Resurrection Power and Love

Sermon titles are curious things. Sometimes they are meant to be punchy and grab your attention. I remember a sermon on Acts 1:5-8 (wait in Jerusalem for the promised Holy Spirit) – the title was “Don’t just do something. Stand there!” The opposite of our inclination, since we have been taught from our early days to get to work rather than stand around.

This morning’s title is matter of fact, straight out of the conference materials: “Resurrection Power and Love”. Why would we have so simple a sermon title? Because the core of our faith is a simple though astonishing truth. Because we celebrate God’s power and love, manifested in the resurrection of Jesus. That is our title this morning. That is the reason we worship together (however separated physically we might be) every Sunday.

In the darkness and distress of our lives, a light shines out, bringing us hope and joy. Jesus is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

Consider our texts this morning.

Psalm 118

Psalm 118 is well-loved for its first four verses. The affirmation, “His love endures forever”, rings out to all people everywhere. In the Psalm, it is those who fear the Lord, the Levites and the Children of Israel, who shout this praise. Today, it is all of us who say together, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.”

In the first church, however, another verse stood out even more prominently. “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the LORD has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes.” This verse was repeated often as evidence that Jesus was indeed the Messiah (see Mt 21: 42, Mk 12: 10-11, and Lk 20: 17; also Acts 4: 11, Eph 2: 21, and 1 Peter 2: 4-8). Further, Jesus demonstrated his messiahship by dying and rising. Jesus saved those in distress by dying and rising. In his death, Jesus was rejected; in his resurrection he became the cornerstone of the true temple of God, God’s people!

Matthew 28

In Matthew 28, we hear the story of that resurrection. Early Sunday morning – just after the Sabbath – Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” went to the tomb. [Of course, that this took place on Sunday morning is the reason that Christians worship on Sunday, rather than on the Sabbath. The disciples were used to worshipping on the Sabbath – they were good Jews – but came to worship on the day after, Sunday, in memory of the defi9ning event of their lives – the resurrection.] Just to look. Perhaps to grieve. Their grief was shattered by an earthquake and completely dispelled by an angel bright and strong as lightning. The guards, who might have otherwise chased the women away, were terrified. We would say, “They made themselves scarce.” The angel comforted the women and showed them the empty grave. Then the angel told them to give the word that Jesus had risen to his disciples. They left to do this, and Jesus met them on the way – leading to renewed fear and awe. Again, Jesus comforted them and reaffirmed the mandate to tell his disciples.

The details of the story are interesting. The women were to tell the disciples to go to Galilee. Where then did Jesus meet the disciples in the other gospel accounts? Who is “the other Mary”? In John’s gospel, only Mary Magdalene is mentioned; Matthew names Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary”; Mark names the other Mary as the mother of James and adds Salome (who may also have been named Mary); Luke refers simply to the women – and then later names “Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them”. The common thread is that the women were first at the grave, but there is not clarity on how many. Just as we would expect from real eyewitness reports.

These details are worth looking at carefully in some other setting, where we might try to get at the event of the resurrection as a news story, getting all of the facts straight. Matthew has a different concern. He wants us to know that the women were first, that the angel appeared to them – and to the soldiers, chasing the soldiers away, and giving the women a mandate. Jesus also appeared first to the women and gave them the same mandate – to tell the disciples he had risen and that he was ready to meet them.

Most of all, Matthew wants us to know that Jesus rose from the dead. In the verses after our text, the soldiers run to the religious leaders and tell them what had happened. The religious leaders recognize trouble when they see it, and they immediately devise a plan – spread the word that Jesus’ disciples had raided the tomb and taken the body of Jesus.

Did the Resurrection Happen?

Through the centuries, people have challenged the reality of the resurrection. The religious leaders in our text spread the word that it never happened. They saw a threat to their control of society, so they rejected the miracle in favour of their own interests. It’s a common response. Many people find it hard to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. In online discussions between atheists and Christians, the resurrection is a primary point of attack on Christian faith. Is it likely, the sceptic asks, that one person alone in all history came back from the dead? We know that dead bodies don’t rise. Why should we make an exception in this case?

Various alternatives to a real resurrection have been suggested. Some say that Jesus swooned on the cross and came to in the tomb. He didn’t really die, so he didn’t really rise. Taking their cue from the religious leaders of the time, some say that his disciples stole the body and made up the stories of his resurrection. Others are not willing to call the disciples simply liars. Instead, they suggest that the disciples wanted Jesus back so desperately that they had a mass hallucination. One after another, they thought that they saw him, and in their collective psychosis they believed he had risen from the dead.

None of these alternatives fit the facts. They superimpose the readers’ fears or desires on the text and fail to hear the gospel writers. The gospel writers tell of disciples who were so afraid when Jesus was executed that they ran for their lives and hid. After the resurrection, they came out and spoke boldly in public about the crucifixion and resurrection. The way that Peter challenged the religious leaders in Acts 2 is telling: “You killed him, but God raised him from the dead!” Such courage and directness do not flow naturally from people who are lying or psychologically troubled; it makes more sense to say that they had met the risen Lord.

I have used this story before at Easter, but it is worth hearing again. C.S. Lewis was once an atheist. In his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, he describes his journey from faith in atheism to faith in God and in Jesus. He tells how a fellow atheist unintentionally undermined his belief that the gospel record could not be trusted. His friend was a history tutor at Oxford, and they were talking together after supper. Here is how Lewis describes it:

Early in 1926 the hardest boiled of all the atheists I ever knew sat in my room on the other side of the fire and remarked that the evidence for the historicity of the Gospels was really surprisingly good. “Rum thing,” he went on. “All that stuff of Frazer’s about the dying god. Rum thing. It almost looks as if it had really happened once.” (223f)

The history tutor recognized the characteristic mark of eyewitness accounts, in which the overall story is clear, but different witnesses remember different things from the event – such as the names and number of the women at the tomb.

Lewis recognized what his friend did not – that if the Gospel accounts were true, Jesus rose from the dead; and that if Jesus rose from the dead, the Gospel claims for Jesus are true. Jesus is the Son of God, one with God, the Saviour of the world. We cannot explore the debates about the resurrection this morning, but I can tell you what I think. As Lewis’ friend, the atheist historian, said, the gospel accounts are reliable and accurate history. Or as Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 15, the resurrection is the fundamental truth of Christian faith. He adds: “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

A further consequence follows. If the resurrection really happened, the world is very different than most people think. Most people think that power is stronger than love and that when someone attacks us, we fight back. We give lip service to the power of love, but when you’re in trouble you find out what you really believe. You may say, “Love conquers all”, but you find out what you really believe when a crisis strikes.

The pandemic that is now sweeping the globe is one such crisis. One response among our American neighbours is that gun sales have spiked. Seeing that spike leads me to wonder about myself. It is good for each of us to examine ourselves. Do we rely on God and trust in the power of love? Or do we want some exercise of political power or other human power to deliver us?

Jesus shows us a different path. Jesus shows us how great his love is by dying on the cross as an expression of God’s love for us. Then Jesus shows us how great the power of sacrificial love is by rising from the grave.

Such truths cannot be grasped by scholarly debates about history or by sceptics trying to protect their own turf. We sing them better than we say them. We sing the great hymns of Easter, which speak these truths better than I can. One such hymn is sung in Poland. [Look in YouTube for Oto Sa Baranki.] Here is part of the hymn, courtesy of Google Translate from the Polish original. I have tried to make sense of the words, since a computer translation can be rather strange!

Here are the young lambs, here are those who call Hallelujah!

They have come to the springs, filled with light, singing Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

At the festivities of the Lord’s Lamb, in pure white Christmas robes,

After sea waters filled with blood we sing songs of deepest joy.

In his eternal love He heals us with his Blood,

He gives us His pure body, Christ the priest sacrifices himself.

Sprinkled with holy blood on the door, the Angel avenger is rising fearfully,

The separated sea rushes, and He devours his enemies in their currents.

…

O holy sacrifice of heaven; you overcome the power of hell

You break the heavy tethers of death; you earn the wreath of life for us.

Christ has conquered hell, His victory shines over all;

Heaven has opened to us, and the king of darkness he imprisons. 

…

You have your own favourite Easter hymns. Every Easter Sunday, we sing, “Low in the grave he lay.” I remember singing this hymn at a sunrise service a few years ago, as a man across the aisle suffered a heart attack. While a nurse from our congregation cared for him in the pew, we sang of victory over death until the ambulance crew arrived. Death is strong, but Jesus is stronger! Jesus has conquered death and hell and we have the power of his resurrection flowing in us, so that we can love God and love each other forever.

Conclusion

We live in an uncertain time, but the truth is that Jesus is risen!

We don’t know what our jobs will look like next year or the year after, but the truth is Jesus is risen!

We know that loved ones will die and that young people will marry and that some of us will have new children and grandchildren, and in all of this the truth is that Jesus is risen!

We don’t know if we will have too much rain or too little, or how well our crops will grow, but the truth is Jesus is risen!

We do not need to live in fear of what will happen today or tomorrow. Just as the angel said to the women, and just as Jesus said to the women, “Don’t be afraid. Go tell the people you meet that Jesus is alive and wants to see them too!” Our Anabaptist forebears used the expression that we are walking in the resurrection, much like Paul in Romans 6:4, “we walk in newness of life”. That is our joy, our love, our power this morning – the love and power of the resurrection.

Steinbach Mennonite Church

Resurrection Sunday

12 April 2020

Scriptures

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

¹ Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever. ² Let Israel say: “His love endures forever.” ….

¹⁴ The Lord is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation. ¹⁵ Shouts of joy and victory resound in the tents of the righteous: “The Lord’s right hand has done mighty things! ¹⁶ The Lord’s right hand is lifted high; the Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!” ¹⁷ I will not die, but live, and will proclaim what the Lord has done.

¹⁸ The Lord has chastened me severely, but he has not given me over to death. ¹⁹ Open for me the gates of the righteous; I will enter and give thanks to the Lord.  ²⁰ This is the gate of the Lord through which the righteous may enter.

²¹ I will give you thanks, for you answered me; you have become my salvation. ²² The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; ²³ the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes. ²⁴ The Lord has done it this very day; let us rejoice today and be glad.

Matthew 28:1-10

Jesus Has Risen

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. ² There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. ³ His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. ⁴ The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

⁵ 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; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. ⁷ Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”

⁸ So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. ⁹ Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. ¹⁰ Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

Focus statement

Show us, one more time, the extent of your power over death. Show us how you can help us turn our present circumstances, world situations, and our hearts into the miracles of new life.

Think About It

Have you ever felt as though life has no future in it? What gives you the courage to continue when everything feels hopeless? How can light shine in the darkness?

Shame, Guilt, and Fear

Recently a friend of mine commented on the way that the church and American society use shame, guilt and fear to influence behaviour. He suggested that there might be other more positive means of encouraging people to do what is right and avoid what is wrong.

His comments jogged my own thinking to consider more fully the place of shame, honour, and fear in our own culture as well as in the church. I am not a psychologist nor an anthropologist, so I set these thoughts down well aware that I go beyond my own expertise. I am confident that those who know better than I can correct and overstatements or misstatements I make here.

First thought: Shame, honour, and fear have both negative and positive uses. Second thought: Different societies use these forms of social control in different ways. Third thought: Scripture has examples of all three, both in their positive and in their negative manifestation.

Positive and Negative Forms of Shame, Guilt, and Fear

I have heard many discussions of shame that label it as a purely negative process. Brené Brown, for example, has some excellent descriptions of negative shame, and I commend her work for the way that she has given us ways to avoid toxic shame. Her web page contains the statement, “Dr. Brené Brown is a research professor who has spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy.”

At the same time, shame functions positively to help us avoid actions that would be destructive of our own identity or of our family’s honour. Shame and honour correlate: The appeal to honour is in fact a positive form of the use of shame. If we describe someone as shameless, we are not complimenting them. To be shameless is also to be without honour.

In our culture (I write as a North American), we have seen an awareness of guilt as a better quality than shame. A thought experiment: If you found a wad of money lying on the ground – obviously someone has lost it, do we pick it up and keep it or do we look for the owner. Someone with a shame-orientation is more likely to look for the owner if others are watching. Someone with a strong guilt-orientation is more likely to look for the owner if he/she believes that’s the right thing to do.

But guilt is not always a positive force in our lives. People can be wracked with guilt when they have no good reason to be. I know people who have felt guilty for “telling a lie” when in fact they simply gave out the wrong information, believing it to be true. Being wrong is not something we need to feel guilty for; it is an opportunity to learn, not a sin to be confessed.

In our culture, fear is probably held to be worse than either shame or guilt. Fear often goes with superstition: One avoids the number 13, or walking under a ladder, or some other behaviour because it is thought to lead to bad luck. In this respect, fear is a more spiritual orientation, suspecting that bad things outside of our control lurk around the corner.

But fear can be a healthy approach to life. Fear of contracting the coronavirus (as I write these words in April 2020) is rational and helps us to make good choices about our behaviour. Irrational “courage” is a worse basis for behaviour than rational fear.

Shame, Guilt, and Fear in Culture

My field is the study of Christian missions. In my studies, I have found a Christian website on shame and honour to be helpful in understanding guilt, shame, and fear in cultural perspective. This website includes a culture test to help one determine which of these three orientations – shame and honour, guilt and innocence, fear and power – is most active in our lives. When I took the test, I was about 80% guilt and innocence, 10% shame and honour, and 10% fear and power. I am a good North American of my age and background!

I have had a number of South Americans from a German background in my classes. When they take the test, they tend have a significantly higher score on the shame and honour. I have had several people from Southeast Asia and from Africa, who tend to have a higher score on fear and power. Asians in general are more tuned in to shame and honour than North Americans and North Europeans.

All of this is to say that the way these dynamics operate in our lives is largely a function of our cultural background. As I observe this simple truth (a straightforward given for students of culture), I realise some of the strengths and weaknesses that go with each orientation. Those attuned to guilt and innocence are often strongly inner-directed to do what is right; they are also highly individualistic and resist the authority of community. Those attuned to shame and honour value community highly and seek social harmony: the good of all. They are also more likely to act in ways that violate the more individualistic person’s sense of right and wrong. Those attuned to fear and power are sensitive to the spiritual realities of the world around us; they can also be afraid of those realities and use power to benefit their own social group unfairly.

Some cautions. These are all generalizations and prove false if taken too far. Further, everyone has some mixture of all three orientations at work in their lives. Besides, generational changes can shift the balance of orientations in any given society. For example, younger people in North America (those who might say to me, “OK, Boomer”) have a stronger orientation towards shame and honour than people in our society of my age do. Witness the phenomenon of shaming on social media – carried to an extent that children of the 60s simply don’t do.

There are also conundrums that I don’t understand in the way our culture works. Younger people – millennials, if you prefer the term – use shame more than previous generations; they are also more individualistic than previous generations. Perhaps their use of shame and honour is actually a move to reclaim a sense of belonging in community. (See the work of Jean Twenge on the phenomenon of hyper-individualism in our society, for example, in Generation Me.)

These Orientations and Scripture

It is tempting to lift up one of these orientations as better than the others, or to say that only one side of the pairings is good. In fact, Scripture uses all of them and I give only a few examples as illustrations. One can develop a worthwhile Bible study by examining each pairing in turn to see how Scripture has used them.

Fear and Power:

Romans 1:16, I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for all who believe. We might think that Romans stresses guilt and innocence, since many have tended to read the letter through a forensic lens, but we see in the introduction Paul’s awareness that Sin is a power and that God’s power released in the gospel is greater.

1 John 4: 17f, In this way, love has been perfected among us, so that we may have confidence on the day of judgment; for in this world we are just like Him. There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. The one who fears has not been perfected in love. Here, John links fear with judgment, and gives God’s love as the greatest power of all.

Shame and Honour:

Romans 1:16, I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for all who believe. We see again that Paul, so far from thinking primarily in terms of guilt and innocence, combined a fear-power orientation with a shame-honour orientation.

The Lord’s Prayer: Your name … Your kingdom … Your will … For the kingdom and the power and the glory are yours … This is profoundly honour-oriented language. The Psalms are full of such language. The Heavens declare the glory of God … Jesus says that at the judgment he will be ashamed of those who in this life are ashamed of him.

Guilt and Innocence:

The first eight chapters of Romans are an extended discussion of every person’s failure to live by God’s standards. For all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory. Yet even here, one notes that the language of glory belongs more fully to shame and honour than to guilt and innocence.

I find that this orientation, which is fully present in Scripture, is less present than we think. The Bible uses all three orientations and thus speaks to people in every culture.

Conclusion

Where am I going with all of this? Partly, I just find it interesting. Partly, I want to encourage us to use all three orientations appropriately where we live. Partly, I want to say that the use of these categories – shame, guilt, and fear – has a proper place in our lives. Their best use is found in the quote above from 1 John 4: “Perfect love casts out fear.” Their best use is to draw us to God’s love, where true life and health is found for every person in every culture.