This morning at Parkrose Community United Church of Christ we celebrated the Resurrection during our Easter Service. The New Testament reading was John 20:1-18.
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My sermon notes are also below:
What do we want to take away from this moment?
Together we join in celebration and give praise to God for the gift of new life. For the Disciples and other original followers of Jesus the meaning of Resurrection must have been obvious: Jesus, taken and killed by the Roman Empire was a child of God – a God more influential than any human empire - and when Jesus appeared anew to his followers after the crucifixion it was confirmation to them that not even death could separate them from the power and love of God.
God did not – and does not – wield power with the all too human interests of control and dominance as paramount desires. God seeks rather to reconcile us to God and to one another and to use us to build up God’s Kingdom. And what does the Kingdom look like? It is a place where (as we read in Isaiah 11:6-9 NRSV):
The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
That is to say the Kingdom is a place of peace and justice, a place that is opposite from the human order – then and now. Today you might say the Kingdom is a place where the Palestinians and the Israelis, or we Americans and the Taliban, would live together in peace as brothers and sisters, all reconciled.
For some, all you need to know (or believe) about Easter is contained in an ancient creed – like the Apostles’ Creed, which reads (and I bet some of you can even cite this passage from memory):
I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come again to judge the living and the dead.
For us as a modern people it is sometimes difficult to believe in a literal bodily resurrection and if you come here today with doubts about whether or not the physically literally took place you are not alone.
Some churches, of course, demand fidelity to the creeds or a certain understanding of theology. In many churches simply to open up a debate over the meaning of resurrection would be considered heresy. If we were, for example, in a Southern Baptist (or any other more theologically conservative) congregation this morning the pastor would most likely be preaching that you need to believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus to be a Christian.
In fact, last year Albert Mohler, the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote that:
“belief in the bodily resurrection is not merely foundational, according to Scripture, it is essential. As Paul argues in Romans 10:9, the Gospel comes down to this: "if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
The Gospel comes down to this? That’s it? For Dr. Mohler strict adherence to human doctrine has replaced divine wisdom.
First, let me say that Albert Mohler probably misinterprets Paul. Paul, like all those who encountered the risen Jesus, encountered something that was not merely human. The risen Jesus could go unnoticed and walk through walls. Paul, in fact, says in Galatians 1:15-16 “that God had chose to ‘reveal his son in me,’” as translated by New Testament scholar Stephen Patterson in The God of Jesus.
More importantly, I’d argue to you this Easter morning that what form the resurrection took place in is less important than the fact that it took place and what it symbolizes. Did people encounter the Risen Jesus? Did Mary Magdalene and the Disciples see Jesus and speak with him that first Easter morning as we read in Scripture today? Of that, I have no doubt.
As Dr. Patterson writes:
The claim that God raised Jesus from the dead is not presented in the New Testament as a historical reality, but as a rupture in history. That is the point of the earthquakes and the darkening skies, the general chaos and disordering that comes as part of the gospels’ accounts of Jesus’ death. Here the steady march of history is broken. The resurrection is presented as God’s breaking into history in order to redeem a life prematurely ended by historical forces and, in so doing, to redeem history itself from its demonic rebellion against God made know in that gracious, gentle life. History says that Jesus’ life and work came to an end. Christian faith claims that it did not. Herein lies the decision of Christian faith. (Patterson, The God of Jesus, p. 238)
What prompted Dr. Mohler to make his statement that only a belief in the bodily resurrection would do was his angst about a statement made by Anglican (and noted orthodox theologian) N. T. Wright. Bishop Wright had said, in a 2006 newspaper interview concerning Marcus Borg, the Oregon State University New Testament scholar, that:
Marcus Borg really does not believe Jesus Christ was bodily raised from the dead. But I know Marcus well: he loves Jesus and believes in him passionately. The philosophical and cultural world he has lived in has made it very, very difficult for him to believe in the bodily resurrection. I actually think that's a major problem and it affects most of whatever else he does, and I think that it means he has all sorts of flaws as a teacher, but I don't want to say he isn't a Christian.
Dr. Mohler huffs and puffs. He can hardly stand what Wright is saying. Mohler demands: “How then can Bishop Wright even entertain the notion that (Borg) is a genuine Christian?”
I find fault with Bishop Wright’s adherence to orthodoxy as much as I find Dr. Mohler’s infatuation with fundamentalism distasteful. But here is the difference: Bishop Wright approaches his theology with humility. He is - no question about it - certain about his beliefs. Yet he does not assume so much as to be able to strip those he disagrees with of their title as Christians. Bishop Wright has a generous heart and from that all of us so certain about our own beliefs can learn a lesson.
In the end, tests of faith are less important than our testimonies of faith…the ways we live out the Gospel teachings
As convinced as I am that the Disciples and others encounter the Risen Jesus just after the crucifixion, I am certain that we can encounter him today. Easter is an on-going experience. We encounter Jesus in worship, during prayer, through stories in Scripture, and through music.
“Death is natural. Loss is natural. Grief is natural,” writes Barbara Brown Taylor. “ But those stones have been rolled away this happy morning, to reveal the highly unnatural truth. By the light of this day, God has planted a seed of life in us that cannot be killed, and if we remember that then there is nothing we cannot do: move mountains, banish fear, love our enemies, change the world.” (Barbara Brown Taylor, Home By Another Way, pg. 111-112)
The Risen Jesus had one message for his first followers: preach!
Jesus lived a truly authentic life that expressed for us in tangible ways what being in relationship with God meant and what the Kingdom should be about. His life was about preparing humanity for a life that could be better, one centered in love of God, and the Risen Jesus called out his Disciples to carry forth with that work. Even now, we are called forth to build up the Kingdom, that peaceable place we read about in Isaiah were all of creation lives in harmony.
Too often we make the mistake of thinking we can rest because we are saved. Such thinking ignores that Jesus himself prays to God that “thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” What we do here matters and if in this age of war and global warming you doubt that for a moment look into the eyes of the children here today. Today matters! Today matters!
What do we want to take away from this moment?
We can be joyful that even in death we are not abandoned by God but are in fact called to everlasting life.
We can be awed by the mystery of faith and thankful we have others to journey with us.
And we can walk away from this place once again hearing God’s call to us to be a people out in the world preaching of the coming Kingdom.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
Amen.
