Easter Church of the Covenant April 16, 2006 The Rev. Dr. Robert J. Campbell, D. Min., D. D.
Printer-Friendly VersionOn the Road Again
1 Luke 24:1-15
I Corinthians 15 (selected)First, friends, I want to remind you of the good news that I preached to you, which you have heard, and upon which your faith is grounded. For I passed on to you what I received: that Christ died for our sins, that he was buried, and that he was raised three days later. That he appeared to Peter and then to all twelve apostles, then to more than 500, most of whom are still alive at this writing. Then he appeared to James and last of all he appeared to me, one born abnormally late in the game, although I don’t deserve to be called an apostle since I persecuted the church. But by God’s grace, I am what I am and do what I do.
Now since our message is about Christ being raised from the dead, how can some of you say it never happened? The dead do not rise; it is impossible. If it is not true, then Christ was never raised, we have nothing to preach, and you have nothing to believe. More than that, we are liars about God. If it is true that the dead are dead and gone, then Christ wasn’t raised and our faith is a delusion and we are lost to our sins. And if our hope in Christ is for this life only, then we should be the most pitied of anyone in the world. But the truth is, Christ has been raised as a guarantee that those who die will have new life. For just as death came by the person Adam, so life comes by means of Jesus Christ.
Of course, some ask, "How can the dead be raised?” "What kind of body will they have?” Fools! That is talking without thinking! When you plant a seed, it doesn’t sprout unless it dies. And what you plant is a bare seed, like wheat for example, which is not the plant you will see later. God gives the seed the body God wishes. When the body is buried, it is mortal. When it is raised, it is immortal. When it is buried, it is ugly and weak. When it is raised, it is beautiful and strong. When it is buried, it is a physical body. When it is raised, it is a spiritual body.
What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that what is made of flesh and blood cannot share in God’s kingdom and what is mortal cannot possess immortality.
Listen to this secret: we shall all die, but when the last trumpet sounds we shall all be changed in the blink of an eye. The dead will be raised never to die again. The scriptures will come true: "Death is destroyed, victory is complete.” So, where, death, is your victory? Where is your power? Death gets its power from sin, and sin gets its power from fear and rules. But, thanks be to God, who gave us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! So stand firm, keep busy in your work of faith, knowing that nothing you do for God is a waste of your time.Sermon
It is the oldest of our creedal confessions. We have no date. Perhaps the apostles really did say it. "We believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ." It is our faith distilled to its smallest denominator. "Suffered under Pontius Pilate." That’s the historical part recorded in non-Christian writings. "Crucified, dead and buried.” That’s the part we focused on during Lent and Holy Week. "The third day he rose from the dead.” Now comes the tough part. We say the words, but what do they mean in our lives? Do we really buy into this resurrection business?Every Christian minister declares that strange credo at funerals. But when the service is over the questions linger in loved ones minds, "How do we know?"
When the tears cloud our eyes, the lump rises in our throats, and our dear one slips beneath the cold, hard ground, we come face-to-face with our own mortality. "Let us count how few days we have," cautions the psalmist and we know we can’t avoid the calendar’s march of days. Then we cling to the proclamation, but doubt’s shadows invade. "Is it true?"
We sing the soaring hymns, deck ourselves out "in your Easter bonnet with all the frills upon it." Yet, what about next week when the lilies wilt? Is this morning anything more than a Celtic celebration of spring, daffodils, baby lambs, and Easter bunnies? Or is it about new life on a level, beyond the here and now that can take all that we face and some how transform it?
"On the third day he rose!” "I am absolutely convinced," says Paul, "that nothing can separate us from God’s love. We are always facing death but these little troubles are so insignificant compared to the joy that awaits. We want you to be very certain that you don’t grieve like others do; those who have no hope." Where does Paul get such confidence?
In what is probably the earliest recorded account, written some 50-years after the death of Jesus, before any of the gospel stories, Paul, like a good prosecuting attorney, claims eyewitness reports. "First Cephas, then the twelve, then over five hundred, then seen by James, and last of all by me, arriving on the scene unfashionably late." Were they all aberrations, hallucinations?
Each person must decide: if Christ’s resurrection didn’t happen, then we’re wasting our time. We are fools! Moreover, if the things we hope for are limited to this life only. That is, if Jesus Christ only means good situation ethics like Emily Post’s Points to Good Manners. If, because of Jesus we are moral to some degree, give a little to charity, don’t kick the dog quite as often, but that is all. Then we who waste our time with this foolishness should be most pitied. So goes Paul’s argument to the people of Corinth who were faced with life’s truth and consequence just like we are.
"How do we know?" There’s a curious line in Luke’s resurrection account often missing from many manuscripts: "Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary, the mother of James, and the other women told the apostles, but their words seemed like nonsense. “ And then comes the missing verse, "But Peter rose, ran to the tomb, looking in, saw what the women had reported, and he went home wondering."
Peter, soon-to-be the churches foundation stone, went home wondering? Maybe here is the early church’s clue, and ours.
We wonder what really happened. It’s a journey where, on the one hand we affirm, while on the other hand we are always curious, searching, hungering for more. "Faith: that which is looked for but not seen."
"After Buddha was dead his shadow was still shown in a cave for centuries. A tremendously gruesome shadow," wrote Nietche. Then he added, "God is dead, but given the way [we] are, there may still be caves for a thousand years in which God’s shadow is shown." Is that why we gather in cave-like buildings on Easter morning to reflect upon the shadow of a long departed God?
Of all the gospel writers, Luke would be most surprised if he came back and saw how we use his work. Unlike the other accounts, Luke wrote a two-volume manuscript. The cross for him is at the center, then he goes back and constructs the birth and ministry of Jesus, but that’s only half of his story. In his two-part volume, Luke then compiles the actions of the apostles and the growth of the early church.
It is for Luke a travel log. First, there are the shepherds traveling to Bethlehem. The disciples learn about God’s plans traveling the countryside, the Galilean women run down the road to tell the men, but the real significance of the events only begin to become clear when two followers encounter a stranger as they travel on a road. Paul was himself "on the road."
For Luke it’s like "on-star" pointing the way, "global positioning" in the first century. Like those news commentators traveling around America interviewing people, Luke says; "They’re on the road again." Look, just like the Exodus of ancient times, it’s only on our journeys, only in life’s encounters as we travel realities’ roads, it is only then, that we catch glimpses of the resurrection. And we come to understand it only as we then gather in community to reflect.
Purportedly there were numerous sightings of Jesus in the weeks that followed Paul’s eyewitness references. Yet, what seems most significant is that with every encounter Jesus points people toward others.
When Mary Magdalene and the other women come to the tomb, they are not allowed to savor their personal relationships with Jesus, they’re instructed to tell the community. The irony being they’re sent to a bunch of cynics lost in grief.
Yet, is it any different from when we are visited by death, destruction, and disease in whatever spectered form? This was Jesus’ family. It had been a horrific week, it was to this paralyzed group the women reported. No wonder they were doubted.
What paralyzes you and me? When is life too much to take? When is recovery too difficult? Like Eugene O’Neill’s play Lazarus Laughed, in the end people aren’t afraid of death, they’re afraid of the living Lazarus. They’re afraid of life.
The disciples were sequestered behind locked doors believing their leader was buried behind a massive stone. But then came running feet up the outside steps. Trembling, the breathless women announced a strange message, "Why seek the living among the dead?" he had asked them.
How many Upper Rooms are there? "Doors locked and double locked, bolted from the inside, a prison cell of grief.”(1) How many keep Christ at a comfortable arm’s length, institutionalized, crucified by cold orthodoxy, safe behind a tombstone of ancient history?
We dutifully gather, sing our songs, and go to Easter brunch. Hope we get out of church on time. That’s the end of it. That is until we have to face our mortality and then the whisper, "Why do we seek the living among the dead?"
Luke spins a travel log of faith that is alive, encountering new challenges at every turn in life’s road. He tells us of a community of people who on the one hand affirm and on the other hand are forever wondering about the mystery of a God who will not let us go. Is it true? We don’t know. We wonder as Peter did. We question just as the Corinthians did. But this we do know; living as we do in an age of catastrophic terror, hatreds, self-centeredness and cynicism, we know that we must become confessors of the most ancient kind admitting to all the world that we do not have the answers and that we too are frightened, confused, doubting and often stupid. But at the same time, we admit that we are part of a community that, while perplexed, always faces the future with confidence.
We are part of a broken body. Yet, we are animated by a power that truly is beyond us. That’s why we continue breaking bread, reaching out to others, and in wide-eyed wonder, we dare to name signs in our own lives that hint at the resurrection.
"On the third day he rose from the dead." Can we prove it? Absolutely not! All we can do is confess our unbelief. And then with eyes of faith, name the grace we see as lives are made whole, and there on life’s road we say, "See, Christ is risen indeed!"
1)CS Lewis
Credit is given in the writing of this series to
Raymond E. Brown, his two-volume work, The Death of the Messiah and to
David Buttrick and his book, The Mystery and the Passion.
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