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Scripture
Lesson: John 12:29
Pastor Bob: I invite you to follow along as we hear the words from the Gospel of Matthew, the account of Jesus Christ being risen from the dead. In Chapter 28, we hear the following versus: “After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake; for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and going to the tomb rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightening, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid for I know what you are looking for, looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you in to Galilee; there you will see him! Now, I have told you.’ So the women hurried away from the tomb afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. ‘Greetings,’ he said. They came to him, clasped his feet, worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.’” May God add blessing and understanding to the reading of this, His word. May this be the praise of Christ today.
We have heard the Word. It is the living word. It is one that gives us hope and promise, we think. Actually, I question whether this morning is any different than any other morning. In fact, I set up a question for Pastor Andy because in the format of the Passover where it says, “On this evening, what makes it different than all other evenings?” So ask the question, “On this morning, what makes it different from all other mornings?” We get out of bed, we dress, we prepare for the day. On other mornings or this morning maybe you were here for Sunrise service and for breakfast. On all other mornings you may go to work or to school. You may decide on a Sunday to go to church or you may just take a leisurely morning to relax from a hectic week. So Pastor Andy, I ask you this morning, “What makes this morning different from all other mornings?”
Pastor Andy: What makes this morning different from all other mornings? Perhaps the best way to answer that question is to begin with an observation. It’s an observation that goes back to the Apostle Paul when he said to the Christians in Corinth. Apparently someone had written the Apostle Paul and had asked him a question. And the question was this, “What if Jesus has not been raised from the dead?” Paul replied, “If there is no resurrection from the dead, then Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain.”
There you have it. If Jesus has not been raised from the dead, then our faith is empty. Everything hinges on the resurrection. In fact, as one scholar has put it, the resurrection of Jesus is Christianity. If Jesus is not resurrected, then the Gospel is a lie. And we as Christians are false witness. We are self-deluded fools who have wasted our lives. If Jesus has not been resurrected, then He is of no value to those who gather in His name this morning. He may have been a good teacher, he may have been a powerful prophet, but if he has not been raised from the dead, he was at best a good moral example like other teachers and prophets. If Jesus has not been resurrected, Christianity is simply another cult or an ethical society and not a very attractive one at that.
Why is this morning different from all other mornings? Because on Easter morning, God does the unexpected. God reaches in to the tomb and resurrects the one who has been crucified. God takes the beaten, bruised, and battered body of Jesus, indeed the very dead body of Jesus, and leads him in to new life, in to a transformed life. God takes Jesus through death and out the other side in to life.
That’s why this morning is different than all other mornings. For a century Jews anticipated the resurrection. They waited for the day to come when God would resurrect the righteous from the dead, God would open up the earth and the dead would rise, and God would transform all of life. That was the hope. But on Easter morning, this changes. What was supposed to take place at the end of history now takes place in history now. Jesus is raised bodily from the dead. He was the first fruits of those who have died. In fact, on Easter death itself is defeated and life and all of its many textures is affirmed.
That’s why Easter, when it’s all said and done, is really about one word. It’s about a four-letter word that Christians are supposed to be full of. And that’s life! Life—eternal life, whole life, new life, abundant life, redeemed life, resurrected life. Easter proclaims that the true purpose of life, the true end of life is not death but life!
What does Easter mean? It means life. What did the first Easter mean? Life! It reminds me of a cute little story I read the other day as I was preparing to share this morning. In Sunday school on Easter morning the teacher was working with the students and asking questions about Easter. One of the questions, of course, was “What does Easter mean to you?” And one little boy raised his hand and said, “Easter means egg salad sandwiches for the next two weeks.” Okay, it may not be a great answer but it’s the right question. Okay? It gets to the heart of the matter. What does this mean?
Easter morning is unlike any other morning because the one who said, “It is finished,” on Good Friday now comes and stands in our midst on Easter morning and says, “Greetings! Don’t be afraid. Go and tell.” Easter morning is about the angel who said, “He’s not here; he’s risen and he’s going ahead of you to Galilee”. That’s what our passage from Matthew’s Gospel is about. Unlike the Gospel of John who deals with a great deal of history when sharing about the resurrection, Matthew in his Gospel wants us to know that the first Easter was more like a production than a scene of puzzlement. In Matthew’s Gospel, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, they make their way back to the tomb just as dawn breaks. And the two women, they had been there with Jesus all along. They had watched him suffer and die. They had watched him be placed in a tomb. They had seen his body wrapped and anointed. They had watched the soldiers cover this cave with a stone. But as Jesus’ friends, the women and the early disciples, they still had a couple more things that they needed to do. And the first thing that they needed to do was to grieve his death. That’s one of the marks of finality, is grieving. But then they had to do one more thing. They still needed to anoint the body one more time. And that’s where the women come back in to the picture again. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, they arrive at the tomb. It was to be their final act of devotion. After this ritual, the grieving process would be complete and they could move on with their lives. At least, that’s what they were thinking.
But notice what happens. Instead of anointing Jesus’ body as the dawn of the new day, the women get an earthquake. They have a dazzling angel from heaven, a miraculous pronouncement that Jesus has been raised, and then there is the empty tomb. That’s what they get when they arrive at the tomb. And in one instant, the women’s agenda for the day, indeed for their entire life, changes. That’s what resurrection does. It creates a whole new set of circumstances. It creates a whole new world. A world in which resurrection is a reality, in which death is destroyed, and in which Jesus lives forever. That’s what resurrection does.
That’s why this Easter is so different than all the rest because at the dawn of a new day there is a new experience, a life changing experience. And there is a conviction that God has acted decisively. God has raised Jesus from the dead. And not simply death then a long time ago, but God is still defeating death. Because when we as Christians speak of the resurrection, we also speak by implication about the power of the Holy Spirit, about the way God moves in our lives, about the power of God’s presence in our lives here, now, at this moment.
Perhaps you may remember years ago the campaign and people would wear bracelets and on the bracelets were these initials WWJD, What would Jesus do? And the point was for Christians to consider issues and problems and circumstances and ask, “Okay, what would Jesus do?” The only real problem with the question, “What would Jesus do?” is that it is in the past tense. It’s a question you would ask a dead person. And the assumption is that Jesus is no longer a real player, that he is someone located someplace in the past. In short, what would Jesus do disregards Easter because the real question for us a Christians is not, “What would Jesus do?” it’s “What is Jesus doing?” Because if Easter is simply about preserving the memory of a dead person, then there are a lot better ways we can spend our Sunday. On the other hand, if Easter is about proclaiming the power of the risen Christ in our midst, then there is a message here that only changes our lives, but changes our world.
That’s what the resurrection is about. The resurrected Jesus comes and shares with us words of greeting, words of assurance, words of promise, words of hope, words of commissioning. The resurrected Jesus creates a whole new world. And, Bob, that’s why this day is different from all the rest. It’s why what happened 2000 years ago still speaks to us today at this time and in this place. It’s what the angel told us then and it’s what the angel still tells us now.
Pastor Bob: Well, that’s good. And I appreciate your training and your background. But that’s no different than explaining what the Bible has said. It’s no different than explaining what history has said. And honestly, it’s what the church has been saying for 2000 years. I’m still like Peter, who in the quoted Scripture today, after he was running from the tomb, bending over and seeing the strips and the linen lying there, he wondered to himself what had happened.
Even though you brought it forward in to the present, there is still another question, another level of understanding of the resurrected Lord that we haven’t touched. And it comes simply is that it’s the transformation for today. There is an old early TV program. Some of you are older than I am and you remember it. It’s called, Walter Cronkite where he narrated “You are there”. You are there—the whole idea in early television was to re-enact some historical event and to re-enact it in a way to give you a way to connect with that historic event. I don’t know that they ever did the presentation of Jesus. But you could still not be there. It said you were there but you couldn’t go there no matter what they did in technology nor can they for today. It doesn’t matter what good production we do of building a tomb or singing beautiful music, it’s still talking about something for many people in this world and some of you here today—just a good story. It’s an old story. But the truth is that I’m not there and you are not there. I do like the way that you shared the Word and the understanding right here, right now. Right here, right now—that’s what you’ve told me from Jesus as it comes from a song that says, “There is no other place I want to be right here, right now watching the world wake up from history.”
So this morning, to say that Jesus is right here, right now is still a statement of hope and faith and trust in a historical record and a Biblical account. But how do we bring it forward? In the 17th century, George Fox, who was given the responsibility of founding what we call the Friends Society, he preached and declared and made known in his day a Jesus who was immediately available, accessible, and effective in individual’s lives. There were those Christians of that day and there are some today who say, “Happy was the Kingdom of Heaven, some day, somewhere.” But we’re happy with salvation to be revealed with the salvation now somewhere, somehow.
But you said to me that there is a resurrected Lord. But we are here now and this world is still turned upside down just as badly as it was when Jesus was here. So what difference does it make? Winston Churchill said, “Men occasionally stumble over the truth but most of them just pick themselves up and hurry along as if nothing happened.” Honestly, for Easter much of the world stumble across it but they just pick themselves and keep going as they’ve been doing before. In fact, another faith has another statement that is more important for us. It was quoted by Buddha as saying, “There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth—not starting and not going all the way.”
People come to Easter and they recognize it as a religious celebration around the world. But for many that is all it is—a celebration. What I offer to you is that Jesus is here, right now, here today saying, “Come and follow me but nobody else. You can’t put anyone else before me. You can not serve two masters—only me. For I am God and God is me.” You either follow Christ or you do not. You either believe in the resurrected Lord or you do not. You either have the spirit of Christ in you today or you do not. Some of you here today, even though you have been here every Sunday for the last 52 weeks, or some who’ve not been here for awhile. You still come with the same attitude—it’s a good story. It makes you feel good. He was a good teacher; I can learn from what He taught so long ago.
But what I offer to you today is like the blind Bartimaeus who came to Jesus and said, “Jesus, please heal me.” And Jesus said, “Do you want to see? By faith you can be seen and you can see.” When you have a meal each day, do you recognize the presence of Christ with you in the breaking of that bread as if it is the communion or the Lord’s Supper? When you get up in the morning, do you praise God for the creation and seek God’s presence in your life on that day every day? When you go to bed at night do you lay your burdens down and say, “Lord, it’s been a rough day but I give it to you because I know you are here?”
The Upper Room, Good Friday, none of it will lead any of us there. So like Walter Cronkite, we can not say to ourselves “I am there”. Because the power of the resurrection is Jesus doesn’t ask us to go back there but to be right here now at this place. For Jesus says, as he told his disciples, “I will go before you and I will be with you.” So what I offer for you today is the greatest Easter possible when you become aware in a new and deepening way or maybe for the first time, that Jesus Christ is with you here and now as if sitting next to you in the very pew or chair. Even Easter when they rolled away the stone, it was then, it is not now. For if we stick with only the story and do not have our life changed, it makes no different whatsoever.
He is here, he is risen indeed we say. And as we do so, we say not for the past, but he has risen, he is here indeed. Have you ever noticed that phrase? It’s called Triune Blessing at this time of year. Usually is: Jesus Christ is risen; he is risen indeed. We know it; we’ve repeated it here. I want to change that a little bit. Jesus Christ is risen, I say. And you say, “And he is here indeed.” Notice the difference, not just risen but here present. Will you respond with me? Jesus Christ is risen. He is here indeed. And another time. Jesus Christ is risen. He is here indeed. Jesus Christ is risen. He is here indeed.
Let us pray, “Gracious, holy eternal, creator, Father, God of all, forgive us when we have kept you in history only. But let us bring you forth and allow our hearts and our minds to be open as never before. Let this be a new day for us. Let us capture your presence as your promise to each of us. Let us give to you this day the power and the opportunity to make us whole and new persons in you. For it is Jesus Christ, risen then who is here now beside us offering to be in us to help us walk a different way, to walk in a way that is your way. This Easter is not just a production or a celebration; it is in the presence of Jesus, the Christ. So this morning, gracious God, as we come forth to celebrate the good news of a resurrected Lord, may we celebrate the presence of a living Christ Jesus, the Holy Spirit in us. And let us share now in the prayer that Jesus Christ has taught us to pray, “Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not in to temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the Kingdom and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.”
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