite of what you normally do. When you are in pain, you typically isolate yourself. You back out of relationships. When you are in physical pain, when you’re in chronic pain, when you’re in emotional pain, when you’re in mental pain, when you’ve had a failure, when you have an enormous hurt, when you’re embarrassed or ashamed or whatever it is, you typically begin to isolate. That’s dumb. It is a mistake to pull back from your friends in your pain. God never meant for you to go through life on your own. He meant for them to share your pain with you, and he meant for you to share their pain when they are in pain.
Don’t isolate. The other thing that’s startling about this is how open and how gut-level honest and how authentic Jesus is about his emotional condition. He doesn’t sugarcoat it, and they said, «How you doing»? «I’m doing fine». «How are you doing»? «Oh, I have faith». No, he tells them exactly how he feels, and he says, «My heart is so overwhelmed and so crushed with sorrow I feel like I’m dying». Have you ever been that gut level honest with anybody? Or have you just held it all in, and sucked it up, and pretended like things were good, and said, «Oh, I’m fine,» when it wasn’t fine, you’re going through enormous pain.
You see, God says, «I don’t want you to repress your pain. I don’t want you to suppress your pain. I want you to express your pain to your friends, and I want you to confess your pain to me». You gotta get it out. Let me show you a verse. Here on the screen. Galatians 6:2 says, «Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you fulfill the law of Christ». What is the law of Christ? Love your neighbor as yourself, and the Bible says that I am commanded by God to be there for you when you’re in pain, and you are commanded to be there for me when I’m in pain. We are to carry each other’s burdens, and that way the load is halved. You never were meant to go through life on your own.
Last Friday, I met with a friend of mine for a discussion. He happened to be out here on the West Coast. He’s in his late 70s, early 80s. He’s a very famous person. In fact, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. His name is Elie Wiesel. Elie Wiesel has written 57 books, and for his entire life since World War II, he’s been an international ambassador for peace and reconciliation all around the world, but he’s best known for the fact that he survived the Nazi death camps in World War II. He was at Buchenwald. In fact, there’s a famous picture. You’ve seen this picture before. Most people don’t know, I circled it, that’s Elie Wiesel there in that famous picture, on that bunk at the back.
And he was there in Buchenwald, and he saw the horrendous torture and extermination of family and friends and 6 million Jews being killed in the Holocaust, and last Friday as I was meeting with my friend, I said, «Elie, how did you get through the darkest days of your pain,» and he said, «God and friends». The very two things that Jesus looked to when he was in the darkest last day of his life, and the very two things God wants you to turn to when you are in pain. First, you reach out to your friends. I stand before you and tell you honestly, I probably wouldn’t be standing 'fore you today if it wasn’t for my small group. My small group of eight people, four women, four men, it’s four couples. We’ve been together now about 11 years.
We have been through every kind of problem you could imagine, and I have been there for them in their pain, and this last year they showed up in my life and Kay’s life, and in Amy and Tommy and Josh and Jamie, they’re just supporting our family any way that they could. They spent the night at our house. They’ve brought food, they’ve cared, they have been there. In the middle of the night I could call them, and as I was going through this day of Friday, over and over and over, they were there when I needed them. If you’re not in a small group, I actually worry about you as your pastor, 'cause you don’t have the safety net that’s gonna carry you when the rogue wind comes along in life. Who’s gonna help you out when you have the tragedy? Who’s gonna be there for you? Nobody could have told me what was gonna happen last Easter. I just imagined things are going great. I had no idea the wall I was gonna hit five days later. You don’t know when you’re gonna hit the wall. So you start by reaching out to friends just like Jesus did.
Now, friends are essential, but friends can’t be with you there all the time. God can, but friends can’t. Friends can be there and understand the depth of your pain, but they can’t understand the real depth of your pain like God can. And friends have other things they have to do, and friends get tired. God never gets tired. The fact is, Jesus’s friends in the Garden of Gethsemane, that night, in his hour of deepest need, they fell asleep. Now, I’m not gonna put 'em down for that. I’m really not. In the first place, they showed up. They were there. In the second place, I have fallen asleep countless times in my small group, and snored all the way and my group loves me no matter what, I’ve had a real tough day, so I give you permission to fall asleep in your small group. It’s better to go to your group and go to sleep than stay home and watch television. But at least they showed up, okay, but friends cannot be there all the time, but God never gets tired.
So the second thing you need to do when you’re in the Fridays of life, the days of pain, is you reach out to God. You don’t just reach out to your friends, you also reach out to God, and how do you do that? You do it by praying. This is the other thing that Jesus did right before he faced the worst pain of his life. He went and prayed. The Bible says this in Mark chapter 14. «Jesus fell face down on the ground».
Friends, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve done that this last year in pain and in grief. «He fell face down on the ground and prayed that if possible, he would not have to suffer the pain ahead of him. He prayed, 'Abba! Father! '» Now, abba is the Aramaic word for daddy. It’s also a Swedish rock group, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. He’s saying abba, abba is the first word every little Middle Eastern child learns before any other word. It’s abba, papa, dada. Any baby can learn to say, «Abba, abba, abba». It means daddy. And Jesus is saying, when you are in your worst day of pain, and you need to talk to God about it, you don’t use fancy language.
You don’t say, «Oh, thou most righteous, justice, omnipotent creator of the universe, who art,» and you have all of these great theological ter… no, you just go, «Daddy, help». That’s what you do. You come to God and say, «Daddy, help me,» because your Heavenly Father loves you. And so Jesus prays, «Abba,» daddy, «Father»! And here’s what he prays. «'I know you can do all things. And I don’t want to have to drink this cup of suffering. Nevertheless, I want your will, not mine, to be done.'» Now listen closely. This is a pattern. Jesus prayed three things in his day of deepest pain, and when you are in pain, these are the three things you need to pray too, when you’re praying to God, when your heart is breaking and you don’t know which way to turn.
Three things Jesus prayed. I call this the Gethsemane prayer. It is a model of how to pray in pain. First, you affirm God’s power, and here’s what you pray. «God, I know you can do anything». You write that down. «God, I know you can do anything». You know, I know you can take away this pain. You created the universe. If you created the universe, you can do anything. I know you can do anything. You affirm God’s power. Second, you express your desire, and you say, «I don’t want this pain». You say, «Is it okay to complain to God»?
Of course it’s okay to complain to God. David did it all the time in the book of Psalms. They’re called psalms of lament. It’s okay to say, «God, I don’t like this. This stinks. This is terrible. I don’t like this pain I’m going through right now». That’s okay to do that. Jesus did it. If it’s okay for Jesus to do it, it’s certainly okay for you to do it. And he said, «God, I don’t like the pain I’m in right now. I know you can change it. I know you’re all powerful, and I don’t like the pain». But then the third thing you do is you offer your trust, and you say, «But I want your will, not mine. So God, if this is not your will, I don’t want it. I want your will, not mine. I know you love me, I know you know what’s best for me. You know what will make me happy more than I do, and I know, God, that you’re in control, and there’s no way that you don’t love me, so I want your will, not mine».
This past year, anytime a wave of grief or loss or depression or fear or confusion, I would pray the Gethsemane prayer. This prayer, I may have prayed it 1,000 times this last year. «God, I know you didn’t do anything, and I don’t like this pain, but God, I want your will, not mine». Now, as Jesus finished praying, soldiers show up, they arrest him, they take him through six phony, fake, mock trials, all of 'em illegal, three Jewish, three Roman trials. They were all at night, which they were all illegal. They were just shams. Then they torture him, through all kinds of torture, and then they nail him to a cross and he dies, and they put him in the ground. And now we come to the second day, which are the Saturdays of life.
The Fridays are the days of pain and suffering. The Saturdays are the days of doubt and confusion. Imagine how the disciples felt when they saw the Messiah, the Son of God, crucified by the Romans, taken down and put in a tomb, and the tomb is sealed. They’re all going, «What happened,» and they’re thinking, «We know Jesus could have come down off that cross at any point, 'cause we saw him do all the miracles for the last three and a half years. We saw him heal the sick. We saw him give sight to the blind. We saw him raise the dead. We saw him walk on water. We saw him calm the storms and control the weather. I mean, we saw him do every», God can, if he created the universe, God can do anything he wants to in the universe.
God could have come down off that cross, Jesus could have come off that cross, at any moment. It was not nails that held Jesus to the cross, it was love. It was his love for you. It’s what he came to do. He said, «For this cause, I came into the world». Jesus was not a martyr. Martyrs are often killed, not at their will, but somebody just kills them because they’re doing the right thing, not because they will to do, Jesus voluntarily sacrificed himself. He said, «No man takes my life from me. I lay it down, and I have the right to take it back». He was not a martyr. He was on a mission, and the mission was to pay for all the sins of the world, but imagine the confusion. There’s profound grief. They see this Messiah who’s supposed to overthrow the Roman Empire and liberate Israel, and now the Romans have killed him, and he’s dead in the grave. Huh, what happened? That’s the massive day of confusion. That’s the Saturdays of life, when you go, «Why did that happen»?