Celebrating the Truth of Easter!

April 12 2020

Mark 16: 1-8

        The Lord is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed!What a great Easter tradition that I picked up from my time as a Moravian. Easter always meant rising early on Easter morning to head down to Schoenbrunn Village, to God’s Acre and the Sunrise service with many others from all over the county. The way every Sunrise service starts is with the presiding pastor exclaiming “The Lord is Risen!” Followed by the rest of us echoing back, “The Lord is Risen Indeed!” This year of course will be different with the pandemic concerns, social distancing and flattening the curve and doing all we can not to contract the corona virus. With a holiday so steeped in tradition, it is hard to have this Easter feel like Easter. It is hard to think that there will be no putting on of the Easter finery, no “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” sung at maximum volume, no Easter lilies and hyacinths filling the sanctuary with their perfume and no hiding eggs for the Easter egg hunt. There will be no having the family over for the Easter ham and carrot cake. No, this year will be strangely different. As hard as it may seem to say it, perhaps this might be a good thing and here is why I say that; this pandemic has brought to the forefront of our lives the real elements of Easter, what this day is all about in a way no one could imagine. This is why I say that it is a good thing at least for this reason. You see, what this pandemic has done is to make us realize just how weak the flesh is, the biblical term for the power we believe we have as people. There was nothing we could do to stop this virus from migrating from China across the world like some invisible firestorm. No amount of money thrown at this problem really helped either except than to save some lives. This corona virus in other words, made us come face to face with our own vulnerability, with our own finitude, with the fact that we are mortal beings who need to number our days. Now this may not sound very positive however it is only when we admit the weakness of our flesh that we then turn to find strength in our faith. This is the silver lining around the cloud of this pandemic. In this moment is when faith can be rediscovered, and the power of that faith is what Easter is really all about.

         All during Lent we have seeing these forty days as a journey, a pilgrimage to Mount Zion. Using the verse from the twelfth chapter of Hebrews, we kept our focus, this heavenly city of Jerusalem, the city of the living God, to so many angels you simply cannot count them all gathered round to celebrate the festival, to the firstborn all assembled together in heaven, to God, the judge of all and to the spirits of the righteous perfected and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood which speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. This is where Lent is to lead us because this is a panoramic view of our resurrection hope. Our hope is that one day heaven and earth will be gloriously united and on earth it will be as it is in heaven. This hope is grounded in our faith because as the writer of Hebrews also writes in the first verses of the eleventh chapter, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. So, our journey to the heavenly city is a pilgrimage of faith, a conviction that even though as of yet we do not see heaven and earth united in a festival gathering one day we most certainly will see just that. We have this faith because Jesus had this faith. This is the faith he clung to when they mocked him, beat him and nailed him to the cross. It was this faith that could ask for the cup to be taken from him and then in the same breath say but not my will be done. Jesus was not able to see heaven and earth united in joyful worship while here on earth but he was convicted that they way to that place lay beyond the horrors of the cross and that is why he yielded his life to the Holy Spirit to offer himself up as a sacrifice without blemish.

With these thoughts in mind, we come to our scripture for today from the gospel of Mark. Mark’s account of the resurrection is perhaps the most unusual of all of the gospel accounts because it is among other things, the shortest account. It is shorter because in Mark we have no risen Jesus sightings only second-hand accounts that Jesus has risen from the dead. Mark’s account also ends abruptly which disturbed some translators so much that they decided to add to Mark’s account to make it more satisfying. What has most likely happened is that the rest of Marks gospel account was torn off of the original and lost. Yet if that is true, it is not a total loss because we can learn much from what we have. Mark as usual gives us literary clues to enhance his story. He writes that “early on the first day of the week”, which is similar to how the creation story begins so this is our first clue. Mark is saying that what is witnessed to in the resurrection of Jesus is nothing less than a new creation. Mark goes on to say that the women went there to anoint the body of Jesus when the sun had risen. This harkens back to what Malachi wrote in the fourth chapter of his book, that says “for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.” This is one of the descriptions Malachi uses to speak of the day of the Lord which Mark understands the resurrection to be. With the resurrection of Jesus, there would be healing in its light because at long last the power of God’s promises would be revealed. The women, of course suspecting nothing, were concerned about who would roll away the heavy stone which closed the entrance to the tomb. Yet when they arrived at the tomb much to their surprise the stone had been rolled away. Not only that but when they entered the tomb there was inside the tomb, a young man all dressed in white. To say they were alarmed is probably an understatement. The young man told them that Jesus was not there that he had risen. They could look at where Jesus had been laid and clearly see that he was gone. The young man went on to tell them that they were to go, and tell the disciples and Peter that Jesus went ahead of them to Galilee. It is at Galilee that they would see him, just as he had told them. Mark then records that the women went out of the tomb and fled. Trembling and astonishment had seized them. Then Mark also records that they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid. This is how Marks account ends, with more of a thud then with an exclamation mark.It is a story that is more troubling the more you meditate on it. We do not know where the disciples are, we do not know what has become of Peter after his disastrous night of betraying Jesus. The women who were to relay the message about Jesus were to go to the disciples and Peter to let them know that he is risen and here they are too afraid to say anything to anyone; end of story. What Mark has essentially done is to give us a cliff-hanger much like the ones we see at a shows season ending episode that hopefully be resolved at the beginning of the next season. We can almost hear the promo’s for Mark’s cliff-hanger: Will the women ever get up the nerve to tell their story? Will the disciples ever know that Jesus has gotten out of town and is headed for Galilee? Will Peter ever get over the night of his betrayal and become the leader Jesus thought he could be? These and more will be answered in season two. Only there is no season two. It is right here that it should dawn on us what Mark may want us to do. At the end of this story, when all seems to have come to nothing, Mark wants his readers to use what the whole gospel has been hopefully trying to instill in them, faith. Mark wants to make it perfectly clear that the way that the church began was only through the power and promises of God, nothing else. The human side of things were pretty much a mess. The disciples were AWOL, Peter has not been heard of in days and the women entrusted with the message have all clammed up. Yet, in spite of such beginnings, there is a church. How is that possible? Marks answer is only God. Only God can take the nothingness that is recorded about that first Easter morning and create the body of his anointed one. So, out of Mark’s account of the resurrection of Jesus, Mark desires his readers to come away with resurrection faith which was the whole point of Jesus being raised from the dead in the first place.

To understand this resurrection faith we turn to Paul who wrote extensively about it. In the third chapter of Romans, Paul writes “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it- the righteousness  of God through faith in Jesus Christ.” Now, this all sounds good so far but just what does it mean to have faith in Jesus Christ? Does it mean that we believe its true that Jesus died for our sins on the cross and three days later walked out of the tomb? Or does it perhaps mean something more? Paul would say that yes, to have faith in Jesus is not just to agree with what Jesus has done in his death and resurrection but further that we should have the same faith as Jesus, the faith that led him to offer himself upon the cross, the faith that was vindicated on Easter morning. So often when we say we have faith in God’s grace its kind of vague just what it is that we are saying that we believe in. Sure we say we trust God but what do we trust him to do or to be? To help clarify just what is meant by placing our faith in God, Paul retells the story of Abraham who Paul tells us is the father of our faith. Paul writes in the fourth chapter of Romans, that “the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith” To be heir of the world means that Abraham and his descendants would receive an inheritance of a the world, the world to come, the life everlasting. This would be theirs not through any work or effort on their part but rather it would be theirs because of their faith, this is how God tells us that we can have a right relationship with him. So, now we need to define just what does it mean to have faith? Paul continues by telling us this “This promise of an inheritance is given to the one who shares the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all, as it is written “I have made you the father of many nations”-in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” To have faith in God means that we know that our God can give life to the dead, that our God can take nothing and out of nothing create something. This is why God is our Creator because out of the nothingness of the primordial chaos God called forth his creation, a creation which was an order where life flourished. Faith in God is then the ability to see nothing, to be confronted with nothingness and know out of that absolute emptiness God can speak a word and call forth life. This is the faith of Jesus, the faith that held him to the cross, the faith that denounced any trust in his flesh, his ability, his human power and wisdom. His blood poured out was a visual denouncement against the god of our age of the belief in human potency and power. Jesus instead trusted his Heavenly Father, knowing that he is the source of all life, the one who could but speak a word and the seen could spring forth from the unseen. To a watching world the cross was a resounding defeat; to a watching heaven the cross was a stunning victory. Jesus died as he had lived never placing any trust in his flesh, always leaning on the power of the Spirit. Jesus never went where he saw fit but rather he would only work where he saw his heavenly Father working. The resurrection of Jesus proved the righteousness of Jesus,so often questioned by the Pharisees, and Temple authorities who felt that through their own efforts they could be right with God. No, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus witness to us that it is trusting in God, trusting that our God can take the nothingness of our life, lost in sin and call forth a life in right relationship with him.This is what Paul writes at the end of the fourth chapter of Romans, “Righteousness will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” Our faith is in the God whose power was displayed in glory as  he lifted Jesus out of the nothingness of death and raised him up into life.

It is this faith, faith in a God who can call order out of chaos that we need so much right now in this time of pandemic crisis.This spreading disease has stripped away all our illusions of grandeur.So much of life that we thought we just could not live without we are suddenly living without. Yet this is a good thing because it exposes the weakness of our flesh. We have come to the place where we must confess our vulnerability which was there all along just not willingly admitted. You see it is this vulnerability to loss, death and damage that leads to fear. This fear in turn causes us to be overly protective which in turn cause people to become violent and aggressive, and to do things like hoard toilet paper. In much the same way, when we find ourselves in a state of weakness we often can be led to become overly ambitious, to become envious, narcissistic, jealous, self-conscious with a sense of guilt and shame to give the rest of the world we are stronger than we really are.This is why a life lived by the powers of the flesh leads people to be pleasure seekers to compensate for the pain associated with their weakness. This of course leads to a desire for wealth and greed  and the cruelty involved with obtaining these. You see sin and evil find their roots in people living by their fleshly power who are trying to compensate for their own weakness and vulnerability. Yet God knows all this and he understands. Paul tells us in the eighth chapter of Romans that God “sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh…” All of the sinful behavior that comes from trying to compensate for the vulnerability and weakness of our flesh, this is what Jesus condemns through his death upon the cross. There upon the cross, Jesus was vulnerable fully naked, spread out upon a cross fully exposed to the all the pain a world could hurl at him. On the cross Jesus was weak, beaten down by the blows of Roman centurions, crushed by the weight of the cross he carried, debilitated by the pain of piercing nails. Yet he did not yield to the temptation to compensate for his vulnerability and weakness through any effort of his flesh. He could resist that temptation because of one thing, his faith in his Heavenly Father. Jesus could face his death with the knowledge that his Heavenly Father could take the nothingness and chaos of his death and call forth life, his life made new. This faith of Jesus was vindicated on Easter morning as he stepped out of the tomb.

This is why this Easter in the midst of this corona virus pandemic we need the truth of Easter far more than we need the traditions of Easter. We are vulnerable. We can social distance ourselves, we can wear our masks but we still deep down realize that this unseen enemy is out there. We do feel our weakness. We watch as our economy, an emblem for so long of our strength as a nation, has been destroyed by overwhelming unemployment. Over six million people are out of work. We experience our weakness as we realize that we are powerless to stave off the effects of a global pandemic.It is right now, in this time of a healthy awareness of who we have always been, that we once again understand that we need resurrection faith more than ever. Instead of letting this vulnerability and weakness lead us to be driven by fear and self-protection, we should face the chaos of our situation with faith in the God who can call life out of our despair.In this way we can find hope in bleak days because our faith is the assurance of the things we hope for. This faith in the God who can raise the dead to life will also then work itself out in love. When we no longer let fear turn us inward in an attempt to protect ourselves, when we embrace our weakness as a sign of our common humanity, then through the Spirit of God, the love of God which led Jesus to the bear our sins will lead us to bear the burdens of others. It is at this dark time that the light of such love will shine ever the more brighter.This is when God will be glorified when we become people whose lives demonstrate the same steadfast love and faithfulness that God has always shown to us.

So often the resurrection of Jesus is only seen as a hope for our future reality of the assurance of everlasting life which is ours by faith. While this is true, the resurrection of Jesus is meant to be us so much more. The resurrection of Jesus is the vindication of the faith of Jesus, a faith that can be ours to establish our lives in the here and now. Rather than putting any trust in the flesh trying in vain to compensate for the vulnerability and weakness of our flesh by actions of the flesh we instead can have faith in the God who gives life to the dead and who calls into existence the things that do do not exist. This is the power God promises us are ours through faith. As the writer of Hebrews put it so well from the sixth chapter of his letter we read “the promises of God are a sure and steadfast anchor for our soul, our life.” So when the storms of life come, whether they be the threat of the pandemic or the threat of economic loss, whatever storms life throws at us we have an anchor to hold us steady, to give us confidence in the face of chaos. These promises we know are true because of Jesus who also believed in these same promises and faced the cross anchored firmly against the storm of death. Three days later the world discovered that the anchor held, the promises were sure and our God is a God who can call forth life out of death. The resurrection is our witness that these promises can be our anchor in the storms of life that we face today. This is why because he lives we can not only face tomorrow we can face today as well. I hope that if anyone has not placed their faith in the faith of Jesus that they do so today; when there is an anchor for life offered to us why would we not want to accept this gift to secure our life?All God asks is that we believe with the same faith of Jesus. This faith of Jesus is a faith in the God who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or imagine, a resurrection faith which is our power for life! Amen!