Pastor Brian Martin: Hey everyone, welcome to the Calvary Callback, a podcast where we take a deeper dive into the weekly sermon at Calvary Evangelical Free Church in Rochester, Minnesota. I’m your host, Brian Martin. I’m here today with Kyle Bushre, who preached a sermon titled I Have seen the Lord this Easter, this last Sunday, looking at John 20:1-18. Kyle, you survived Easter.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: We did it. Yeah. Actually, it’s interesting because with the one big service. Yeah. Which was amazing. And we’ve heard great things about it, but people have come to me and said things like, wow, it was a lot of work. And I said, yeah, but for our team, for me, it was one third of the work, right? The actual Sunday morning to be able to just preach once and have everybody in our, in our congregation there. That was a great, that was a great service. Really enjoyed it.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. So, uh, most of the people listening will have been there or at least known about it, but tell tell the people a little bit.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: More.
Pastor Brian Martin: About what we just did and your experience of it.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. So, uh, we, we had our whole service, our whole church together in one service. If you kind of want to know how the sausage got made there, we, uh, we, we, uh, had some, uh, some obstacles in front of us last year. We filled basically every single seat of our three services, and we knew that we were larger now than we were last year. So, uh, the lead team, uh, had to get together and figure out what are we going to do this year. And, and, uh, so we had five options. The control. The control was we just do the same thing we did last year. We just see what happens. Use an overflow room, something along those lines. We didn’t like that idea because the idea of somebody experiencing Easter Sunday morning, sitting in our lobby watching a screen, uh, just felt bad. So, uh, we had the other option was there were three, three fourths. Three fourths. Service options. Uh, you could put a fourth service uh on Saturday night. Come to Saturday night. Easter Sunday morning service.
Pastor Brian Martin: Right.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: You could come to Sunday night, Easter Sunday morning service, or we could somehow try to figure out how to get four services jammed into actual Easter Sunday morning. And, uh, there’s only so much Sunday morning to go around, right? And, and frankly, the energy of that fourth service for our entire team would have been, uh, near impossible to pull off. And so we said, let’s think outside the box, literally outside of this box, right? This, this building box. Where do we, where else could we go? And, uh, we thought about some different places. We thought about, uh, hockey stadiums or things like that.
Pastor Brian Martin: Grad Marina, I think we looked into.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: That’s right. Yeah, we we tried some different stuff and then somebody. I don’t even remember who it was. Do you remember who it was?
Pastor Brian Martin: I think it was Dick Rorabaugh who mentioned it.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: That’s right. It was. Yeah. And and he said, what about John Marshall High School and what a fantastic venue for our church. 1750 seats available. Uh, we had 1350 fill in them coming in and it was just a packed out, wild, fun time worshiping the Lord. Um, and I just, uh, I just so enjoyed it as I was looking and researching our, the history of our church this last week. Looking back over our 72 year history, I believe it is the single largest gathering of Calvary on a Sunday morning in its 72 year history.
Pastor Brian Martin: Pretty interesting.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah, it’s pretty fun. Yeah, I really enjoyed it.
Pastor Brian Martin: And you were you were sitting in the front. Yeah. And we were actually in the balcony in the back. Oh, wow. Um, you know, and, you know, the thing that struck me really was just hearing everybody sing together.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Oh my goodness. Yes.
Pastor Brian Martin: You know, I guess I was at the front at the beginning because I did an announcement. So I kind of got both, but I actually felt it both places. You know, even, even the balcony was, I don’t want to say raucous, but, you know, was passionate, was enthusiastically singing and worshiping together. And it was pretty special.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. When we sang death was arrested, especially in the front. That’s when I, it felt like a, like an airplane was taking off behind me. It was so loud and such a movement of sound. Um, at one point I even just, I just took a moment to turn around and see our entire church worshiping together all at once was, uh, kind of breathtaking, actually. Uh, really, really exciting. Um, time. Yeah. We don’t know what will happen next year, but but for one year anyway, it was excellent.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. For, you know, those tuning in, I mean, we are recording on Monday morning, so we haven’t had any debrief session really with anybody yet or anything like that. So we will see. But yeah. Yeah, I loved it and would be happy to do it again. But I also know it’s a lot of work too.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: So yeah, it’s a lot of work. And you know, there’s a lot of warnings got to be put out there. You know, I don’t know yet. I haven’t heard yet if anybody did come to our building. I suppose there probably is a certain number of people every year who just, without letting us know, show up to our services. I hope there was enough warning in advance to let people know to go down there.
Pastor Brian Martin: And we tried real hard.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yes we did. We in every way we could do it. We did it as part of the sermon. We did it in print. We did it in video. We did everything we could.
Pastor Brian Martin: You know, all the things. So yeah. Well, in any case, uh, you know, our gathering is great, but of course, there’s the broader, you know, Easter, the resurrection Sunday. Yes. Such an important thing. In fact, you know, and where I want to go first here is, you know, the claim has certainly been made many times that the resurrection is the central event of history. So why would you? I’m making an assumption here for you, but why would you affirm that claim?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. Why would I affirm that? I would affirm it? Uh, I would say probably this. I would put the resurrection together with the package of the cross and the resurrection as the single greatest event, because really everything that was accomplished for us was accomplished on the cross. So when Jesus died, our sins were placed on him, right? So he died for our sins that releases us. The resurrection confirms this. The resurrection, uh, shows that as I said yesterday, death doesn’t win. And that there, you know, all the promises of an eternal life with the Lord forever. For those who trust in Jesus, that’s all affirmed in history, in the resurrection. Yeah. That makes it the single most important, certainly of the miracles. It’s the single most important event in human history because it proves that that the promise that we have been redeemed and restored to life through Christ, to God, that we’re in his in relationship with him for eternity. Uh, that is all established in the resurrection.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. And even for the disciples, the contemporaries of Jesus, the resurrection helped make the cross make sense. Oh, they didn’t understand it fully. And that’s true for us as modern Christians, too. I mean, if it was just the leader of our movement, got killed by the Romans, you know, in this torturous way that that doesn’t do enough.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. I mean, I would even make the case that without the resurrection, uh, the Bible shows us that’s exactly that. What would have happened was these, these men would have cowered and probably scattered. Right? Uh, we’re told in Scripture that there were, uh, other so-called messiahs who rose up and thought they were something. And then they were killed and their people scattered.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yep. The movement ended.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: The resurrection. The fact that there is a church, a church movement, a people group that were passionate about the resurrected Christ and fought for, you know, verbally fought for it, proclaimed it, and lost their lives because of it, shows us they fully believed in the historical resurrection of Jesus because they saw him. They walked with him. Right? And, uh, and it transformed, transformed history. So, yes, I think the fact that Mary goes and proclaims that Jesus is body has been taken and then they run and they see and Peter even walks away and he still doesn’t fully understand even at that point. Now it says John believed, right? The passage in John 20:1-18 says John believes so. I believe he started to get it started to make the connections and said, Peter didn’t. Peter walks away. It says astonished. He still hasn’t connected the dots on this, and I don’t think, well, he would not have if he hadn’t seen if Jesus hadn’t walked out of that tomb.
Pastor Brian Martin: That’s why I love Peter so much in Scripture. I just I find him so relatable. Like it just doesn’t get it. And then he gets it, you know? But he’s just not. Yeah. He’s such an everyman. Yeah. You know, I mean, you look at how the church is built through Peter and Paul primarily, right as it begins. And, you know, I think a lot of us have a hard time relating to Paul. He’s very educated and sort of has this high rank and all these things. He was powerful. And and that’s not how most of us feel. And then but then Scripture gives us Peter to this very humble, not that bright, obviously, also not a very fast runner because that gets that gets thrown in there.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah.
Pastor Brian Martin: Thanks, John. There was a race and John won, you know.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah, yeah. But yeah. Yeah.
Pastor Brian Martin: I mean it’s such a gift.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah, absolutely. If you look at the trajectory of those two men, Peter goes from cowering, brash, right? Bold, rebuking Jesus at one point willing to get out of the boat, but fails even in that moment. Right? So he’s he sort of shows some some courage, but then loses all of that and fails miserably when Jesus goes to the cross. And then his trajectory is toward courage. Whereas God had a humble Paul. Right. Paul was very full of himself. Paul had it all right. And it’s interesting, depending on where you’re coming from, you might relate to one of those guys more than the other. True, you may need to be humble and have God humble you so that you understand what it means to follow Jesus. Peter needed to be encouraged in order to follow Jesus, and they all they both end up in the same place.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah, yeah. It it brings a completeness to it. That’s really great for sure. So speaking of carriers of the gospel, Peter, Paul big, but you mentioned, of course, the first witnesses of an empty tomb are the women. Yeah. Right. And so you touched on this a little bit. Um, and why that was important. So I want to use that as a springboard to talk about women in the church today. Okay. Right. So we fancy ourselves a complementarian church. Uh, and, and so I thought it might be a good opportunity to just let you speak to that, to define to your understanding of what that means practically in the church today, but also what it doesn’t mean, you know, give us some some affirmations and denials about women in the church today.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. It’s a controversial topic for sure. Uh, yeah. And thanks for bringing it up. Yeah, we hey.
Pastor Brian Martin: We’re not we’re not dodging the hard stuff.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: No, no, no, I suppose not. Uh, no, I mean, I we, we as a church, we as a complementarian church. Let me just define that a little bit. We believe that God has designed men and women to complement one another in the way that they carry out their tasks, in the way that they carry authority, uh, in the, in the church and in the home. And so, uh, God has designed, uh, men to be strong leaders in the home. Women to be helpmates come alongside of, uh, their husbands to, to lead. Leadership is shared in the home. And yet there’s, there is headship and submission. Uh, when you get to Ephesians chapter five talks about husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, right? Uh, wives respect your husbands though, and come under their leadership. Yep. That’s we affirm that that’s what the Bible teaches. And we celebrate that. Uh, we don’t hide the fact that that’s what the Bible teaches. We’re, we’re thankful for how God has designed us. And we believe life is best lived when we live within the design that God has made. Yeah. Um, that gets undone, that gets undone in, uh, in Genesis chapter three, we see that, uh, you know, the desire for the woman is going to be to take her husband’s position and then his, um, his response to that is going to be that he’s going to try to rule harshly over her. And that’s where you get this struggle is when we get out of our our positions and try to take each other’s roles.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: And, and there’s a lot of heartache and heartbreak that comes from getting outside of God’s design. So we celebrate that. That’s, that’s, that’s what Complementarianism is within the church, though. Um, there really is only a small amount of limit. Actually, God has designed the pastor, elder overseer, overseer role for men, uh, to, to lead in the church. Um, that is one team of our church, right? And every other team is all men and women, young and old, everybody involved. Uh, we have fantastic women leading in every capacity within this church, save the pastor elder overseer role. Uh, so, uh, you know, women are are not to have. Uh, not to teach or have authority over men. That’s what that’s what first Timothy tells us. And, uh, and so we go through our church and our ministries and we figure out which roles are appropriate. 99% of all the roles in our church are appropriate for both men and women. And so we want to see both men and women involved in all of them. So you’re going to see women involved in all sorts of ways in our in our church leading worship, praying, um, leading Bible studies, uh, teaching, uh, in women’s ministry and all kinds, just children’s ministry is full of women in leadership. So we have lots and lots of ways that our church does that. And I think we do it pretty well. Um, never, it’s never going to be to the, to the world’s standards of egalitarianism, but we’re not trying to do that. Right. We’re trying to be biblical. Yeah.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. I had a fascinating conversation, at lifeguards, for those of you who don’t know, is it’s sort of a post youth group, um, conversation. We give students the opportunity to ask hard questions, wrestle through answers themselves rather than just be being talked at. It’s a way to really process. So this was years ago now, probably eight years ago or something. And, um, we were talking about this topic and, uh, a young adult woman was there who was in ministry and that was her desire was to professional ministry. And we were talking about this and I shared my stance, which is basically identical to yours. And she, like heartbroken tears in her eyes was like, I can’t believe you’re saying to me that you don’t think I’m capable of doing this. And I just said, whoa, hold on. Actually, I’m really glad you said that. This isn’t about ability. That’s right. You know, we need strong, capable, godly women in every aspect of our faith lives, right? Um, except this one position and it’s not this one office and it’s not even that women can’t in that they’re not able to. It’s not a skill deficiency. Exactly. That’s a bad argument, right? Right. It’s not a skill deficiency at all. It’s just about fidelity to our best interpretation of scripture. That’s right. This is how we understand it. And so I just think that’s a misunderstanding that often comes through like, oh, women can’t be pastors because they’re not good at it. No, that’s not the argument. The argument is faithfulness to the scriptures.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. Well, in our in our culture, there’s a desire to sort of break down orderliness and roles and, and to, to buck against the system. Right. And that, that works its way sometimes into the church. And this is just one of those areas where it works its way in. There’s lots of other areas where worldliness worked its way into, but we just want to be as faithful to Scripture as we can be because we believe that we flourish. Humanity flourishes and does well when we do it within the design that God has made. Yeah.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. Good stuff.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yep.
Pastor Brian Martin: So I want to turn to, um, a little phrase in the passage that we read and you preached on, um, in John and it’s, uh, this is John chapter 20 and it’s verse 17. So let me just read it briefly and then we’ll interact on it. It says, Jesus said to her, do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the father. But and here’s the point I want to lean into, but go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your God. So here when Jesus is talking about this, you know, he could he could have chosen to say, go tell my disciples or my followers. Or he could have even said to Mary, like, go tell your brothers, you know, your spiritual brothers and sisters. Yes. So he seems to work kind of hard here to talk about the disciples. I would say as peers, almost he creates this sort of peer relationship. So what do you think is the significance of that sort of equality based language, where Jesus is talking about the disciples as his peers rather than his disciples followers?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah, it’s fascinating, isn’t it? And Jesus does not talk like this throughout his ministry. You see, he does not refer to his brothers when referring to the disciples. Uh, anywhere else really? Uh, I mean, maybe a few other places, but. But throughout the book of John, you will not see this. This is stark. This really stands out in the passage. And what he’s saying is, the relationship that you now have with God is defined as a familial relationship. He’s my father. My father God, right? But he’s also your father, God. And in that sense, in this way, here in this verse, Jesus is showing one aspect of the way we relate to him, and that is that he is sort of big Brother Jesus. He is the right. He’s the first.
Speaker 3: That works on multiple levels, actually.
Pastor Brian Martin: He’s always watching.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: He’s always watching you. Yeah, yeah yeah. Big brother season six. No. Yeah. No, he’s he’s our he’s our brother in the sense that we are a part of the family of God that he has secured for us, that he’s gone to make a place for us in the father’s house. Right. And so we go, and, uh, we get to live with him forever. Now, that’s not the only way he relates to us, right? He’s our God. He’s, he’s our creator. Jesus is our creator. He’s a, he’s our king, right? Paul. Paul refers to himself as a slave of Christ, a servant, right? He’s he’s a bond servant to Jesus. So that’s, that’s one way to relate to him. But here Jesus says, it’s not the only way. Here’s another way you relate to me. We’re brothers. We’re brothers and sisters now. Yeah, we’re all together in one one family. And that’s secured in the resurrection. Uh, and I do think it’s significant that that he starts using this language after he’s raised from the dead. As I mentioned yesterday, you would think that once Jesus plan, once his body has died, once he’s raised, once he’s a new.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: He he’s a in a sense, he has a new body like we will have a new body, right? You’d think, oh, now he’s going to become more transcendent, more ethereal, more spiritual, more set apart from us. No, he’s actually tighter to us. Yeah. That’s how that’s how our God relates to us. He’s beside us. He’s immanent and transcendent. God is complex in that sense. But, um, we got to understand he’s not, um, some aloof force in the, in, in the universe. He’s our, our big brother. He knows us by name and he calls us into this, this family, not only with each other. We talk. We talk about being the family of God or the body of Christ together as a church. But we have that communion with Jesus. And I think that’s the significance of the language here is that, you know, the adoption is complete. We are now in the family, um, through the Jesus death, burial, and resurrection.
Pastor Brian Martin: The adoption is complete. Is, uh, that’s pregnant with meaning, isn’t it?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: It sure.
Pastor Brian Martin: Is. There’s a, that’s a lot of work. Yeah. To get to that final spot, as you and I both know. Yes. Oh, boy. Yeah, that’s, that’s a beautiful thought. And the humility of Jesus is humbling is what I would say. Yeah. Well, our last question for today is this. Um, it’s actually a question you wrote.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Ah, I wrote the question.
Pastor Brian Martin: You did write this question because so whoever’s preaching, um, writes the questions for, for our shepherding communities to discuss. And so I took a peek at that and I thought this was a great question. I’m curious what your answer is to it. So what do you make of the fact that the very first person to see Jesus alive is given the job to go tell others immediately?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah, yeah. What do I make of that? I make of that, that what it means to be part of Jesus family just means that we’re on mission for him. The very first thing that we’re told to do is don’t cling to me. That’s what’s the first thing he says. Mary, stop clinging to me, okay? Stop. Stop trying to just hang out with me right now. I need you to go. I need you to go and start to spread the message. She’s the first evangelist in that sense, right? The first post-resurrection evangelist. Jesus has already sent out the the missionaries on, you know, the to to go into the surrounding communities and brought them back. He did that during his his ministry on earth. So it’s not the first time that the apostles have been involved in evangelism, but Post-resurrection Christ meets Mary. Once he identifies himself, once he. Once he lets her know exactly who he is. He’s got a job for her. I think that means we as a church, we have a job. You want to meet Jesus? Great. You want. You want to have Jesus. Fantastic. Salvation. Wonderful. You are now in the family of God. That means you have a job. And, uh, I think churches that lose that, people who lose that, uh, lose a very key part of discipleship, a very key part of discipleship, of following Jesus is to be on mission for him is to proclaim the gospel.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: It’s to go to people who need to hear about him and tell them. And we see that the moment the spirit hits at Pentecost, the preaching in the streets, they’re going out. They’re sharing the gospel with as many people as they can. They’re compelled to, as Paul put it, to live is Christ. For me, to live means to go and live for Jesus in every aspect of my life, and to tell others about him. And if I lose that, um, I’m really what Jesus would describe as a light that’s been put under a bowl or put into a basket. It can’t shine. Is it really a light? I’d really you really start to question whether a person really knows the true Christ if they’re not willing to share him with other people. And so I think, um, yeah, that’s the significance, significance I take away from it. You know, uh, what’s the most important thing that Jesus wants to share? Uh, in his first conversation with a, with another person in his resurrected form. Go share me with other people.
Pastor Brian Martin: Right.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: I’m compelled by that. I think our church should be compelled by that. I think all of Christianity should be compelled by that.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. And when we’re passionate about things, we talk about them. We naturally talk about them. Exactly. I mean, I can I could do a five minute speech on the best breakfast restaurant in Rochester. I could do it. You know, I’m not giving any free advertising, but I could.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: I think I know what’s at the top of your list, but I don’t think we can say it here. Yeah.
Pastor Brian Martin: I mean, there’s there’s some good ones, but, uh, you know, but when we’re passionate about things, we, we share about them. And I don’t know why we so often feel the need to make it weird. Yeah. You know, like, let’s just be honest about, here’s what Christ has done in my life. And I can share that honestly. And even people who don’t believe are willing to hear you talk passionately about something you actually genuinely care about. Yeah. And I think sometimes we tell ourselves that they’re going to think we’re weird or what. Yeah, there are ways to make it weird. Sure. But if you’re just being humble and honest and talking about how Jesus impacted your life, yeah, that’s part of telling the story.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Absolutely. And people like to talk about what’s going on in their lives all the time. I mean, we have a whole culture that likes to talk about who they are on the inside. Who they, you know, who, who they identify as, who you know, what’s, what’s unique about them. And that’s, that’s great. And if we just get really good at talking to people about their lives, they’re going to be open to hearing about our lives too. That’s right. And I just we become all things to all people that we might win some, as Paul put it. Right. And our culture will have these conversations. We just have to have these conversations in ways that are will be received by our culture. That’s part of being a good evangelist. Um, but, uh, you know, we don’t want to be, we want to be counterculture in our message, but not necessarily in our, in our method. Right. And so, um, you know, I just encourage anybody that struggles in this area to make friends. That’s what people always say. What’s the key to evangelism is making friends? You just make friends with people who are different from you. Make friends through common interests. Go with the purpose into our world and love people. Yeah. And you know, you’re not, you’re not the Holy Spirit. You have to bring judgment. Just just go and build relationships with people. Yeah. And you’ll have opportunities to share Christ.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. Well, what a great challenge. And I think a great way to, to end today. Uh, so let’s all be thoughtful and prayerful about what that means in our own lives and how we can be carriers of the gospel.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Absolutely.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. Well, thanks for joining us on the Calvary callback. We hope this time was an encouragement to you and whether you’re a part of our Calvary family or if you’re listening from somewhere else in the world, we invite you to join us in our mission to pursue passion for Christ and compassion for people. For Kyle Bushre, I’m Brian Martin. We’ll catch you next time on the Calvary Callback.