Easter Sunday 2007

Sunday April 8, 2007

But the story didn’t end there

The surge in fundamentalism in recent years has resulted in an insurgency among Christians about the death of Jesus and even more about his resurrection.

Churchgoers are gathering today in Christian assemblies all over the world and even in forbidden lands, silent ‘allelluias’ are sounding if only ‘in pectore’ because whatever one’s theology or ideology, the news cannot be kept under wraps.

However, the strains of alleluias – silent or sung, combined with the sweet fragrance of lilies and spring bouquets will dissipate all too quickly and give way to the surreal reality of life in a world preoccupied with the pursuit of progress, a world itself being consumed by progress.

Nevertheless, I think the Easter feast can occasion an opportunity to go back to the beginning so that we might go forward with greater confidence and a bit of insight as to what is real and what is surreal, what is progress and what is regression, what we can and should change and what we ought not change.

The Scriptures provide the lens through which we can discern more clearly the reality that took place long before the four evangelists wrote their narratives when the women first told Peter and the others about the empty tomb, a metaphor for sure to announce that he was alive.

It may be helpful to recall that ‘evangelical secretaries’ did not take notes as the events described in the gospels unfolded. The gospels and letters were written years later with a great deal of adaptation to the circumstances in which the authors found themselves.

Paul was an adaptive problem-solving pastor attempting to deal with the issues of his day in the light of his faith and the still evolving teachings and expectations of the early Christian assemblies.

In his excellent commentary on the resurrection, Scripture scholar and pastor, Roger Karban put it this way:

“Our evangelists didn’t write to convince their readers that Jesus had risen from the dead. They presumed that they already believed in Jesus’ death and resurrection. They wrote to provide their communities not with history but with the implications of these two events.”

The earliest believers were not witnesses to resuscitation but to resurrection. They are not the same.

Luke tells us in the Acts of the Apostles that Jesus in fact was not visible to all but to those who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And in Luke’s gospel account of the appearance of Jesus to two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus, we are told that they recognized him only when they had broken bread together. It was not just in the bread and wine but also in their sharing of the Jesus story together before and after the meal.

Moreover, in the earliest days of Christianity, Jesus’ death and resurrection weren’t two distinct liturgical events. The early believers celebrated Jesus death and resurrection every Sunday on the Lord’s Day and we continue to do the same week after week in this assembly weaving the bible stories into our own unique faith stories and then breaking the bread that unites us as family.

None of the biblical writers with the possible but remote exception of John ever come into physical contact with the historical Jesus, this itinerant preacher who challenged the high and the low with a message that eventually led him to the cross but whose life changed the course of human history forever. Some got it right and some committed horrible crimes in the name of Christianity. We’re here this morning to get it right!

In these days of skepticism, I think we are dealing not so much with the denial of the resurrection as about the denial of what preceded it. Discussion about an empty tomb is diversionary to the truth of Jesus’ life and message as a Jewish Palestinian reformer who challenged the religious leaders to live what they preached.

The Resurrection was hardly a blip on the screen at the very end of Gibson’s Passion of the Christ. Notwithstanding its excessive brutality and anti-Semitic overtones and undertones, the movie conveyed the cost of Jesus’ commitment to life. Indeed the resurrection was not about the resuscitation of Jesus but about the movement of God’s Spirit in him and his spirit among his followers who became the living his living body.

And so today we gather not to ‘freeze frame’ the past but to weave our stories into the Jesus story before his death and resurrection so that we can celebrate both at this table becoming each one, the bread that we eat.

We are here to connect with three realities—the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. We are here to celebrate our participation in all three in our own lives individually and collectively by our active engagement with the world through works of justice, love and peace.

The major disconnect that afflicts our Church today is the denial of the living presence of the servant Christ among us and our fear of taking the message of Christ to heart at our family table, in our neighborhood, in our work place and in the marketplace—using words only when necessary.

Until we confront the hungers of the world, the horrors of war, the neglect of the poor, our bias against women and discrimination of anyone based on sexual orientation inside and outside the Church, we deny the reality of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Sorry to be so blunt but you and I know that we can do better in our own small way.

It’s time for determination to replace improvisation, for resolve to replace expediency and for principle to replace hesitation.

And as long as we are ready to walk to Calvary with Jesus, all will know that the story didn’t end there.

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