EASTER A 2011

Text: John 20:1-18

As each Easter Day comes again, I can’t help but remember the first service of this church which was Easter day, April 19, 1992. This makes today our 20^th Easter. I can remember standing in the storefront office wondering if anyone but our faithful few would show up. And this week I celebrated 29 years of ordination as a priest. It is hard to believe. Some of you might be thinking, after all that time, when is he going to learn his job? I am glad that you are here, and I pray that this will be a blessed day for all of you. The Lord is good!

I want to begin this Easter message by going back to Good Friday. In many ways, the time that Jesus lived in was no different than today. Human beings and cultures and power struggles have really changed very little. The only real difference is the weapons that human beings use on each other. Jesus was a perceived threat to many of the Jewish leaders. They feared that as people followed him, the Romans would become fearful of a revolt, and thus crush the nation. This was not an idle fear. A few years later, around 66-67 AD. The Romans did just that. After a Jewish rebellion, the Roman army completely destroyed Jerusalem and massacred thousands. In those days, you did not mess around with Rome.

So the followers of Jesus had seen him arrested by Jewish leaders and then turned over to Rome. Pilate, fearing a revolt of the people, thought it best to simply allow Jesus to be killed. All of the followers of Jesus, except a few women, ran away in fear of their lives. Jesus is beaten and then led to an awful death, nails being put through his feet and his hands. He then is taken down from the cross by Joseph and Nicodemus, wrapped in a linen cloth and put in a tomb nearby. The tombs in those days had a big round stone which was flat and rolled over the entrance of the tomb to seal it. There is no doubt that Jesus is dead.

So on that first day of the week, when Mary Magdalene and the other women go to the tomb, they had absolutely no expectation that anything would be different. The other gospel writers say that the women went to the tomb to put more spices on the body. They didn’t know how they were going to get in.. they simply went. In the Gospel that we read this morning from John we capture the sense of amazement and unbelief that these first followers of Jesus had on that first Easter day. They no more expected Jesus to be alive than we would if someone close to us had died and we went to the funeral home to make arrangements.

Jesus was dead. They knew it. Fact. End of story. Their hopes were dashed. There was not much they could do. Go to the tomb. Maybe add some spices to the body. Share a few memories. And then try and to on with their lives.

This is the human way. Death is real. Death is final. Death is painful. We face it, and then we go on.

But imagine going to the tomb, or grave of one you love a few days after their death, and finding the tomb, or grave empty. Wouldn’t your first thought be, just like Mary’s, someone has taken the body away?

“They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

But when the look in the tomb, the linen cloths are lying rolled up. If someone had stolen the body, they would not have taken them off. They simply would have picked up the wrapped body and carried it off. Something doesn’t make sense. And then Mary and the other disciples see Jesus alive, and there lives are changed.

As I ponder this story every year, I cannot for the life of me figure out how anyone can think that these early followers of Jesus made up this story. It just doesn’t make any sense. It is no more logical than you or I deciding that we are going to make up a story about someone we know rising from the dead, and not only making up the story, but then going out and telling everyone this made up story, and not only that, but then being willing to be beaten and killed for what we know to be a lie.

While the resurrection of Jesus defies our logic, I believe making up a lie and then dying for it defies our logic even more. To me, historical evidence points to the truth that these early disciples found Jesus’ tomb empty, and that at various times they saw him alive again, as Peter said, we even ate and drank with him.

The Christian faith stands of falls with this claim. As Paul wrote, if Jesus has not been raised from the dead, we Christians are preaching a lie. If Jesus is not alive right now, we who call ourselves Christians are perpetuating a lie every Sunday.

But listen again to Peter, one of these early follower of Jesus:

Acts 10:39-43 ( NRSV ) 39We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; 40but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, 41not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. 43All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

This type of sharing was done many, many times by all of those early disciples long before any of the gospels were written down. Whatever one might say about these early disciples, they believed even in the face of death, that what they said was true.

They could face death because they knew that their souls were in the hands of one who had overcome death. All the words of Jesus that they had heard came rushing back to them and now made sense. Sayings like:

John 11:25-26 ( NRSV ), “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.

And all the talk about eternal life and a kingdom not of this world… the teachings they did not understand before now made sense.

Today in churches around the world, there are a lot more people than usual. I often wonder why. Why do people come on this day? What is it that draws people? Sure some of it is guilt and duty and obligation, but I believe that the reason people come is deeper. I believe it is because there is a hope that this story is really true. There is a hope that death does not have the last word. There is a hope that sin and evil and injustice do not have the last word. There is a hope that there is a reason to hope. And really, even though we don’t put it this way, there is a hope that there is a heavenly judge and that there is justice in the universe.

There was a time in my life when I didn’t have any real hope. What is the point of it all, anyway? What is the point of striving and struggling and working if in the end, we all die and go back to the dust? Don’t you ever, at times, think this whole human drama is a little strange? Why do we care so much? Why do we suffer so much? Why are we so consumed with what others think about us, or with our success? If at the end, all we do is disappear, and there is no moral justice in the universe, what difference does our life make?

When Mary stood outside the tomb weeping, thinking that Jesus was dead, and now his body was stolen, and her hopes for the future were dashed, Jesus asks her two questions: “Women, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for? “

In a way, these are the questions that came to me when I felt like there was no hope or purpose for my life? While I was not going around outwardly weeping, my soul was hurting and in pain. And as I went from one thing to another, I was seeking for meaning and purpose in life, whether through success or books or religion or pleasure, I was hoping to find something that gave me a sense of purpose. In the end, like Mary, what I was really seeking for was the living Christ, though I did not know it.

I believe the questions asked of Mary that first Easter are very relevant for all of us today. Whether it is today, or in the future, all of us will weep. Life will bring our way sorrow and pain, It is the human lot. And at times we will weep because we are lost. Hope is gone, and life seems hardly worth the living. At times like this, the risen Christ asks us, why are you weeping when I am here? Whom are you seeking? What are you looking for in life to satisfy your soul? Come to me. I am alive. Come to me and find hope and strength for your life is in my hands.

Easter is such a wonderful and powerful day because it proclaims hope and meaning and purpose to humanity. But it is a hope that is not based in ourselves but in the power and love of God. Many of us don’t like the idea that we are not in control of our lives. We Americans, who have some economic comforts, like to think that we are in control. But the truth is, we all face powers greater than ourselves. Nature itself teaches us this. Which one of us can control the rain or the wind or the sun or the seasons? Which one of us can control disease? Which one of us can control other drivers on the road? Which one of us can stop our aging? Or even really control our dog, let alone our teenagers?

So folks the bad news is that your life is totally out of your control. Sure, you can tweak some things, but in the end, you are helpless to forces greater than yourself, the big one being your own death. But the good news is that Jesus is greater than all the forces of nature and of death. This is the Easter message. Christ is risen. This means that a loving and just being is our Lord. This means that, while we are not in control, we can join up with the one who is in control. We can find great strength and peace and hope in knowing that no matter what happens to us in this life, our souls are in God’s hands.

So my encouragement to you today is to place your lives into the hands of a risen Lord. We use words like faith and trust and coming or surrendering but they all are getting at the same thing. I pray that today, or if not today, someday in the future, every person here will come to realize that this Easter story is true, and when you weep, or feel lost or hopeless, you will hear your name.... and turn… and see and believe… that Christ is Risen… and that this will make all the difference in your life. AMEN