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"Easter Homily" John 20: 1-16a It was a dark and stormy night. The wind was howling. The rain was pouring down. It was cold. A man forced to walk home decided to take a shortcut through the cemetery. In the deep darkness of the storm he accidentally fell into a freshly dug grave, ready for a burial the next day. The grave was deep. The sides were steep. Because of the rain it was slippery. He jumped. He tried to claw his way up the sides. He hollered, but because of the wind and the rain no one heard. At last, realizing it was futile to try any more, he slumped down in the corner of the grave to wait out a miserable night until he could be rescued the next day. A few minutes later, another man taking a shortcut through the same cemetery fell into the same grave. He did not fall on top of the first man who was tucked away in the corner. In fact because of the darkness, the wind and the rain, the second man was totally unaware of the first. He, too, tried to climb out. But the grave was deep. The sides were steep. And because of the rain it was slippery. While he was still attempting to crawl his way up, the man in the corner finally spoke. He quietly said, “You can’t get out of here.”…. But he did. Is this whole resurrection business just wishful thinking because we’re so afraid of staying in the grave? I won’t do this every year, but for my first Easter sermon among you let us look at some of the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. First, the Jews and the Romans were highly motivated to produce evidence that Jesus stayed dead. But they could not. The body went missing. Pilate had ordered a guard around the tomb. What happens if the body goes missing? Do you remember in the book of Acts, chapter 12, when Peter is miraculously released from prison? Picking up with verse 18: “When morning came, there was no small commotion among the soldiers over what had become of Peter. When Herod had searched for him and could not find him, he examined the guards and ordered them to be put to death.” Standard practice and the guards around Jesus’ tomb knew it. They would have been doing their very best to make sure that the body didn’t get stolen. Second. The four gospel accounts about the resurrection vary widely, as to who was at the tomb, were there angels there or not and so on. On first reading, one might think, “Well, obviously they’re making it up. They can’t get the story straight.” We all know from watching cop shows on TV that when the crooks are apprehended they are immediately put into separate cells so they can’t talk together to get their alibis straight. Well, by the time the gospels are written down the authors have had decades to get their story straight, if it were a lie! The gospel writers know the resurrection to be true so they don’t need to coordinate every detail to make it sound plausible. If they knew it was a lie they’d make sure to line the stories up. But the most obvious demonstration that the resurrection of Jesus is historical fact is found in the behavior of the disciples. Look at the disciples of Jesus during his ministry, that is, pre-Easter. Despite being in day-to day contact with Jesus for perhaps as much as three years they don’t really have that much to show for it in terms of personal growth. Even late in Jesus’ ministry we see them arguing among themselves as to who will get the place of greatest honor. They worry about getting enough to eat. When James and John get ticked off at a certain village which rejects Jesus, they ask, “Can we call down fire from heaven to burn them up?” That last night in the garden, Jesus’ best friend, Peter, shows how much he still didn’t get it. He first resorts to violence, cutting off the servant’s ear. Then when Jesus is taken into custody, Peter runs away with the rest of the disciples, and later out of fear, lies to a servant girl, denying he ever knew Jesus! While Jesus is hanging on the Cross almost all of the disciples are huddled in hiding, totally distraught and despairing, trembling and terrified that the same fate soon awaits them. In sum the disciples do not present a picture of the best and the brightest, nor the bravest. Yet a few short weeks later they are joyously sharing their worldly goods with one another, striding around Jerusalem boldly proclaiming the message of Jesus, despite continued threats of death against them. Clearly, something remarkable happened which led to transformation. In fact, in my opinion, the best evidence for the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus is simply the birth and growth of the Church in the face of persecution. If God didn’t really raise Jesus from the dead, if the disciples had stolen the body, well, how far does one carry a hoax? Tradition tells us that ten of the disciples were martyred for their insistence that Jesus rose from the dead. Would you die for a lie? The disciples are transformed by the Resurrection, both in their day-to-day lives and in their attitude toward death. Now there are two common ways of looking at the Christian life: (1) as a system of beliefs about Christ, or (2) as following the teachings of Jesus. However, I’d like to suggest that there is a third way of understanding the Christian life: it is a relationship which leads to transformation. That’s obviously what’s going on with the disciples. They are transformed, not because they believe in a doctrine of resurrection, but because they have a relationship with the Risen Christ. It transforms them from bickering, self-centered, fearful little people, into true human beings of compassion and courage. As I said, the disciples are transformed by the Resurrection, both in their day-to-day lives and in their attitude toward death. Here’s my shorthand version of what they learned—and what we can learn—about death from the resurrection of Jesus. I tell people, “I don’t know any details about ‘heaven,’ but I believe that if we trust God in life, we can trust God in death.” Mary Magdalene comes to the garden tomb very early that Sunday morning, heart broken, hope shattered. Now on top of it all, the body is missing. She becomes aware of a man there in the garden, but she does not recognize that it is Jesus. Mary’s focus is on the grave. Her eyes are downcast, dimmed with tears of grief. And she is not expecting to encounter Jesus alive. But then in a scene of unspeakable tenderness the man calls her name, “Mary.” And she turns to him. Jesus, right now, in infinite compassion and tenderness, is speaking your name. Will you turn to him? That is the Easter invitation. We have a choice. We can cling to our old ways, our old ways of death—our fears, our pride, our judgmentalism, our self-centeredness, our ancient hurts, our pursuit of the trivial, our need to control—all of these tombs that imprison us. We may remain in the darkness if we choose. But Jesus, the risen Jesus, alive and present here and now, invites us to throw off our graveclothes and to step into the sunlight of life, of life lived in companionship with him, a relationship of love without limits, now and forever. We simply give as much as we know of ourselves to as much as know of God through Jesus, and let God’s Spirit live through us. Will you say yes to that invitation?
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