Christ Among Us!

Easter Sunday

This day is the climax and capstone of the church year. Today we say, “Christ is Risen!” And we echo in reply, “Christ is Risen Indeed!” Hebrew-speaking Christians in Jerusalem say, “Ha Mashiyach qam!” Greek-speaking Christians say, “Christos Anesti (Χριστός ἀνέστη)!” Our grandparents in Russia-Ukraine might have said, “Christus ist auferstanden!” Our French-speaking neighbours when we moved to Canada said, “Le Christ est ressuscité.” I can still hear my Zimbabwean brothers and sisters sing out, “Namhla uvukile! Alleluia!”

All around the world we celebrate in every language the reality that Jesus overcame death and hell and has set us free. Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed!

The Idea of Resurrection

What is “resurrection” anyway. Our words are too small to capture the enormity of this event. Lazarus was raised from the dead a few weeks before (John 11), but that just meant that he was alive again – as if he had never died. The resurrection of Jesus means much more than simply “brought back to the life we have on this earth.”

In the reading from John 20, Jesus refers to being glorified, taken into the heart of God and then returned to us in his risen state. When he meets others later in John’s gospel, he does not avoid physical contact. He has now been “glorified”, whatever that means, and stands before them in his risen glory. Resurrection means more than simply “made alive again”. What is that more?

Many think of earth and heaven as two spheres or realms, in which heaven is “up there” and earth is “down here”. Down here is earthly and real; up there is spiritual and only may be real. You can see this viewpoint in the way that we think about the coming of Jesus at the end of times. “Lo he comes with clouds descending …” Jesus will come down from heaven to earth: At least, that’s the way we think of it. He is “up there” now, and then he will be down here with us. You can see this viewpoint also in the way that we talk about what happens to us then, as well as what happens when we do. We will go “up to heaven” to live with Jesus “up there”. 

Of course, the NT uses this language. “You Galileans, why do you stand here looking into the sky. Jesus will come back in the same way as you have seen him go.” (Acts 1:11) But the New Testament also uses other language that suggests something other than this two-level kind of thinking with heaven and spiritual and God “up there somewhere” and earth and physical and real down here around us. The NT also speaks of a new heavens and new earth, something that is already present. It speaks of Jesus appearing, not simply coming back.

Consider the way Luke 17:30 puts it: “It will be just like this on the day that the Son of Man will be revealed …” You hear that note: When [Jesus] will be revealed. Jesus is here now, already, even though we cannot see him. In his second coming, he will be revealed and we will see the one who has always been here with us. Or as Hebrews 9:28 puts it, “Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.” Again, John says in 1 John 2:28: “Now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.” Or John the Revelator’s picture of the judgment at the end of all things: “Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence …” (Rev. 20:11).

The most common metaphor for all of this is that Jesus is “coming” again, but I have emphasised these particular texts to help us see that this does not mean Jesus is somewhere off in the sky and will come down to earth at the end. Rather, Jesus is here, and we will see him. He will step out from behind the curtain, and we will see him. He will take the veil from our eyes, and we will see him.

Paul does use the image of going up in 1 Thessalonians 4: 16 and 17: “The Lord himself will come down from Heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.” But taken together with all the other passages, I suggest that Paul is trying to picture something beyond our comprehension and uses images to help us grasp its wonder and glory. I want to offer another image alongside Paul’s – not in place of it, but something to help us get inside of it.

 

As N.T. Wright has noted, we think of the End of all things as being the moment when the earth is destroyed and we go up to Heaven. Earth, we think, will be taken up into Heaven, but the book of Revelations suggests as different picture. I read from Revelations 20 earlier: “The earth and the heavens fled from [God’s] presence.” The next chapter elaborates on that picture in language borrowed from Isaiah 65 and 66: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. And there was no longer any sea.” This is the new creation. This is the creation as it was meant to be, and we live in it. Earth is not taken up into Heaven, but the New Heaven and the New Earth come down and swallow up the old creation with all of its faults. This old creation, full of sin and despair, flees from God’s presence, and we live in the New Creation, inaugurated by the resurrection of Jesus.

So What?

Where is this new creation? Out there somewhere at the end of time? Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is within you!” (Luke 17:21) Listen to the verses where Jesus said this: “Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, ‘The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say – Here it is, or There it is – because the kingdom of God is in your midst.’”

Do you get it? The resurrection is the inauguration of God’s Reign in the New Heavens and the New Earth. We don’t have to wait until the end of time for this new creation, because it is already here in us, in our congregation, in the gathered people of God, stuttering and stammering about, struggling to make it through, and already God’s Reign is here in us!

Wright suggests an image to describe this reality. Think of us as the characters in a play, with an audience that we can’t see because of the floodlights and action that goes on all around us beyond our senses. Then the curtain is raised, floodlights go off and the general lights come on, and we can see what is really happening. We have been on our own little corner of a much larger stage than we knew existed, and when the curtain goes up and the lights all come on, we see what has really been going on all along – the full reign of God in the new heavens and earth.

Really?

Life in the congregation of God’s People is not always easy. It is not always nice. We are not always kind to each other. The old creation lives on in our memories, and we act out of those memories all too often. But we really are a new creation, the promise of the resurrection. Paul says it, “If any one is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Our life together may be filled with failure and regret: In that respect, it’s a lot like the disciples’ experience with Jesus. That’s why Jesus died for them and for us. Jesus rose for them and for us. Jesus creates heaven and earth anew in them and in us.

The Texts

Look back at the texts that we read. Isaiah 25 draws the picture that I have been trying to describe:

On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the covering that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. Then the LORD God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken. It will be said on that day, “See, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the LORD for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

This is an image of the new creation, brought to us by the resurrection of Jesus! This is a picture of the fuller reality of God’s Reign, already here and yet still coming.

In John 20, we have the story that we have heard many times – Mary Magdalene (and some other women named in the other gospels) come to Jesus’ grave early in the morning; they find it empty, so Mary runs and tells Peter and John that the grave is empty. They run to the grave and find it empty, with the evidence left behind of Jesus’ graveclothes. Then Mary returns. She sees two angels who ask her why she’s crying; she replies that the grave is empty and she doesn’t know where Jesus’ body is. Then she sees Jesus, but doesn’t recognise him until he says her name, “Mary.” She falls at his feet, and he tells her not to touch him because he is on his way to the fullness of the Godhead. Mary then returned to the disciples and told them what she had seen.

The note about Jesus going to his Father – what I called “the fullness of the Godhead” – is a clue to the inauguration of the new creation: When Jesus is glorified, he makes all things new. But I note just one small point about this interaction between Jesus and Mary, decisive in helping us understand the new creation. Mary did not recognize the risen Lord until he said her name. She knew him because he knew her. At the very centre of the new creation, we see the reality of relationships.

I said that the new heavens and earth have already come, and that we find them in our midst. How do we find the beginnings of the new creation? Where is it? It is in our relationships – with God and with each other. The way that God cares for us and the way that we care for God. The way that you care for your brother or sister and the way that they care for you.

You remember the old TV show, “Cheers”? It was set in the bar where “everyone knows your name.” You sometimes find this kind of caring enveloping friendship outside of the church – quite often, in fact. It’s something that God has placed within us and wants to nurture in all of our lives, but we take it a step further in the church.

Remember Philippians 2: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others.” This is the mark of God’s Reign. This is the beginning of the new creation, brought in by Jesus’ death and resurrection. We take care of each other at the deepest most fundamental levels.

An old preacher’s story makes the point. A man dreamed that he had died and found himself standing before two doors. One door was marked as the way to Hell. It opened, and he saw a great banquet table filled with the best food and drink imaginable – just like the vision in Isaiah 25. But everyone seated at the table had only a spoon chained to their wrist, which was far too long to turn around and put into their mouths. They suffered forever straining to reach the bounty before them, forever going hungry.

He turned towards the other door, marked as the way to Heaven. It opened, and he saw a similar great feast, all the best food and drink available for the guests sitting at the table. He saw that they also had the same long spoons chained to their wrists, but they were all feeding each other. They enjoyed the banquet to the full as each one looked out for the interests of the other.

It’s a simple picture, but it is also true. Jesus’ resurrection inaugurates the new reality of God’s Reign in the New Heavens and the New Earth. We can step into that new creation as we embrace the reality of Jesus’ resurrection, a reality we see most clearly as we enfold each other in the love of Christ. The New Creation really is the place where everyone knows your name. God knows it, and God calls you and me by name, just as he spoke to Mary.

It’s true. Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed!

Steinbach Mennonite Church

Easter Sunday 2024

Scriptures

Isaiah 25:6–9

⁶ On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. ⁷ And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the covering that is spread over all nations; ⁸ he will swallow up death forever.
Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.

⁹ It will be said on that day, “See, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

 John 20:1–18

The Resurrection of Jesus

20 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. ² So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” ³ Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. ⁴ The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵ He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. ⁶ Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, ⁷ and the cloth that had been on Jesus’s head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. ⁸ Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed, ⁹ for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. ¹⁰ Then the disciples returned to their homes.

Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene

¹¹ But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb, ¹² and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. ¹³ They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” ¹⁴ When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. ¹⁵ Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” ¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). ¹⁷ Jesus said to her, “Do not touch me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” ¹⁸ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and she told them that he had said these things to her.

 

Focus Statement

In the garden, when Jesus called Mary’s name, all things were made new. In a time when women were considered insignificant, the resurrected Jesus appeared first to Mary Magdalene, trusted her to be a reliable witness to his resurrection, and commissioned her to be the first to preach the good news of his resurrection. Since that day, social constructs and barriers are broken down, the shroud is lifted, and sins are forgiven. We are a new creation. Death is swallowed up, and life is everlasting! Alleluia, Christ is risen! Christ is among us!

Easter Sermon

We began our service with the words with which Christians have marked the resurrection for two thousand years: “Christ is Risen!” “He is risen indeed!” We say these words, and we mean them; but this has been a hard week. Two funerals, and the echoes and ongoing loss of at least two other deaths. We have lived in the pain of Good Friday for more than just a day. Grief and loss are all around us, and the affirmation of Jesus’ resurrection takes energy that we barely have and faith that we only partly feel. The words are nevertheless true. Christ is risen! Jesus has conquered death! We are able to live with hope and joy because he died and rose from the dead.

Matthew 28

Our text tells the story. The disciples had lost everything. They had watched their Lord and friend killed on a Roman cross. They had buried him in a grave that Joseph of Arimathea had made, presumably intending to use it for himself or other members of his family. Jesus had to be buried somewhere, and Joseph offered his grave, cut out of a rock. Jesus was laid there on Friday evening, and then all observed the Sabbath. We assume that the disciples grieved silently on the Sabbath, hiding from the crowds. And then on Sunday morning, early – before others were up and about – some women went to the grave.

Matthew names Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” (27:56 – mother of James and Joseph, or mother of James and John), but Luke adds “and the other women”. So, a group of women led by Mary Magdalene and the mother of some of the disciples. These women went to the grave to grieve, to see where the body of the one they loved lay. How often have you or I gone to the grave of someone we love. My mother died in May 1991. This past week, my older sister sent me a picture of the plot and headstone where she and my father lie buried. We remember, and they were grieving and remembering.

Then something none of us has ever experienced happened. There was an earthquake. The stone blocking the grave was rolled away. An angel appeared and sat on the stone, frightening the guards who were supposed to keep people away so that they fled. The angels spoke to the women, “Be not afraid. Sing out for joy. Christ is risen, Alleluia!!” John 20 tells us that Jesus had a special word for Mary, but Matthew notes only that Jesus then appeared, that they worshipped him, and that he sent them to the disciples to tell them that he was alive.

History or Principle?

Some people suggest that this only a good story, meant to help us keep hoping in the face of dangers and troubles in this world. Are they right, or did it really happen? John Dickson is an Australian historian who has written a little book called Is Jesus History? He notes that there are rules for historical inquiry by which we can tell how likely a story is to be true. By the cannons of history, he suggest, the New Testament is histoprically accurate.

Dickson tells of an Australian judge, well respected for his ability to sift evidence in the courtroom, who spent the last years of his life evaluating the evidence of the New Testament to see if it would have made a trustworthy testimony in his courtroom. The judge himself was agnostic about the existence of God and expected to find that the story of the resurrection was a story designed to give hope, not the record of what actually happened. His conclusion was that by all the canons of history, the record of the resurrection is trustworthy. The gospel writers recorded truth faithfully. Jesus lived, and died, and rose from the dead.

If that is true, the passage we read this morning is not just a story meant to help us hope in the darkness. It is instead the reminder that death itself has been defeated on the cross. Jesus walked the path of life that every one of us walks. Jesus came up to the end of his life, knowing full well that his ministry would end on the cross. He died, and then God raised him from the dead.

The World We Live In

When we look around, we see great beauty and goodness, and we see all kinds of danger threatening to overwhelm us. When we look at the beauty, we can believe that God is Creator. We see love and delight in the way that people help each other and the enjoyment we have in a good friendship. But then a friend dies, or a family disintegrates, or a storm system destroys our home. We see the problems of our world, and we wonder what hope there is for the future.

What is reality? Is reality the friend who helped me out when I needed a friend? Or is reality the friend who stabbed me in the back and destroyed my hopes? Is reality the beauty of the Rocky Mountains or the Great Plains, or is reality the possibility that we have already passed the point of no return with climate change?

In short, which is stronger – good or evil? Who wins – God or Satan? Our head says that God and good are stronger, but sometimes we wake up in the night and we’re not so sure. Let me tell you something: There is no shame in doubting the goodness of our world. The problems we face are real, and we take them seriously. Let me tell you something else: Our fears and our doubts are not the last word. The women came to the tomb full of fear and doubt, and then the angel rolled away the stone and dispelled their fear, and they worshipped the risen Jesus.

We should perhaps not be too surprised at this resurrection story. Where does a tree growing in your yard come from? It came from another tree that dropped a seed – perhaps an acorn – as it got older. From that acorn another oak tree grew in its place. The analogy is imperfect, but it shows a pattern in which all of us participate. Where did I come from? My parents have died, but they gave me life and I am here. When I die, my sons and their wives take my place. Where did they come from? From me and Lois, just as we came from our parents. I trace this pattern of dying and continuing in one’s children back six generations in North America – I am the son of David, the son of John, the son of Peter, the son of David, the son of Martin, the son of Johann Heinrich Kleimenhagen, the first of our family to come to Canada from Germany 240 years ago.

There’s death and new life for you. Every one of us is a testimony to new life coming out of the death of our parents. This is a basic pattern in all of created nature. Jesus simply took this basic truth of reality to a new level and promised each of us that our own deaths likewise are the door to new life with him.

What Does This Mean for us Today?

I grew up in the Brethren in Christ Church in Zimbabwe. When I taught in Zimbabwe in the early 1970s, there were about 5,000 members of the BIC Church there. Then came the Liberation War, and the people suffered greatly. The mission schools were closed, and those who could moved from their rural homes into the cities. At the request of the church there, the BIC missionaries who remained were brought back to North America in 1977.

I remember my last General Conference there in August 1974. A missionary named Luke Keefer preached a sermon on the filling of the Holy Spirit. After the sermon, pastors and deacons, leaders of the church pressed to the front of the church building singing, “Woza Moya Oyingcwele” (“Come, Holy Spirit”). I was one of them, singing and praying for God’s Spirit to fill me. When we were all finished singing and praying and searching together, the man beside me asked, “Have you been filled with the Spirit?” I said, “Yes.” I asked, “Have you?” He said, “No.” I met him again two months later, and he told me with great excitement that he had now been filled with the Spirit. What he and so many others in the church received was the presence and power of God to endure the Liberation War. When the war ended and the churches reopened, the church that had been 5,000 members was now 20,000.

What did the resurrection mean for the church in Zimbabwe? It meant that the darkest days of the war were only the prelude to the light of the resurrection. Even today, when Zimbabwe still struggles with economic problems that make life increasingly difficult, the resurrection reminds us that the darkness lasts only for a night, and joy comes in the morning.

I have lived in four countries – Zambia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and Canada. Each one of them has its problems and failures. I wonder sometimes if we have any real future. Human sin and conflict make life look almost hopeless. But Jesus rose from the dead, and his resurrection reminds us that no problem, no conflict in this world is hopeless. The war in Ukraine? Fears of climate change? Duelling judges in the United States? Politicians who care more about lining their own pocket than doing public good? They are all here, and Christ died to redeem each one of them. The resurrection is our evidence that Jesus can and will heal the world.

A friend of mine, Patrick Franklin (former theologian at providence Seminary), wrote the following Easter meditation:

What difference does the Resurrection of Jesus make? Christian belief in the resurrection is misunderstood and misguided if taken to imply a kind of escapist pipedream optimism, which distracts us for a short time … from the troubles, challenges, and sufferings we face in the world. … But this is not what characterized the earliest Christians who were witnesses and devotees of the Risen Jesus and whose experience of the Resurrection radically altered their existence. For them, the Resurrection meant that death does not have the last word, and therefore its instruments and servants – fear, despair, lies or untruth, sickness, poverty, egoism, apathy, hatred, violence, and the preservation of self and tribe by any means possible – are exposed as deceivers and destroyers. …

The Resurrection led the early Christians not into escapism and disengagement, but to enter villages and towns ravaged by sickness and plague to care for the sick and dying. To share their own resources – “everything they had” – among them “so that there were no needy persons among them” (Acts 4:32-35). …

The Resurrections means . . .

- That we will have conflict, but we are not to make enemies or return evil for evil.

- That we will face suffering, sacrifice, and death, but we are not to give in to despair or escapism. …

- That we will face the ‘will to power’ in our politicians, leaders, institutions, traditions, histories, fellow human beings, and – if we’re honest – in ourselves! – but we can also embrace the Spirit’s power to will the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, and to love our neighbours … as we love ourselves …

- That we will feel alone, disconnected, divided, alienated, misunderstood, and hated, but we are not to become jaded, resentful, and suspicious, but to fix our vision … on the reconciliation that Christ [has] achieved, that we have been made brothers and sisters in Christ (whether we like each other or not), we are the Body of Christ, the household of God – a family defined not by blood ties and ethnocentric and xenophobic tribal loyalties, but by the “new birth,” by baptism, by love, by faith, and ultimately by the saving, reconciliatory act of God, our common Creator …

This holy Easter weekend, I choose … to align (and re-align) my vision – my faith, hope, and love – to the Risen Lord in light of the Resurrection of the Son of God. May the new creation that is dawning in him – by the Spirit’s presence and power – dawn more fully and powerfully in me; may it dawn more fully and powerfully in the church …; and may it dawn more fully and powerfully in the world, that we in all our created, beautiful diversity and multiplicity might be one in Spirit and in Truth. … 

So Also for Us

We have experienced our own struggles and hardships these past weeks, and all this is true for us as well. We come to see Jesus, and we find him risen from the dead! We come with our fears and frustrations, and he gives us new life and strength to forge ahead.

Thirty-two years ago, my father-in-law died on Easter Sunday. I remember the phone call. We were visiting my parents from Easter Weekend, and my mother woke us up early in the morning to say that Lois’ Dad had just died of cardiac arrest brought on by his cancer. We got up and packed and drove immediately to her home to be with her mother and family.

We had the funeral service and imagined her father singing in the choir in heaven. After the service, we drove to the cemetery. After the words of committal, they lowered the casket into the grave. As it was being lowered, I saw our younger son start to sing. He was about four years old, and his favourite song was “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” I stepped over to stop him, since I thought that was really not appropriate, and then I heard what he was singing. A song from Sunday School, “One, two three, Jesus loves me. Number four, more and more. Five, six, seven, we’re all going to heaven. Eight, nine, ten, he’s coming back again.”

I stepped back and let him sing. He had it right. Because Jesus lived and died and rose from the dead, we also live and die – and rise with him. And Jesus says to all of us, as he did to the women that morning, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers and sisters to go back home; there they will see me.” Or, as we sang it this morning, “Be not afraid. Sing out for joy. Alleluia! Christ is risen!”

Resurrection Sunday 2023

Steinbach Mennonite Church

Beginning Thoughts

1. God wants all people to be reconciled with God and with each other. God wants this reconciliation so much that Jesus died – and rose from the dead – to accomplish it. We live in the reality of this cosmic shift from death and alienation to life forever with God.

2. Text: Matthew 28: 1 to 10.

The Resurrection of Jesus

28 After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. ² 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. ³ His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. ⁴ For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. ⁵ But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. ⁶ He is not here, for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he^[a] lay. ⁷ Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead,^[b] and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” ⁸ So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples. ⁹ Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. ¹⁰ Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers and sisters to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

3. Remembering the resurrection of Jesus can become routine with annual Easter celebrations. Can you see with your inner eye what really happened that first Resurrection Sunday? How does what happened re-orient our lives and help us to live in a world where death appears to be in charge?

Resurrection!

The Lord is Risen! He is Risen indeed!

 

This phrase, repeated around the world in many different languages, reminds us of the defining moment on which all human history hinges. In Zimbabwe, I heard them sing, “Namhla uvukile!” In Greece, they cry, “Χριστός Ανέστη!” Some might say “Happy Easter!” Others might say nothing special, but even in our silence, this reality – that Jesus the Messiah died and rose from the dead – this reality changes everything. 

 

From the Scriptures 

Easter sermons are challenging. We have heard the story so often that the scripture passages go by us almost without our being aware. Listen to the Scriptures this morning. The passage from Isaiah (Isaiah 65: 17-25) is titled “The Glorious New Creation”. It gives us a picture of where we are going, of our final goal as God’s children. On the way, we walk in darkness and terror, but our goal is the new heavens and earth in which death and tears are destroyed forever and in which everyone is in perfect relationship with our Creator.

 

The death and resurrection of Jesus is the pivotal point in history that transforms darkness into light and terror into joy. The gospel passages tell the story of that great event.

 

We also read from John 20. The chapters leading up to John 20 tell how Jesus was arrested, tried, and killed. Chapter 20 is “the rest of the story” (John 20: 1-18). Jesus was killed the Friday before. Friday was day one, Saturday was day two. Sunday was the third day, and on the third day Jesus rose from the dead.

 

The story continues with Mary Magdalene, who had found life in the ministry of Jesus. She came to the tomb, carved into a hillside, and found the stone in front of the tomb rolled away. She called Peter and John.

 

Peter and John, who were very close to Jesus during his life, came to the tomb where they had laid his body on Friday afternoon. They found the tomb empty. Just as we opened all the boxes this morning and found nothing there, they looked inside the tomb and found nothing there – except the light of God’s presence.

 

They didn’t know what this meant and left, but Mary hung around. She couldn’t leave. And then Jesus appeared to her. After a brief conversation, she realized that this was Jesus and fell at his feet to worship him. Jesus told her not to touch him yet and sent her off to tell the disciples he was alive again. [I’m not sure why Jesus told Mary, “Don’t touch me,” and then told Thomas later, “Touch me.” I have some ideas, but it is a puzzling circumstance.]

 

We could examine the story verse by verse, but this outline is enough for now. I want to struggle a bit with the overall story and what it means for us.

[A parenthesis: The details of John’s account differ from the details in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In Matthew, Mary and Mary were there; in Mark, Mary and Mary and Salome; in Luke, “the women” – which may mean more than the three named – were there. Other details also differ. Note that they differ in just the way that we would expect of eyewitness accounts. The gospel writers did not put their heads together to clean their story up, but they repeated what the eyewitnesses said. With all the confusion we would expect.]

  

What Would You Do? 

What would you do if a close friend and mentor died, but when you looked in the casket it was empty? Especially if you knew that the body had been there the night before. The natural conclusion is that someone took the body. That’s what Mary thinks. I suspect that’s what Peter and John thought too. They went back home. For what? Perhaps to think it over. Mary stayed there, grieving. When she saw Jesus, she assumed that he might know who took the body. Well, he knew alright!

 

Sometimes people think that Christians are a bit loopy with our talk of death and resurrection. Dead people don’t rise! The disciples agreed. They knew that dead bodies stay dead, and that’s why they responded as they did – with skepticism and doubts. Jesus appeared to them many times over the next month or so. They took some convincing!

 

One of the most remarkable things about the gospel passages is that trained historians tell us that the accounts look simply factual. They are not fabricated stories, and they don’t look like mass hallucination or lies. They simply tell what happened. But if the resurrection really happened, if Jesus died and rose from the dead, then reality itself is the story of death leading to life. 

 

Competing Narratives 

Let’s think about this for a bit.

 

Many people today think that life is essentially meaningless. You do whatever feels good for the moment, because when it’s all over it’s just over. Some people with this view are quite happy. They live their lives pursuing their desires, and that’s enough. In the end, however, I think this view leads to darkness and a loss of meaning.

 

Consider world events. Russia invades Ukraine. The Russian Army targets civilians and basic infrastructure. This pattern takes place all over the world. Those who come from the Eastern Congo could tell us stories of armed men who kill ruthlessly and destroy anyone who stands in their way. Those who come from northwest China could tell us stories of how the Chinese government has tried to eradicate the Uighur people. Our own history makes clear that the lust for power leads governments to act in ways that lead to darkness.

 

It is possible, given the random nature of these acts of violence, to conclude that the essence of reality is nothing more than violence. The teachings of Jesus make little sense in this kind of world. Christians really have no place. Our talk of peace and love sounds nice, but where do we stand when the Russian Army devastates the city of Mariupol.

 

A lot of popular culture builds on this view of reality. It may be music that glorifies guns and violence, or video games that do the same; it may be movies that we say are “realistic”: They show how random and brutal life is. Many movies depict the end of our world in some apocalyptic fashion. I plugged “apocalyptic movies” into a search engine and came up with a website titled “100 Best Disaster, Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic Movies.” None of which I have seen, but they illustrate our fascination with violence and an unpleasant end.

 

Behind all of this is the idea that all of reality is no more than the natural physical material around us. Life is no more than a biological phenomenon on a planet that will eventually grow cold and circulate a dead sun forever. En joy what you can while you can, because it will all die.

 

Easter Sunday – the resurrection of Jesus – builds a competing narrative, one of possibilities and hope that lie within the violence and destruction of our world. When we examine it, we find that there is a lot of evidence to show that it fits the reality of our world. Consider some examples.

Where does a diamond come from?

How does a butterfly become a butterfly?

What is the manure that fertilizes plants?

Where does an oak tree come from?

Consider the process of human birth, coming from people who will all die.

In every case, you have something that undergoes a process of death and decay, leading to the fact of new birth and life.

 

Different religions have found different ways to express this reality. The idea of reincarnation in Hinduism is one. The stories of a dying and rising God in several ancient religions are another. We see this basic reality every spring when winter finally releases its hold and new life bursts forth. That new life is almost always something that grows out of the death of something else. Oak trees grow from acorns that fell off the parent true. Waste material is turned into fertilizer, which helps plants to grow. Butterflies leave the cocoon made by the caterpillar, something like the worm making its own coffin.

 

And then we hear the story of Jesus, a man who identified completely as God and died – and then rose from the dead. Someone has said that the resurrection of Jesus is “myth become fact”. What they mean is this: The idea of death giving birth to life is a deep and powerful idea, which helps us recognize the good that grows out of difficult experiences. And in the case of Jesus, it simply happened. It is no longer just a good idea that we can draw on in our thinking; it is in fact what happened.

 

Jesus died, and Jesus rose with new life. God joins each of us in the hardest experience of all – our own deaths, and God invites us to follow Jesus into new life that lasts forever. 

 

Our Focus Statement 

Each Sunday, we have a focus statement that guides the formation of the whole service. You see our focus statement for today: “As we seek God’s way, we move from the confidence of knowing how things are to the unsettling openness of realizing God’s ways are beyond what we can imagine.”

 

You might think that this means people are confident in their ability to explain reality in a positive way, but I think it simply means people are confident in their ability to explain reality. Their explanation may be positive or negative, but they know what’s really going on. Or they think they know.

 

We see this certainty on all sides of the issues that face our world. Progressives and conservatives share an absolute confidence that they see the world as it truly is, and nothing you can say will change their minds. But this certainty is self-defeating. Reality is more complex than our minds can grasp. That is the basic problem with the negative worldview I described earlier. We see how bad things are happening and we worry about how far the war will spread. And we project our own fears onto a screen in which the final reality is only death. 

 

Back to the Disciples, Back to Us 

That is where the disciples were. They knew that Jesus had died, and it took a lot to persuade them that he was alive again. Mary knew that Jesus had died. And then he spoke her name; he spoke into her soul.

 

This is also where we are. We hear the news of the world, and we face the problems of our lives. It seems that God is not a factor anymore. We hear someone say, “God is dead,” and we think they must be right. Then Jesus speaks into our soul and speaks our name. And someone tells us, “He is risen!” Do you realize what we are saying with that statement?

 

I think of my friend’s death. He died a few months ago. Twelve years ago, we had a falling out, and we never spoke again. I grieve his passing, and I had not chance to make things right. But the resurrection says that’s not the end of the story. I see no hope in his death, but Jesus gives hope that he and I will celebrate together in the presence of God.

 

I think of the destruction of Mariupol. What hope can there be in such terrible hate and despair? I see no way that anything good can come from that war. But the resurrection says that’s not the end of the story. Jesus gives hope that life can come back even into the destruction of Mariupol. I don’t see the way forward, but the unsettling openness of God’s future promises even the possibility of new life there.

 

I think of a celebrated pastor in my denomination of origin. After a highly successful pastoral ministry, he had to resign earlier this year because of problems with sexual harassment. Those who are sure they know what is real say, “You see! We knew you’re all fakes!” Jesus confronts their certainty that everything is rotten and opens up possibilities for repentance and healing, the real possibility of new life. 

 

Conclusion 

I don’t know how all of this works, but I have met the Risen Lord for myself. I have had my own times of darkness and my own fears that border on certainty, and Jesus dispelled them. When I say to you, “Christ is Risen!” – and when you reply – “Christ is Risen indeed!”, we are refusing to be bound by our own limited reality. We are opening ourselves to the deeper reality that lies behind the universe itself – that death is itself the path to eternal life and that we can join Christ on this path. Every one of us will die, and Jesus invites every one of us to live again with his life forever.

 

 

Steinbach Mennonite Church 

17 April 2022