He Is Risen!

Scripture Lessons: Psalm 114 and Matthew 28: 1-10 Sermon Title: He is Risen! Preached on April 12, 2020 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. Thomas Jefferson didn’t. He was what some would call a cafeteria Christian. Like going through the line at Piccadilly, picking and choosing, 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. Of course, this version, called the Jefferson Bible 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 were sure he’d been killed by the Romans and were afraid 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, the men who left their boats and their families to go fish for people, the crowds who saw him give the blind their sight or multiply loaves and fishes, his closest disciples whom he told: “I will die, but will rise again,” the women who knew he had raised their brother from the dead, why would they not have been waiting right outside his tomb on the 3rd day to greet their resurrected Lord? Why? It’s because they, like so many of us, hold the power of God captive by our own minds, our own meager expectations, our own fear, and our own understanding of what is possible and what isn’t. We get so good at thinking we know, that we fail to take God at his word, which is a strange thing to do. Strange, because it’s not as though we don’t have imaginations. It’s not as though we only act based on what is certain and sure. Thomas Jefferson had faith enough to believe that 13 threadbare colonies could defeat the British Empire, which must have sounded impossible at the time. Not three weeks ago our President declared that our churches would be full by Easter Sunday, though the experts told him it was impossible. And today, everyone guards themselves from a virus that they cannot see yet talk with them about the Resurrected Lord and many are like the Disciple Thomas saying, “I’ve got to see it to believe.” We don’t have to see everything to believe, so I wonder, could it be that we are better at fear than faith? Both fear and faith are based on what is not seen. Only we’re so well versed in worry and so uncomfortable with hope that people talk about a leap of faith rather than a leap of fear, as though being negative were any more material than optimism. Mark Twain once said, “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.” I’ve hoped for a lot of things that never happened too, but still I worry, still, I fear. I’ve been locked away in my house like those disciples, not expecting the moment when the anti-virus is discovered or the cure is found but instead, preparing myself with a store of dried beans for the moment when it’s no longer safe to even go to the grocery store. Here’s my confession: I’ve been filling in the gaps of my knowledge with negative assumptions. Pessimistic fairy tales. I do it even when I’m up here, in this pulpit. I can’t hear you laugh, so there’s a part of me that has assumed my jokes aren’t funny. Someone suggested we pipe in a laugh track like those old 80’s sitcoms. Maybe that would help? Maybe we’ll do that. I’m just kidding. That was a joke, but I can’t tell whether or not you can tell that was a joke because I can’t see your faces, I can’t tell where my words are landing, and after preaching to this empty room for weeks at some point in the sermon I assume you’ve wandered from the live stream to shop for toilet paper on Amazon.com. What’s wrong with me? Because I’m out of the circle I assume I’m being left out, which is like thinking that because no on is coming over to the house, no one likes us anymore. That doesn’t make any sense. Does it? So, I tell you, we can’t just question our faith. We also must scrutinize our fears for they’re not rooted in facts either. We are not connected, but does a lack of connection feel the same as rejection? When you don’t have all the information, do you jump to conspiracy? In a moment when you’re not able to do what you usually do, do you assume that it’s not getting done? Do you imagine that if you’re not there no one will be? The disciples didn’t know where he was, so they assumed he was dead. The two Mary’s went to a tomb, spices in hand, to anoint a body for burial assuming they would find a corpse. When it wasn’t there, they assumed someone had stolen it. When they felt the earthquake and saw an angel, they assumed they should be afraid. The assumptions are piling up now, yet a pile of assumptions doesn’t equal a single fact. Why would we be people, who live our lives dismissing hope while acting on our fear, when all we really need to do is take God at his word? The angel told the two Marys: “He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said.” Too often we are these women, who at least are better than those disciples. In this time of isolation and social distancing, who hasn’t been afraid or downcast? What are we hoping for? What are we expecting? To anoint a body for burial? To get through another day? To scrape by, accept our lot, throw up our hands, give up and get used to it? If you are erring on the side of the negative, I ask you, “did you hear the words of the Psalm?” when Israel went out from Egypt they were met by the sea and assumed they were as good as dead, yet the sea fled before our God and they walked through on dry land. Why is it, O sea, that you flee? It is because ours is the Lord, whom the earth trembles before. Ours is the God who turns the rock into a pool of water. We must be bold to say that Ours is the God who bridges gaps, set prisoners free, and works out his purpose in the midst of a viral pandemic. Just look. Look at the empty tomb. There we see that 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. Don’t guess, don’t fear. Look into the tomb and see that he is not dead but risen. Notice the cloth thrown to the side, for up from slumber he rose to new life. And we will rise too. We have to remember that. He has risen that we might rise too. If there is one word we might use to describe this day it is resurrection. A resurrection hope that when the sun sets on this strange season, a new day will dawn when we’ll actually appreciate the chance to see people we love. Hope that when we don’t have to be social distant, we’ll strive for unity rather than division. Hope that rather than apathy we will take on purpose. Not despair, but joy. That we will no more take what we used to call normal for granted, when every day is a gift and every moment precious. When I see your faces again, I don’t know what I’ll do, but because today is Easter, I know that I will see you. I know that a new day will dawn. How do I know it? For he is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia. Amen.