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Sunday, April 11, 2010
He has risen….so what?
By Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz
John 20: 1-18
1Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10Then the disciples returned to their homes.
11But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” 18Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
It seemed unfair to me that we spent the last 6 weeks talking about burnout and failure and loneliness, guilt and suffering and pain and then….NO EASTER AT AFTERHOURS. A lot of you came to St. Andrew which was great but I know at least a few of you couldn’t make it for one reason or another and so for that reason I decided to give a quick take on my thoughts on Easter…although a week late. It’s okay he’s still risen.
If you are a church person, last week was pretty awesome with a huge choir, huge crowds, and powerful sermon. Easter and Christmas have an electricity that is hard to replicate week in and week out at church. But when we are singing “Christ the Lord is risen today…Aaaaaa, aaaaaa le lu, u ia,” that is pretty awesome. It brings back such great memories for a lot of us.
I heard an interesting statistic a few weeks ago. The speaker said that there are roughly 300 million people in the United States and that 200 million of them are unchurched. That fascinated me. Two out of three people that we run into in this country don’t go to church on Sunday. They might go to church a few times a year, probably on Christmas and Easter.
When I was growing up, we called them C&E Christians…Christmas and Easter. Someone said to me, as I was standing in the hallway at St. Andrew saying good-bye to people, “don’t you want to say to some of these people, “See you next year at Christmas?” Actually, no…I don’t want to say that. For about 12 years I was one of those C&E Christians. I already didn’t feel like going but thought I would give it a try. I already ASSUMED some of the self righteous people who were there every Sunday were already looking down on me because I wasn’t a “regular.”
Those of us that go to church know the story, know why it’s important for us to celebrate, know why it means so much to those in the story, but what of the rest of us? Why does this story matter to the average Joe or Jane who are not regulars at church every week? How does this story help us on a day to day basis?
There are many things that this story tells us, but before we go there we have to address what the story DOESN’T tell us. It doesn’t give us scientific proof. It doesn’t give us definitive proof that Jesus physically became alive again with his heart beating and lungs pumping. We will NEVER be able to “prove” that. Remember, the Bible is true and some of it actually happened. If we need to have the story proven to us to find its value….well, it’s going to be a long wait.
There are things we can learn about the passage and about this story that can be useful. We are looking at the Gospel of John. It was the last of the four gospels written, right around 80-90 AD. It was written primarily to those who already believed but has elements of things that would appeal to those who do not yet believe. It is not one of the synoptic gospels. The other three hold many similarities but John mentions characters and events that the other three don’t and the other three have stories and events that this one does not. It has the most symbolism and can be understood in many different ways. All that is to say, John sees things different.
One of the great things about going to seminary is that you get to learn things about culture and language that you otherwise wouldn’t get to know about. Without realizing it, this passage has a lot to do with seeing things. But it might not be so clear to the reader at first glance.
There are two kinds of seeing in this passage. When we look at this in the original Greek we see that the word “saw” is used in two different ways. For example, when we see it first used in verse 1, the Greek word is flappo which means physically, with your eyes. We see it again in verse 5, “he SAW the linen wrapping lying there.” What is interesting is when we see the word “saw” again, it is used in a different way. This time, in fact, every time we now see that word in this passage it is, Theorayo, the Greek word for oracle. This means to see something with the mind. It would be used the same way we would say, “We saw the love between the bride and the groom.” Do we mean we actually saw the love with our eyes? No. Was the love we saw true none the less? Yes. It is true without being factual.
When we move beyond asking the question of what literally happened and start asking what is this story trying to tell us…what is this story trying to teach us…what is this story going to do to help us learn how to live our lives…now we are on to something.
Here’s what I think: When we put our trust in God, certain things will happen to us the same way they did to the disciples. Our eyes will be open. And here is what we will see…
We will see hope – that as we mentioned two weeks ago, our story is not finished. But it is more than that. Everyone else’s stories aren’t finished either. We are all these works in progress. When we realize that we aren’t finished and that everyone else isn’t finished we begin to see something else…
We will see forgiveness. We hear God crying out from the cross, “forgive them Lord, they do not know what they are doing.” I think Jesus was talking about more than just the Romans. He was talking about us too. He was asking God to go easy on not just those that dealt him his injustice, but to all of us, as well, when we are less than perfect. God knows we are a work in progress. God knows we aren’t done yet. And when we come to this realization, how can we NOT forgive people when we know they aren’t finished yet either? In this way we will be giving the same grace to others that is given to us by God. This is not always easy. There will be times we will see forgiveness as being only one thing….the next thing that I think Easter teaches us…
We will see miracles – but maybe not in the variety that we always hear about. I think sometimes we can get too focused on the hocus pocus of Jesus, the turning water into wine, multiplying loaves of bread, and sight to the blind. The problem is when we do that, someone will always come along and try to explain them away. What if they were trying to represent a deeper truth? What if the wine was meant to show the celebration and joy God can bring to our lives? What if the multiplying loaves were meant to illustrate the abundance that life with God can bring? And what if sight to the blind was intended to show us how our own eyes can be opened when we put our faith and hope in God. What if the resurrection meant that we are to die to our old life and when we follow the practices of Christ, it is like we are born all over again and raised up to a higher level?
I also think miracles can be more subtle. For some of you just sitting here in a worship service is a miracle. The very fact that you are coming to a church is a miracle. Some of you have been hurt so deeply, just getting up every day is a miracle. I heard a preacher say once that a miracle is a shift in perception. It is looking at things in a new and better way. It is like putting on a pair of glasses that have been fit with special lenses. When we look at the world through these lenses, we see hope as a miracle. We see forgiveness as a miracle. We see amazing outpouring of kindness as miracles. In short, when we look at the world through these lenses, what we see is what the disciples saw…
We too will see Jesus in our midst - in every kind word or helpful gesture and in every listening ear. We will see it in every dollar donated to others less fortunate, in every person that visits someone in the hospital or in prison. We will see Jesus walking the streets, exactly as he did in the days that preceded the crucifixion AND the days that follow the execution. Jesus will be back among the people. We will see Jesus not just in the kind acts of others but we will see him in the faces of the needy and underserved. In the prisoners we go to visit and the sick we go and comfort. Jesus will be back among the people. In this way Jesus WILL be alive again in our pumping lungs and beating hearts. He will be with us two-fold, in us and in those we serve. Easter means it is never too late for hope, never too late for mystery, never too late for miracles, never too late for change, never too late for us to have Jesus be an honest to goodness presence in our lives. It is in this way that we will see Jesus as never before.