April 20, 2003
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This is
Resurrection Sunday, it is Easter, the day when God shows the world who Jesus is
in a way we have not seen before. But, we say, we already know who Jesus is.
We know
him as a teacher from whom we have learned much about ourselves, and our
relationship with him and with God. We know
Jesus as a healer, the biblical record and our experience of being restored mind
and body affirms him as our Great Physician. Jesus
has been called a miracle worker, I believe each one of us has a testimony about
a time something happened in our lives and there simply is no way to understand
it except as a miracle of God given to us through Jesus Christ. He is an
intercessor, a man of prayer who talked to God on behalf of the disciples, the
church, and himself. Jesus
was a compassionate prophet who brought justice and hope and accountability
everywhere he went. We can
bear witness to what the scripture says, Jesus went about doing good, and that
good made a world of difference. But
Jesus the good and compassionate man is not the good news we celebrate today. The
great good news we celebrate today is this: Jesus Christ who was dead is alive,
and because he lives, new and victorious life is possible for us. The
victory is not measured in win loss columns, like sports team standings. There
is no blue ribbon like there is for baking the best pie or raising the best calf
as if we were at the fair. Our
victory is measured in changed lives. The empty tomb is the good news in which
we stand. It is our faith’s foundation, it connects us to something beyond
ourselves, it locates us with people of faith in the past and in the future. One
writer described the resurrection as “God’s deliverance from death, the
divine ‘power play’ that brings life not only for ‘the one ordained by God
as judge of the living and the dead’ (Acts
10.42), but also for God’s people. The resurrection of Jesus is more
than a miracle, it is an event that makes possible a radical style of new life.
Closed worlds are broken open, and old perceptions of what is plausible and
possible are shattered. The future becomes a promise of sharing in the
resurrection” (Texts
for Preaching – Year B. Louisville, Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993,
p.268). The
resurrection of Jesus Christ and the promise it brings to us is for Paul the
chief proclamation of the church. It is for him the foundation on which we
stand, it is the source of our salvation, it is the truth we hold tightly,
unless it has no meaning. But it does have meaning. For him,
“no matter who preaches the gospel, the same thing will be said: Christ was
raised from the dead. To deny that Jesus was raised from the dead is to deny the
credibility of the community of faith and proclamation” (Texts for Preaching, p. 273). John’s
account of the resurrection is from the point of view of Mary Magdalene, Peter,
and an unnamed disciple. But the four gospels tell the story of the resurrection
as if it were a multi-faceted diamond. Each catches the light of the gospel and
depending on how you turn it, the gospels, along with Paul gives a slightly
different impression. In their telling of the meaning of the resurrection, Paul
is cool reason. John on the other hand, records an adrenaline rush of activity
with Mary Magdalene running back and forth to the tomb, weeping and questioning,
and Peter and the other disciple in a mad dash to the place where Jesus had
been. In the middle of it all is the risen Christ, transformed and not yet
recognizable. We begin
with Mary at the burial place. John does not tell us why she was there, but we
have an idea. The gospel of Mark says that the women, “brought spices, so that
they might go and anoint him” (16.1).
Mary comes to insure that Jesus’ body has been properly prepared, to
grieve, and to show her respects to One whose death has wounded her deeply.
Remember Jesus had delivered Mary from seven demons (Luke
8.2), and her loyalty and love for him was deep. When she
gets to the tomb, she is stunned to discover that the stone the closed the tomb
has been moved from the entrance and the tomb is empty. Mary does not know what
to think at first. Imagine her shock. She is already grieving. Now her grief is
surely compounded. Now she feels
scared, distraught, confused, victimized. She goes to Peter and the other
disciple and tells them what she has seen. They sprint to the tomb, look in and
see neatly folded grave clothes. Three
things are important about these grave clothes. “First,
they provide visual evidence of Jesus’ resurrection. The body is gone, but the
grave clothes remind us that a body was there. Second, they provide evidence
that Jesus’ body was not stolen. Grave robbers would not leave behind valuable
linen cloth, and neither grave robbers nor Jewish authorities would take time to
remove clothing from a body, delaying their escape and increasing the risk of
discovery. Third, they serve a theological function. When Jesus raised Lazarus
from the dead, Lazarus emerged from
the tomb still wrapped in his burial clothes. Jesus had to command bystanders to
free him so that Lazarus might resume his normal earthly activity. However, when
Jesus emerged from the tomb, he did so unencumbered, perhaps, signaling “his
resurrection into the life of God’s eternal order.” (Beasley-Murray, 372) www.lectionary.org/Apr20_John_20.1-18.htm,
p. 45). Peter
and his brother disciple go back home to ponder privately. But Mary stays, and
as she does she helps us to see the full power of the resurrection. Mary
recognized the one who she thought was the gardener as the risen Lord, in the
instant he called her by name. There must have been something in the
relationship they shared, in his tone of voice, in the way Jesus had of saying
“Mary” that led her to know who he was.
We can know the power and victory of the resurrection when we get that
the Rise Christ knows our names, knows our needs, knows the new life we can
claim when we know his unconditional and never-ending love. Don’t worry if you
do not hear an audible sound. The risen Christ speaks to our spirits. Just
listen. Listen in the quietness of your prayer and in the depths of your stress
for that voice that speaks to you by name. It will calm you, it will encourage
you, it will renew your soul. Listen carefully. Then,
however it is your name is called, respond to it. When she hears her name, Mary
knows who is talking to her, and she answers in a way that spoke to her
relationship with Jesus. “Rabbouni”, “teacher”, she says. “You are the
one who taught me to value myself as a child of God. You have helped me to
become all that God intends me to be. You taught me how to keep the demons that
tried to get between you and me at bay. Because of all that I have learned from
you, I call you teacher.” Call on
the name of Jesus as often as you can by whatever name you need to call him.
Why? Because it is the name that has the power to calm, to lift us up, to make
life meaningful. It is the name by which hope, salvation, peace, and justice
will come. Call him Jesus, call him Savior. Call him Friend, Guide, Redeemer,
Refuge, and Rock. Whatever we need him to be for us, we can call on his name
always. Then
when we have heard our name called, when we have responded by calling the risen
Christ by the name we need to call him, the power of the resurrection gives us
the means by which we can stand firm and stay true to the good news we know.
Peter and the other disciple ran to the tomb, perhaps not willing to take
Mary at her word, perhaps just wanting to see if what she was saying could
possibly be true. People will not always want to hear the good news that the
Risen Christ offers his love and redemption to the world, including the people
we think are undeserving of his love. But it does.
The
resurrection story reminds us that as bleak and horrible as Good Friday is, it
only appears to be the end of the story. God has another word to say to us,
there is yet one more thing that God will do. So stay to the end. I am one of
those people that likes to stay at a baseball game till the last out of the last
inning, and have seen games won with two outs, and two strikes on the batter. I
will sit in a movie theater till all the credits have appeared on the screen,
and every now and then when I stay all the way to the end, there may be an
outtake or two for us to see. There is always the possibility of something great
happening at the end, even after the ending we think has occurred. Mary
first assumed a horrible theft had taken place. But she stayed long enough to
see that God had done exactly what Jesus said God would do. She stayed long
enough to have a conversation with the risen Lord to touch him and to hear him
remind her that he was about to go to the God of both of them. Let’s stay long
enough to make the resurrection story our own and to says with Mary, “I have
seen the Lord.” But it can’t just be our story. At the
Good Friday service last Friday afternoon the preacher reminded us that Holy
week is an evangelism time. These are the days when we say to the world, we are
the people of the resurrection, that we believe that that God has raised Jesus
from the dead and if God can do that, there is nothing God cannot do. We have
news worth sharing. What do
we share? How about this simple proclamation: the tomb is empty. When
they ask us why the tomb is empty, we can answer them. The good news we know is
that he loves us, he redeemed us, he wants to redeem each of us in this room, he
wants to redeem the world so much that he had to respond when God called him out
of the tomb. We can
tell them that God fixed it so that we would have a place to put some stuff we
have carried around too long. A tomb is a place for fear, for ignorance,
hopelessness, hate, and death. Nothing good can survive in a tomb, living things
do not belong there. We are alive with the love of God. We are living witnesses
to the creative power of God at work in us. We don’t need a tomb. When they
ask, tell them that the tomb is empty because we have left all that weighs us
down behind and we no longer carry around things that take the life out of us.
We left it all behind and have taken up some other life-giving things. We can
take on courage, knowledge, hope, love, and vitality. The tomb
is empty and because it is we have an encounter with the holy in a way we could
not have imagined before. Because the tomb is empty, we live with resurrection
hope, and know in our souls that as the stone was rolled away and Jesus was
raised, worlds break open, and faith and hope are fulfilled. Several
days ago, I was invited to attend part of a Joyce Meyer conference. At the end
of the evening, after the music and the message there was an altar call. As
people came forward to give their lives to Christ, she told them that being in
Christ did not mean an end to the problems human beings face. It did not mean
they would never cry or hurt, or do things they would later regret. What it does
mean is that in all of the victorious power of the risen Christ, they have an
eternal source of hope. We have that hope too. We will make mistakes, but God
forgives. We will cry and hurt, but God will soothe us. We will hope against
hope sometimes, and sometimes, God will through the tender mercy of Jesus
Christ, realize our hopes and dreams. This is
the good news proclaimed to us, which we received, in which we stand, through
which we are being saved (I Corinthians 15.1). This is the
grand and bold proclamation of Easter. “His
glories now we sing, who died, and rose on high, who died eternal life to bring,
and lives that life may die”. The
Lord is risen. (the Lord is risen indeed!) Dr.
LaTaunya M. Bynum |
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Broad
Street Christian Church
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