The Vigil of Easter, 04/07/2007

Sermon on Matthäus 27:57-66, by Samuel Zumwalt

57When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus. 58He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. 59And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud 60and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. 61Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb. 62Next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate 63and said, "Sir, we remember how that impostor said, while he was still alive, 'After three days I will rise.' 64Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people, 'He has risen from the dead,' and the last fraud will be worse than the first." 65Pilate said to them, "You have a guard of soldiers. Go, make it as secure as you can." 66So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard.

THE INSECURITY OF MEN

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

There was never any doubt that Jesus was dead. The Romans were as efficient with the death penalty machinery as governments are today. Right or wrong, once a sentence was carried out, there was a dead man. Matthew makes clear: Jesus was a dead man!

It should come as no surprise to us that a popular rabbi would have attracted a following among pious people - even a wealthy religious leader like Joseph of Arimathea. Indeed it would have been for Joseph both an honor and a sign of devotion to offer to bury Jesus, the executed rabbi. He wrapped the body in a clean linen shroud and placed it in a new tomb.

British bishop Tom (N.T.) Wright observes: "Grave robbery was common in the ancient world, so many cave-tombs had huge circular stones, sometimes measuring as much as two metres in diameter, which people would roll across the mouth of the cave to prevent anyone getting in without a great struggle. This is what Joseph did. You can still see some tombs of this sort in the Middle East" (Matthew for Everyone, 195).

The Pharisees certainly had had their own conflicts with Jesus despite the fact that they shared with Him belief in the resurrection of the dead. But, for them, the resurrection would take place someday well in the future. What they did not want was for Jesus' followers to steal His body and then claim that Jesus had been raised from the dead. So they wanted the Roman governor Pontius Pilate to make Jesus' grave secure lest His claim that He would rise from the dead on the third day would seem to have come true (see Matthew 12:38-40).

That's the irony of our text tonight. The insecurity of men led to the crucifixion of Jesus in the first place. Now the insecurity of men leads them to demand a security detail to be placed at Jesus' tomb - presumably to keep Jesus where they thought He belonged - dead!

It's really no different today. The world thinks that preachers really need to know their place. Keep preachers in a pulpit talking about innocuous things like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin or what caret gold the streets of heaven are paved with. But preachers should never talk much about anything really important like politics, or what people do in private with their bodies, or how money is or is not spent. That's when preachers quit preaching and go to meddling.

Even many people in the church believe that preachers need to know their place. Preachers are often reminded that they don't want to step on the wrong toes. Those that are used to wielding power are likely to take the preacher aside to explain what should or shouldn't be said or done. Some seem to think that preachers need to be taken down a peg or two on a regular basis lest they forget their place.

If that's true of preachers today, imagine how true it was when God's Son came as an ordinary rabbi from the backward province of Galilee. He was always meddling with people's sense of how He ought to behave. He was always talking about money. He was always stepping on toes. He was always challenging peoples' assumptions about what it meant to be God's people.

The tipping point, as some like to call it today, was that Jesus started messing with Jerusalem and the Temple. He started upsetting the applecart by challenging God, Inc. Jesus just wouldn't keep in His place. In short, He became a threat to the comfort of the religious leadership and a threat to the Temple-based economy of Jerusalem.

It's no surprise that the Roman governor would want to keep the peace particularly at the most important local religious festival when the population swelled with pilgrims. That's how Jesus ended up dead at the hands of the Romans. He caused the religious leaders to feel insecure. He caused those that made their living from the Temple to feel insecure. Finally, Jesus caused even the Romans to feel insecure. That preacher needed to know His place. Indeed His place was to be numbered with the dead!

So, it's funny and ironic that even after Jesus was dead the Pharisees still wanted to make sure He was kept in His place. But that was really too much for the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. The governor reminded them that they had their own temple police if they just had to make sure Jesus stayed where He belonged. Pilate's response is classic: "Go make it as secure as you can."

Of course, when you're dealing with God, it highlights the insecurity of men!

There are plenty of people today that still want to keep Jesus in His place. Some are Bible scholars, some are bishops, some are pulp fiction writers, some are preachers that invent a Jesus that looks and sounds a lot like the one they see when they look in the mirror. Plenty of religious people today prefer Jesus to stay in His place in a tomb in Palestine where He just won't make them feel any more insecure than they already are.

There are plenty of people that will be sitting in pews today or tomorrow who just don't want Jesus to get out of that tomb and start meddling with their politics, with what they do with their bodies, and with what they do or don't do with their money. For if Jesus gets loose, there will be no end to the trouble He can cause. Indeed if Jesus gets loose, He will turn the whole world upside down. For if Jesus gets loose, men and women, boys and girls will feel even more insecure than they - than we already are!

Indeed recognizing the insecurity of men and women and boys and girls is the beginning of wisdom. For God is a jealous God who will accept no other gods! Indeed death came into the world at God's command in order that we might not live endlessly separated from God in a hellish eternity brought by our own foolish choices.

From before the foundation of the world, the Lord God knew that He would have to become human in Christ Jesus and live the life we cannot live and die the death we don't want to die in order to rescue us from sin, death, and evil. God's Son Jesus could not be kept in a tomb by death or a huge stone or even by temple police. For in Christ Jesus: love is stronger than hate, good is stronger than evil, light is stronger than darkness, and life is stronger than death. His place was never in a tomb. Christ Jesus is the King of the Universe, and the Holy Spirit is on the loose in this world.

Of course, that's the real danger of the Christian story. It's never been about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin or what caret gold the streets of heaven are. It's about the death of sinners like you and me. It's about dying and rising with Jesus in the waters of Holy Baptism that we might be His own and live under Him in His Kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.

There's nothing quite so dangerous as a group of baptized children of God whose lives are being turned upside down one day at a time. For people who are convinced that their Lord Jesus isn't in that tomb refuse to accept that there is any corner of the universe or any corner of their lives that doesn't belong to God. And such faith is contagious.

Yes, that kind of faith is extremely dangerous and pushes the fear buttons of people who, in their insecurity, must keep insisting that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit should be kept somewhere far away from anything that really matters.

I almost hate to break it to them, bad preacher that I am. But Jesus isn't in that tomb in Palestine. An insecurity detail couldn't keep Him there 2,000 years ago, and no one today can keep Him from turning the world upside down!

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[To listen to this sermon, please click on the icon at the top right "This Week's Message" page at www.stmatthewsch.org]

Samuel Zumwalt
St. Matthew's Evangelical Lutheran Church
Wilmington, North Carolina USA
E-Mail: szumwalt@bellsouth.net

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