March 31, 2002 Easter
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to New Life: An Amazing Tale Prayer: God of empty tombs and empty hearts, fill us today with the joy of trusting and believing that we might rise from the graves of our misplaced priorities to live with Christ and serve wherever good news is needed. May gladness flow through us to bring inspiration and hope to sisters and brothers whom you love that all us might have the courage to love as you have loved us in Jesus Christ, Amen. (Collect for Easter Sunday from Taught by Love Lavon Baylor. United Church Press) The apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “If there is not resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and [our] faith has been in vain. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are all people most to be pitied” (I Corinthians 15. 13-14, 18). This day when Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, is at the heart of our Christian faith. Recorded in each of the four gospels, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not a matter of science, nor is it a proposition for debate. It is what Christians, men and women, boys and girls who name Jesus Christ as Lord of their lives and Savior of the world believe. It is an amazing tale. Jesus of Nazareth, the one conceived by God and carried in the womb of Mary, raised by Mary and her husband Joseph, was born in Bethlehem, grew in stature and favor with God. When he was thirty years old withstood Satan’s temptation after praying and fasting for forty days. He emerged from that experience to claim for himself words that were first found in Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because God has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4.16-20).” Jesus gathered around him twelve apostles and many other disciples - people who received his message and wanted to learn more from the women and men he encountered. A non-traditionalist, Jesus healed on the Sabbath, ate with saints and sinners, and made more traditional leaders nervous. He preached, taught, forgave sins, welcomed children, modeled hospitality, accountability, and responsibility. Indeed he restored sight to the blind, the lost to God and to their families, people to new and renewed life. As we heard last week, after a grand entrance into Jerusalem, he taught some more, cleansed the temple, was betrayed, denied, convicted, crucified, mocked by one thief on the cross, asked to be remembered and confessed by another whom Jesus promised would receive eternal life, that very day. He died and was laid in a borrowed tomb, a stone closed the tomb. This Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.All four gospel accounts tell the same story, with some nuances, including that Jesus Christ was dead and buried. John’s gospel is unique, but Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us that because it was the Jewish Sabbath and the law demanded that Jesus be buried before sundown, there was not time to attend to the usual burial rituals. Luke alone continues the story with the conjunction “but”, which means, except for this, however, nevertheless. All of the above happened, it seemed bleak and hopeless, BUT. Rome thought it had executed a traitor, the scribes, priests, and elders thought they had tamed a heretic. Even some believers, caught up and overwhelmed by grief and the disappointment of a crushed dream thought it had all been for nothing. It was all true, BUT the good news is that things were not quite finished. The women came to finish the work of preparing Jesus’ body with spices. They discovered that one whom they came to anoint in death was alive. The women who went to the tomb, faithful disciples of his who are going to do one last act of service get there and find a mystery and a message. The stone has been rolled away, and the body of Jesus is not there. The women are confused. Has the body been stolen, have they somehow gone to the wrong tomb? This is the place, isn’t it? What is happening here? If you’ve ever gone to a place with one set of expectations only to discover things not as you expected them to be then you know their feeling of confusion. Do you know the panic of unmet expectations, the disorientation of displaced expectations? The women see two figures in white. At first the women are frightened by the sight and they assume the posture of people who are afraid. They put their heads down and their faces to the ground, then the men, who later will be identified as angels help them to understand. Put yourself among the women and see if the angels question and message are not also asked of us. The question the women were asked is this: why do you look for the living among the dead? The obvious answer is that as far as they know, Jesus died on a cross. For us, the obvious answer is that some things need to die. Attitudes that keep us from being the people God has called us to be need to die. Attitudes that keep us frightened and isolated need to die. There is no life there, let it go. Look closely at what you thought was dead. Easter is about the renewal of life, about our own resurrections, about our second chances at life. A child victimized by abuse and neglect finds a home and a chance to grow up loved and respected, that is new life, and a resurrection. A broken relationship restored, a fresh start when everyone else said you were finished, a chance to meet God again, as if for the first time. Those are signs of life among the presumed dead. The hope of Easter is that if God can raise Jesus, new life can be raised up in us. If new life is promised to us, then it seems to me, we are all called to live in this life as joyfully and as faithfully as we can. This place where God’s love for the world is celebrated, and where God’s love and acceptance of us is affirmed is where renewed life is found. Jesus is not found where there is no life, no hope, no healing, but by God’s presence in our hearts, lives of hope and healing are possible. The promise of Easter is that what looks like the end will be the end, but not always, God has the last word. We who are alive in Christ are called to find the spark of life in all that we see, in every person, in every situation, and to help it grow, if we remember. We can become so amazed at the miracle of the resurrection that we forget that we live with the promise that it will be so. Remember? That is the question the men ask. Don’t you recall that when all of you disciples were all in Galilee that Jesus said that he would be handed over to death, but after three days would rise again? Luke’s gospel assumes that Christ had told the women that he would be betrayed, crucified, and raised. This information places the women in the inner circle of disciples with whom such a prediction had been shared” (Interpretation series, Luke. P.282). In other words, the women did not need to go tell the disciples, they were disciples. Yet, even when we know stress and grief can cause us to forget. One source says, “in the crises of life, and whenever we lay a loved one in the grave, the loss can obliterate all the rest of life from our awareness and sever the connections between us and the past. Remembering God’s presence in the past, therefore, can give us resources for dealing with the present. God had vindicated Jesus - remember Galilee. Remember what Jesus had done and what he had taught. Remember the meals in Jesus’ fellowship, his healings and his parables. Would you understand the meaning of the empty tomb? Remember Galilee.” (The New Interpreter’s Bible, volume IX, Luke-John Nashville, Abingdon, 1995, pgs. 466-467) Remember? Think about the time when you were weighed down by every burden imaginable, some bearable, and others overwhelming and it was people who in Christ’s name helped to lift your burden. Remember when you were sick in body and spirit and the healing power of your faith gave you new life and new hope? Remember when you were laid low by grief and loss, and then you heard the resurrection of Christ proclaimed and you found your way out of that difficult moment and on to life and hope again. On this resurrection day, remember what he has done for you. We take the advice given to the Colossians and focus on what is above, heavenly, where every promise of God is fulfilled. We can look to the risen Christ who promises us peace, joy, love, freedom, and life with him forever. And we live here now among the living to bring a glimpse of the glory of God into view. Look forward to what he will do, and his promise never to leave us alone. Remember, he is not dead, he is risen. The women, do remember and as they do they go tell the other disciples who are as amazed as the women were, maybe more. It is too fantastic, they must be making it up, it is an idle tale. It must be a bit of gossip that the women have brought to them. Then they remember, all that Jesus said to them and did with them. Peter went to see for himself, which is as it should be. At some point we each have to discover for ourselves that the tomb was empty. We each have to know in our own hearts and minds that something marvelous has happened. Peter goes to the tomb, looks in, see that it is empty and goes home amazed. But we know that he did not stay home. He will emerge as one of the leaders of the church, he will preach at Pentecost and write letters of encouragement to the church, all because the tomb was empty and the angels proclaimed, “he is not here, but has risen”. Did you notice that in this telling neither the women nor Peter have not yet seen the risen Christ? Over the next two Sundays we will hear accounts of Jesus appearing to his disciples. But right now their memories and the proclamation are enough. Hearing of God’s activity in raising Christ was enough for them to continue to tell the story. What shall we do? How about if we celebrate the truth of this amazing tale, it is not idle gossip, but the good news of God given to us through Jesus Christ. When we believe this good news, we are led by the Spirit of God to growing faithfulness. We may begin with amazement, that the tomb is empty to belief that it is empty because of what God has done. Belief leads us to proclaim that barriers between life and death are broken and that Jesus who was dead is alive. Our proclamation helps us to confess that Jesus is indeed the Christ, the son of the living God. That is the good news we proclaim today. We can tell this amazing story, we can live this story, we can be renewed and share in the resurrection as we find places of life in us and in the church. You and I are not dead but there has been raised up in us a glorious view of God, revealed in the tomb emptied when God raised Jesus up to God’s right hand and to a soul saving place in our hearts. Live amazing lives, believe the good news of Jesus Christ, he is not here, he is risen. The promise of the resurrection has been fulfilled. “Made like him, like him we rise, ours the cross, the grave, the skies.” Alleluia! Amen.
Dr.
LaTaunya M. Bynum |
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Broad
Street Christian Church
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