In His Steps: Preparing Your Heart for Easter

Narrator:

Purposely your life, God’s purpose. Listen at onpurposely.com. In His Steps, a Holy Week journey,

Mark Holland:

And this is our inaugural edition of the In His Steps feature on our radio stations and our podcast platform. In His Steps in the steps of Jesus Holy Week is what this is called. And we’re actually doing kind of a preamble to Holy Week with how we should prepare our hearts for Easter. Have our first pastor on deck this week; getting to know Adam Christiansen from Cross and Crown Church. Hi there, Adam.

Adam Christiansen:

Good morning. Good to be with you. Mark.

Mark Holland:

Good to see you once again. You were part of a pastor’s thing we had on the radio a few months back and good to see you back in studio. For people who are not familiar with your church, tell us a little bit about yourself and your church, Cross and Crown.

Adam Christiansen:

Yeah, Cross and Crown. We started about eight years ago down in the university district and then during C O V I D, we actually launched an Edmonds campus. So we started out with a small little handful of us gathering together and it just honestly took off. It’s been a lot of fun. So, we’ve got a lot of young families there gathering and it’s, it’s been a wild ride. Lots of things to navigate, but it’s also been just so much joy. So, yeah, we’re overrun. The parents are overrun by children, which is great.

Mark Holland:

Overrun by children. Well, and you’re kind of trying to get them to think about other things besides Easter eggs this time of year. But you want to get us all ready for Easter and we’ve titled this message, Preparing Your Heart for Easter. And tell us a little bit about this in your mind. What does it mean to prepare our hearts for Easter?

Adam Christiansen:

Yeah, I think it’s so important because Easter is all about the resurrection of Jesus, and that is actually why we gather each week is to be able to celebrate that. It’s declaration of his power over sin and death through the raised life of Jesus. And so for us to be able to think about this with a sense of preparation, I think it’s, it’s going to be necessary for us to first lean into this idea of why the resurrection? Why is that important and is it important? Right? What does scripture tell us about this? I love that the Apostle Paul talks about this in first Corinthians 15. He says, the thing that I want to tell you that is of most importance, like the greatest importance, and that should just cause our ears to perk up a bit. Like if Paul’s saying this is the most important, then let’s read on.

And he says, I want you to know that Christ died for our sins. And he did this in accordance to the scriptures that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day again in accordance to the scriptures. And then he started appearing to people. So, there was a real bodily resurrection. He showed up to Peter, he showed up to disciples Also at that point, he showed up to 500 other people that were alive at the time when this was being recorded, appeared to his Jesus’ own half-brother James. I mean, just the resurrection was a real thing. And so God’s declaration over sin and death is what Paul is saying is the most important thing that we can understand, because what it does is it points to God’s promises, his power, and his character. Like we can trust him when he says, I will send one that will save you. That he did it, and that he demonstrates his power and his might through the resurrection of Jesus.

Mark Holland:

Well, as we come into this Easter Holy Week, it’s preceded by what’s known as Lent, and does that figure into preparing our hearts for Easter? Or in your opinion, does the whole Lenton in season kind of a different part?

Adam Christiansen:

No, I think there’s a part of it too, because much of the aspect of Lent is being able to recognize some of the extra things that we’ve distracted ourselves with in life. And so, to be able to have a calm or a quiet, to be able to hear from God, to be able to experience that sense of going without I think is often, it’s a really helpful exercise for us to be able to experience God’s presence. I mean, he’s present with us. Sometimes we’re not listening very well. Yeah.

Mark Holland:

Holy week obviously it’s called the Passion of Christ. The passion week comes in a triumphal way as we’ll be exploring more this week with each different pastor, a different aspect of the passion week. Of course his death, but also his resurrection. And you alluded to Paul saying, this is really important, guys, pay attention here. Jesus is alive. And he also said, I think that statement, he says, if Jesus didn’t raise from the dead, then we are of all men to be pitied. So this is, it’s not enough that Jesus just died for our sins. The resurrection really is central to the Christian faith. Even more, you know, people go at Christmas and Easter and they’re not, Easter isn’t just about wearing a nice Easter bonnet or like I said, having Easter egg hunts, but it is really central to the Christian faith and really what it sets it apart.

Adam Christiansen:

Absolutely. Yeah. If we don’t have the resurrection, I don’t think we have a faith to stand on. Paul says that our preaching is in vain. He says Our faith is futile and that we should be pitting most of all people if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead.

Mark Holland:

Well, tell us a little bit more about, I know that you gave me some notes ahead of time. You say this is going to be, is it okay to say this is maybe a little bit of a preview of what you’ll be actually preaching on Easter Sunday?

Adam Christiansen:

It’s fair to say that why not double dip? Right.

Mark Holland:

Well, why don’t we pull out some thoughts of your message here that you think is important as we prepare for Easter?

Adam Christiansen:

Yeah, I think so. To be able to focus on the importance of the resurrection, that’s first. And then also just the who is this Jesus? And if we’re in this series walking with him during that week leading to the cross, are we pointing to the right person is an important thing. We actually have scripture records different ways in which the apostles point back to the validity of this Jesus as the Christ, as the Messiah, as the Savior. The place that we see that is in the early birth of the church when Pentecost is taking place and Peter stands up and gives his declaration. Many times in that speech, I think it’s three times, He says, it’s this Jesus, this Jesus whom this Jesus from Nazareth, this Jesus whom you crucified, it is this Jesus that God has raised from the dead. So, there’s a familiarity and there’s a pointing to Jesus really being who he said he was. Right? That’s an important thing. He was killed because he proclaimed to be equal with God. He proclaimed to be God.

Mark Holland:

No doubt about that. They knew exactly what he was claiming and that’s why they were so mad at Him.

Adam Christiansen:

Absolutely. Yeah. And so, Peter’s making the claims is it is this Jesus that you are crucifying and he says, definitively this Jesus, whom I proclaim to you is the Christ. And Paul actually refers to those words again, we see this again later in Acts, in Acts 17 when he’s in Thessalonica. He says, it is this Jesus, he’s the Christ. So our eyes and attention should all be focused in on this historical figure that was a real person that really walked, that really died, that really rose. And so, it helps us to be able to be grounded in the truth of our faith.

Mark Holland:

A real historical person people try and mythologize Jesus, but he definitely lived a very important life. Even if you’re not a Christian, a lot of faiths acknowledge Jesus. I think even Muslims acknowledge Jesus. They don’t think he died for our sins, but they know he was an important person, but he wasn’t just one of many ways to God. He said he was the way, the truth and the life. You’re also bringing out a little bit of the story of the woman at the well. Tell us us, why is that an important story to look at as we prepare for Easter?

Adam Christiansen:

Yeah, so the, it’s a familiar story, but let me kind of set the scene a little bit. There’s a woman who’s, she’s a social outcast. She has a complicated history, we might even call an eyebrow raising set of current circumstances. And she runs into Jesus who is middle of the day sitting at this very well-known well. And Jesus says to her, he says, give me a drink. And her response is, how is it that you, a Jew, would ask for a drink from me, A woman of Samaria? And even in the scripture says, there’s a cultural chasm here. Jews don’t do that. You don’t ask a Samaritan, particularly a woman in the middle of the day that would be at the well. And he answers her. He says, if you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would’ve asked him and he would’ve given you living water.

And it’s just the statement. If you knew. Paul, actually as he’s talking to the Greeks in Athens, he’s dealing with the philosophers there in Act 17. He says, the time of ignorance has passed because we now know. So, if we’re talking about a historical figure, we’re talking about a real resurrection, going back to this story that we can relate to our own lives where Jesus is having this conversation with this woman at the Well. If you knew who it was that was asking you for a drink, you would in turn ask him for a drink. And it wouldn’t just be a drink that would satisfy in the moment, what he would offer would be water. And Jesus then, he says, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again speaking of the water that’s there in the well. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling to eternal life. So, Jesus is offering something far more than that would satiate our thirst in the moment. He’s offering satisfaction and fulfillment for eternity.

Mark Holland:

I like too that Jesus, he in so many ways fulfills all of these types and shadows of the Old Testament of a sacrifice. And even the Easter coincides with the Jewish Passover. And he was kind of fulfilling that by his life that on this week.

Adam Christiansen:

Absolutely. And that’s where we read in the book of Hebrews that Jesus has completely fulfilled the necessary regulations for the penalty for our sin. So, he is the final sacrifice once and for all. There’s no need for these other sacrifices. And the whole point of those, by the way, was to be able to enter into the holy presence of God. And so, now we have through faith the deposit of the Holy Spirit, which allows us to be able to experience the presence of God, every day and every moment.

Mark Holland:

Well, for people who are on the fence, are not sure about, they think, yeah, love your neighbors, yourself, these are all good. But they want to dive in a little deeper. Maybe people who are listening who aren’t sure that they believe in Jesus. In your final few minutes here, tell us why they should consider Jesus. Why they should, both for the person who’s a skeptic maybe, but also for us who want to maybe go deeper in our faith.

Adam Christiansen:

Yeah, let’s kind of turning into that story of the woman, the well, I mean Jesus is having interaction with a social outcast, having an interaction with a person who is dealing with her sin and her shame. And yet he approaches her and he has this very loving interaction with her. But we’re the woman in this place. We’re the woman in the well and we draw from these wells of things in our life. Things of like self-sufficiency or we draw from the well of shame and we draw from the well of pain or even just lessened expectations. And what it does is it, like, that water doesn’t satisfy us. The things of this life, the things that we pursue, they don’t satisfy. It’s still in stagnant ponds that we draw from. And so, Jesus is offering eternal life. He’s offering eternal satisfaction. And we often think that God is asking much of us, and I think that it’s true and it’s not true.

And what I mean by that is Jesus doesn’t require anything of us except to come to him. He does. So He doesn’t demand anything of us, but what he does ask of us is everything. It’s a both, and, in that right. It’s everything. It’s everything in our worship, but it’s also everything of our burdens. It’s everything of our pain. It’s everything of our anxiety. All of these wells of water that we draw from that don’t satisfy. He says, come to the thirsty, come and drink without price. And he offers freedom. He offers purpose in life. He offers the ability to walk away from things like our shame and our failures. And he then clothes us with his perfection. And God sees us in the light of Jesus and in turn, we are satisfied. One more thing I do want to add is this, which is as we prepare our hearts for Easter, I think we have an opportunity to draw near to God. And specifically I’m thinking of people that maybe you’ve, you’ve not been close. You know of this guy, but your relationship is distant. And just think of any sort of friendship that you would have. The distance that is there between you. If you don’t have regular interactions, you lose sight of the nuances of who they are. The tone and the cadence with which they speak, those little details. And I think as we prepare our hearts for Easter, a real opportunity we have is to come to know again, the character of God. Draw near to him that we don’t have to try and satisfy our own thirsts, but to come to the well and to have that experience with God where we might know that he is loving, caring, merciful patient. And he desires to have that relationship with you.

Mark Holland:

And you’ve been listening to the Purposely Equipped series called In His Steps, a Holy Week journey, today featuring Pastor Adam Christiansen of Cross and Crown Church in Edmonds. To find out more about the church, visit their website crossandcrownchurch.com. Please leave us a review of this message so more people can discover this podcast and find more episodes of Purposely Equipped at onpurposely.com.