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Easter Sunday, Resurrection of our Lord, 04/24/2011
Sermon on Matthew 28:1-10, by David Zersen
After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, 'He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.' This is my message for you." So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, "Greetings!" And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me." (NRSV)
LIVING WITH FEAR AND GREAT JOY
Sometimes an experience is so overwhelming that it's difficult to make sense of it, to find the words that explain it logically or the images in it that are already familiar to us. Those in the Middle East who are currently struggling to create new political, social and economic environments know this well. On the one hand, they have ventured where no one in their countries in recent memories has gone. Some of their compatriots have been killed and the possibility exists that they will lose their own lives as well. It may happen that nothing good will come of the venture and the revolutionaries will lose everything. There is great cause for fear. On the other hand, when they in the midst of battle raise their banners and fists and shout together, believing with all their hearts that victory is within their grasp, then joy can be simultaneously overwhelming.
I think something of such feelings characterized those who approached the tomb on Easter morning. On the one hand, they had given their lives to follow a person, a cause, and a whole new way of living. And it has now all seemed to come to a screeching halt. On the other hand, even though everything looked bleak and depressing, the tomb was empty! What could this mean? Dare they hope in something positive? Dare they believe that God is in charge here?
Many have tried to explain exactly what happened using psychological and even physiological arguments. Those who believe in the validity of the Shroud of Turin think than an electric spark triggered at the moment of resurrection etched the lines of Jesus' body on the Shroud. Others have attempted to provide a detailed explanation of the resurrection based on particle physics, which can explain how matter can be converted into neutrinos. Because neutrinos interact very weakly with normal matter, they would be invisible, allowing "materialization" out of seeming nothingness, explaining the post-Resurrection "appearances" of Jesus. Such theories, however, take us far from the experience of the disciples who witnessed simply an empty tomb and the terrifying realization that they were both afraid and filled with expectant joy.
Recently I read a statement from Dietrich Bonhoeffer that set all this in perspective for me. A new biography entitled Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (Thomas Nelson, 2010) by Eric Metaxas tells a story of Bonhoeffer's own fear and joy in the face of the death of one of his students. When the Third Reich drafted all young men into the service of the Fatherland, 80 of the seminarians that Bonhoeffer taught at the secret seminary in Finkenwalde were ultimately killed. However, Theodore Maas was the first to die in September of 1939. Bonhoeffer, deeply shaken by this turn of events, wrote a letter to his fellow pastors in the Confessing Church.. In it he said, "Where God tears great gaps, we should not try to fill them with human words. We should leave them open. Our only comfort is the God of the resurrection, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ." (p. 349). I take great comfort from these words of Bonhoeffer because they help us to make sense of this Easter experience of ours. On the one hand, life is filled with terrifying experiences and we don't know what all of them mean or where they may be leading us. We have no idea, for that matter, what an empty tomb may mean. On the other hand, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the author of meaning itself uses these very reflections, these very doubts, to communicate his loving purpose for our lives. In the terrifying experience of all that is unknown about that first Easter day, God vindicates our hope and our joy and a faith that does not need succinct verbiage to allow it to embrace us.
The Resurrection vindicates our humanity
Many are those who prefer to accept a spiritual explanation for what happens to a Christian at death. The body simply returns to dust and that's the end of it, they assume. The spirit lives on in some ethereal sense in an eternal realm. There are some words in the New Testament that even give support to such a notion, but the concept is essentially Greek and stems from Greek philosophy.
Such thinking worked well with Gnostic ideas that insisted that matter was evil and the spirit was good. Ultimately, escaping evil matter or the material body with its lust, pain, hatred, greed and confusion led one to embrace the spirit where all was love, health, and perfect knowledge. It was a good underlying philosophy for Puritans, and for that matter, for Playboys. There have been many who were led to believe that Christians think the body and matter in general are evil.
The biblical concept or the concept embraced by Jews, Christians and Muslims, although often poorly understood, is that of the resurrection of the body. This concept affirmed that God loves creation and that all that is human is valued and vindicated. We do not seek to escape our humanity, but to cherish and embrace it.
The resurrection is therefore a vindication not only of the humanity of Jesus, but of our humanity as well. For this reason, we don't want to lose this teaching in the midst of all the vague talk about the afterlife. With Bonhoeffer, I don't want to repair the tear that the crucifixion and the empty tomb place before us by using all kinds of well-meaning explanations. Even though the prospect of death can be unnerving and unsettling for us, I rejoice that in the witness to the resurrection my humanity is embraced and affirmed.
The Resurrection vindicates reconciliation
Another powerful vindication provided by the witness to the Resurrection is that of accepting reconciliation instead of revenge. The human response to bad treatment from another is revenge. "An eye for an eye" was Old Testament justice. Even though it was a limiting justice (for example, you couldn't sue for millions of dollars just because you got hot coffee spilled on you at McDonalds), it nevertheless provided retribution. The ministry of Jesus taught that forgiveness and reconciliation were the lifestyles of the Kingdom coming. Difficult as it may be for us to practice, the resurrection of Jesus says that this kind of life will not be allowed to die!
Many have said that stories of death and resurrection are found in other religions as well and that therefore Christianity is hardly exclusive. However, there are no other world religions that claim that dying and rising are a vindication of the only kind of lifestyle that leads to fulfillment, namely forgiveness and reconciliation. Jesus' death and resurrection deconstructs and restructures the cultural and ethical approaches of humankind that claim revenge as a solution to problems.
In Christianity alone has God said to those who practice revenge and retaliation as the basic formula for successful human interaction, "I will not allow this to stand!" If I could put God's intent in my own words, I would express it this way. "I acknowledge that your anger, jealously, and will to control others brought about the death of Jesus at your hands. But know this! I do not accept that death or any dead ends that you fashion with your need to retaliate against those with whom you don't agree. I raise Jesus to life to show that his life alone is my life for you." Peter said it this way at the first Pentecost: "... this Jesus you crucified, and killed by the hands of lawless men. But God raised him up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it." (Acts. 2: 23-24)
For this reason, the witness to the resurrection must be proclaimed powerfully today because our future as a human race depends upon it. In the resurrection of Jesus, God vindicates life and light, joy and peace, reconciliation and love.
The Resurrection vindicates life itself
Finally, there is another reason why the Easter proclamation is so important today. The preaching of the earliest church (recorded for us in today's first lesson-Acts 10:34-43) typically reminded people that Jesus was the fulfillment of long established hope and that his death resulted from arbitrary and antagonistic forces at work among the population. However, the major thrust of the early church's preaching was that God raised this Jesus from death to life, and that those who ate and drank with him were called to be witnesses to this fact.
This important reflection was imprinted in me by a recent visit to The Menil Collection, a major art museum in Houston, Texas. One of the smaller displays at the back of an exhibition of Surrealist art was entitled Witnesses to a Surrealist Vision. It would have been easy to miss this small room, but I'm happy that we found it. In the room were all kinds of artifacts that had been collected and at times created by famous Surrealist artists like Salvidor Dali, Max Ernst, Joan Miro and many others. These strange and bizarre characters (face masks, totems, animal figures, etc.) had watched from the walls as the artists produced their works and often influenced what appeared on a canvass. What an interesting concept and how nice that someone chose to create this room to show us who was looking over the artist's shoulders and to give us food for thought!
It makes me think of the witnesses to the resurrection whose views we reflect on today and whose presence in our room today can influence our thinking. As the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us (11:35-37), some of these witnesses were tortured. Others suffered mocking and scourging, and even chains and imprisonment. Some were stoned and some killed with the sword. However, because of the resurrection of Jesus they knew that life was more important than death and that the only life that lasted was the one begun in the affirming and forgiving waters of baptism and continuing all the way to the throne of God.
A personal experience helps me to remember why this is so important to us. Many years ago as a young student in Germany trying so hard to master vocabulary, I continued to see signs pointing to a street that was apparently off to the right-because every intersection had a sign saying it was off the right. Some time later I learned the meaning of the name of this sign-Sackgasse or Dead End. I had to laugh to myself about all the streets that were actually leading nowhere.
It is this way with all of us. There are temptations to try to understand life's meaning in terms that make sense to us. These can be real Sackgassen. However, the preaching of the early Christians, who never tolerated a sermon without a witness to the resurrection, tells us something very important. Without the resurrection, we might reject our humanity and believe it is ultimately evil, as many have done; we might practice revenge and retaliation as is common in those who seek solutions to world problems or local spats by a show of force; and we might in the face of all the death and decay around us settle for despair and an occasional dose of Zoloft.
But Christ is risen, said those early witnesses of Jesus (who ate and drank with him) in every sermon they preached. Make no mistake abut it. There is great uncertainty in many arenas of life and we don't have all the answers to make sense of everything. But the tomb is empty and our joy is full. As we prepare to eat and drink together with Jesus today, just as those early disciples, we too are witnesses. We are witnesses to all that creates fear among us, but also to the joy that comes from knowing God's good creation, God's gift of reconciling peace, and God's gift of life that lasts in Christ Jesus.
Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed!