Behind the Veil- A Journey from Hidden to Risen

What follows is a transcript of Pastor Gina’s message from our Sunday morning gathering. We share these messages on our blog for those who appreciate the opportunity to read the sermon again—whether for deeper reflection, personal study, or a quieter moment of prayer and introspection. As you read, we invite you to linger with the words, notice what resonates, and remain open to how God may be speaking to you through them.

by Pastor Gina Johnson

So here we are in week three of Lent, and already quite a bit has happened.

When we started this journey, we were in the Book of Esther as well as in the Gospels, and so it starts off with Esther being selected along with many other, really, I would say older girls, more than this is what I would say women. These are young ladies that have been selected, and as Esther is selected over here, Jesus is called to baptism over here, and Esther goes into a time of her own wilderness as she is being prepared to go before the king to see if she is chosen, and Jesus is driven into the wilderness to spend time with God the Father and face his own trials and temptations. By the end, Esther is officially made queen and has found favor in the eyes of the king, and Jesus steps out of the wilderness, has been ministered to, and now he will begin his ministry, and so if we go back to last week, we remember that Mordecai would not bow to Haman.

Mordecai would not bow to Haman, and that did not sit well with Haman, which we're going to hear a little more about, and Jesus would not bow to the temptations. He knew who he was and where he stood, even in the midst of the fasting, even in being tired and hungry, he would not compromise. Mordecai, just one person surrounded by plenty of other Persians and Israelites, you know, no big deal, but it was a big deal because he would not compromise who he was to bow before false gods, and so in the story of Esther, we have Haman and Haman's pride has been wounded to the point where he's not only looking to do something to retaliate against Mordecai, he determines that he is going to take this out on an entire group of people, an entire nation of people.

You know what this reminds me of? This reminds me of a splinter. I take it everyone in here has had a splinter. Okay.

Well, you know, when something went wrong, when Haman's pride got wounded, you know, instead of settling into reflection, instead, it was like getting a splinter, and especially once that splinter, you know, it gets deep enough in there to where you can't easily get it out, but it's still close enough to the surface where, say, it's on your foot, so every step you take, there is this little aggravating reminder of something you didn't want, and that's what's going on with Haman. He has this continual reminder after Mordecai not bowing to him. It's calling for validation.

It needs some kind of reinforcement. What can I do to demonstrate my power and authority over these people, and so he looks for a way to legitimize who he is to prove that he has authority and no person in the street is going to refuse to bow to me, and so we'll turn to our reading in Esther.

Esther chapter 3, beginning in verse 8.

Then Haman said to the king, there is a certain people scattered and separated among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom.

Their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king's laws, so that it is not appropriate for the king to tolerate them. If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued for their destruction, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who have charged the king's business, so that they may put it into the king's treasuries. So the king took his signet ring from his hand, and he gave it to Haman.

The king said to Haman, the money is given to you and the people as well to do with them as it seems good to you. Then the king's secretaries were summoned on the thirteenth day of the first month, and an edict according to all Haman commanded was written, and to the governors over all the providences, and to the officials of all the peoples, to every province in its own script, and every people in its own language. It was written in the name of the king and sealed with the king's ring.

Letters were sent by couriers to all the king's provinces, giving order to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children, in one day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods. A copy of the document was to be issued as a decree in every province by proclamation, calling on all the peoples to be ready for that day. The couriers went quickly by order of the king, and the decree was issued in the citadel of Susa.

The king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Susa was thrown into confusion.

And that ends that particular reading of scripture. And so you notice, you notice the shift that took place here.

Somebody was personally offended. Somebody received basically what they considered to be a threat to who they were, and instead what was a personal offense has now become a public accusation, has now become a time where all these people are going to suffer because one individual did not appreciate the way that they were treated, did not understand why Mordecai would not bow down. Haman couldn't understand why is he supporting a god that is not our king? Why is he supporting some authority beyond what is here in Persia with our king? And so it's interesting because when that happens, when a refusal to go along with someone else becomes such a big threat that it threatens an entire people, then all sorts of differences start to get exaggerated.

It's when all of a sudden people have to question their loyalty. Well, whose side should we be on here? All he did was refuse to bow because he was honoring his own beliefs, his god, yet he's going to pay for it along with all of the other Israelite people, all of the Jewish people in that place. And so this is when we take fear, we take our insecurity, we take our wounded pride, and we give it the center stage.

And you know, I don't know how familiar you are with fear and doubt and worry. I think all of us in here are pretty familiar with it. When we do that, it's exactly where fear wants to be.

In the center of our lives, replacing what we know to be truth, what we know to be love, what we know to be peace, we let fear come in and take over. And so we go and we look at the gospel side of things. Now, as I said, Jesus has come out of the wilderness, he has been nurtured, he has got his strength, and he's ready for his ministry to begin.

And so he goes out and he starts preaching and teaching in the synagogues, and he starts healing and performing miracles, and the Pharisees, the religious authorities, they are not happy with what is taking place. And so we go into Matthew 26, beginning in verse 3.

Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest who is called Caiaphas, and they conspired to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. But they said, not during the festival or there may be a riot among the people.

And so because they saw that Jesus was teaching, was bringing truth, was healing people, was making a difference and giving hope to these Israelite people, he was a threat. Once again, when you see something you don't understand, when you see something that's going to come in and perhaps bring hope, perhaps bring a new beginning, but it's not the one you were expecting, it's not what you were used to, and so then it begins to make you unsettled. You know, the chief priests as they gathered, they were calculating, they were even concerned about the timing.

How do we pull this off without it causing a riot? How do we take down Jesus without it causing a disruption? And the funny thing is, what did Jesus have? He didn't have an army. He had some chosen disciples who walked with him. He was not coming in with the calvary to seize power.

He was simply bringing truth and awareness to what the Father has told him, to what he was able to teach and to declare to the people to show them that even in the oppression, even in the challenges we don't understand, put your faith in the Father who is in me, who is in you. And so as he brought healing and wholeness, as he brought an opportunity to believe in something greater than what was right in front of them, it scared them. It scared them as they started to see like, wait, his authority is getting bigger than ours.

Wait, people are following him more than they're listening to the things that we are saying. And so once again, fear took that center stage. And it's funny because once it took that center stage, everyone who's consumed by fear then stands up and applauds it.

And it then becomes a plot to take Jesus not only into captivity, but to put him to death. And that's where the problem in these stories lie, but that's also where the problem in humanity lies. You know, fear doesn't usually announce itself to everyone around us, but it sure does make an announcement within us.

It will present itself in such a unique way where we don't even recognize its fear. Have you ever had something going on in your life as you're just moving through your every day and something feels a little unsettling? And instead of pausing to ask questions, instead of pausing to understand what is going on, what is the root that is causing this? Why has this situation consumed my mind, consumed my day, consumed my very actions as I'm trying to do anything? It's consuming my energy. Instead of pausing in doing that, we shift and say, you know, this doesn't feel right, so now I need to protect.

Now I need to take control. Now I need to make sure that I am defending everything that I have within my reach. So I need to defend my image.

I need to guard the way that people look at me. I need to make sure that my authority is not going to be taken from me. And as we start to give in to those stories of protection because of fear, to those stories of defense because of fear, to those stories of this is prudent, this is diligent work to save what's going on here.

When we give in to those stories, our vision begins to get narrow and it magnifies what's threatening us and it distorts our perception. So even if there is something right there, a simple solution, a way that we can unite with one another and make it through this, we've lost sight of that because now we're caught up in the fear. And sometimes that leads to arguing.

It leads to division. It leads to labels of difference. So now it's like, well, which side are you on? Are you on this side or are you on that side? And it starts to build more and more isolation from the truth of what is happening and the truth of who we are.

And we start to move into suspicion. You know, on a personal level, when fear takes place, it's a little different than humanity as a whole because when fear takes place on a personal level, it does issue a decree or a scroll in our life, but it's a little different. It puts those ones that say, you know what, you can't trust.

You know, if you're going to get this, you have to do it on your own. You know, you've put your trust in this before and look, nothing has come from it. So now you better do it yourself.

If you want to get it done, you've got to do it yourself. Don't take another risk. It's not worth it.

Keep control. Remember who's in charge. And we start to hear those sentences in our mind, and if we hear them often enough, they begin to feel like a sealed decree.

They begin to feel as if fear took its ring and sealed those non-truthful statements as truth within our minds. We start living under our fears, our fears of what's happening, what's going to happen, what will we do? We start to live under that and allow that to carry authority more than the truth of who we are. It's funny because a lot of times we don't even recognize that these voices are there whispering over and over and over again until we're on the other side, until we're sitting there hopeless, where we've lost all confidence in ourselves, in God, in those around us, and that's when we can see, if we take a moment, look back, that that little moment has now managed to amplify into something that's imprisoning us.

You know, sometimes when I was younger, I could remember like a teacher, especially a teacher that I was very fond of and I had a good relationship with, when they would give me a particular comment, a criticism, and I actually think criticism is great. I know there's certain words that we hear them, we think, oh no, criticism, but when truth is spoken in love, I think it's great, but I can remember I had this teacher, Mr. Saunders, who just meant the world to me, and when he would make a comment, he was my English teacher, I remember it would stay with me, and at first I thought it would stay with me because of how much love and respect I had towards him, but then I recognized that it stayed with me longer than it should have. It caused me to question myself.

It caused me to question my relationship with my teacher. It caused me to question my own relationship with myself as a student. Sometimes in life, we experience a failure and we let that failure define us.

Instead of failing forward, where you know you fail, but that's okay, you get back up and you keep moving forward, we let that failure determine how things are going to go from here on out. Sometimes we have a season in our life where things didn't quite go the way we expect. I think we have multiple seasons like that throughout the year, and what do we do? We end up saying, well, this didn't go the way I hoped, so I'm not going to put myself in that place again.

It's amazing how quickly a voice in your life repeats itself enough that we don't realize it, but we allow it to get comfortable in our minds, and we fall asleep to who we really are, and we find ourselves just living in that fear. How many people woke up this morning and said, you know, today I'm going to live under fear all day. I'm just going to walk through my day afraid and just play it safe, not talk to anyone new, not question anything around me, not even have hope for a better tomorrow, because look at our country.

Look what it's become. Turn on the news. You know, look at my relationships.

They're not what they used to be. All of my close friends are passing around or passing away around me. Week after week, there's a new doctor's appointment.

Week after week, there's a new bill in my life. Week after week, one of the children has a new concern going on. Yeah, this is just going to be the norm.

So, you know, when I wake up, I'm going to live under fear, so I'm going to walk around trying to control everything. This way, nothing else can go wrong. I didn't wake up that way this morning.

I rehearsed it pretty good, because there have been times in my life where I have woken up that way, where it's like, what else could go wrong today? And so even though I didn't say I'm going to live in fear, just because I greeted the day with, all right, day, what are you going to bring me? I'm ready. You've got my sleeves rolled up. Let's go.

You know, it's never how we should wake up. And actually, it happens a lot more subtly. It happens as we continue, like I said, to not ask questions, to let assumptions become facts.

How many times have we heard something through the grapevine, and instead of doing anything to really research and figure out what is happening here, how should I prepare to be engaged in the situation? What can I do to better understand what is taking place and what my role in this will be? How often do we stop and ask those questions? You know, we don't. And a lot of times, we get on the defensive, and right away, instead of saying, you know, my role might just be to step back. My role might be to just watch what's going on, to not choose sides, and just to wait and see what is taking place here.

And sometimes, better than jumping in and putting in our five, ten, twenty-five cents worth, it's better just to step back and maybe take on a posture of prayer. Maybe say, God, I don't know why this is happening. These are people I love and care about, and they're divided.

This is a country that I've lived in my entire life, and one side is saying this, and one side is saying that, and it doesn't make any sense. God, what do I do in these times? Last week, everything went so wonderfully, and this week, I just feel like I'm in an avalanche. God, what do I do here? Instead of doing that, we jump in right away, and we usually jump in with our buddy fear, and then there's not much we can do, because once we surrender over to our fears, it becomes more and more challenging.

Haman was afraid. Haman was afraid that Mordecai, in his one action, was going to take down his authority, was making a mockery out of him for everyone to see, and because he had no truth in who he really was, and what he was really meant to be doing, he created a story that was going to lead to the exile, to the execution of an entire group of people. How often have we seen that? In our world today, just look through history, and you'll see it's been a repetitive cycle over and over again.

It's a perpetual syndrome. Fear sneaks in, and instead of trying to come together and understand, we all take sides. We take up arms, and we're ready for battle, when all we had to do was maybe take a knee, and spend some time in prayer.

It didn't mean that everything was going to be resolved, but then we could come together, and we could figure out what is the best way to continue moving forward. What would God have us do? You know, this is the season of Lent, and this particular week, when we hear the decree being given around the Israelite people, around the Jewish people, it feels final. They're starting to be confused and panic.

Look, guys, there's a scroll that says, on this particular day, we're all going to be taken and executed. Could you imagine being one of those Jewish people, and you get the daily forum, and on the front page, it says, hey, guess what? If you're Jewish, today is your day, because now you know. Get all you can done before this particular day, because that's your execution.

Imagine. Imagine what's going through their mind, and it's interesting, because on the other side of things, we see the plot against Jesus, and at that point in time, no one knows. It's secretive, but it definitely has that feeling of power.

They're coming for Jesus. They're going to do it so secretly, precisely, so they can take him down, and have all of their rule given back to them, all of their authority, but the great thing is, is anytime in the scriptures, we see a problem, we know that grace is present also, because even after that decree was written, and Esther was in the palace, she was positioned there long before the crisis was even visible. You know, the story of Esther takes place over 10 years, and so she was there, and she was positioned for something great, but I bet if you were the person out in the street reading the scroll, you'd have no idea what happens next, and even as the leaders were conspiring against Jesus, something deeper was unfolding.

You know, it's easy to look at the cross and see defeat, but the cross was actually redemption. There was a demonstration that was going to defeat all fear, that was going to remind us of eternal life. You see, the grace in the stories is that fear may come at us, and it may give birth to doubt, and insecurity, and worry, and health problems, and disconnected relationships.

It can drain our energy. It can just keep going and going, but the thing is, no matter how organized, and calculated, and deliberate fear can be, grace is even greater. Fear cannot go beyond the power of God.

Grace may not be able to prevent the decree that's being put upon our lives, but grace will position itself within it, and we'll never be missing from it, and that's something that we have to remember. You know, this is a little bit of a silly example, and I've known, I've used an example like this in many other sermons before, but think about the last time you misplaced something important, and to different things, different people, different things are very important. Some people will get very wound up when they misplace something, other people not so much, but you know, think about it.

Was it your keys? Was it your phone? Was it your glasses? Was it a particular piece of paper that you needed to take with you to get something done? And at first, as you're looking for it, it just feels inconvenient. Dang it, I only have so much time left. I need to find it, but then when you can't find it, after a few minutes of searching, and how many of you do what I do? I open the same spot like five different times.

Nope, it's not in there. I'll go do the whole house, come back. Nope, it's not in there.

You know, I'm just working on my manifestation, so I think that maybe the next time it's like, there it is, doesn't happen. It is so interesting because I remember countless times, whether it was a document, whether it was my keys, whatever it was, I remember searching and searching, and then I get to the point of saying, well, it's gone. Great, great, it's gone, especially like when it's a wallet.

Now I gotta cancel all my cards. I gotta go get a new driver's license. That means I gotta go to the DMV, and you just start to feel awful, and you're like, yep, I'm never gonna find it again, and it throws off your entire day, and what do you do? You convince yourself that the situation is far worse than it really is, and it was over what? A key? You know, it was over a piece of paper.

It was the fact that you might have to take an extra 15 minutes, but you let it ruin your entire day, and then what happens, guys? We calm down. We're about to go out the door, and there it is. That whole time.

All that time, all that energy, all that I wasted when it was right there all along. You know, this is the difference, as I mentioned weeks ago when I was talking about true versus truth. When something is happening in that moment that feels like we've lost something, that feels like something very near and dear has been messed with, has been taken from us, that the validation of who we are, that security that we find in God has been shaken, and it feels so real.

It feels so true. Now that I have lost my loved one, what will I do? Now that I've gotten this diagnosis, there's no point from here on. Look at that pile of bills.

There's no way I'll ever get on top of that. I had that friendship for 30 plus years, and now because of politics, we don't even talk anymore. How many different situations arise in our life, and they are real, and they are true in the moment, but they're not the truth of who we are, and we still let them determine the rest of the story.

You know, this one is always very dear to me, especially when we had the funeral service on Friday, and I looked out, and this place, there's so many people coming for that celebration of life for Bob. How beautiful, and I saw familiar faces, and I got hugs that brought me to tears each time, because these are very, these were, and are, and always will be very special people. I can only imagine.

I've only been here four years. Many of you have been here a lot longer, but as I hugged each one of those people who are no longer sitting there, there, there, there, all I could think to myself is, wow, what did I do to let whatever happened there have the final say, you know, and I won't hide it. I think in my own mind, gosh, what could be said to you to help convince you that there's just confusion, there's misunderstanding.

We don't see eye to eye, but it doesn't stop the truth of what we're doing in this place. It doesn't stop the love that we share, and we may not line up on every single belief and value, but on the main ones, the important ones, we sure do, and those are the ones that have been given to us from God, that have been modeled to us in Christ Jesus, that are reminded to us through the Holy Spirit, and yet, as I had those hugs, and as I looked out and saw those faces, I thought, no, fear convinces us that the conclusion was already written, that the final word is the final word, and in those moments, it becomes very deeply personal, and if you're not careful, you'll take that situation, and you'll use it to create more fear. Because of this, what do I need to do next so it doesn't happen again? It's one thing if you say, you know, I learned a lot from this, so going forward, I want to make sure that I do better.

I want to learn from my mistakes, and I want to trust in God so this doesn't happen again, but it's another thing when you forget who you are, when you take that voice of truth, and you silence it, and you walk around in fear, because it had you once, it might as well keep you in its clutches. You know, we know what it feels like when something is sealed, when a relationship gets fractured, and a door closes. We know what it's like to say, you know, this is the end, but consider a bridge, you know, consider a bridge being built in the off season.

We don't really pay attention. There's the inconvenience, perhaps rerouting in traffic, but once that bridge is built, you drive across it day after day without even thinking. You didn't see the engineering behind it.

You didn't see the reinforcements. You don't see them that are within the structure. You didn't see when they were doing stress tests, and when they were checking the strengthening of the bridge to make sure that everyone would be safe.

But you travel across it day after day, and when the storms come in, and the winds press against it, and different things happen, guess what? That bridge upholds. That bridge is there, not because it was strengthened within the storm. It's because of all the careful preparation and engineering that went into it before the bridge was built, while the bridge was being built, and that's how grace works.

There may be fear in the story, but there's grace in the story. Grace is that reinforcement in your life that you don't always see. Grace is when you remember to make prayer, not just something you do when you're collective in a group, but it's a habit that you do in the calm seasons, just as you do it in the seasons that are a little more trialing, trying.

Resilience is built through disappointments. You know, I used to always say it's really important to remember that any rejection, any time that you have regret, that you use it as fuel to make it better, to make the situation better, to make yourself better, to recognize that it can be fuel for the new you, for the new opportunity, for the new situation. Excuse me.

God has placed people around you, and he's placed them there for a reason, so when fear starts to rise up around you, that they will be there to remind you of the grace, and he has placed you in the lives of people, so when you see fear closing in on those you love, perhaps your spouses, perhaps your children, perhaps your best friends, you're there to be the representation of grace in their lives. You know, Esther had Mordecai, and Mordecai had Esther, and together they were a source of grace and strength. Jesus had his twelve who didn't really even understand him, and he had his close beloved disciple who knew him and still didn't have the complete picture, and in those moments, that's what kept the truth resurfacing, opposed to the fear.

I told you, when Esther entered into the palace, it didn't look like safety and salvation, but she was positioned there for a reason. When Jesus walked carrying the cross to his crucifixion, it didn't look like salvation, but he was there with grace positioning itself. Grace was always present.

As we mentioned in our prayer time, you know, this week we've had some loss to walk through. Two very important lives within our community are no longer going to be sitting where we know them to be. We can only imagine through our own experiences and through the bonds we have, what their families are going through.

When loss enters the room, it can feel like everything is sealed from there on, like there's not grace in the story, like there's not something to look forward to. It feels, especially when it's death, it feels like the chapter has been closed and there's no way we can change it. Grief has a way of making moments feel final.

What could I have said? What could I have done? How can I change this? And now that this has happened, oh my gosh, when's it going to be my turn? What's coming for me? But the story that we are moving toward this season reminds us that what looks like the end, that what looks like a sealed deal, is not the story that God is telling us. When we are in the season of Lent, it brings us here intentionally because before the resurrection, we have to face our fears, we have to face our loss, we have to face our insecurity, and we have to remember that these things do not get to write the ending. As a matter of fact, the ending has already been written.

And grace is always moving beneath anything that feels threatening, beneath anything that feels challenging, beneath anything that feels like it can take something from us, grace is right there. So I invite you, you can sit in the tension as we are in the story, a plot is formed to take the Jewish people and execute them. A plot is formed to take Christ Jesus and nail him to the cross.

What plot is formed in your life right now? You can sit in that tension, or you can sit in the truth that we already know. Fear may speak loudly, but God's grace is always louder, and God's grace always has the last word. Please pray with me.

Our Lord God Almighty, the season of Lent is a time for you to reveal to us where we feel the separation. And so God, we humble ourselves and we say, show us, show us where we can release, show us where we can open our hand and our hearts and release to you, and open our hand and our hearts to receive from you. God, show us where the tension and the trials and the challenges are just an opportunity for us to trust in you, for us to stay awake, for us to stand strong in the storm, and recognize that with you, God, there is nothing that can rise against us that is mightier than the truth of who you are and who we are within you.

So God, as we go from this place today, may we be reminded, may we remember that the light of Christ Jesus, the Holy Spirit, is within us, and it is greater than anything this world can throw at us. And where we see loss and separation, we know the truth that your love, your grace, your abounding mercy has the final word. And it's with that that we say thank you.

It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.