Easter Year B 2009

01 Easter B 09
April 12, 2009

Acts 10:34-43
34 Then Peter began to speak to them: "I truly understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36 You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ--he is Lord of all. 37 That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. 39 We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; 40 but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, 41 not 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. 42 He 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. 43 All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name."

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
1 O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
his steadfast love endures forever!
2 Let Israel say,
"His steadfast love endures forever."
14 The LORD is my strength and my might;
he has become my salvation.
15 There are glad songs of victory in the tents of the righteous:
"The right hand of the LORD does valiantly;
16 the right hand of the LORD is exalted;
the right hand of the LORD does valiantly."
17 I shall not die, but I shall live,
and recount the deeds of the LORD.
18 The LORD has punished me severely,
but he did not give me over to death.
19 Open to me the gates of righteousness,
that I may enter through them
and give thanks to the LORD.
20 This is the gate of the LORD;
the righteous shall enter through it.
21 I thank you that you have answered me
and have become my salvation.
22 The stone that the builders rejected
has become the chief cornerstone.
23 This is the LORD's doing;
it is marvelous in our eyes.
24 This is the day that the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.

1 Corinthians 15:1-11
1 Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, 2 through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you--unless you have come to believe in vain.

3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them--though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.

John 20:1-18
1 Early 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. 2 So 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." 3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples returned to their homes.
11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12 and 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. 13 They 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." 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus 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." 16 Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus 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.'" 18 Mary 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’s All About the Witnesses

She was alone when she saw him.

If it had been up to me, the first appearance of Jesus would not have been to only one of his closest friends, a woman no less, one with a questionable past, alone in the dark by his tomb. Out of control with grief, who might very well, through the power of wishful thinking, confuse an early morning gardener with the risen Jesus.

When she found the tomb open, she ran and got some men. Men are much cooler, much more objective, don’t you think? They came and looked, and the one Jesus loved, took it more-or-less on faith that Jesus had come back from death as he had said he would. But then they left, Mary was alone.

The other three gospels at least put more people there. More women. Hysterical women, delegated, as women were then and often still are, to the more distasteful and difficult tasks. Still, though. If I had been running it, there would have been more people, at least a few of them men.

As Fred Craddock said in one of his Easter sermons, “This is no way to run a resurrection.”

So Mary was alone when she saw the angels. Sobbing over what she took as a desecration of his grave. John calls the two figures in the tomb angels but Mary hardly seems to notice them as such. Really, she’s so out of control. I can’t help but think of a child whose beloved pet has died, sobbing and asking her mother again and again, “But where did he go? Who took him? Why can’t we go and bring him back?”
She was alone in the darkness before dawn when she turned and saw him, so she said. She admitted she didn’t recognize him at first. The crucial moment for her was apparently when he said her name. She must have rushed the poor man and grabbed him.

She was alone there, throwing herself at this man who might have been the gardener, and she claimed he told her not to hold on to him, that he had to go. If he was the gardener, this would make a certain amount of sense. But she claimed also that he told her he was going to the Father and to go and tell the disciples.

So the first resurrection story is told by a hysterical woman running to the house where the disciples were hiding, saying “I have seen the Lord!” Of course, they didn’t believe her.

Thank goodness there were more sightings. At the same time, it seems like the gospel writers are determined to plant doubts in our minds. Thomas had trouble recognizing him. The disciples on the road to Emmaus spent a whole afternoon with him before they realized who he was. Matthew tells us he appeared to a big group, but some of them didn’t believe. All the gospels report he ate and drank with them, but some tell us he could appear and disappear and walk through walls like a ghost.

If I were running the resurrection, I’d try to make the story consistent and undeniable. Wouldn’t you?

But the one who was running it had different ideas. It seemed that he wanted certain people to be the evidence. If I had been running it, I would have had Jesus appear to the emperor of Rome and all its senators and to the chief priests who’d condemned Jesus and the scribes and Pharisees and maybe old Pilate too. I’d want to rub their noses in it. Nyah nyah, you were wrong!

But no, the one who was running it left it to some obscure fishermen, a woman of questionable character, some reformed sinners, and various desperate unnamed funeral attendees.

It all came down to the witnesses.

A recent report has been in the news. A lot of people including our regional minister have brought it to my attention. Have you heard? It appears that there has been a significant decline in the number of people who call themselves Christians. People are leaving the church in droves. A lot of people in the church want to blame somebody. The secular humanists. The socialists. The atheists. The world just plain going to hell in a hand-basket.

Ah, for the good old days, they say, when people came to church because they didn’t have a choice about it, when religion was taught in the public schools, when the Ten Commandments hung on the walls of courtrooms.

Two thousand years ago, in the months following the scene at the empty tomb, thousands of people were baptized. The church spread like wildfire throughout the Roman Empire. Of course, the Roman Empire was a pagan culture, very permissive, very liberal, very violent and bloody. No one was teaching about Jesus in any schools. In fact, merchants were selling every kind of idol you could want. Temples to every god you could think of dotted town squares and marketplaces. The Romans even made their emperor out to be a god and forced that religion on all their subjects, putting people to death just for refusing to kiss his statue. It’s hard to imagine a more hostile culture. Even Jesus was put to death by the Romans because the Jewish commoners of the day wanted to prove they had no king but Caesar.

So it all came down to the witnesses. They stuck to their admittedly inconsistent story, you’ve got to give them that. They were arrested, beaten, tortured, imprisoned and even executed by Jewish and Roman authorities alike, but they just wouldn’t back down. They drew a sharp line between themselves and the other religions of the day and most people called them atheists because they refused to believe in the gods everyone else believed in. They didn’t take part in pagan rituals, they shared everything they had and the rich gave to the poor. The put women in charge of churches when no one put women in charge of anything. The upper classes, Africans, Jews, Greeks, Asians, Romans, both slaves and free people all worshipped together as equals. The lowly were lifted up and the powerful were demoted.

The story they told boiled down to four important things, just the basics. “We saw Jesus do such wonderful things and we heard him say such amazing things that we are convinced God was with him. We saw Jesus arrested and crucified by the Roman and Jewish authorities and we saw him die. And after three days, we saw him alive. We ate and drank with him. We therefore believe he is our eternal king, appointed by God.”

But perhaps the most surprising thing about those early witnesses was their attitude about violence. They were not scared of being arrested or tortured or killed, nor were they ever tempted to resist or respond with violence. They gave their testimony publicly with the full knowledge it could get them killed. And here’s the most amazing thing of all: even as they were slaughtered, there are countless stories of them going to their deaths blessing and forgiving the very people who were killing them. This was what serving the crucified and risen Lord meant to them.
It all came down to the witnesses.

Peter, the beloved disciple, Paul and Mary Magdalene were all eventually executed. They went to their deaths forgiving and loving the ones who killed them, and they never took back their testimony that Jesus was risen from the dead.

Early Christians loved their enemies. Even a centurion, one who might very well have been part of the crew that whipped Jesus, spat on him, gambled for his clothes and drove the nails into his hands and feet, even that centurion was welcomed and baptized.

Early Christians loved their enemies and forgave them even as they were murdered by them. They gave up fighting for survival, for wealth or for power or for status and they let God fight the battle with his love and forgiveness. I wonder if people are leaving the churches today because the witnesses are fighting, fighting each other, fighting the world. The one who is risen did not fight. He loved, he forgave, but he did not fight.

So is it really the socialists or the secular humanists or the atheists that are at fault for the decline in faith in Jesus? Or is this also all about the witnesses?
The resurrection is the testimony of God to the crucified Jesus. He is Jesus’ chief witness. He is the one who says that the new covenant is one of love and forgiveness and grace, that the fighting is over.

Do you believe him?

I had a friend who was a black pastor in South Africa during apartheid. He was arrested for speaking against the racist system. He was put in a metal box a little smaller than a coffin that was then laid in the hot sun. He suffered miserably for hours, unable to sit up, unable to turn over, even soiling himself while he was in there. When he came out he smiled warmly at the ones who had put him in there, not to mock them, but to let them know he still loved them. When he was released, three hundred people were waiting at his church to be baptized.

If you don’t like socialists, go find one and love him. If you hate Republicans, go find one and hug them. I can point a few out to you if you’d like. If you think Democrats are destroying American, find one and give her a big old boozer on the cheek. If you don’t like undocumented workers, give one a job, pay him a lot of money, then call the sheriff and tell him what you’ve done. When he comes to arrest you, tell him you love him too.

If you believe the crucified one is the one God raised from the dead, give up fighting and start loving.

Amen.