Roll back the stone

Scripture Lessons: Psalm 114 and Matthew 28: 1-10 Sermon Title: Roll back the stone Preached on April 16, 2017 Today is the most important day of the Christian Calendar because today we celebrate Christ’s victory over death, but today also brings with it one of the most challenging claims Christianity makes. Namely, that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Not everybody believes that. Old time preachers used to have this expression – cafeteria Christians – folks who treat their faith the same way they treat the line at Bucky’s saying: “yes, I’ll have a little bit of grace and charity. I’d like a big piece of love your neighbor as yourself, but I’ll stay away from any of the radical stuff. And I just don’t have the stomach for anything that doesn’t make rational sense. I have a supernatural intolerance you see.” That’s what some people do. They only take what they can handle. These are good, rational people who read through the Gospels and see that Christ was a wise teacher worthy of admiration, but they can’t seem to take that step to believe that he rose from the dead. Thomas Jefferson was a cafeteria Christian. He was known to have admired Christ and his teachings, and so he took his Bible and his scissors and he left in the teachings of Christ he most admired, literally cut out the parts of the story he couldn’t believe and made for himself what today is known as the Jefferson Bible – a version which of course leaves out the resurrection. Not everyone believes in a bodily resurrection. Not everyone believes in it today, not everyone did back in 1776, and even on Easter morning 2,000 years ago, not everyone believed that Jesus would rise from the dead. Certainly, the disciples didn’t. You can tell from how our Second Scripture Lesson began, that the disciples did not believe he would rise from the dead on that Easter morning nearly 2,000 years ago and we know that they didn’t because they’re nowhere near the tomb, they’re nowhere near anything having to do with Jesus at this point, because they’re sure he’s just been killed by the Romans and that any one of them could be next. It’s only these two brave women who go to the tomb. And do you know why they went? They went, not to greet a resurrected Lord, but to anoint a dead body for burial. Now why would that be? Why would those who followed him and listened to him and knew him by name -these men who left their boats and their families to go fish for people -these disciples whom he told: “I will die, but will rise again” – why would they not have been waiting right outside his tomb on the 3rd day to greet their resurrected Lord? Why? For the same reason that these Marys go to the tomb not to greet a living savior but to anoint a dead body – it’s because they, like so many of us, hold the power of God captive by our own rational minds, our own meager expectations, and our own understanding of what is possible and what isn’t. We get so good at thinking we know what can’t be done and what God can’t do, that we fail to take God at his word. So how is it that Thomas Jefferson had faith enough to believe that 13 threadbare colonies could defeat the British Empire but wouldn’t believe that God could raise a man from the dead? It’s because we all reduce God down to our own understanding of what’s possible. Doing so might seem rational, but it’s foolish. It’s faithless too. So why do I keep doing it? At the suggestion of my friend Lee Maddox, last Sunday I encouraged all of you to invite someone to come here with you this Easter morning – but I never thought you’d do it. We just don’t have enough Baptists for something like that. Presbyterians don’t do that… or so I thought until I walked in this sanctuary. It seems that today – this Easter – I must learn the same lesson again: that I must not limit the power of God according to my own rational mind, my own meager expectation, my own understanding of what God can do and what God cannot. We can’t be so bold to believe that we know! And especially we can’t be so bold to believe that he can’t do what he said he would. The angel told the two Marys: “He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said.” Too often we are these women. All we hope for is to anoint a body for burial. All we hope for is to get through another day. All we hope for is scraping by, accepting our lot, getting used to the pain. Sometimes it seems we are like a small child, afraid to look at her knee after the band-aid has been pulled away though the wound has healed. We stopped hoping long ago, and got used to being hurt. Or we gave up on happiness and learned to sleep in the bed we’d made. And then we stood at the tomb and said good-bye, too meek to believe that the words he said might actually be true. But see – God, as God always does, gives to his children, not the greatest gift that they can imagine, but the gift that he promised us which is so glorious that we wouldn’t dare imagine it. Roll away the stone and see what God has done. Roll away the stone to see that you – even you are loved and forgiven. Roll away the stone to see the new life you never thought you’d have. Roll away the stone to see that this everlasting life is real and that you can have it today just as he said. Roll away the stone to see – that he is risen. He is risen indeed. Amen.