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Sermon for Sunday, March 23, 2008
Easter Sunday
“An Easter Encounter — Resurrection "
John 20:1-18
I don’t see them any more but some of you remember those little dried up cicada shells that you could find attached to a tree? They looked kind of scary. They usually show up when the 17 year old locusts come out of the ground.
They are really kind of frightening. Those huge empty eye sockets and their six sharp little claws which attached them to a tree. When you pick them off they will crunch in your hands if you are not careful. The whole outside body of the cicada is there and is as crunchy as Captain Crunch cereal without the milk.
One of my favorite preachers, Barbara Brown Taylor, writes that she liked those cicada shells for two reasons:
First, because they were horrible looking and by hanging them on her sweater she could get some of the girls at school to run screaming away from her. Her next reason was more significant. She says she liked them because they were evident that a miracle had taken place. They looked dead, but they were not. They were just shells. Every one of them had a neat slit down its back where the living creatures inside of it had escaped, pulling new legs, new eyes, new wings out of that dry brown body and taking flight. “At night, she writes, I could hear them singing their high song in the trees. If you had asked them, I’ll bet none of them could tell you where they left their old clothes.”
Hmm. That’s all the disciples saw when they got to the tomb on that first Easter morning – two piles of old clothes. Mary didn’t even see that much. She got there while it was still dark, saw that the stone had been rolled away and she took off to report the news to Simon Peter and the other disciple. “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him.” (Luke’s account reminds us that she was not alone.) It did not take long for Peter and the other disciple to get into a foot race to see who could get there first. They beat her back to the tomb and John is quick to let us know that Peter was beaten by the other disciple. They found she was right. There was no body in the tomb. It was gone.
If the grave had been robbed, why would grave robbers undress him first? Without even going inside, the disciple that Jesus loved could see the linen clothes lying there and once Peter went in, he saw even more. The cloth that had been on Jesus’ head was rolled up in a place by itself. Odd that someone would go to that much trouble. Perhaps these carefully folded cloths are proof that the body has not been stolen.
None of it made sense to them, John says, because no one was there that morning who understood the scripture that Jesus would rise from the dead. Still, when the disciple described as the one whom Jesus loved followed Peter inside the tomb and saw the clothes lying there, he believed. Believed what? John does not say. He simply believed. They did not understand the scripture and the disciples went away again to their own homes. Did they think it was all over and they might as well get on with life?
You know what happens next? Paul Harvey talks about the rest of the story. Well, the rest of the story belongs to Mary. She’s the one who saw the angels (v. 11) she is the one who saw the risen Lord, who had gotten Himself some new clothes. Peter and John saw none of this. They saw nothing, but a vacant tomb with two piles of clothes in it. They saw nothing, but emptiness and absence and on that basis at least one of them believed something, although neither understood.
Isn’t it amazing that from such a fragile beginning, a religion has lasted almost 2,000 years. And yet that is where so many of us ultimately place our energy – on that tomb,
on that morning,
on what did or did not happen there and how to explain it to anyone who does not happen to believe it. You know as well I know that resurrection does not square with anything we know about physical human life on earth. No one has seen it happen and no one saw it happen on that first Easter morning.
What happened on that first Easter was one thing that was solely,
strictly,
entirely between God and Jesus.
Nobody witnesses it. Not a soul on earth can say that this happened, that happened because no one was there. When they got there, it had already happened. What happened, happened, while they were probably still in bed, but you know as it turns out, that did not matter because the empty tomb was not the point.
The tomb was just the cicada shell with a neat slit down its back. The living being that was in it was gone. Clearly, Jesus was not there. He could have stayed put, just sitting there between his nice folded clothes waiting for someone to show up so He could say, “I told you it would happen.” That is not what He did.
He had outgrown the tomb. Jesus had people to see and things to do. The business of a living lord is to be with the living. John’s gospel news tells us that He appeared not once, but four more times to people. And every time He came to His friends, they become greater believers and they became more like Him.
The earliest account of the appearances of Jesus is found in I Corinthians. Paul shares a list of those appearances – to Peter, to the 12 and then to more than five hundred. (I Corinthians 15:1ff.)
Some of you may have come here with doubts today. You’re here because you always come on Easter or some family member begged you to come, but you have doubts. Doubt is not all bad, but we don’t have to live there.
For doubters:
How do you explain the extensive list of appearances? How do you explain their perseverance in every imaginable struggle?
How do you explain his appearance to James, his brother, who was not a believer before the resurrection, but became a leader after the resurrection?
What was it that sent them throughout the world, allowing them to face gladiators, lions, their own crosses?
I will always remember what Glenn Hinson once said in a church history class – rumors may produce gossip, but they do not produce martyrs. People do not die for a lie.
It is those appearances that cinch the resurrection for me, not what happened at the tomb. What happened at the tomb was between God and Jesus. For the rest of us, Easter began the moment that one named Mary thought He was a gardener and He called her by name and she knew who He was. That is where Easter happened and it is where Easter goes on happening – not in empty tombs, but in living encounters with the risen Lord.
Easter is always about an encounter with the Living Lord. Maybe today if you don’t know each other, it’s about time you get acquainted. He is alive and well and wants to meet you.
Prayer:
Lord Jesus, on this grand day You gave death the slip and rose to new life. The tomb was made to hold You. You rose not only from the dead but also You came back to us. You came back to us, spoke to us, and empowered to be witnesses of Your resurrection.
Thank you. Now, help us to live as people worthy of a resurrected Lord, for we offer our prayer in Your Name,
Amen.
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