Northwood United Church

All Things New

Colossians 3:1-4 and Matthew 28:1-10
Easter Sunday ~ March 23, 2008
Rev. Dr. Doug Lobb

Does it surprise you if I say, as a minister of Word and Sacrament that Easter is one of the most difficult days of the Christian year to preach about? There is a voice that lurks somewhere in my head that says; is this possible? Do I really believe this? I admit to some guilt in saying this, but I suspect it is a thought that has haunted each of you at one time or another. It is the same thought that appears whenever I stand by a casket at a cemetery and read the words of committal: the voice says; do you believe that?

The heartening note I have to give you is the early Christians had the same trouble. The crucifixion was an historical happening that none could dispute. Jesus died: they even stuck a spear in his side to make sure he was dead. He was taken from the cross and he was buried. Even the most severe of skeptics will agree with that. But, no one anticipated the resurrection.

The women told the eleven what had happened but their response was, this kind of talk is nonsense. All the gospel state a similar response. The followers of Jesus were amazed, afraid, confused but they did not believe.

That's the way the first Easter started, not in singing Jesus Christ is risen today, not in brass instruments, lavish processionals and banks of Easter lilies: the first Easter began in amazement and confusion- but they did not believe.

The disciples, his closest followers certainly didn't. They were nowhere to be found when the crucifixion occurred and no one, not a single person saw the resurrection. The gospel writers can't even agree who came to the grave to pay their respects. Matthew says it was Mary Magdalene and the other Mary. Mark states it was Mary Magdalene, Mary the Mother of James and Salome. Luke says it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the Mother of James and the other women and John says it was just Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene is the only one they all agree showed up.

It is the women who inform the disciples who come running and look in the empty tomb with surprise and skepticism. Finally convinced that something has happened, they listen to a personage near the tomb who says, he is risen; go now to Galilee that is where you will find him as he said.

Why Galilee? Isn't that the area that Jesus left in order to come to Jerusalem where he confronted the leaders; a confrontation, I might add, that cost him his life. Now, the angel or whoever was at the tomb says to the disciples, go to Galilee, that's where he will be; back in familiar surroundings, back to where it all started. Back where people were listening and responding.

Any way you wish to look at it, the gospel writers had a problem. What do you do with a religious leader who is so sincere and devout in his following of God that he is willing to confront the establishment and remain true to his convictions all the way to a horrible death?

It didn't end the way they had hoped or believed. He was the Messiah they said, the one who would usher in the Kingdom of God and while they hoped that he would put an end to all this torture and questioning and perform his duty, he didn't do it. He died and they were heartbroken, not just because their friend was dead, but their dream was now shattered. For three years they had followed him. They gave up everything they knew to be his disciples and now their hopes and their belief system was shattered.

They were in limbo for over a month and a half. Their leader was dead; the one on whom they had banked their lives. That caused them to think of the true meaning of their faith. If he was so right and so Godly, why did he die? What were they now to do with their lives and their spiritual well being?

In her latest book, "Leaving Church" Barbara Brown Taylor writes: "My faith is far more relational than doctrinal. My reading persuades me that God is found in right relationships, not in right ideas, and that a great deal of Christian theology began as a stammering response to something that had actually happened in the world." Now listen carefully to her words: "Because Jesus died instead of ushering in the messianic age, Paul responded with a doctrine of atonement. Because the risen Christ struck his followers as very close kin to God, the early church responded with a doctrine of the Trinity. Because Christians did not turn out much better behaved than anyone else, Augustine responded with a doctrine of original sin." (Page 107)

You see my friends; the resurrection of Jesus was the farthest thing from the minds of his followers. It wasn't till quite a bit later that the reality of his life and his message dawned upon them. His way of life was true, they said. Death could not snuff out the truth of who he was or what he said. He is alive. He is with us now. Praise the Lord Christ has risen was their cry and on that one simple phrase they built a new emphasis of the historic faith. Jesus Christ is Lord. Death could not contain him.

Later, decades later, when the gospel writers wrote about the reality of Jesus the Christ, they wrote colourful stories with graphic accounts to suit the purposes for which they were writing. That is what sacramental writing or speaking does. It points us to a reality and it is the reality, not the words of description, but the reality to which they point that is true. The details differ, but the testimony is consistent and powerful; and that message is still the catalyst that drives the Christian Church.

Through the years, artists, writers and musicians have made this lovely story very graphic and often we remember the scenes as if they were history: a charismatic leader dies and rises in some different bodily form-one that could walk through closed doors and walls. Zealous preachers have proclaimed the reality of the images of resurrection as an essential doctrine in the Christian cause and, in some instances, been downright unchristian in their denunciation of those who sought a deeper meaning.

Few have dealt with the real message of the resurrection drama. The gospel writers wrote that the path of death and resurrection is "the way" that Jesus taught. In the first century, the cross was a symbol of execution; of death. To follow Jesus meant to follow him on the path to death. Luke catches the idea when he says, "take up your cross 'daily'" (Luke 9:23)

Paul puts it even more dramatically in his letter to the Church in Rome. He says in chapter 6: verses 3 and 4 "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life."

The great message of Easter, the words that make this the grandest day in the Christian year are that life springs from death, not only at the last but also in the many little deaths along the way. When everything else you have counted on for protection falls away, the divine presence does not fail. The hands are still there-not promising to rescue, not promising to intervene- promising only to hold you no matter how far you fall. (. page 218)

Yet, that is not the concept of Messiah we want. Father Robert Capon, an Episcopal priest in the US in his delightful book, "Hunting he Divine Fox" says bluntly we want Superman-listen to Capon who writes in his dramatic fashion; "Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful that a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. It's Superman! Strange visitor from another planet, who came to earth with powers and abilities far beyond mere mortal men, and, who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper fights a never ending battle for truth justice and the American way". Say's Capon, if that isn't popular Christology, I'll eat my hat.

"Jesus-gentle meek and mild, but with secret souped- up more than human insides- bumbles around for thirty-three years, nearly gets himself done for good by the Kryptonite Kross, but at the last minute, struggles into the phone booth of the empty tomb, changes into his Easter suit and with a single bound leaps back up to the Planet heaven. It's got it all- including, just so you shouldn't miss the lesson kiddies: He never once touches Lois Lane." (Capon, 'Hunting the Divine Fox', Page 90-91)

You see the point; many don't want a human messiah. "We don't want to be saved in our humanity; we want to be fished out of it. We crucified Jesus, not because he was God but because he blasphemed; He claimed to be God and then failed to come up to our standards for assessing the claim.-Our kind of a Messiah would come down from the cross. He wouldn't do a stupid thing like rising from the dead. He would do a smart thing like never dying." (Page 90-91)

Paul writes the same idea in his book to the Romans in chapter 8; Listen to his wake up call that slaps us right in the face. "who," he asks, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" And then he concludes the passage with this doxology. "I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor heights nor depths nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Wow! No dead leader can command a statement such as that.

Mike Yaconneli drives the point home even more firmly in his book, "Messy Christianity" "neither failure nor poor church attendance, nor inadequate Bible reading and prayer, nor betrayal, denial, doubt, insecurity, guilt, weakness, bad theology or even losing our temper can separate us from the love of God."

God's love is sticky. God loves us when we don't want him to love us. God loves us when we don't act like Christians. God loves us when our lives are a mess. God's love is sticky, resilient to rejection, aggressive and persistent. The challenge is, go ahead-resist his love, run from it, hide from it. Go ahead and try." (Page 124)

Nobody expected the resurrection. The closest followers did not believe it. But in the days that followed they experienced the reality of the presence of the living Christ. That's what the writers were trying to say. Walking through walls and closed doors, convincing a doubting Thomas, stirring eggs on a beach breakfast fire or finding some followers who experienced his reality and looking back on the event said, "didn't our hearts stir within us: These are all ways of saying death could not hold him. He is with us. He is going on before us and he is beckoning us to follow. He is risen!

Fifty days later, at Pentecost, those same disbelieving disciples were so sure he was alive they risked their lives and proclaimed the reality of Jesus and the power of the risen Christ and the Church became a reality. They were so certain the not even the threat of their death could dissuade them in the least. They were on fire! Led by a Spirit they could not see, inspired by words they could not hear, they started a whole new movement with the simple phrase, Praise the Lord Christ is Risen.

That's the message I want to leave with you this Easter morning. Don't get hung up on whether a body was resuscitated. Don't waste your time wondering how people could see the risen Christ yet not recognize him. The issue isn't did it happen as they wrote; the issue is what does it mean?

It means when the risen one comes to us we know that we are not alone. He meets us in the hospital room when the Doctor says, "there is noting more that we can do", but we know whatever happens, it will be O.K.

We know we are not alone when we have been hurt and attacked and yet can find a way to push back the anger and the hatred and forgive- like the family in Langley when their son was killed by a senseless act of road rage yet, in sorrow, they forgave.

We know we are not alone when we stand in a crowd of people who have given up hope in our crumbling world but we can still see rays of light shining through the darkness and we remember the little acts of kindness that we have received right here from this congregation.

There were no hallelujahs that first Easter morning. They were confused, afraid and thought the whole thing was an idle tale. Sometimes we too come to this day with our own amazement, confusion and doubt; thinking, like them, that it's all an idle tale. And then,…..we remember. He didn't tell us how, he just said The Son of man will die and on the third day will rise.

I was coming home anxious to get there and be with Chris. When we put down in St Louis, the schedule said that flights had been cancelled due to the snow storm. Sitting there on the floor of the airport, I called the home of our youngest daughter. In due time she put Daniel on the phone, Daniel; barely able to talk, "I wuv you Grandpa" he said: light filled my soul.

Life is complicated. Our schedules are hectic. Following Jesus is not always easy, nor is he easy to hear in the noisiness of our lives. Then sometimes, often when we least expect it right in the midst of our spiritual messiness we hear - "I love you."

He is there you know; he is the one whispering. That's why we can triumphantly sing, Praise the Lord, Christ has risen.

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