Sermon for Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007He is Alive and He is Going Ahead of You5th in a series on Meeting the Original Jesus by Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz |
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Scripture: Mark 16:1 1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 They had been saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?" 4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6 But he said to them, "Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you." 8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. I want to be sure you heard the reactions of those first witnesses to the first Easter: they were not the reactions you might expect. When they entered the tomb, the three women were alarmed. They felt terror and amazement. And they were afraid. They knew they were experiencing something incredible/unbelievable. All the familiar landmarks no longer applied. And they were in the presence of Mystery. The resurrection was not explainable in our normal categories of reason and logic. To embrace the great news of Easter is to know that God is able to do some things beyond our understandings of reason and logic, to know that there is still enormous mystery in life, that there is hope and possibility in life even when it seems very unlikely. Let me tell you another true story that is hard to understand in typical medical explanations. There was a mother-to-be whose name was Karen. She was expecting their second child. Even before the baby was born, her first child Michael who was three, began to develop a relationship with his unborn sister by singing to her every night. He would get very close to his expectant mother’s tummy, as close as he could get, and he would sing to his unborn sister his favorite song: “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy, when skies are gray. You’ll never know dear, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away.” Michael would sing that song to his unborn sister every night. When the time came for Karen to give birth, there were some complications during the delivery and Michael’s baby sister was in very serious condition by the time she was born. She was rushed to the intensive care unit and she did not get much better. In fact, each day she got weaker. The doctors feared she would not make it and began to prepare the parents for the baby’s death. But meanwhile little Michael kept asking about his new baby sister. He wanted to see her. And he wanted to sing to her. The parents took Michael to the hospital. They got a nurse’s permission to put him in a scrub suit and took him into the ICU to see his small fragile sister. A staff member who did not know the situation became very disturbed about a three year old coming into the intensive care unit and told the parents to take the boy out. But Michael’s mother said, “He is not leaving until he sings to his sister. Michael walked over to the bassinet that held the tiny baby. He leaned over the edge and began to sing to her the familiar words of happiness and sunshine that described the pure, sweet love he felt in his heart: “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray. You’ll never know dear how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away.” Well, what happened next was a mystery. The doctors called it a miracle. Karen, the mom, called it a miracle of God’s love. The next day, when they thought they would be planning a funeral, Michael’s baby sister rallied and soon got to go home with her parents and her big brother. She was well. She had responded immediately to the familiar voice of her brother who sang her to life with his song of love. It was a mystery how it happened. It was as hard to explain in rational categories as the miracle and mystery we have gathered around this morning. Something happened to transform the disciples from their utter defeat and complete despair into contagious witnesses who turned the world upside down with their message of hope. It wasn’t just the resuscitation of Jesus’ corpse—that had been reported of others in the Bible. But this mysterious occurrence on Easter caused the day of worship to be changed from Saturday to Sunday, the Lord’s Day; it caused the New Testament to be written, and it created a new movement called the church. If there had been no Easter, we would not be here today as part of this Christian movement. This experience of Jesus being alive in a new form caused his friends to become so passionate in spreading this news, so committed and excited that they would risk anything so that others, including you and me could know this and could have a new life by following him. They looked at what Jesus had done and said, and they said, “This is what God is like!! Jesus was willing to touch the lepers, the untouchables. He welcomed the outsiders. He made a place for children. This is what God is like. Jesus burst the self righteous bubble of the legalists and faced down the powerful and arrogant. And his friends said, “This is what God is like!!” Jesus said that the wrongdoer who repents and is sorry and starts a new direction will be closer to God than the priest! And they looked at that again and they said, THIS is what God is like!! And it was a scary time for those original Christians and a holy time and an incredibly exciting time in those days after Easter—and it still is. There are three insights from this story in the gospel of Mark for us now: The women heard at the tomb that Jesus has been raised to life and he is going on ahead of you. He is going on ahead of you. This prophet and teacher and messiah from the little village of Nazareth has filled the role in the Hebrew Bible of the suffering servant, the one who is willing to go through the pain and grief of this life—“he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” is the old wording that you might know from Handel’s Messiah. Jesus is one of us. He went through the anguish of loneliness praying all night in Gethsemane asking if it is possible that he not drink this cup of suffering. So when we feel anguish and loneliness and grief and even fear and abandonment, Christ has been there also—ahead of us. In fact, the original version of the Apostles Creed says he was crucified, dead and buried and then he descended into hell. There is no lonely place we can be where Christ has not been!! And because he has known those feelings of sorrow and grief and fear, he will walk through whatever dark valley we face and he will see us through. Newspaper columnist Bob Greene wrote a piece a few years ago for a Chicago newspaper: In the Chicago area a fifteen-year-old boy became very ill. His fever spiked to 105°. He was rushed to the hospital. The tests showed that he had leukemia. The doctors were very frank about what this meant – long hospital stays, endless tests and treatments, and probably three years of chemotherapy and no assurance these things would work. Douglas, the fifteen-year-old became very discouraged and depressed. To help him feel a little better, his family called a local flower shop to send him some flowers. They explained to the young women who took the order that Douglas had been told he had leukemia and they hoped the arrangement would really be attractive and cheerful. She said she knew just what to do. When the flowers arrived they were very attractive. But strangely, there were two cards in the envelope attached to the arrangement. One of course was from Douglas’ family. The other was from someone named Laura Bradley. No one knew who this was. When Doug read the card she sent, he understood. The card said, “Doug, I took your order. I work at the flower shop. I had leukemia when I was seven years old. I am twenty-two now. Good luck. You can make it. My heart goes out to you. Laura Bradley.” That note from someone who had been through what he was experiencing gave Doug inspiration and his fear turned to hope. But the power in the note was that it came from someone who had been there, who had gone through this experience before him. Christ is alive. He is risen. He is in our world. He has gone on ahead of us—even through hell and because he has, he will walk with us and will give us hope and new life. The second thing the angel says to the women is, “Go and tell his disciples, including Peter, that he is going to Galilee and you will see him there.” Galilee is where they spent most of their three years with him. It was the world of the every day where their families were, where their work had been. It was the real world. That is where Jesus was going to be—just the same is true for us tomorrow. In our usual, routine lives, that is where we will meet the Risen One. But look at how awkward the sentence is from the angel: Go and tell the disciples “including Peter”. Why is Peter singled out? What had Peter done? Well, when Jesus predicted that he would be arrested and sentenced to death, he also told them he believed that all of them would abandon him so they could save their own skin. Their fear would take over and they would leave him helpless and alone. Peter, bold, brazen, blowhard, braggart Peter said, WELL, EVEN IF EVERYBODY ELSE DOES THAT, I WOULD NEVER DO THAT!! I WILL STAY WITH YOU TO THE END! And Jesus, who knows Peter’s heart and who knows our hearts as well, said that before morning, after the arrest, Peter would have three chances to say that he was a friend of Jesus and three times he would deny everything!! And that is what happened. So Peter not only has the despair and grief he felt as he saw Jesus dying an excruciating death on the cross, he also has deep shame from a time when his teacher and savior needed him most, he let Jesus down. So he is overcome not only with grief but also with guilt. But the message from the tomb is that he has been forgiven. He gets another chance. Easter is a new beginning not only for Christ the Risen One but also for Peter. The past is gone and forgotten and he can start over—and he does as he becomes the main man for this new Jesus movement and leads the thousands of new followers of the way until a few years later, he is executed by the government as well on a cross, though he asks to be executed upside down because he still does not feel worthy enough to be crucified in the same manner as Christ. But what he hears on that incredible Sunday is that he has been forgiven and all is in the past now. Is that something that you need to hear this morning as well—that you have been forgiven—that God understands where you have been and what you have done, that God understands you and forgives you and accepts you right where you are and loves you too much to leave you there—that God offers a new beginning, a new start for your life also? The resurrection did not just happen to Jesus—it happened to his friends as well. They were given a new lease on life and we are also—if we want that. The last thing about Easter actually happens after the verses we read. These forgiven, set free friends of Jesus do exactly what he has told them to do: they imitate him, they follow him, they live by his teachings. They live as his students, his disciples, and they invite everyone else to do that as well They invite people to touch the lepers today, to reach out to the lonely, the needy, the homeless, the hungry, and to do what Jesus told Peter to do in another Easter appearance—feed my sheep, care for my little ones. Retired professor Fred Craddock says that one of the most powerful sermons he ever heard was offered by a young woman in her mid twenties. He was the guest lecturer at Clemson University in South Carolina and this woman was giving a short devotional before his evening lecture. She came to the podium with a long, yellow legal pad and Dr. Craddock thought, “Uh Oh, we are here for the night.” He said, “Her voice was low but I could tell that she was speaking in another language. And then she spoke in another language. And then she spoke in another language. And then yet another language. I don’t know how many; I didn’t keep count. But what she was doing was saying the same thing in the different languages of the world. When she got to German, I thought I knew what she said. And when she got to French, I thought I knew what she said. But I really knew what she said when she got to English. The last time she said it—and I suppose she said it sixty or seventy times, one sentence, one sentence-the last was English. She said, “Mommy, I’m hungry.” And then she sat down. What the Risen One asks of us on Easter Sunday is not just to come here and sing our joyous music and give thanks. He asks us not to admire him or to be spectators or even to worship him—never does that. He asks us to get involved, to imitate him. Comedian Flip Wilson said he signed up to be a Jehovah’s Bystander—they asked him to be a witness but he didn’t want to get that involved. The Risen One asks us to get involved, to follow him, to learn to be servants, to let go of that notion that life is to revolve around us and to learn to serve and sacrifice and give. Mother Theresa of Calcutta said it this way,
Are you ready to make a deeper commitment on Easter Sunday— to move beyond talking about Jesus, singing about Jesus, and admiring Jesus to doing what he really hopes we will do—to following Jesus so that others will know through our acts of compassion and selflessness and service and generosity that Christ truly is alive?? |
