Easter 2021

 

Easter Sunday, April 4, 2021

watch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_E2nGr_nWo

Easter, April 4, 2021

 

A man overhears his friend say the police were at the elementary school.  He turns white with horror.  These are dads of second graders, and the first guy has been watching the news and become fixated on stories of mass shootings.  Panic-stricken, he asks, “What happened?” The second man, the story-teller, looks at him and says, “Nothing.  I was just talking about how cool it was that the police were at the school doing a demonstration with K-9 unit dogs.”

False assumptions distort our perception, of reality.  In the dark, early Sunday hours, Mary Magdalene discovered that the entrance to the tomb where Jesus was laid to rest on Friday had been opened.  The rock sealing the tomb entrance was rolled aside.  She assumed someone had stolen the body, so she ran to Peter and the Beloved Disciple and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him” (20:2).  We do not know.  We bump into several unknowns in John 20.  Mary did not know where Jesus’ body was. 

Bible readers, avoid what Mary did.  Avoid jumping to conclusions without knowing the full story.  Bible readers, do what Mary did.   Mary readily acknowledged what she did not know.  We should too. 

I have discovered freedom in saying three simple words: “I don’t know.”  Acknowledging my own ignorance protects me from leaping to false conclusions.  It makes me curious, especially when reading the Bible.  When confused, I tenaciously seek answers.  And, I don’t confidently assert untruths as if they were true.  The church does not demand that I have all the answers, so I shouldn’t pretend to know things I don’t know.

Mary ran to tell Peter and the “one whom Jesus loved,” the Beloved Disciple.  Most readers assume the Beloved Disciple is John, but the actual book we call “John’s Gospel,” doesn’t say that.  Anywhere.  Later tradition equates the Apostle John with the Beloved Disciple.  Since the gospel doesn’t name him, I will refer to him as the Beloved Disciple.

He outran Peter, but didn’t go into the tomb upon arrival.  Why did he hesitate?  I don’t know.  Upon arrival, the slower Peter went in, and then the Beloved Disciple followed.  They discovered the linens meant to enwrap the body lying where the body should have been.  The head cloth was not with the rest of the linens.  The head cloth was rolled up and set off to the side in a place by itself.

Head cloths do not unwrap themselves from around the corpse’s head.  Head cloths do not then roll themselves up and set themselves off to the side.   Something happened.  Mary, seeing the stone rolled aside knew something happened, and now, seeing the scene inside the tomb, Peter and the Beloved Disciple did too.  Neither they nor Mary knew what; they only knew something was going on.

John tells us the Beloved Disciple believed, but did not understand.  What, exactly, did he believe?  Belief soaked in incomplete knowledge comes up more than once in this gospel.  When grief-stricken Martha talked to Jesus in chapter 11 about her dead brother Lazarus, he said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.  Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die” (11:25-26).  He’s saying this where Lazarus, Martha’s brother, lay dead.  He then asks Martha, “Do you believe?”  “Yes, Lord, I believe.”

Does she?  He talked about being “the resurrection and the life.”  She says, “I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God.”  Did she hear Jesus’ words about people never dying?  When she said, “I believe,” did she understand what it was that she believed?  When we express our faith and belief that Jesus rose from death and in him, we will too, do we understand what we are saying?

The beloved discipled believed, though what he actually believed we cannot say because he also misunderstood the way Jesus’ resurrection fulfilled scripture.  And what about Peter?  What did believe was going on?  The gospel doesn’t say.

It does say after they left, Mary lingered and then looked into the tomb herself.  She saw two angels.  Peter and the Beloved Disciple didn’t see angels.  They saw clothes and head wrappings for a corpse, but no corpse.  Were the angels invisible to them, but then visible to Mary?  Did the angels slip in after the men left? 

The angels ask Mary, “Why are you weeping?”  She answers, still locked in her false assumption that Jesus is dead and someone has nefariously robbed the grave.  “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him” (20:13).  Did Mary know these were angles?  Was Mary startled or upset to find two unknown persons in the tomb of Jesus?  The Gospel doesn’t say. 

She steps away from the tomb and faced toward the surrounding garden.  For the first time, the narrator announces the resurrected Jesus.  For the first description of the risen Savior, wouldn’t we anticipate something more forceful and theatrical than what the fourth Gospel gives us?  It’s as if the resurrected Lord is a background character in a drama where Mary is the star.  Mary has been locked in on what she does not know.  She does not know where Jesus’ body is. 

Now, that which she has so earnestly sought, Jesus, stands before her and she thinks he’s a gardener.  He repeats the question the angels asked.  “Why are you weeping?  Whom are you looking for?”  Mary has spent this morning in the land of false assumptions, and who can blame her?  It had been a traumatic couple of days and that was before she discovered graves unable to hold in their residents.  Assuming he’s about to pick up his hoe and go to work on pesky weeds, she repeats her mantra to him, this time thinking she may finally make some headway. 

“Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away” (v.15).  In this statement, made in the land of false assumptions, made from a place of not-knowing, we have a hint of why the resurrection is the event upon which all of reality stands. 

In the world as we understand it, the dead don’t bury themselves.  It could be in unmarked mass graves, it could be in cheap pine boxes or gold inlaid, elaborate caskets, or it could cremation; whatever form we choose, we, the living, have to deal with dead bodies.  If we don’t, there will be carcasses in various stages of decomposition all over the place.  This is our reality as it was Mary’s. 

What does Jesus have to say to our ideas about reality?  Back in John 10, Jesus said, “No one takes my life. I lay it down of my own accord” (v.17-18).  Mary lives in a reality where she, or someone, has to deal with the corpse of a man they know and love.  Jesus announces a new reality.  The corpse she seeks is the living, breathing man before her.  She finally sees him when he speaks her name.  “Mary!”  

Remember what I said?  I found freedom in the phrase “I don’t know.”  I don’t know how this story hits you.  I don’t know what you think about Jesus’ resurrection or resurrection in general.  I do know I have become convinced through my reading of 1000’s of pages from New Testament scholars that the writer of John’s gospel believed he was writing about a fully raised, fully physical body.  Mary grabbed hold of Jesus.  In Luke’s Gospel, and later in John 20, and again in John 21, we see indicators that Jesus’ raised body was tangible but also different.  He could cook fish and share it; he could be bear hugged by Mary; but he could also pass through closed doors without opening them.

That different quality of existence signals that the resurrection of Jesus is the dawning of New Creation.  Do you want to be part of New Creation?  We believe in the resurrection because we believe God is free to step outside the boundaries of natural law, and more importantly, is free to do new things.  Please do not mistake this assertion of new creation for the insufferable platitude “God can do anything.”  That’s something someone says if they get the job they were hoping for, or their teams wins a title.  That sentiment is essentially meaningless. 

Forget God can do anything.  Respond to God has done something.  In the risen Jesus Christ, God has ushered in a new age in which all who believe in Jesus and follow him as Lord, will have eternal life.  Jesus declared this in Chapter 3.  His resurrection is the stamp of approval affirming his power to overcome of death. 

I am comfortable saying “I don’t know” when I really don’t.  I readily accept there is far more knowledge that I seek than what I possess, and there is far more I am unaware of than that which I seek.  But there is something I do know.

What I know is that I have studied the evidence of the resurrection.  I believe, historically and logically speaking, the most plausible conclusion is that Jesus’s resurrection happened in actual history. I know that I have studied the scientific method.  I believe the resurrection cannot be proven or disproven scientifically.  I know my experience with God tells me that God is real and that the Spirit of the risen Christ is with me. 

Based on what I know, I believe in Jesus Christ, crucified, resurrected, ascended, and present as Holy Spirit.  He is my Lord.  Because I know him, I believe New Creation has begun overtaking a dying world.  Because of what I believe, I invite you to consider the resurrection –death is no more.  Considering the resurrection, I invite you to give your life to Jesus.  Commit to follow him.  There will still be much you don’t understand, but when you give yourself to Jesus, you will know life, abundant, joy-filled, everlasting life.

AMEN

Easter Sunday 2018

“Come, Step into Easter” (John 20:1-18)

Rob Tennant, HillSong Church, Chapel Hill, NC

Easter Sunday, April 1, 2018

            The disciple Jesus loved; he was with Simon Peter, huddled, hiding, scared, defeated.  Jesus had died on Friday in the worst way possible, broken and bleeding on a Roman cross.  He, the beloved disciple, was there.  He wept alongside the women who followed Jesus, Mary Magdalene, the other Mary (the one married to Clopas), and, Mary, the mother of Jesus.  None of the male disciples other than him were there.  They had fled.  He stayed.  He looked into Jesus’ dying eyes. 

            That’s when the Lord entrusted care of Mary into his hands.  That’s when the lump in his throat became unbearable.  Then, they thrust a spear into Jesus’ side.  He was gone.  This disciple and the women returned home to find Simon Peter drowning in shame. 

            The longest Saturday in the history of Sabbath days passed.  At sunrise on Sunday, the women woke and headed out, arms loaded with spices.  They were going to anoint Jesus’ body.

            “The tomb will be guarded,” Simon Peter croaked.  Ignoring him, they stepped into the morning shadows, grief-stricken but resolute.  He dismissively waved them off and sank back down into debilitating sorrow.  The Beloved Disciple stared after them. 

            An hour later his heart stopped as Magdalene burst through the door.  “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him” (20:2).  Simon Peter staggered to his feet and was out the door.  The Beloved Disciple, for a moment, stood paralyzed, and then dashed after Peter.  Briefly, they ran side by side before the younger man sprinted past the husky fisherman.

            Arriving at the tomb, seeing the rock rolled aside, he paused.  He looked in.  The linen wrappings were there, but no body.  The head cloth had been intentionally, neatly rolled up and set aside. 

            As he stood pondering this, a wheezing Simon Peter barreled past him.  He followed Peter into the tomb.  And he remember Jesus’ words.  “When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in the father, and you are in me, and I am in you” (John 14:20).  Raised to life again?  Was this …?  He looked at Peter.  Peter moved out of the tomb.  He followed.  Slowly, they walked back to the house.

            “They asked him, ‘You are not one of his disciples, are you?’  He denied it and said, ‘I am not’” (John 18:25).  If he ran for 1000 lifetimes, Simon Peter could not escape the moment he uttered those words.  As he fled into the bleak night, into the infamy of history, the weight of his denial settled upon him. 

            His self-pity grew more pathetic when, after he had made his way back to the house and sat brooding for hours, his reverie of shame was interrupted when the Beloved Disciple and the Marys’ returned.  How could he look at them?  How could he speak to them?  As briefly as possible, they described the crucifixion that he in his cowardice had skipped. 

            He stared vacantly into the eternal void.  Somehow Saturday passed.  He ate nothing.  He said nothing.  He just felt.  Again, the activity of those around him roused him, just a bit.  The women were headed to the tomb to perform burial rituals.  He barely noticed their departure. 

            A while later though, he was snapped out of his stupor when Mary burst in the door.  .  “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him” (20:2).  Simon Peter jumped to his feet, lumbered out the door, and moved as fast as his thick legs would carry him.  They have taken the Lord?  As he chugged up the bath, the lithe body of the younger man, the one dubbed the Beloved Disciple, zoomed past him.  He had only been vaguely aware of the quiet youth’s presence the last couple of days. 

            Now, he looked ahead to see him timidly peeking into the tomb.  Simon Peter pushed past him.  He saw what Mary had described.  The burial cloths were there, but no body.  Where was Jesus?  Oblivious to his younger friend, completely confused, he turned and headed back to the house.  Halfway there, he was aware that his young friend was beside him.  They shuffled along in silence.  He could see that the younger man had a strange gleam in his eyes.  He didn’t know what it was.

            The two men didn’t even notice Mary Magdalene as they headed back to the house.  Nor did she see them as she walked back to the tomb, her vision still clouded by sadness, blurred by a flood of tears.  Alone at the tomb, she looked in and saw two young men in white, radiant with purity.  She had never seen anyone like this.  She knew it, but it didn’t register.

            “Woman, why are you weeping?”  The voice was tender and fierce, if a voice can be both of those things.

            Trembling she said, “They have taken away my Lord and I do not know where that have laid him” (20:13).

            This was too much.  She couldn’t talk to these men.  As she turned from them, there was another.  There was something about this man too.  It was all too much.

            Though she thought it not possible, His voice ripped through her soul even more than theirs. “Woman, why are you weeping?  Whom are you looking for?” 

            Why do people keep asking me why I am weeping?  Her voice was not much more than a whisper.  “Sir, if you have taken him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away” (20:17).

            “Mary.”

            “Rabbouni!”  She flung herself at his feet.  She held him, a second time washing his feet with her tears.  His hand was so strong, so gentle on the back of her head.  Taking her by the shoulders, he raised her to her feet.

            “Go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (20:17).

            When she got back to the house she told them, “I have seen the Lord.”

            The first Germanic tribes in the ancient, tribal days of Northern Europe worshipped a fertility goddess called ‘Austron,’ the goddess of sunrise; the goddess of spring.  The frozen winter was over, melting snows receded, and flowers bloomed.  The worship of this goddess spread across the north as language evolved and ‘Austron’ became ‘Eostre,’ and then ‘Easter.’[i] [ii]

            Then St. Patrick and other early evangelistic missionaries came telling a story – the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Bit by bit, tribe by tribe, Anglos and Saxons came to believe that Jesus was the Savior and that their sins were forgiven.  They were baptized as the Kingdom of God took hold at the beginning of the period known as Medieval Europe.  As these ancient Anglos and Saxons came to understand that the only true God is the God they knew in Jesus, they were left with a problem.  What were they to do with the stories told by their grandfathers and their grandfathers before them, stories of the Goddess of Spring and sunrise, the story of Easter?

            The story made sense but not as they had understood it.  They realized the resurrection of Christ was the eternal spring, the final sunrise, the flowering of forever.  Easter wasn’t the story they thought it was.  Easter was the story they had come to know, the story of new life in the risen Christ.  These Northern European Christ-worshipers preached the same simple sermon Mary Magdalene preached to Jesus’ male disciples.  They said, “We have seen the Lord.” 

            They stepped into Easter from the darkness of Pagan fertility cults.  Once they took that step, nothing ever looked the same again.

            Mary Magdalene and later Simon Peter and the Beloved Disciple and the rest of the disciples stepped into Easter from the midnight certainty of the permanence of death.  Read the accounts of Peter before the resurrection.  Read about Peter in the books of Acts, chapters 2-5 and 10-11.  He’s a different person.  But that is what happens when we step into Easter where we meet the resurrected Christ.  Everything we thought we knew goes up in flames. 

I see TV commercials about the mind-blowing technology of virtual reality and interactive TV and other new developments.  On one AD, the announcer is a motivational speaker who sparks our engines with the triumphant claim, “We are living the future we dreamed about.”  Humph!  Technology’s got nothing!  Resurrection is truly mind blowing.  Stepping into Easter is stepping beyond anything we ever could have dreamed, more than we could have “asked or imagined” (Eph. 3:21). 

Of course “stepping into Easter” does not mean colorful eggs full of chocolate; it does not mean going to church on that one day of the year, just to make mom happy; it does not mean fancy new dresses or hats to wear to church.  It does not mean the preacher dresses up extra nice.  Oh, those are fine things.  Those might be things we do around Easter time.  But stepping into Easter is something different altogether. 

            The song the ensemble sang invites us …

                        Come those whose joy is morning sun and those weeping through the night.

                        Come those who tell of battles won and those struggling in the fight.

                        Come young and old from every land, men and women of the faith.

                        Come those with full or empty hands, find the riches of his grace.

             Which are you?  Have you wept through the night?  Are you glowing with joy?  Are you right in the middle of a mighty struggle?  In the winter of life, can you tell of battles you’ve survived?

            We step into Easter when we come from where we are.  We don’t pretend to be something else.  We don’t “put on our Sunday best.”  We are honest about our own lives, our mistakes, messes we’ve made, failures.  We come to God as our messiest selves.  Simon Peter lumbered to that tomb with nothing to carry by his embarrassment and sorrow.   The Beloved Disciple came timidly, peeking in, waiting for others to lead, moving when prompted; but still moving toward Jesus.  Mary came under the shroud of death.  She was looking for a corpse.

When we see ourselves, our sins for what they are, we come in the same condition.  Blindly like Mary Magdalene, timidly like the Beloved Disciple, or shamefully like Peter, we come in our sin.  Receiving us in love, Jesus calls us by name and asks, “Why are you weeping?” 

            In that moment, our eyes are opened.  Mary’s sermon becomes our own.  Your own testimony is “I have seen the Lord.”  From personal experience I can say, “I have seen the Lord.”  Because the Holy Spirit has touched your heart, shown you that this story is true and real, you can say, “I have seen the Lord and he is good.  I know I am forgiven, saved.”

            We come from where we are.  We come to Jesus.  Yes to church, but church gets confused for a building or an institution; Easter is mistaken for a spring-time holiday.  From our deepest pain, we come to Jesus, and thus to a new way of seeing.  Death, shame, sorrow, failure – it is all behind us.  In the light cast from the empty tomb, reality changes.  The world is new and we become new creations.  Like Peter, we are no longer who we were before.  We have been made new.

            All that’s left is to go and tell; tell the world that in Jesus Christ, the Kingdom of God has come near.  In the risen Jesus, salvation has come for all who repent of sin and approach him in faith.  If you already know this salvation, go forth on Easter Sunday radiant in resurrection and find a way to share the Good News.

            If you have never entrusted your heart, your life to him, you can right now.  If you have never announced to the church and to the world that not only is Jesus Lord, He is your Lord, you can do that today.  Come.  Come and pray with me or with Heather.  Pray to receive forgiveness of sins, to receive Jesus into your heart, and to receive new life right now.  This is your invitation to step in Easter.  As we sing, come, enter the Kingdom of God as a born again child of God.

AMEN

---

[i] http://www.religioustolerance.org/easter1.htm

[ii] https://www.etymonline.com/word/easter

Easter Sunday - 2015

Easter Faith (John 20:1-18)

Rob Tennant, HillSong Church, Chapel Hill, NC

Easter Sunday, April 5, 2015

            Upon seeing the empty tomb, Mary Magdalene ran to the disciples and said, “They have taken the Lord” (20:2).  Could Jesus really be taken somewhere He did not want to go?  She knew he had power other men could not even dream of having.  But she watched him die.  Yes, a corpse could be dragged about, used by one group for its purposes and by another for theirs.  But, if he was a corpse, could he be “the Lord?”

            Mary reacted before thinking things through and before remembering things Jesus had said, including that he would die and then rise. 

            This morning we will look at the way three of Jesus’ disciples responded to his resurrection.  I do include Mary in the group of Biblical disciples.  A disciple is a passionately devoted follower of Jesus.  That Mary Magdalene came to the tomb after Jesus was dead and buried shows her devotion.  That she grabbed hold of his resurrected body to worship him by hugging his feet shows her passion (Mt. 28:9).  Mary Magdalene was a disciple. 

              The Gospel of John tells us three came to the tomb on Sunday morning, first Mary Magdalene and then Simon Peter with the Beloved Disciple.

            Mary arrives first, sees the stone rolled away, and runs to the disciples.  She follows them back to the tomb and hears their report that the tomb was empty save for Jesus’ burial cloth.  They inspect, and then leave.  She lingers and looks in.

            It is not empty!  Two angels in white are sitting there.  Because angels appear often in Bible stories, we may think people in those accounts were accustomed to visits from divine beings.  They weren’t.  The appearance of angels shocked them as much as they would you or me.  Except, not Mary.  Mary continued worrying about “they,” whoever they are.

            “Woman, why are you weeping?”

            “They have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him.”  And she turns away from the angels.  What about asking them what happened?  They are messengers from God.  Couldn’t she say, “Hey, where is Jesus?” Nope, not Mary.  Most people in the Bible drop to the ground in fear when they meet angels.  Mary just turned away.

            Turning from the tomb, she bumps into one she takes to be the gardener.  I don’t know why she could not recognize Jesus.  Was his appearance altered?  Were her eyes blinded?  I don’t know. 

            She thinks he is the gardener.

            “Sir,” she says, “If you have carried him away, tell me where and I will take him away” (20:15).  She loved Jesus, who she was sure had died, and she wanted to keep on loving him.  She didn’t really think about how she would move a corpse around. 

            When he spoke her name and she realized it was him, she grabbed him.  If this account lines up with Matthew’s, then Mary literally grabbed Jesus feet with such enthusiasm that Jesus had to tell her “Do not hold onto me” (20:17).

            In her reactions on resurrection morning, Mary demonstrated a very hasty Easter Faith.  She jumped to conclusions at seeing the tomb empty and those conclusions led her to a series of missteps that were only cleared up when the resurrected Lord spoke her name.

            As hasty as she acted, she was also quite faithful.  She did not flee but instead stood at the cross, staying with him as he died.  She did not hide, but went to the tomb to honor him one last time.  The resurrection shed light on different aspects of Mary’s character that show flaws but more importantly show her to be a true follower of Jesus.

            It had a similar effect on Simon Peter.  Here we stick to the way John’s gospel presents him.  He was extremely outspoken.  When crowds abandoned Jesus, Jesus asked the 12 if they too wanted to leave.  Peter was the disciple who pledged to stay.  He said, “Lord, to whom [else] can we go?  You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).  It was a shining moment for Peter, one of the rare times that insight matched the words his mouth blurted.

            At the foot washing, Peter was the one who initially refused to let the master was his feet.  He would not have his Lord stoop before him.  When Jesus said, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Peter asked that his entire body be washed. 

In the garden of Gethsemane, the soldiers came to arrest Jesus.  One of the disciples attacked one of the soldiers, cutting off his ear.  Only John tells us the disciple to do this violent act, antithetical to the way of peace and love Jesus taught, was Peter.

It was Peter who, when Jesus predicted all the disciples would abandon him, promised to stay true.  Then in John 18, we read that Peter not only ran, but when confronted, denied knowing Jesus. 

  John presents a blundering, act first, think later (or think never) man in Simon Peter.

            The morning of the resurrection, he and the beloved disciple heard Mary’s report that the tomb was empty and Peter did not hesitate.  He ran to the tomb.  When he got there, Peter kept right on going.  The other disciple waited, but Peter barged right into the empty tomb.  He surveyed the contents: linen wrappings, the head cloth intentionally rolled up, and no angels, and no body.  Neither Peter nor the other bumped into a familiar but unrecognized gardener.  They came, they saw, and they went home. 

            If Mary’s Easter faith was hasty but also faithful and true, Simon Peter’s was blundering but also bold.  His tendency to act first got him in trouble plenty of times, but Jesus loved him for it. 

After the resurrection Peter declared he was going fishing and six other disciples followed his lead.  They were out in a boat, and they saw a man walking on the beach.  The beloved disciples recognized that it was Jesus.  Peter, true to form, dove in, literally.  He swam to Jesus, his Lord whom loved so much.  Hasty and faithful, blundering and bold, the resurrection brought the true Easter faith out of both Mary Magdalene and Simon Peter.

            There was a third player on the day of the resurrection.  Mary reported the empty tomb to Simon Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved.  It does not say his name was John.  Neither does it say that when it reports he was was the only disciple standing with Jesus’ mother Mary at the foot of the cross.  The gospel is called ‘John,’ and the gospel’s author identifies himself as Jesus’ ‘beloved disciple.’  Thus early church historians put the two facts together and came to associate the Beloved Disciple with John.  But the Gospel itself does not do that, ever.  So I will refer to him as the Gospel does, as the Beloved Disciple.

He could just as easily be called the timid disciple. When they are gathered with Jesus at the last supper and he predicts one will deny him, Simon Peter nudges the Beloved Disciple.  Ask him who he means.  Who will be the betrayer?  Acting at Peter’s initiative, he asked, and Jesus answered (John 13:24-26).

Again on the morning of the resurrection, the Beloved Disciple was hiding out until Mary Magdalene reported the tomb empty.  He and Peter, not he on his own, got up to check on things.  He outran Peter so that upon arriving at the tomb, he was there, for a moment, alone.  In that moment he just waited.

After Peter, huffing and puffing to catch up, arrived and barreled right into the empty tomb, only then did the Beloved Disciple follow.  The Gospel of John is his autobiography even if he makes himself a minor character and refers to himself in the third person.  He tells us he saw the empty tomb and believed and at the same time did not understand.  What does that mean?

It could probably be a fitting way to describe a lot of disciples, maybe many of us.  We read the story and we say we believe that Jesus rose from the grave and is the son of God and is the Savior of the world whose resurrection makes it certain we will be resurrected.  We say we are sure of this, but do we understand it?  The beloved disciple admits that even standing in the empty tomb, he did not.

That same evening he was with the other disciples and he was holding up behind locked doors as they all were.  Even with what he had seen, he was still plagued by fear of the authorities.  In his heart, he believed Jesus has conquered death.  His brain was having trouble catching up.  Resurrection is so paradigm-shattering, even we who live after the event and after the ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit, even we who live with a couple thousand years of brilliant Christian history and thought which gives great depth to our theology, even we have a terrible time aligning our heart beliefs with the logic our brains construct.

The Beloved Disciple owned up to his own timidity.  He did not try to make himself out to be a star in the Gospel he wrote.  Just the opposite; he was so self-effacing, he never mentioned his name.  He was not worried about scholars spending 2000 years debating about who wrote the Gospel.  He wanted them and us to focus on the Jesus we meet in the Gospel, not the author.  Yes, his was a timid faith, but it was a humble faith.  We do well to imitate this and we can when our lives point people away from ourselves and to Jesus.

So we have an empty tomb, and examples of Easter faith; it is faith that is hasty but true and faithful.  It can be blundering and clumsy, but also courageous and bold.  It is timid and unsure, but it is a humble faith that exalts Jesus.  Were we to look deeper into John’s Gospel at more disciples, we’d find Nathanael.  His faith started out uncomfortably blunt, but he was steadfast. 

We’d meet the Pharisee Nicodemus who began with a careful faith that stayed hidden and conformed to the expectations of the temple insider crowd.  Nicodemus was afraid of how it would injure him socially if he were seen with Jesus in the light of day.  A few years of watching Jesus transformed Nicodemus from this unimpressive caution to a man who risked all he had earned in his life in order to honor the Lord.  He went from careful to risky faith. 

Of course it is in John that we meet Thomas.  The resurrection brought his doubts.  If we go through the Gospel carefully and imaginatively, we see that Thomas whose doubting faith was exposed in the resurrection was perhaps the most rational of the disciples.  His faith, relying upon reason, may be as helpful as any we study in our post-enlightenment age. 

What kind of faith does the resurrection inspire in you?  Do you resonate with one we’ve explored or touched upon briefly?  The tomb is empty.  Let this settle in your mind.  Put yourself there.  What does it mean?

Try to explain to people who think Christianity is just a fantasy or nothing but garbage that actually it is a faith based upon this man who rose from the grave.  Try to imagine yourself attempting to convince nonbelievers that this story is absolutely true, is the best news ever, and is their hope for salvation.  The resurrection can be difficult to embrace even when we believe it without question.

What faith does it create in you?  However we answer, from our predecessors in the Bible, we know the faith we have won’t be perfect.  Our Easter faith will be hasty or blundering, timid or blunt, careful or doubtful.  But the resurrected Jesus will love us right where we are, right there in our flawed faith.  The risen Christ will make our faith steadfast and bold, rational and risky.  He does this because this story is His and he invites to inhabit it.  He calls us to resurrection faith which, because of His grace, ends in us being resurrected and living forever. 

Is this hard to believe?  That’s OK.  Believe it as best you can with the faith you have.  Jesus will carry us from here into life, life everlasting.

AMEN