Love Rose Up (Easter Sunday 2021)
He is risen. He is risen indeed.
What a joy to gather on a day when the church globally is celebrating the resurrection of Jesus.
Two nights ago on Good Friday we worked through this same passage, but we looked at the dark side of the coin. We were with Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. We were in the palace watching his back torn open. We went to Calvary and sat there and recognized that Jesus went to the cross for us because he loves us. Scripture teaches that the penalty for sin is death — and rather than make us pay it, Jesus paid it for us.
Today we get the other side of that coin. Same passage. Because Jesus didn’t only say he was going to die. He said he was going to rise again.
My hope and prayer is that when you leave today, you will be in awe of the power of God.
What Comes to Mind When You Hear “Power”?
Maybe electricity. Maybe a bodybuilder — so obviously you’re picturing me. Maybe a tornado. Maybe an earthquake.
I learned this week that there was an earthquake on Easter Sunday eleven years ago. In 2010 a magnitude 7.2 quake struck northwestern Mexico near the Baja peninsula. It was felt from California down through Mexico, and it shook so violently for a minute and a half that it literally shook dust off the mountains.
Here’s something you may not know about the Richter scale. Moving from a 7.1 to a 7.2 isn’t a small incremental step.
If you’d asked me a few years ago what it means to go from a 6.0 to a 7.0, I’d have guessed double the energy. And because of how you asked, I might have hedged lower — five times, maybe ten.
The way it actually works, going from 7.1 to 7.2 represents roughly a tenfold increase in energy.
That’s how power works. It isn’t an on-off switch. It operates in degrees — in electricity, in tornadoes, in earthquakes.
And in People
Think of the college student who dominates arm wrestling in his dorm and concludes he’s formidable — then enters an actual competition and gets knocked out in the first round. He discovers he isn’t nearly as strong as he assumed.
Or the woman who runs the parent-teacher organization and considers herself the most influential person in town — until she meets the chief executive of a major corporation and suddenly feels very small.
Even among people there are wildly varying degrees of power.
Today we watch Jesus claim extraordinary power — and then actually pull it off. And what we have to realize is that his power cannot be measured. It’s off the charts. It would break the scale.
And it isn’t only in the physical realm. It’s in the spiritual realm too. The resurrection of Jesus changed everything for the entire world.
Sheep, Shepherds, Gates, and Robbers
John 10 opens with Jesus talking about sheepfolds and shepherds and thieves. Anyone who doesn’t enter the fold by the door but climbs in another way is a thief and a robber. But the one who enters by the door is the shepherd, and the gatekeeper opens for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out, going before them, and they follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger — they’ll flee from him, because they don’t know a stranger’s voice.
And verse 6 tells us the listeners had no idea what he was talking about.
Which is fair. Why is a carpenter-turned-rabbi suddenly discussing livestock?
So Jesus, sensing the confusion, explains — which is genuinely generous of him. Normally Jesus tells a parable and simply leaves it hanging while people wonder. Here he stops and unpacks it.
“I Am the Good Shepherd”
He declares that he is the good shepherd — that the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, unlike the hired hand who sees a wolf coming, abandons the flock, and runs, because he doesn’t own them and doesn’t care about them.
And he says his sheep know his voice.
A pastor friend of mine told me years ago about spending summers with his grandfather, a farmer who raised sheep — some of the best in the region. Nearly every year he’d take a couple to the fair and come home with the top prize.
One day my friend was walking the property with his grandfather when an expensive pickup truck pulled in. A man stepped out dressed like a farmer, but you could tell immediately he had significant money.
He explained that he ran a large operation and wanted to get into sheep, but what he had wasn’t going well — and people told him this farm had the best animals. So he was there to buy the best male and the best female.
The grandfather hemmed and hedged. Numbers were mentioned. Eventually he agreed, a large check was written and handed over.
And then something remarkable happened. The man who now legally owned those sheep went to collect them — and they ran from him.
All it took was the grandfather calling out, and they came straight over and allowed themselves to be loaded into the truck.
My friend asked why. And his grandfather said: because they’ve only known me since they were lambs. In two or three weeks they’ll know that man is their new shepherd.
So Many Voices
Jesus knows there are countless voices in the world — and we have vastly more than they did.
Voices at work. Voices at home. Voices at school. Voices in our feeds, our music, our films. All of them insisting: come over here. Enter this fold. This is where happiness is.
And Jesus warns that those others are thieves and robbers who will steal from your life. He says the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy — I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
I am the good shepherd. Listen to my voice. Follow me.
That’s part of why I keep encouraging people to get a Bible. Because as you get into it, you slowly learn what Jesus is calling you to. You begin to recognize his voice. And you begin to understand what it looks like to love like he loved and live like he lived.
“I Am the Door”
But Jesus pushes the metaphor further. He doesn’t only say he’s the shepherd. He says he is the gate.
Verse 9: I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.
Reading that this week made me think of John 14:6, where Jesus says he is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him.
You want to come to God? You want heaven? You want the kind of life you’ve been longing for? It’s him.
Doesn’t That Sound Exclusive?
Some people find that offensive. It sounds as though Jesus is shutting everyone out.
But listen to verse 16: I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.
I suspect the large majority of you are not Jewish. Jesus was fully Jewish — and he is saying plainly that he did not come only for the Jews.
And it isn’t only for white American Christians either. It isn’t only for one tradition or one community. It’s for everyone — including Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists. It’s simply that no one finds their way to God through their religion. They find their way to God through Jesus.
A Story I’d Have Doubted
For twenty or thirty years now I’ve heard accounts of Muslims coming to understand the gospel through a dream — God appearing and saying, in effect, I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am Jesus. I am the one you’re looking for.
And it often leaves them exactly like the crowd in verse 6 — confused. Until they meet an actual Christian who explains the gospel, and they give their life to Jesus.
That sounds strange, and some of you are skeptical. I tend to be skeptical too.
The problem is that I know someone whose story is exactly that. He grew up nominally Muslim. There was a girl he liked who told him she was a Christian and couldn’t date him because their faiths were too different — so they decided to study the Quran and the Bible together.
And then one day he had a dream about Jesus.
This isn’t about competing religions. This is about Christ. He is the only way in — and we see it in the cross and the empty tomb.
The Claim That Changes Everything
Then comes the statement at the end of the passage:
For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.
Nobody talks like that. Nobody can back that up.
Except he did.
A Story From This Week
Let me tell you about something that happened in our church family this week.
A man in our church needed surgery for a circulatory condition. In most cases blood flows from the shoulder down into the arm without issue. He fell into the small percentage where blood could get in but couldn’t get back out.
He discovered it as a triathlete. Swimming laps, he reached the wall, looked at his arm and found it dramatically swollen. Impressive, honestly — but obviously wrong. He mentioned it to the man beside him, who said he probably shouldn’t be swimming. He waited for the swelling to subside, tried a few more laps, and it happened again.
The doctors diagnosed it and scheduled surgery. The procedure involves removing a section of rib to open enough space for everything to flow properly. (I’ve seen the souvenir.) It’s common enough that complications are rare.
Surgery was Monday. I assumed all was well.
On Tuesday I texted his wife to check in — and learned there had been internal bleeding overnight. A great deal of it. The overnight staff hadn’t caught it. The fear was that the blood would coagulate and harden and require another surgery to clear.
It became genuinely frightening. Wednesday morning, while our elders and I were meeting, a text came in: I know you’re meeting right now, and I really need you to pray.
I decided to drive down and rearranged my day. And while I was there, things began to turn. His color returned. He got up and took a short walk. Things genuinely improved. By Thursday she texted that they were going home.
The Part I Left Out
On Friday he sent me a message — and gave me permission to share it. He wrote that he and his wife had finally had a chance to decompress and talk, and had realized how awesome our God is. They were both in tears, seeing how thoroughly God had worked through every challenge. He said it’s a journey he genuinely doesn’t want to forget.
Here’s what I left out.
His wife asked a nurse how much blood he had actually lost during that internal bleeding. The nurse went back and calculated it — then decided the number couldn’t be right, assumed she’d made an error, and recalculated. She got the same answer.
He had lost close to two gallons of blood.
And the nurse looked at her and said: he should be dead. At minimum he should have been in intensive care. He should have received eighteen to twenty units of blood.
He received none. He never went to intensive care. And he is home and alive today.
That is a miracle. And in moments like that we look up and say: God is awesome. God is powerful. And he absolutely deserves the credit — which is exactly where that family is giving it.
Now Let Me Get Morbid
Imagine it had gone the other way.
Imagine the blood loss had put him in intensive care. Imagine it coagulated and collapsed the lung further. Imagine they had to open him up a second time to clean it out — and he died.
Leaving behind a wife and four children.
Our church family would be devastated. We couldn’t even hold the funeral in this room — he’s such a blessing to so many people that we’d have to borrow a larger space, and we’d fill it.
And I know that as I stood up to speak, there would be people weeping — and some of them silently shaking a fist and asking God why. He’s only in his thirties. He never got to watch his children grow up. Why did you let this happen?
Aren’t you powerful enough?
We Judge God by His Last At-Bat
That’s what we do. We assess God’s power based on what he did for us most recently.
Which is like evaluating a baseball player based on his last at-bat. That isn’t fair. The only reasonable way to assess a player is across an entire season — or an entire career.
And when you look at the career of God, you find everything he has done — including God the Son declaring that he would willingly lay down his life and take it up again.
And then pulling it off.
So why would we live in doubt about the power of God? We have to stop asking what he did for us yesterday and start looking at what he has done throughout history. Because that gives you the frame of reference to say: I may not like how things are going right now, but perhaps God has a better plan in place, and I can genuinely trust him to work in greater ways.
Two Responses
When someone possesses that kind of power, I think there are only two possible responses.
First, if you are not a follower of Jesus, the response is to give him your life.
Jesus died on a cross for your sin — and then rose from the dead. And now, as the good shepherd, he’s saying: listen to my voice. Come into my fold. Be part of my flock. Let me shepherd you. Let me care for you. Stop listening to all those other voices and let me be your one.
Most people, when they realize this whole extraordinary story is actually true, confess their sin in prayer and hand their life over. So make today your spiritual birthday.
And If You Already Know This
Some of you would say: I know this story. I know about Friday night and the cross. I know about Sunday morning and the empty tomb.
But if you’re honest, you’re not actually listening to his voice. You’ve made Jesus a side thing rather than the central thing. You’ve been acting as though you can wander in and out of his fold whenever you like — over to this pen, then that one.
And Jesus says: no. I want to be your shepherd. I want to care for you.
Why would we treat someone with that kind of power so casually? It demands our all.
So for some of you, today is a rededication: Jesus, I know you. I genuinely love you. And I’ve been keeping you off to the side. Today I want you front and center.
Hold the Tension of Friday and Sunday
There’s a part of this story where seeing that kind of power might make you want to cower in fear.
So we have to live in the tension between Friday and Sunday.
On Friday we measure the love of God by the cross. Our sin was keeping us eternally separated from him — and Jesus went and paid for it. That is how we know he loves us.
But he didn’t only die. On Sunday he rose again, displaying power no one has ever displayed.
Which is why he can rightly demand our loyalty. And why loyalty to him is not fearful submission but glad devotion — because the one with all that power is the same one who laid it down for you.
He is risen. He is risen indeed.
