WE NEED ALL THE EASTER WE CAN GET

In these times when every day feels like the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter, I think we need all the Easter we can get. Here is an Easter sermon from 2012

THE MAIN EVENT

JOHN 20: 1–10

EASTER; APRIL 8 2012

I. THEY JUST WENT HOME

A. A man was driving down the road when he saw the Easter Bunny dart out in front of the car. He could not avoid him and he hit the bunny. The basket and the candy flew all over the road. He got out to look, and sure enough the Easter Bunny was dead. He was distraught. His wife came over and asked what was wrong. “I’ve killed the Easter Bunny” he cried. The wife went back to the car, came back with a spray can and sprayed the contents on the lifeless rabbit. The Easter Bunny came back to life, jumped up, gathered the candy back in his basket and began to hop away, stopping to wave every few hops. The man asked, “What was in that can?” She held the can so he could read the label and it said, “Hair spray. Restores life to dead hair. Now with permanent wave.”

B. Maybe you have heard that one before. Here is something else I’ll bet you’ve heard before. He is risen. Jesus was dead and then God raised him from death to life and he lives. You’ve heard that before, right? We have all heard that before. The question is how do we maintain any sense of wonder and enthusiasm for something that is such old news that we have heard 30 times before?

C. Well, let’s go back to the first Easter. We would expect to find unmatched enthusiasm and uncontrollable joy and life changing wonder. John tells us that two of the disciples ran to the tomb when Magdalene told them it was empty. The gospel tells us that Peter went in and found the burial clothes folded up neatly. And John went in and saw and believed. And then they both just went home. They went home! They were the first to witness the conquest of life over death, the center point of all creation, the truth that changes life like no other, and their reaction? They went home. They didn’t let a little thing like resurrection interfere with the rest of their day.

D. John tells us that they just did not understand. Peter could not be lifted above his guilt and doubt by circumstantial evidence and speculation. The beloved disciple believed something wonderful had happened but he did not know what or what it meant. So they just went home.

II. THE URGENCY OF HOPE

A. But I want to go back to the foot race between Peter and the other disciple. They were running, not because they wanted to be first. But because there was an urgency to their hope. They had to know if there was any chance that they were wrong; that the cross had been a hopeless failed ending; if there was any hope that they were not wrong about Jesus. So they ran out of desperation. They needed Easter.

B. Do you know where in the Bible we read the narrative of the resurrection? It’s not in there. We hear the stories of people encountering angels and the risen Jesus. But there is no place in scripture where it says, Jesus woke up and folded his burial clothes and walked out of the tomb. The message and meaning of Easter is only told through the eyes and words of witnesses to the fulfillment of hope.

C. For without the empty tomb, the cross is a symbol of dismal failure. Life without Easter is a vale of tears and then you die and that’s the end. But we are invited to witness, through the eyes of the first witnesses to peer into the tomb of hopelessness and see that it is empty.

D. I used to wonder why the stone had been rolled away. I guess I thought it was so Jesus could get out. But that stone was no obstacle for him. No, the stone was moved, not so Jesus could get out, but so that we could look in. The proclamation of Easter is that all is well; not in some simplistic, false optimism, but in the certainty that death is robbed of its power for all who simply believe. John didn’t understand, but he believed. Maybe that is where we are too.

III. WHAT DO YOU THINK?

A. What do you think? Why are you in church on Easter Sunday? Maybe it’s cultural. This is just what you do on Easter. Old Mr. Lily used to go to mass at St. Mary’s once a year, at Easter. His daughter said he had to make his Easter. Fire insurance I guess. Maybe you are here to keep someone in your family happy. Whatever the reason, I’m glad you are here to help us celebrate the main event; not just in history, but in our lives as well.

B. Which of the Biblical characters tells your version of Easter? Is it Mary who weeps for a dead Jesus? Do you wish for a return to a simpler time when you believed like a child? Or is your character Peter? He was agnostic about it. I can’t know what happened. So I’ll keep all my options open while hoping against hope that it is true. Or are you like John who believes even though he doesn’t understand? He believes not because he sees Jesus; which is true for us. We have not seen him. But John believes because of what he does NOT see. Seeing as an act of faith. Is that you? Explain the resurrection! I can’t. I just know it to be true.

C. Stanley Hauerwas has had dialogues and debates with Marcus Borg of the Jesus Seminar. That’s a group of people who feel the need to take all of the miracles out of the Bible and explain it all in rational terms. Hauerwas writes, Marcus thinks the disciples had an experience. They said, “Wasn’t it great being with Jesus before they killed him? You remember all those great stories he told? Just thinking about it makes him seem almost still here. Yep, by God, he IS still here. Let’s all close our eyes and believe real hard that he’s still here. Okay?”

D. Hey Jesus seminar, the disciples were not that creative. These were not imaginative minds. These were the sort of people who could see an empty tomb and not let it spoil lunch. Whatever you or any scholar says, the resurrection is not a metaphor. I believe there was a real tomb that contained a really dead body and that by Sunday morning that tomb was empty and death had lost its power. I believe, not because I have seen the risen Lord, but because I have met a God who loves us too much to leave us hopeless. I believe in a God for whom bringing Jesus back to life was easy. Can I explain the details of that? No. But faith is what is real and certain without explanations.

IV. ANNOUNCING THE MAIN EVENT

A. You don’t explain resurrection. You witness to the truth that makes life new. You don’t just go back home to the same old life that you lived before. We need the hope that Easter engenders like we need air and water. Without resurrection, the soul dies.

B. I have a special announcement directly from God this morning. Jesus is risen from the dead. O yeah, like we haven’t heard that one 30 times before. But that is what I want to proclaim this morning. No fancy preacher tricks or complicated theological explanations. Jesus was dead and is now alive again. Sometimes I worry about this proclamation being too familiar and that we will let it go in one ear and out the other. Ho-hum. He is risen. Don’t. Let the very familiarity of the truth be the seeds from which blossoms life-changing exultation, hope and joy. No matter how many times you have heard it before, it’s the main event. HE’S ALIVE. You can bet your life on that. I have.