Mark 16:1-8
When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the
mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint
him. 2And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had
risen, they went to the tomb. 3They had been saying to one another,
“Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4When
they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been
rolled back.
5As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man,
dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6But
he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who
was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place
they laid him. 7But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is
going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” 8So
they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them;
and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
1 Corinthians 15:1-7, 12-26
Now I
would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to
you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, 2through
which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I
proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain. 3For I
handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that
Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4and
that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with
the scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
6Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at
one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. 7Then
he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
12Now if
Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is
no resurrection of the dead? 13If there is no resurrection of the
dead, then Christ has not been raised; 14and if Christ has not been
raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain.
15We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified
of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead
are not raised. 16For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has
not been raised. 17If Christ has not been raised, your faith is
futile and you are still in your sins. 18Then those also who have
died in Christ have perished. 19If for this life only we have hoped
in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
20But in
fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have
died. 21For since death came through a human being, the resurrection
of the dead has also come through a human being; 22for as all die in
Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. 23But each in his own
order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24Then
comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has
destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. 25For he must
reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26The last
enemy to be destroyed is death.
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The
Easter story is the core of the Christian faith. It’s also a little hard to
swallow. For many of us the basic story of Jesus makes sense. We grew up
hearing stories of Jesus and his teachings. We’ve learned about his commitment
to justice, his love and welcome for surprising people. We connect with his
call to love others as we love ourselves and treat other people as we want to
be treated. Even if we didn’t grow up in a church, our greatest values as a
society were shaped by Jesus’ teachings.
We
can probably understand Jesus’ conflict with the religious leaders too. He guided
people to God directly without getting obsessed with religious rules and
traditions and authorities. That made the leaders uncomfortable, like serious
change does in any institution. They couldn’t dismiss him, so they found a way
to put him to death. We know enough about human selfishness and violence to
believe that. It’s tragic and terrible, but it fits with what we know is wrong
with the world.
The
resurrection is harder to believe. It doesn’t fit with what we know at all.
When people die, they don’t come back. We’d like to believe in the
resurrection, but it’s awfully hard to accept. We want to believe. We want love
to be stronger than death. We long for a reason to hope that the world’s story
has a happy ending, but we almost don’t dare.
We’ve
been disappointed before. So many things that we’ve hoped for haven’t
materialized. The world is hard, and we don’t want to look soft. We don’t want
to be suckers. It’s easier not to trust too much, and the resurrection is a
huge leap of faith.
We’re
in good company when we have trouble believing the resurrection. Thomas
couldn’t believe until he’d seen Jesus himself. The women in our story today
were not only amazed, but afraid as well when they heard the news. They saw the
angel with their own eyes and heard his message in the same tomb in which they
had seen Jesus’ body laid. Still, the enormity of the angel’s announcement
overwhelmed them, and they couldn’t share the message. If they struggled then,
how can we believe now?
I
wasn’t there myself, and I can’t prove the resurrection to you. What I come
back to every time is the testimony of the disciples. The women who followed
Jesus from Galilee saw him alive after his death. The eleven disciples who had
spent the last three years with Jesus saw him alive again after his death.
Other disciples who had met Jesus along the way saw him alive on the road to
Emmaus, or in a locked room or somewhere else in the month after his
resurrection. Paul says Jesus appeared to more than 500 believers after his
resurrection.
They
saw him alive, after they knew he had been killed. And more than just seeing
him and telling others about it, which they could have made up if they wanted
to, they committed their lives to his message. Many of the apostles died for
their faith. Many other early Christians did too. They bet their life on the
truth of Christ’s resurrection, the truth of Christ’s victory over death. They
wouldn’t have done that if they weren’t really sure.
Beyond
that, the apostles and the growing community around them experienced the power
of the risen Christ in their lives. People kept meeting Jesus, even those who
hadn’t known him during his live. People, like Paul, who had never met Jesus
experienced his presence in a transformative way, and gave their lives to the
good news of God’s love in Christ. The power of the resurrection went beyond
Jesus.
That’s
what Paul’s talking about in our passage from First Corinthians. The
resurrection we celebrate today starts with Jesus, but it goes beyond him. From
Adam and Eve until Jesus, death was the end of the line. Death had the final
say. All the money, all the success, all the power in the world couldn’t stop
death.
Jesus
changes all that. Human power, hatred and jealousy did their worst. The
religious leaders and political powers fought against him. They tortured and
killed him. But for Jesus death was not the end. In that moment death lost its
victory. In Jesus’ resurrection love triumphs over death once and for all, not
just for Jesus, but for all of us too.
On
the outside, it seems like nothing has changed, but everything has changed.
Jesus has been raised and one day we will be raised up too. The power of the
resurrection offers us new life. When we read about the early church, we see
that the power of the resurrection is true. Those men and women decided to
trust the risen Christ. They chose to believe that death wasn’t going to win. They
didn’t just believe it in their heads; they bet their lives on it. They spend
their lives telling other people about God’s amazing love. They spent their
lives building community so strong that people shared everything.
Some traveled across the world to
share the message of love. Others dropped everything to host missionaries in
their towns. When a deadly plague struck Rome, everyone who could, left the
city, except the Christians. The Christians in Rome stayed to care for the ill
and dying. They did that because they knew they didn’t need to fear death,
because Jesus had already conquered it.
That resurrection power, the faith
that God can overcome every evil and deadly force, that hope is stronger than
death, that love is stronger than fear runs through the history of the church.
It was at work in nameless Christians teaching new believers when they knew the
Empire might kill them for it. It was at work in St. Augustine watching
barbarians destroy Rome, the center of Christian faith, but still trusting that
God could use even that disaster for some good purpose.
The power of the resurrection was
at work in St. Francis, serving the poor and restoring a church fallen into
cynical isolation. It was there in Martin Luther, facing death for his faith,
and in Martin Luther King believing God’s promise that in Jesus Christ all
human divisions are overcome.
The power of Christ’s resurrection
is still working in the world. It’s working in churches in Africa where there
are so many people coming to know Jesus that they can’t fit into the church
buildings. It’s working in Egypt, where it’s risky to follow Jesus, but people
are following anyway. It’s happening in Chicago where a church of 30 that
everyone expected to close rediscovered their neighborhood and the power of
Christ in community.
It’s happening right here at
Laurelton, where years of declining membership and finances are starting to
turn around. A small congregation is opening its doors to the neighborhood and
finding new life in the power of Jesus. Neighbors are discovering relationships
and community in a simple breakfast. People are learning and growing by talking
about the Bible over supper. We’re building community with new people and
learning to ask deeper questions about what it means to follow Jesus today.
I’ve found in my own life that the
more I trust Jesus, the more I cling to the resurrection, the more I let go of
my fear, the better my life gets. Resurrection power isn’t just life after
death, it’s also more life now.
Jesus bet his life that God’s
calling was real. He faced death on the cross for you and me, and sure enough,
love triumphed over death as he rose from the grave. Since then women and men
across the centuries and around the globe have been betting on the
resurrection, trusting that life conquers death. I’m betting my life on the
resurrection now, and I invite you to join in the adventure of following the
risen Jesus.
The power of the resurrection
doesn’t mean everything is clear or easy. Things still go wrong, we make
mistakes, recovery is fragile, people we love still die. But we can trust that
death or error or fear or financial trouble will not have the last word. Christ
is risen, and one day we will rise with him to see the redemption of all
creation. We have nothing to fear because love is stronger than death. Christ
is risen indeed.
Thanks be to God.
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