So why is Jesus sleeping in the boat when your world seems to be caving in, nothing is going right, and life might just end soon? Because he trusts you. At least four of the disciples were trained, skilled professionals at boating. Jesus was sleeping then because he knew that the disciples could handle it- even if they thought that they couldn’t. God likes to let you steer your boat through the storm. That’s just how much he trusts you to do what you know to do- he is sleeping! Trust God that he will do what he said he would do, when he said he would do it.

One more thing: Jesus deals with your storm when you can’t, but then he deals with you. He calmed the storm, but then straightaway, he asked the disciples why they were scared. He was in the boat with them; they must have known that they would have been safe even if the storm had crashed their boat. So why are you scared? What is keeping you from doing what you know to do? He trusts you, so do it!

In reflecting on our ongoing discussion about the power of God, a theme that you hopefully have seen emerging in recent weeks is the fact that nearly every breakthrough and miracle that we will experience in our Christian walk will require a faithful request or else some sort of bold initiation on our part. I have said it before: “God will use you to work your own miracles.” Scripture confirms this. Two weeks ago, we learned about the woman who was healed because she waded through a crowd just to touch the hem of Jesus’ robe (Mark 5:24-34). The two blind men in Matthew’s Gospel similarly had to call out to Jesus before having their sight returned to them (Matthew 20: 29-34).

This week’s story is a little different. It’s a little shocking, really. It starts off ordinarily enough—if one could ever really refer to Christ’s miracles as “ordinary”—beginning on the heels of yet another ‘self-initiated’ miracle, where a Roman officer has just offered a bold analysis of authority, thereby impressing Jesus and healing his slave (Luke 7:1-10). After this episode, Jesus travels the ten miles from Capernaum to Nain. It is here where this week’s story begins.

Jesus, as you can probably imagine, has garnered quite the following by this point in his ministry. He’s healed leapers (Luke 17:11-19); he’s cast out demons (Matthew 8:28-34); he’s fed the 5,000 (Matthew 14:13-21) and restored the sight to the blind through some rather unusual means (John 9: 1-34). What’s more, he’s probably earned the reputation as a particularly cheeky prophet at that. By now he’s worked a month’s worth of Sabbath days (thereby incensing the local Pharisaical devotees), and even managed to get kicked out of his hometown of Nazareth. Indeed, controversy tends to spiral in his wake. That is all to say that this young rabbi was likely to have a crowd of disciples, onlookers, enthusiasts and scrutinizers surrounding him wherever he went.

So on the road to Nain this entourage, all abuzz with the witnessing of miracles and ten miles of teaching, meets up with a crowd with an altogether different timbre. The crowd whom Jesus encounters in Nain is a funeral procession accompanying a widow who has just lost her only son. This is a rare and terrible blow for any single mother, but even more so for a woman in this time and culture, who would’ve lost not only her last blood relative but her financial safety net as well. She, in effect, has lost everything. At the front of this procession would likely have been a band of her peers wailing along with her in an act of demonstrative sisterhood.

These two crowds eventually meet—one craving life and the other mourning death. The emotional contrast could not be starker nor Jesus’ reaction more surprising. Upon witnessing this woman and intuiting her sad circumstances, he is moved to intervene. His intervention, however, is surprising in several ways. First, it is interesting to note that this woman, unlike the other stories mentioned above, does not ask for his intercession. Her dire worldview has probably become such that she is tired of the faithful and all their optimism. She’s stopped asking for miracles long ago. Her prayers, she tells herself, have not and will not be answered. She’s done. Jesus, though, spots her and calls to her, “Do not cry!” Authoritative. Curiously, Luke reports that his reaction was one of excessive compassion, though most of us are prone to intuit one’s yelling at a widow as an especially insensitive act. The thing to catch here is that Jesus is refusing to agree with her situation, and is instead provoking her to think otherwise. Tough love, some might call it.

But Jesus isn’t finished. He never is. He goes a step beyond speaking and moves to action. As Luke reports, he walks into this crowd, the death crowd, and tells the boy to “get up.” Equally authoritative. And out of an equal compassion. The boy, as you have read, does exactly that. Another miracle has been worked and witnessed.

As an aside, it is crucial to recognize that becoming a Christian is not a one-way ticket to The Good Life. Even after that altar call your day to day existence will more than likely remain a challenging endeavor and your obstacles will still be there where you left them. So let’s be frank, the Christian walk is not paved in bricks of gold. What Kingdom living does offer you is not only a Savior and Redeemer, but what’s more, a community of people who will speak into your world encouragement and, when necessary, conviction. They will become your brothers, sisters, friends, and mentors. It is the crowd round you, and not a plastic smile, that will help to keep your feet moving when life becomes nearly unlivable, and in this circle you will find hope. And Jesus will of course be there as well, teaching and affirming you every step of the way.

What Jesus has effectively done in this story (and beyond) is shaken death by its collar. Perhaps you require a similar ‘shaking.’ Perhaps you have responded to the wailing of the death crowd and decided long ago to tuck tail and walk in their ways—out of fear, or despondency, or faithlessness. Jesus is perhaps calling to you those same tough, provocative words: Stop crying and get up! And perhaps the local church will be the last thing, maybe the only thing, that can help get you back on your feet.

John 20:1-18 (NIV): “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!” So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead) Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. “Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (Which means Teacher). Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ “Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.”

Let’s take a trip into the tomb for a minute. The tomb is place where you die with Christ. When you die with Christ, your eyes are opened to the spiritual atmosphere around you. There are things going on around our lives that we have no idea about. As Mary Magdalene ran into the tomb to make sure that Jesus was gone, her eyes were opened to the things inside of the tomb that the disciples had overlooked.

There were three things inside of the tomb, in addition to the Angels sitting in reverence and praise at the head and foot of where Jesus had lain. The first of these things were the strips of linen that Jesus’ body had been clothed in. This means that as Jesus rose from the grave, he donned new garments. For those of us dying with Christ, this means that we become new people. We have the same person inside of us, but we are now clothed with the King of all Kings, with the best of the best. Our attitudes in life are radically changed, and people notice that.

The second thing that is found in the tomb is the burial cloth, the face cloth that covered Jesus’ face as his body lay in the tomb. For us, this means that we will be washed clean of our past, not forgotten, but washed clean. It is a brand new day; the freshness of God is on our lives. We have the brightest of futures to look forward to.

The third thing we find in the tomb is Mary’s humanity. She falls down on her knees and weeps, begging for her savior to be given back to her, to know where his body lay. She died to herself, wanting nothing more than her savior. As she realized who was standing before her, she wept with joy, not sorrow. As we ourselves die with Christ in the tomb, our humanities are also stripped away. As we die to ourselves, we turn around and find our lives in the hands of our savior. Joy floods into our lives, replacing the sorrow.

It is hard to believe what Jesus says sometimes, but his promises are true. Visit the tomb- so that you can die with Christ and come alive with a new life. The same spirit that rose Jesus from the dead is also alive within us. Take a hold of that, and don’t you ever let go.

Matthew 1: 1-6

1 This is a record of the ancestors of Jesus the Messiah, a descendant of David and of Abraham:
2 Abraham was the father of Isaac.
Isaac was the father of Jacob.
Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers.
3 Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah (whose mother was Tamar).
Perez was the father of Hezron.
Hezron was the father of Ram.
4 Ram was the father of Amminadab.
Amminadab was the father of Nahshon.
Nahshon was the father of Salmon.
5 Salmon was the father of Boaz (whose mother was Rahab).
Boaz was the father of Obed (whose mother was Ruth).
Obed was the father of Jesse.
6 Jesse was the father of King David.
David was the father of Solomon (whose mother was Bathsheba, the widow of Uriah).

The opening verses of the book of Matthew—much like their counterpart in Luke, chapter 3—are seemingly little more than a concise ancestral record connecting an Old Testament prophet to Jesus. While this might seem a peculiar passage to preach from, especially in the expectant and trying days that lead up to Christmas, there is much more going on in “the begats” than meets the unstudied eye. First, it is important to note that one’s ancestry was considered a major issue to the Jewish community who were the recipients of Matthew’s letters. One’s lineage spoke of their history, their birthright, and, ultimately, their worth. Indeed, one’s family name carried much cultural weight, and so, Matthew shrewdly chose to begin his testimony by making certain to demonstrate for the Jews that Jesus’ alleged lowly birth ran, in actuality, through a royal line: that of King David, a fact that confirms the prophesy spelled out in Jeremiah 23:5-6.

Okay, so Jesus can evidentially be linked to great prophets and kings of the Old Testament—to Abraham, David, and Solomon—but how does that apply to us? Or to Christmas, for that matter? This familial listing is significant not only for its justifying Jesus’ royal birth, but also for its mention of some questionable, even disreputable characters who appear along the way. Matthew, then, proves Jesus’ relation to kings, but to a few scoundrels as well. Some who are listed above who warrant a closer study.

One is Tamar, a harlot whose seedy story can be found in Genesis chapter 38. It involves, in short, death, lust, condemnation, cunning, and incest: a father who impregnates his once daughter-in-law working in disguise as a prostitute. The details are truly overwhelming, the degree of sin almost staggering. And yet, God uses Tamar in the line of Christ.

Another similarly scandalous character is Rahab, also a prostitute, this time from Jericho, whose assistance to the Israelites brings about the fall of her people. Her story can be found in the early chapters of the book of Joshua, if you’re interested.

Finally, and famously, is the ignominious tale of King David, whose lust for the bathing Bathsheba results in adultery, and eventually murder as he sends her husband, Uriah, to the front lines of his great army. Uriah is killed according to plan, his death raises no suspicion, and David is able to claim the widowed Bathsheba as his own. Their son, Solomon, is born subsequently—an illegitimate child who, like both Tamar and Rahab, seemingly tarnishes the pristine nature of the Messiah’s bloodline. And yet, again, God does use them.

But isn’t God too holy, too perfect to get mixed up in such debauchery? you might wonder. After all, here we have unrepentant adultery. Here we have mendacious harlotry. Here we have the former shepherd boy, the Psalmist worshipper turned conniving king. These, strangely, are the forefathers of Christ our Lord, people as troubled and as iniquitous as anybody. And still they find their way into the bloodline of the savior of the world. Equally as surprising as God’s inclusion of such people, though, is Matthew’s. The author makes no attempt to gloss over these unfortunate details. If anything, Matthew highlights them. The question, then, cannot be ignored: Why would a perfect God want to associate with such imperfection? What kind of God would allow such frail and broken people to bring about His good will? And what kind of apostle would so plainly tether Jesus to harlots and murderers? Isn’t that the kind of information you’d want to suppress rather than proclaim? The God of the Bible, therefore, seems to be rather different than the religious God so many Christians today have popularized. You know, the one who hates everybody, who condemns and judges and generally dislikes everybody because they sin.

We are apt to forget how capable God is of working through all the garbage we leave Him, however, how thrilled He is to make something of us, even our wrongdoing. He may not ordain our sins, but He can and does use them. Modern-day Christianity need to be reminded just how mysterious and amazingly gracious God’s ways can be. So mysterious that He populated Jesus’ bloodline with some of the messiest characters in the Bible. So gracious that He is willing to redeem even the lowest of the low. And Jesus was no different for that matter, opting to spend his days with the tax collectors and prostitutes, the poor and helpless, rather than the self-righteous and religious folk.

So let us be clear: God wants to get involved in our messes. He can’t help Himself. History proves this. He is the Judge of the world, but He is not judgmental. He is perfect, yet He is also the Perfecter of our shortcomings. We need to be reminded of this, especially around Christmas, when holiday parties force us to deal with even the most annoying of our coworkers, when our wacky relatives come into town. We need to be reminded at how desperate God is to touch and to redeem the lives of His fallen people, and how we, His followers, should try to do likewise.

We should, therefore, strive to show the world the God of the Bible this Christmas season—not the God of our religious beliefs, our prejudices, or our hatred—the God of the Bible. To know Him is to love Him.

There are several things about this event that are so powerful, that you have to look closely and read between the lines to find them.

The first is this: Mary Magdelene was a formerly troubled woman. Her mind had been “possessed by evil”. Once Jesus delivered her, she followed Jesus and became something of a “first responder” for his ministry. She was very close to Jesus’ mother. She was present at every significant event Jesus was involved with after their meeting – especially at the resurrection. She came to the tomb on the Sunday morning after his death with the intention to perfume and anoint Jesus’ body, only to find that it was gone. She first sees the angels and asks where her Lord is. Then she looks behind her, sees Jesus and knows him when he calls her name.

Sometimes when we hear God call our name, everything changes and the light goes on. Easter is about the saving of the world, but it is also about you and me having this kind of experience with Jesus. He says “Mary” and she knows him. Her first response is to cling to him, but he says “No, my work isn’t finished yet. I have to return to my father.” Before his spirit could ascend, it had to descend. God’s plan was to make sure that nothing could stand in the way of when Jesus called out your name, you could respond.

When Mary came to find Jesus, it was so early that it was still dark. At that point, from Friday until that morning, Jesus had been fighting the greatest enemy of mankind – death. In order to overcome death and take away its power was to defeat death. The only way he could defeat death was to confront it by dying. And the only way he could overcome it in the Spirit was to descend into hell and defeat what represents death in the spirit. The wages of sin is death. Jesus wants to stop death, so he confronts death at the source of death – where it lives, where it is born, at its epicenter and confronts it with his blood sacrifice. His blood that takes away the sin – the death – of the world.

He defeats death and is resurrected on Sunday. On his way back to his father, he has this encounter with Mary – this formally troubled, sinful woman. It is more significant when you look at Mary’s life in regards to all of the taboos she had violated in Jewish culture. It is a powerful picture that God is in love with everyone – to see Mary Magdeline as the one to first hear her name called and have a revelation of Jesus after his death.

Then Jesus does ascend, and he presents himself to his father. The Bible tells him that all of the saints of the Bible – the great cloud of witnesses, the famous patriarchs – are waiting for Jesus. David writes a prophetic Psalm about Jesus return: “Open ye gates so that the king of glory might come in. Who is this king? It is the lord mighty in battle.” Jesus had been battling mightily for all humanity – to transcend death and set us free. Jesus then comes to the father and presents himself, and the father receives the sacrifice, and he says “You are my son, and I will place my glory upon you. I will give you the scepter of righteousness. I will call you a king.” After this, Jesus comes back to Earth, presents himself to the disciples, and charges them with the Great Commission.

As powerful as the words of Scripture are that paint the picture of Easter for us, it is but a meer shadow of the reality of God and of what Easter is all about – all that the death and resurrection mean.

You meet God at the same place every time – you always come back to the same place when you stray from God, or are troubled by life. You always come back to God, and He asks you one thing: “Will you believe?” As we are moving towards our belief, he calls out our name. As we are staring at emptiness, death, trouble and pain, there is someone here calling out our name. And when we hear our name, something inside us pricks us, and we look. And we crumble when we hear our name. It is the same place every time – the same intersection for every problem. You just have to believe. You just have to make that move. And he calls you by your name and he holds you.

Praying, coming to church, worshipping, serving, being generous, being kind – these are all things we do, pathways we take, to get us to that place. The place where we trust what we can’t see, believe what we can’t understand. It all comes back to that one place. Easter is powerful because it is one of our key moments, one of the key times that move us to come back, renew and restate our belief. Jesus is always so close – even when we feel like he is far away. Mary thought that Jesus was gone, but he was right behind her. All she had to do was look around and hear him call her name. He is always standing there.

Start talking about what’s possible. The New Year is a great opportunity for fresh vision. In this chapter, Paul has just left Athens. Despite all of his efforts there, he hadn’t had much success – no big miracles, no large churches established, no real breakthroughs. Athens was focused on philosophy and not open to God. Athens was as close to a failure as Paul could get. So Paul left for Corinth. Corinth was a port city – very wealthy and lustful. Paul met Priscilla and Aquilla while preaching in the synagogue, who had been kicked out of their homes in Rome for being Jewish. They all came together in Corinth. They were all in a place that felt a bit like failure, asking “God what’s next? What are you doing?”

Paul began preaching in the synagogues each week, but the Jews in Corinth opposed him. At this point, Paul had been facing opposition for a long time. Imagine living a life where day in and day out people opposed you, threatened you and harmed you – opposing what you thought was a vision from God. You really had a sense of what you thought God wanted you to do – a calling…You started with hope and vision only to be consistently opposed.

v9 – One night, God spoke to Paul in a vision. God is always speaking. There is prayer, and there is prayer without ceasing. It is like the difference between dial up and high speed Internet. When you establish a relationship with God and make the connection through the redemptive cross of Christ, you don’t “dial up” God anymore – you have a direct, constant connection with God. You don’t “go to God” because He is always here. You are ALWAYS connected to God. God’s always watching. He sees everything. We invited Him in and in He came. That was Paul’s revelation. God is always there, but sometimes He will appear to us and speak to us about specific things.

God told Him, “Don’t be afraid. Speak out and don’t be silent. For I am with you, and no one will harm you because many people here in this city belong to me.” This is the Apostle Paul – one of the greatest Christians ever. God’s first words to this hero of faith are Don’t Be Afraid. He would do anything for God. He had traveled the world for God, had been beaten nearly to death, betrayed, shipwrecked, starving, living in poverty – and God says don’t be afraid! Despite what you are facing, despite the failures you had last year or in the past, God doesn’t want you to be afraid of what is coming – what is about to happen. We can’t receive what God has for us if there is fear in our hearts. We need to deal with the fear of something not happening right now. If God has to tell Paul not to fear – a champion of faith – then of course he will tell us not to fear. Corinth ends up being a key strategic city in the early church. Paul’s letters from Corinth form many of the foundational doctrines on which the church was built. Corinth wasn’t ordered and nice like Athens, but yet God chose to use Corinth.

Fear is almost the counterbalance of faith. It is the precursor to unbelief which leads to the disarmament of God. Fear causes us to not believe and restricts God’s movement in our lives. Fear of the vision God wants to speak to us about automatically ties the hands of God to move in our world. Fear manifests itself in many different ways – sometimes it’s rebellion, disobedience, bad choices. When we decide not to do what is right, or not to do what God is speaking to us about because of fear in our hearts, we start to dismantle the work of God in our lives. Fear will manifest itself in losing confidence – confidence in who we are in Christ and what God wants us to do. What that says is “God you aren’t big enough or faithful enough to bring me into what you want me to do.” That leads us into disbelief.

Speak Out. Paul has devoted his life to preaching about Jesus yet God says “Speak out and don’t be silent.” Sometimes it is the simple thing – the obvious thing – that we have been called to that we forget to do. We forget who we are, what we do, the gifts and talents that God gave us. We forget the visions God has given us and we don’t even know who we are or what we have. Speak out and do the things I have called you to do. Act on and live from the revelations I have given you. Once you get a revelation from God, it is a revelation forever. They are foundational. We are the sum total of our revelations. Don’t stop living from your revelations! Don’t go silent – don’t forget – don’t stop doing what I have called you to do, no matter what your circumstances try to tell you. Success and fruitfulness can be just as decapitating as failure because we have a short memory. We struggle for years and God gives a revelation and brings us out. Once we make it, we can forget where we came from. That is why it is also important to stay humble. Don’t forget what God has given you and don’t forget how you got to where you are. Speak and don’t be silent. I am with you and no one will harm you.