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Printer Friendly VersionNote: The other lectionary passages for Easter are also quite
powerful and I would suggest all of them be read at some time during the worship
service. At the very least, the John 20 passage would be an appropriate Call
to Worship, inviting all people to hear the tenderness with which Jesus calls
out to the grieving Mary, and the power of the words of the angels: “He
is not here, He is risen!”
Phillip Yancey’s book, The Jesus I Never Knew, includes
an old joke about a sad man standing in front a church greeting another on
Easter Sunday. When asked by his friend why he is so sullen on Easter Sunday,
he says: “Didn’t you hear? They found the body.” Yancey
remarks that even though this joke is in bad taste, it has a very clear point:
If they had found the body, not only would Easter not be Easter, but also
Christianity would not really be Christianity. However, no body was found!
And the Easter readings done every year always include the account from the
angels in Luke that reminds us, “He is not here; he has risen!”
(24:6). For Christianity, this is the “shot heard ‘round the world”
that transforms all of Christ’s followers and announces the defeat of
our greatest enemy, death. A former professor of mine once reminded me that
the biggest fear of Old Testament believers was not sin. Sin, as troublesome
as it was, had remedies in the Old Testament. The biggest fear, even among
those who were righteous, was death. Death, even for the righteous in the
Old Testament, was veiled in mystery. Death was described in terms of the
Hebrew word, sheol, which evoked spooky and mysterious images of a place outside
of meaningful fellowship with God and others (see David’s words about
sheol in Psalm 88:5: “I am set apart with the dead, like the slain who
lie in sheol, whom you remember no more, who are cut off from your care.”).
Easter Sunday, the Sunday of Resurrection, reminds us that death
does not cut us off from the care of the Lord. Death, once our biggest foe,
is now defeated, thanks to the resurrection of the Son of God!
A mentor of mine once said that if I preach about anything and
don’t include a “so what?” portion, then I haven’t
really preached. Thankfully, the resurrection of Jesus as experienced in this
text today gives us more than a theoretical “so what” that announces
Jesus’ mastery over death for us. The “so what” of this
great day is found in the words of the angels to Mary and her companions –
a message that is meant to be delivered to us on this very day and every day
as we walk with Jesus. You see, the “Jesus walk” does not end
with Easter, even though Lent is an important and necessary part of the journey.
The “Jesus walk” really begins at Easter, and here’s how:
The angels begin with an invitation to observe the obvious,
“He is not here!” We walk in newness of life because the One who
is life demonstrated at the Resurrection the defeat of death! Our Christian
walk really begins with an observation that God has made the first move. Jesus
is risen and our faith in His resurrection is the first part of our eye opening.
At first we, like the women in this story (v. 5) look in the wrong place.
In their case, they were looking in the place where dead people reside for
a Lord who had risen! In our case, we look in all kinds of places where there
is nothing but death, seeking in desperation for some sign of life. Thankfully,
God’s grace calls out to us: “Don’t look there! There is
only death! Look here. Look to me! I am Life!” God’s grace is
calling. Are you looking in the right place?
For many of us, the journey to faith in Christ comes after many
seeds have been planted. Even those seeds are acts of grace that God has allowed.
They are means by which God calls to us in our desperate and lost state. If
you’re like me, when I really made a decision to follow Christ, it was
at a time that was a culmination of many subsequent moments when I had said
no. At the moment of my surrender, though, I was not only responding to the
“moment,” but I was also reflecting on the times that God had
used to get me to that point.
Christian artist Larnelle Harris recorded a song years ago that
says, “So, You [referring to God] were in it after all.” The song
says, “All of the times I spent crying when something inside of me was
dying; I didn’t know that you heard me each time I called.” God
was already at work--remember? His ongoing grace brings us to a place of real
encounter.
“Remember,” the angels are saying, “all the
words that Jesus spoke were bringing you this point; to this ‘aha’
moment.” Remember . . . .
Thankfully the “aha” moment came. These women became
the first evangelists, the first missionaries, the first preachers of the
Resurrection. Verse 8 reminds us, “Then they remembered his words.”
And after remembering and allowing this holy moment to arrive, they did what
Jesus always seemed to be saying after the Resurrection when He appeared in
person to His disciples: “Go!” In fact, Jesus’ resurrection
still evokes this call today.
These new evangelists were not as successful as they would have liked, since the disciples did not believe them at first. How could they? It seemed to ridiculous, so impossible. So they checked it out and they did their own looking and remembering. The power of the truth of the resurrection is that not only does it permit further inspection, it invites it! Later on, when Jesus appeared to “doubting Thomas” (who, as we see, was not the only doubter), Jesus invites further inspection: “See for yourself. Touch my wounds.” Look, remember, reflect. Today, on this Easter Sunday, I do not offer a long discourse on the many “proofs” of Resurrection about which many books have been written. That does not seem to be what this text is asking me (or any of us) to do today. Instead, I will offer just one: they looked, they remembered Jesus’ words, and the result is they went! Boy, did they! Nothing from then on could stop these once skeptical disciples from proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus to everyone they met. Not even death could stop it. Death never could stop resurrection, anyway. There are many of us who are still going and telling everyone about this resurrected Christ, especially today. Come, experience God’s call for yourself. Feel free to look around in the direction you feel God tugging you. Reflect upon the words of Jesus in God’s Word. Allow the Holy Spirit to demonstrate to you through these ancient words that Jesus is just as alive and present today as He was then. And when you do, you will encounter life. This life invites and empowers us to go in His name. He is risen indeed! Amen.