Easter Sunday ‘07(C)
St. John's Lutheran Church
April 8, 2007
“But…We Haven’t Heard the Whole Story Yet”
Grace to you and peace…
Without question, you and I can marvel at the return of life around us: crocuses in bloom, even if, as in some years past, they have to push through a thin layer of ill-begotten snow, even on a day like today when a chilly taste of winter returns.
In spite of the chilly weather outside, inside lilies trumpet life and victory, breaking winter’s hold on life. Spring is here! Mother nature itself is awakening a once-frozen earth. So, naturally, human beings like you and me link together this return of life in springtime over winter as a living analogy to Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. As Spring returns, so goes our empirical thinking, so does Jesus. Though nature seems dead in winter, life always returns with a vengeance in the spring.
The Easter Bunny tradition comes from natural observation of watching young bunnies in the Spring come out of a tomb or hole in the ground – linking Jesus’ departure from the tomb. The butterfly breaks free of a death-encapsulating cocoon, nature’s living demonstration of life over death, or so it appears to the innocent observer. But…we must ask if nature can tell a true and lasting story and able to hold the Easter joy we carry in our hearts today? In truth, as we listen to all four Gospel accounts of Easter morning, it becomes shockingly clear by the confounded reactions of disbelieving disciples, that there is absolutely nothing comparable in nature or natural about Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.
Nature easily deceives us into making these analogies but in truth, what takes place with the resurrection of Jesus finds no earthly analogies at all when push comes to shove.
Baby bunnies do not first die and then come to life when they bound out of the burrows their mothers had made. Caterpillars never die first in their transformational journey from crawling creatures, coming back to life as winged beauties. Year after year, the seasonal tilt of the earth towards a warming sun explains a returning Spring Season.
So, how does one naturally explain the resurrection of Jesus, truly crucified and dead, totally lifeless as they lay him in a Good Friday borrowed tomb? Truly-Dead-and-Gone-Good-Friday-Jesus is carried to his resting place by some devoted women and men, disciples who witnessed no remaining life in Jesus when the Centurion’s spear is thrust into his lifeless body, showing no living response whatsoever.
Theodore Wardlaw, professor of homiletics in Austin, TX, draws attention to this truth of how unnatural Easter is when compared to nature. Look with me as he points out how in the twelve verses of Luke’s Resurrection account today, unlike any of the other Gospels, Luke uses the word “But” six times in total, starting with the first word in this 24th Chapter of Luke:
“But on the first day of the week, at early dawn,”
He continues,
“but when they went in, they did not find the body…”
and again,
“but the men said to them,
“Why do you look for the living among the dead…”
“he is not here but has risen”
“But these words seemed to them an idle tale…
“But Peter got up and ran to the tomb;”
Regarding this repeated use of the word, “but,” Theodore says:
“It’s as if Luke is grabbing us by the lapels,
stopping us in our tracks and forcing us to understand
that no matter what we’ve heard,
we haven’t heard the whole story yet.”
“What is the whole story,” we might ask on this Easter morning? Contrary to all things we will ever experience on this earth, contrary to all reasonable and logical expections, contrary to anything human and created, no dead body Jesus is here…but has risen from the dead Nothing in all creation can explain this inexplicable truth: God’s Love and Life is greater than human or earthly death.
Jesus has been raised from the dead. Jesus is victor over sin, evil and death itself!
This very fact of faith transforms all of life as we see it and as we know it to be.
Writes Theodore Wardlaw:
“But…if Jesus Christ really rose from the dead,
then that means that he is loose in the world
with power to raise us up from whatever is dragging us down—
power to complete what we cannot complete by ourselves.”
Author and Roman Catholic priest, Andrew Greeley makes this same point that with Jesus on the loose in the world, there are hints of the resurrection every day around us, foretastes of the ultimate resurrection.
He goes on to tell this story:
Once upon a time there was a terrible fight in a certain family.
The father and the mother had slipped into the habit
of low level nastiness with one another and were drifting apart.
The children (teenagers) were routinely snarling
at one another and at their parents.
Sometimes they joined in the mean-spirited
exchanges between the parents.
No one left the house, there was no divorce
nor even the talk of divorce -–but there were lots of thoughts about it.
What was once a happy and loving family, as families go,
had turned into a battleground in which
four armies were fighting, and not taking any prisoners.
Then, the girl teen was in an auto accident
in which her car was totaled by a drunken driver.
The other three rushed to the hospital
and found her in bed, covered with bandages,
but able to smile weakly.
I had one of those near death experiences, she informed them
(what self-respecting teen in an auto accident
doesn’t have one of them)
and God told me we’re a bunch of geeks
and we should stop fighting with each other. Now!
So they all hugged one another
and cried and promised they’d start over again.
Now the family had new life and it was Easter.
What has this got to do with Easter? Everything! Absolutely Everything! Touched by a near-death experience, still tasting death in their mouths over an injured daughter, a family discovers new life when God speaks to them through an injured daughter lying in a hospital bed and calls them to love one another as if this is their last day together, no longer assuming they have a whole lifetime to get their acts together.
Like the women at the tomb, like huddled frightened disciples hiding away in a upper room,
it will take more than words of angels or amazed women to bring Easter joy into despairing Good Friday hearts. It takes Jesus, the real, living, crucified and risen Jesus to break through daily experiences of loss and grief. Theologian John Donahue hits Easter dead-center when he says:
“In Luke’s theology not even the word of Jesus is enough
to bring people to faith; they must have an experience
of Christ’s preseknce—which occurs in the following appearances
to the disappointed Emmaus walkers and the puzzled disciples.
Christian faith does not rest on an empty tomb,
but on the continuing experience of the risen one.”
Ongoing experiences of the risen Jesus happen again and again as we weekly gather to hear this crucified and risen Lord speak his Word to us, guiding our servanthood lives, followed by the experience of the risen Lord Jesus himself in, with and under forms of bread and wine of this Holy Meal.
How foolish we may be like that family in thinking we have a whole lifetime to get our acts together when it comes to following Jesus as his disciples. Easter life with this Risen Lord is always here and now, It is Jesus, alive, never to die again, who walks with us in our daily walks to places like Emmaus, showing us how life makes sense only when he, Jesus, is at the center of our lives and understandings of life itself.
Walking with Jesus is going to be a central experience of the Alpha Program here at St. John’s, starting up around a meal gathering next Wednesday night. The Alpha Program offers renewable experiences of walking with the crucified and risen Jesus in the here & now. This is the same Jesus, crucified and risen, who this Sunday and every Sunday, feeds us with himself, opening our eyes to see him in the breaking of the bread. This same Risen Lord continues the ongoing “little Easters”, resurrection experiences of God’s love in Jesus in daily living that death itself cannot take away.
So, go ahead: enjoy your springtime Easter lilies! Rejoice in newborn bunnies and beautiful butterflies!
But know this: Jesus is truly risen from the dead contrary to anything and everything the world can reason out. This Jesus is our Risen Savior on the loose in the world, yesterday, today and tomorrow, transforming leaders near and far, people in all walks of life.
So I say: “Christ is risen!” And you say: “He is risen indeed. Alleluia!” Amen