All right, as we begin this new sermon series, we are going to continue last week we left off with Mary and the disciples running to the tomb and Mary meeting Jesus and then we’re going to continue through the book of John and see some of the lessons that Jesus taught the disciples by his actions by his words by other things going on that Jesus did so much after the resurrection and so over the next several weeks leading up to the ascension and Pentecost we’re going to keep digging in and see all of that. So this first week we are still on as in the Bible has several scenes. So last week would have been Easter morning and then we have the evening of Easter is when this shows up the evening when the disciples were getting together and they were scared and they were worried and they they they didn’t know what was going to happen.
They saw what Jesus went through and they saw that he was killed and they were rumors. They didn’t know yet. So this is when Jesus first appeared to the disciples that John lets us know about this is John 20 and we’re going to look at 19 through 31.
Will you stand as you are able for the reading of the gospel this morning on the evening of that day the first day of the week the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews Jesus came and stood among them and said to them peace be with you when he had said this he showed them his hands and his side then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord Jesus said to them again peace be with you as the father has sent me even so I am sending you and when he had said this he breathed on them and said to them receive the Holy Spirit if you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven them and if you withhold forgiveness from any it is withheld now Thomas one of the twelve called the twin was not with them when Jesus came so the other disciples told him we have seen the Lord but he said to them unless I see his hands in his hands the mark of the nails and place my finger into the mark of the nails and place my hand into his side I will never believe eight days later the disciples were inside again and Thomas was with them although the doors were locked Jesus came and stood among them and said peace be with you then he said to Thomas put your finger here see my hands put out your hand and place it in my side do not disbelieve but believe Thomas answered him my Lord and my God Jesus said to him have you believed because you have seen me blessed are those who have not seen and have yet believed now Jesus did many other things in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in his name the word of God for the people of God you to God amen you may be seated how many you get excited when you see a picture like this how many cringe a little bit and think about we often go through life knowing the inevitable is going to happen but we don’t talk about it so much unless we are in a state where it seems like we have no other opportunity I grew up next to a funeral home when I was a kid because my dad is a funeral director and now my brother is I was the prodigal who ran from that and did not want to do that but growing up as a child next door you know sometimes it was fun like playing hide and seek in the casket room you know every kid gets to do that but the the connection the door that connected our two homes was in the basement so the basement on the funeral home side was dark and and dreary and you know a little creepy for a kid who’s about seven or eight years and I we were there was a little hook that would lock the door and my dad said you guys do not get to go in there this is the business side you stay over here on our house so you know when you tell a kid not to do something the kid sometimes does stuff so I remember going in there and they stored vaults and stuff and it was pretty it was pretty creepy but on the on the main floor you know it just seemed normal I saw it my whole life I was I was used to it even when I was a when I was a kid and I would ride with my dad in the hearse and I was getting tired we were driving back a long ways he said you can go in the back and take a nap and there was a there was there was a casket back there and he tells me that instead of just lying on the you know as a big wagon so there was room to lie out I crawled up on top of the casket and just rested and um death is something that my family had to deal with on a day-to-day basis because that was my dad’s livelihood and now it’s my brother’s livelihood but death is something we all face death is something that is real and inescapable um each of us faces that kind of death and last week um when we met on thursday we talked about the last supper and then we went to good friday where jesus was crucified and he died and in that death is something that any human being faces but with jesus living it adds a whole new dimension to it that it’s not just about death that it’s about life that with jesus there is life and when jesus came back to the disciples he taught him so many things some of it was just by being there and some of it was with his words in the section we read there are several things that jesus taught them that we need to know about life after death and the important thing is we’re focusing on the life part that death comes inevitably but in christ we have life so one of the main things that i think is important for us to know is that it is personal it’s personal as soon as that as jesus died on the cross and the curtain was torn we knew it was personal because the curtain separated the regular people from the holy of holies from the presence of god and in christ we all have that presence of god and there’s something that happened with jesus death resurrection and ascension that makes it a cosmic event i mean it’s about us personally but it’s about the whole world it’s about the whole universe revelation 21 says then i saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more and i saw the holy city new jerusalem coming out of heaven from god prepared as a bride adorned for her husband we’ve probably seen a lot of movies about what happens to people after they die movies that have depictions and and rumors that have depictions of what heaven is like but in those we don’t see quite what god shows us in the bible that there is a connection that happens between heaven and earth and that connection also happens on a personal level but it happens to be that it’s not just heaven separate from earth but a life in christ is bringing more and more of heaven into our lives now bringing more and more of god into our lives now so when jesus comes back and he says oh it’s it’s personal people may say it’s just religion it’s just other stuff but it’s really about us and how we interact with god in in john 20 when the disciples all met john it’s very clear to say that they were behind locked doors and those locked doors did nothing to keep jesus out that he just was there in the room with them and there was no separation paul tells us that nothing will separate us from the love of jesus not death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things past nor things present nor things to come nothing in all of heaven and all of earth will separate us from the love of god and jesus christ there is no separation that we can have from god if we just open our eyes and we see god working around us it’s it’s it’s personal that he’s there that it’s not just we die and we go get to be with jesus but what’s really cool is we live today and we get to be with jesus we get to be in the presence of god each and every day and jesus with that told the disciples this is a the most precious jewish greeting when he came to meet them he said shalom shalom means peace be with you the first thing jesus said when he came in the room and they said oh all of a sudden he’s here he said peace be with you and then he explained to them that he was alive and he said peace be with you again he came in the room when they were there with thomas and thomas was there for the first time thomas who was you know a bit of a bit of a skeptic he said peace be with you life after death is personal now that peace that jesus offered comes each and every day with the presence of jesus comes the peace of jesus those two things are inseparable so matter what the disciples they were scared at the moment and jesus said peace be with you they were worried about their very lives and jesus said peace be with you reminding them that there is life after death that they can have peace even in the middle of a world of upheaval that they face now i i brought this to share it with you this is this is a pretty cool hoodie this was christopher’s hoodie and he’s outgrown it it’s in an extra large for youth and this goes into a pile that we call the hand-me-downs now when colin was younger he readily accepted the hand-me-downs just as he did new clothes now this is a pretty cool hoodie will call and wear it when he grows into it i do not know because there has been some pushback on hand-me-downs where he goes this was christopher’s i don’t know if i need to wear this this is this is and and i can understand that because i was the little brother too and i look through pictures and i see a lot of pictures of me wearing things that my brother had seemingly worn not too long before that and it was pretty exciting when i got into high school and i could no longer wear his hand-me-downs and so everything i got was just my own now that’s kind of a silly comparison but one thing we also learn from jesus is about our heavenly body now jesus heavenly body was not like the earthly body he had this body was glorious the disciples saw bits and pieces of that when jesus took peter james and john up onto the and it said jesus came into his full glory and he glowed and he shone but we have a heavenly body awaiting us too it says but our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await a savior the lord jesus christ who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to be subject to subject all things to himself we probably don’t have any doubt that jesus was glorious that he had this glorious body but here in philippians paul is saying our lowly body will be like his glorious body it won’t be exactly like his but we will receive this heavenly body now maybe it can walk through doors and things like that but the big thing is that there will be no sickness no pain no hurt no disease and no more death when we have that heavenly body and uh this is is something we’ll get from jesus and it’s usually not depicted like this it’s often depicted like you know that it’s just a ghost or a spirit and and that we all have a spirit that will continue on and these heavenly bodies that jesus showed oh what do you think the only difference is between the biggest one of the differences is between jesus body and our heavenly body the scars the wounds jesus walked in the room and he could still show the the hole from the sphere in the side and the hole in his hands um the scars all our scars will be taken away paul said this in first corinthians if you haven’t read first corinthians 15 read first corinthians 15 a lot of these verses are just powerful verses for uh funerals to see what life after death is like but he says this i will tell behold i will tell you a mystery we shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet for the trumpet will sound then the dead will be raised imperishable and we shall be changed paul says that twice we shall be changed you know when i was when i was 22 i probably wouldn’t have thought that was that big of a deal but you know as the decades go on you start thinking man my body’s not the same as it was yesterday we did a a huge outdoor project and i was out there all day and i i had to take tylenol just to sleep at night from the aches and the pain and all that came up and uh my shoulder still hurt from this softball injury i had when i was when i was just i think i was only 28 years old and i swung and my my arm popped out of the socket so i ran down to first base with my arm hanging there um the ball didn’t go very far so i i was not safe so the next week i thought you know i am i’m now i i’m now wiser so i’m not gonna do that again i’m gonna i’m gonna go left-handed you know it’s it’s convenient to go left-handed so i took one swing and this arm popped out all those years but now those shoulders have have issues and uh i’m looking forward to those heavenly shoulders now one of the parables that jesus told is in matthew 22 and in matthew 22 there’s the parable of the wedding feast and there’s part of this that doesn’t make sense unless you understand our heavenly bodies that you jesus invited people to the feast and nobody wanted to come so they went out and they got other people to come who weren’t the original invitees it’s kind of saying just the jews and they didn’t want to come so now we’ll invite the uh the non-jews and then everybody’s invited and someone showed up at the wedding feast and it didn’t they didn’t have a wedding garment now it’s hard to tell but it may have been traditionally that if you went to someone’s party their wedding you had to wear the gown that they handed out and in matthew 22 the king came and saw the guests and saw that a man was wearing no wedding garment and he got kicked out and he had to do the weeping and gnashing of teeth thing and he when he was out and it’s like what does the garment have to do with this story but in order to survive eternity we need that wedding garment that we talked about in revelation where it said we uh where it said coming down out of heaven prepared as a bride adorned for a husband that we are prepared as a bride we are prepared to be in a wedding with our master to be with jesus forever and when we have that holy body that heavenly body it is like that wedding garment that keeps us in the presence of jesus forever now finally in matthew in john we see jesus after he comes and sees them he breathes on them the holy spirit second corinthians 1 22 says the holy spirit um and who has also put a seal on us and given us his spirit in our hearts as a guarantee of what is to come one of the greatest things one of the greatest things we have now it’s not just life after death it’s life now it’s it’s death it is that we die to ourselves and we live to god and with that god gives us that down payment that deposit that hope of heaven in the holy spirit that is present with us right now and part of the amazing thing about living now is it still condenses or brings together that heaven and earth thing and we can have the presence of god within us that are even in our bodies can be a holy temple when we allow the holy spirit to live within us and give us that peace and that strength and that hope and that love that we can only have in jesus christ so the resurrection hope is so amazing because it gives us hope of life after death and life in this life with that bringing together of heaven and earth so jesus taught quite a bit in just that little part that we have there but what’s amazing is with the power of the holy spirit in our lives we can be connected to god now we don’t have to wait until we die but we now we live for christ let’s pray almighty god thank you so much for the love that you gave us that you so loved us that you gave your only begotten son so that we might live so that we might not perish but have eternal life help us to understand a little bit more about life after death so that we can have peace in our hearts so that we can fear the troubles the trials the hurts and the pains less that we can have peace and we can experience your power within us through the holy spirit this body may not last forever but you will give us a body that lasts forever thank you god for life thank you god that even though we deserve death you give us life in jesus name amen.