Going To The Tomb Mark 16:1-8

Ask: Why do we go to the tomb? Why do we visit grave markers of our beloved?

Sen. Robert Byrd and his wife are buried right up the street at  Columbia Gardens cemetery. Before he died, he came out to visit his wife’s grave every morning. He brought flowers and stayed awhile before heading back to the hill. Every day. A story of great faithfulness, at a place of death.

What do WE expect when we go to the places of burial?

You heard Mark’s Easter story, 

What did the women expect? What did they say? 

They had plans to anoint the body.

They knew the stone was too large for them. 

WHY DID THEY GO?

Honor the body, keep their rituals, do their duty, say goodbye, see the place..

They weren’t expecting resurrection, were they? (how do we know? conversation/purpose) THEY WENT TO THE PLACE OF DEATH. . and once there, found LIFE.

Only the women who followed their passion to act, to honor, & be faithful to Jesus received the surprising message of Good News from the man in the white robe.

What might that tell us?

and what can we learn from what they did next?

How often we do what we know. 

Many of us have built in defaults, when confused and uncertain, we do what we know, what we ‘always do’. One of the things I like about the story we heard from Acts is Peter’s default when confronted is to tell the story he knows, the story of Jesus. 

The women who went to the tomb hold key places in jesus’ story.I and we wonder what happened next. Mark wrote his ending for a reason, one that you might guess, but later generations were unsatisfied with its open end - so others supplied additional endings which most Bible's  now label clearly.

Jesus let death swallow him, he let the world’s system do it’s worse. 

HE died on that cross, and what did he find? New life.

After 3 days of death, new life came. 3 days that we like to forget, skip past. 3 days was a lifetime to his followers and those who loved him most.

Today we celebrate what happened next. Resurrection - not re-animation, not a zombie walk, not the living dead, but NEW life. — 

Different life, It wasn’t quite the same Jesus who met the disciples in Galilee or the locked room, or on the road to Emmaus. (each gospel has a different description; telling whether Jesus could be touched, or couldn’t be touched, or appeared thru walls) —- NONE of this is as important as seeing what REALLY happened here —— NEW LIFE comes from the place of death.

Jesus didn’t go from the Mt. of Olives to new life.  Not from the upper room to resurrection either.

He first had to die. 

We’ve stressed this as we’ve approached this day of celebration.

Truly, it is not easy to comprehend!

The women were dumbfounded. Comprehension was evidently a long time coming. When confronted with the scarily impossible our first tendency is to RUN! and they did.

The women, went in spite of uncertainty and they ended up running away!

Fear and trembling, uncertainty -  sounds like the kinds of feelings we have when asked to talk about our faith…

Or asked to try something that really stretches our limits.

In their case, it involved risk, but still they went. And in spite of what they were told, they held onto there fear, at least for awhile.

Maybe their all too believable reaction is also there for a reason. So we can explore our own experiences.

What CAN happen when we go to the places of death? 

Some of you may remember a book from the 60’s called The Cross and The Switchblade. David Wilkerson went to NY in 1958. While that may have been an ideal time here in Arlington as people from the City church began to talk of a new church in Arlington on a hillside farm. - in NYC, there was a place of death.

Gangs, drugs, overdose, sickness, violence surrounded him.  It wasn’t a fairy tale, but there were miracles. At least that’s how the people who found transformation described it. 

New Life - but Wilkerson had to go to the place of death to be part of it, to plant seeds, to cultivate, to mentor.

Here are some of the place you’ve seen resurrection. (Show painting and clippings from morning activity) 

New life can come to people:

Did you read the story about Trotwood COB in the March Messenger, our denominational magazine?

Traditional standards and measurements would classify them as a ‘dying church’ —- sitting in a city with a declining population and severe loss of jobs. The city has experience urban blight and white flight. 

Gangs and violence entered in when jobs and income base moved out. Youth and youth adults live in a dangerous world in Trotwood.

But into that place of death, a few people continued to go on Sunday mornings. And they also went to COBrethren workshops by On Earth Peace. From this was birthed “The Peace Place, a community nonprofit in Trotwood that uses the Agape - Satyagraha curriculum to teach peace and conflict resolution.

You will read about people who find safety and hope there, at least once a week, and some even come back on Sundays. In the quotes people say, “This is my family.” “This is the place that takes care of me.”

(it's a modern Cross &  Switchblade story.)

All is not perfect, but resurrection is happening there. But as with all new life, it doesn’t mean they are returning to a 700-member all-white church. No, new life for them means new challenges, new identities that include; 

• a determination to study racism and learn how it is part of us all. 
• A challenge to adapt to people who are ‘not Brethren’ and 
• to add in new styles of worship

But at Trotwood you will find people who have found new life where there had been only death, and others who remain committed to bringing new life into the lives of their neighbors. (See March Messenger Magazine, publication of COB, Brethren Press)

See -New life can even come to churches.

You have probably heard about urban churches that found revitalization when they stopped looking inward and turned themselves outward. These church adopted ministries to help meet the needs of their neighborhoods.

I just read an more modern version of how a dying URBAN church found new life BUT it did so by ENDING all those ministries of outreach into the neighborhood! 

are you surprised?

Rev. Mike Mather says this, “The church, and me in particular,” “have done a lot of work where we have treated the people around us as if, (at worst) they are a different species and, at best, as if they are people to be pitied and helped by us.” 

(is that how we feel about those we help?)

With that in mind, Broadway United Methodist Church has — for more than a decade now — been reorienting itself. 

Rather than a bestower of blessings, the church is aiming to be something more humble.

“The church decided its call was to be good neighbors. And that we should listen and see people as children of God,” said De’Amon Harges, a church member 

THEY see Broadway’s transformation in terms like Christ’s death, burial and resurrection.” (1)

John McKnight is one of the founders of the way Broadway is building community from the inside out. 

He WAS HERE about it 4 years ago sitting in our church Fellowship Hall. A neighbor, Sandy Horwitt invited him to speak and we hosted the lunch. 

He advocates a way of discovering the gifts people have and building program around them, rather then inviting people to plug into an old existing structure.

NOW, When people come to the Broadway food pantry, instead of giving them a form to state how poor they are, they are asked to name 3 things they are good enough at that they could teach someone else. (2) . . . . .

Surprise! 

NOT PITY -BUT VALUE.

New questions, —-new purpose, —-NEW LIFE.

What we MIGHT discover ANYTHING, when we are willing to risk going to a place of DEATH.

It WILL BE surprised.  All these stories have surprise in common. 

It might not make sense either,

yet that fits right in with today’s GOOD NEWS, 

 certainly how a few frightened women leaving an empty tomb saying nothing, became a world-wide following of Jesus’ people that has lasted millennia — makes NO sense, does it?

Surprise!

Not a set agenda, God’s agenda

not someone else’s life or a refurb of the old, but NEW LIFE!

Even when we are the ones stumbling down the path, uncertain about what we are doing, God can use us to create new life.

Let me leave you with one more story of resurrection.

The school system in a large city had a program to help children keep up with their school work when they were in the hospital for an extended stay. 

One day a teacher in the program received a routine call asking her to visit a particular child. She took the child's name and hospital room number and talked with the child's regular class teacher. 

"We're studying nouns and adverbs in his class now," the regular teacher said, "and I'd be grateful if you could help him understand them so he doesn't fall too far behind." 

The hospital teacher went to see the boy that afternoon. 

No one had warned her that the boy had been badly burned and was in extreme pain. Healing was not assured, and the risk of death remained on his horizon.

 Surprised and Upset at the sight of the boy, the teacher stammered as she told him, "I've been sent by your school to help you with nouns and adverbs." So she stumbled thru the lesson with him. When she left she felt she hadn't accomplished much. 

But the next day, when she came to teach young patients again, a nurse asked her, "What did you do to that boy?" 

The teacher felt she must have done something wrong and began to apologize. "No, no," said the nurse. "You don't understand. We've been worried about that little boy, but ever since yesterday, his whole attitude has changed. He's fighting back, and already responding to treatment. It's as though he’s really decided to live." 

Weeks later the boy explained that he HAD given up hope until the teacher arrived. 

Everything changed when she sat down to teach. He came to a simple realization. "They wouldn't send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy, would they?" (3)

. . . 

God is bringing new life into places of death all around us.

We too can GO, SEE and JOIN the God of RESURRECTION.

The LORD is Risen!

“he is risen, indeed!”

TBTG.

(1)  Robert King Ministry Matters Death and Resurrection of an Urban Church http://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/5906/death-and-resurrection-of-an-urban-church?utm_source

(2)  Robert King http://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/5906/death-and-resurrection-of-an-urban-church?utm_source

(3)  Bits & Pieces, July 1991. http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/h/hope.htm

Living Our Alleluias

David Lose, an insightful scholar wrote, “. .no one expected the resurrection. Even though Jesus predicted his death…and resurrection…several times across his ministry, no one greets the news that God has raised Jesus from the grave and defeated death and the devil by saying, “Praise God!”

No one shouts “Allelujah” when they hear that their friend and Lord has been raised to life.
And absolutely no one, upon hearing the news that death itself could not hold the Lord of Glory captive, says,
        “I knew it – just like he said!”1

Giovanni, 1491

Lose comforts our logical, sceptical, brains by titling his work, “If it’s not hard to believe, you’re probably not paying attention!”
    Luke’s Story
Not only does no one expect the resurrection, no one believes it at first. The women come expecting to anoint a dead body.
    They have to be reminded by 2 men ‘in dazzling clothes, to’ “remember how he told you, . .?” they say.

When they run back full of excitment, how do the 11 respond?
    “But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” (Lose also helps us recall that the Greek word used for the men’s reaction is the root of our word, ‘delirious’. The men thought the women were delirious.. .)2

So if we still have trouble with this day celebrating a story of resurrection that we don’t fully understand, we’re in good company!

Those who struggle with what resurrection means, can find comfort with the disciples who were in the middle of all the drama and yet didn’t know what to think.

Rembrandt

It’s actually a bit easier to identify with Mary - in John’s story of the encounter - she’s sad, fearful and confused, wandering in the garden “early in the morning”. She’s focussed on  the missing body and where it went. Who took it?     She may not be hung up with logical questions, but she’s hasn’t transcended to a conception of resurrection either.
It’s only when her conversation -with the one she thinks is a gardener- get’s personal, and the Risen Jesus calls her by name. . .that her grief is pierced by something greater. . . The joy we call, GOOD NEWS.

We can identify with Mary's grief, can’t we?
Because, We’ve known loss, death, emptiness.
At some time we have known the end of all we had our hearts set on.3

At these times of desperate loss, Our need is for the promise of life; life in the face of death.
    It’s more than a vague comfort we seek, that we will see departed family or dear friends again. That is the kind of solace we seek right after a loss. (when someone dies)
What we need when we hit bottom is the promise that there is truly MORE,
    . .more to live for than money,
        more to live for than the security of a home,
            more to life than just the  breaths we take in a short lifetime.
We need what Jesus promised, taught and showed by his living. That there is MORE to life than ..this.

Jesus lived the Alleluia that says, “Yes, there IS MORE”
    every day  of his earthly life. He tried again and again to teach it to those who followed him.
    Jesus’ life of Alleluia
Can you think of places he brought real LIFE (w/a capital ‘L’) into people’s (little ‘L’) lives?
We’ve named some of these before
    =(examples to quick summary from J’ in Luke)
    He healed a bent over woman and one who bled
    He exorcised demons, and healed debiliating skin diseases
    He restored the ear cut off when he was arrested
 And places he taught Alleluia?
    Beatitudes.
    Blessed are. . .

He fed, healed and restored people to community.
All the while telling people they were blessed, when they didn’t feel like it.

    -He showed there was power in HIS community that intimidated authorities who held earthly power.
    -He pointed priorities back to people and basic needs and turned them away from accumulating things and wealth.

He let the world do it’s worst to him, and by his unwavering faith in God’s constant presence, (Into your hands I commend my spirit) his life AND his death said, ‘there’s more to living than you can see’ watch me! .  . .
. .And it’s hard to make logical sense of that.

Jesus didn’t ignore or deny reality. He just trusted in something greater. When Sunday morning came, God raised him, in a way that is also inconceivable - a resurrection. Raised him to a NEW ORDER of BEING. (Not just brought back to human life that lives under the threat of eventual death, but a NEW kind of life.)
God brought ALLELUIA into human life when he raised Jesus.
    Alleluias in life
Where are the places in our world that need a life giving alleluia ?
    Places that need resurrection?


**And where are the places you’ve have seen the touch of a Divine Affirmation of LIFE?  Places where YOU find new life:

    (List places, mountain top, sunrise, face of one you serve, or looking down into the face of the one washing your feet?)

 
In next couple weeks we hear stories of places where new life broke in and resurrection was discovered as Jesus appears & SURPRISEs, even those who knew him best.

Their surprise became an alleluia of recognition when they met Jesus again. Eventually, that experience of hearing Jesus call their name, or walking beside him became the beginning of a WHOLE LIFE OF ALLELUIAS.
The ones who first only followed him, then lived the Jesus’ Way, believing in something that doesn’t make sense, believing in something that others couldn’t see.

I beleive in many things I can’t see.

I believe that unseen currents make that Dove up there move.

Dove suspended in window over cross.

    Sure, the physics majors can explain why. But even in a dark and still sanctuary on Friday night, that dove slowly turned. And I beleive in the unseen forces that are behind that movement. . Why?
Because at some point (in some physics class) someone told me about these unseen forces. . And I believe.
. . .
Conclusion - I believe
I believe in unseen forces that move suspended objects.
I believe in unseen forces that bring new life out of the ground every spring.
I believe in the God of resurrection, whom we see at work when people leave rehab and return home.
We see it in when a baby is born where none was thought possible.

We see it in the human ability to go on in the face of horror, and tragedy.

We see it when we come up against huge stones in our path that are far too big to roll away - by ourselves. . . And they move aside. . .

That's when this story of resurrection becomes the alleluias we live.

That’s when the unseen force that creates new life becomes our hope for tomorrow.
. . .
Clinging to the promise that ‘life is more than the death we fear’ is a way to live the ALLELUIA of Easter; EVERY DAY.

 And to that I say alleluia, can you?
1.David Lose, http://www.workingpreacher.org/dear_wp.aspx?article_id=678 2
2.ibid
3. Thoughts for Sunday: sparked by texts 4 preaching. Re: John

Easter Taxidermy

 

John 20:1-18 Easter B – Easter Taxidermy 4/8/12

(The underlining is just to help me preach it.)

How would you feel if I put the stuffed bunny on the altar? - Maybe peaking out from behind the cross…?

It just feels wrong to have the bunny in Easter Sunday worship, doesn’t it?

It seems Sacrilegious because a ‘stuffed bunny’ is as much like the characters in our Easter story as this ‘Jesus action figure’ is like the real Jesus.

Just as this stuffed Lion is NOTHING like the real thing. (Children’s comments:      )

Certainly we wouldn’t leave our children with a real Lion, but we’d gladly give this one away to make someone happy.

(In fact, I got this LION out of our nursery.)

The stuffed version of anything can’t compare to the original –

And we are usually quite glad they do not equal their ferocious equivalents. We can turn our backs on a stuffed Lion and then put him up on the shelf when we are done.

Just like a toy Jesus can be put away to play with another day . . . Unlike the real Jesus, who demands our attention . . .

Yet, often it is the "stuffed Jesus" that we prefer – because he is safer, much safer – and easier to deal with.

-   you know what I mean, don’t you?

-   We love the Jesus that stares at us from the wall with those big brown eyes. He always listens and never makes demands on our time.

-   Sometimes we feel a little guilty and attend another church service or set aside a little more for the offering or a special emphasis like disaster relief.

-   But the ‘safe’ Jesus is easy to walk away from when life gets too busy to think.

But I can’t remember any gospels stories about the ‘safe Jesus’. I don’t recall any times when he gathered his disciples together, gave them a hi-five, and went down to the corner to just hang out with the guys.  (Perhaps those stories just didn’t make the final cut of any of the gospels.)

Actually, I’m pretty sure that there was nothing safe about hanging with Jesus.

Maybe we should call the real Jesus, the ‘ferocious Jesus’ or the ‘dangerous Jesus’ to make the distinction between the one up on the shelf who gets set out on Sundays and the real thing,

because the ‘real Jesus’ IS dangerous.

It is easy to tell them apart. The Real Jesus is the one who got in trouble and was executed by the state. The ‘dangerous Jesus’ seems to want US to get in trouble too.

This Jesus won’t stay up on the shelf. He is the one who was raised on the 3^rd day and began a WORLD of trouble – it’s the Dangerous Jesus’ Resurrection that we celebrate today.

            (The real Jesus is alive and loose in the world. )

It never was safe to be part of the Jesus’ Way. Maybe that is why so many sinners applied for the role. His followers were often confused by his outrageous behavior and confusion continued to the 3^rd morning after he was crucified. Did you notice that the first friends to arrive at the empty tomb get the explanation all wrong?

Mary Magdalene, is out in the dark before dawn (when only troublemakers are around) and gets close enough to see the stone has been removed from the tomb. She runs off and tells other disciples, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb and we do not know where they’ve put him.” - "She was wrong, she couldn’t see the radical truth."

But she knew the dangerous Jesus. She loved and trusted him.

Mary's story in John is not a historical report, it tells of relationship and of dawning faith.[i]

Like many of John's stories, Mary's is a story following and later seeing clearly. Even tho she understood so much about Jesus before his death, she still had to learn to see the new Jesus on that morning - for he wasn’t brought BACK to the life she knew, he was raised (by God) to a new order of being.[ii]

And resurrection brought a new kind of danger to the world.

. . But for Mary, everything came together when Jesus called her name . . .

It’s not the imagined voice of a stuffed person on a shelf she hears, but a real person whom she knows and has risked loving . .

Mary's meeting with Jesus is just what we need to replace our stuffed, safe Jesus with the real thing.

She even helps our rational minds from making Christianity into an intellectual endeavor[iii] that dissolves into arguments about what doctrines to believe.

In order to SEE the ‘real Jesus’

·      We - like Mary, need to hear the sound of his voice.

Truly, We long to be known by God - as scary as it can be.  "We want to be seen for who we are in the most intimate, far-reaching corners of our interior lives.."[iv]

·      When we listen THRU our experiences, we can hear Jesus call our names because he really does know each of his ‘sheep’ by name.

·      We need to hold onto the experiences where we see & walk with him because holding onto a ‘stuffed Jesus’ just won’t do.

Mary’s experience in the garden was enough to keep Jesus alive long after he ascended and she was no longer able walk beside him in the garden.

To know the REAL Jesus, we need the personal experiences that come when we risk living the dangerous life he demanded of his followers.

We need the Easter morning surprise to stay with us so we don’t replace him with a stuffed version or fall back into the despair of Saturday, before he was raised.

Story –from The Orthodox Heretic

I read a story about a group of unknown disciples of Jesus who packed their belongings on the day after Jesus was crucified and left for a distant shore. They couldn’t bear to stay another moment in the place where their Messiah had just been executed.

            “Weighed down with sorrow, they left that place, never to return. Instead they traveled a great distance in search of a land that they could call home.

After months of difficult travel, they finally happened upon an isolated area that was ideal for setting up a new community. Here they found fertile ground, clean water, and a nearby forest from which to harvest material to build shelters. So they settled and founded a community far from Jerusalem, a community where they vowed to keep the memory of Christ ALIVE. They would live in simplicity, love, and forgiveness, just as he had taught them.

            The members of this community lived in great solitude for over a hundred years, reflecting on the [very real] life of Jesus and attempting to remain faithful to his ways. And they did all this despite the overwhelming sorrow that remained at their core.”

            “But their isolation was broken when, a small band of missionaries reached the settlement. These missionaries were amazed at the community they found. What was most startling to them was that these people had no knowledge of the resurrection of Christ, for their founders had left Jerusalem before he was raised by God on the third day.

            Without hesitation, the missionaries gathered all the community members and recounted what had occurred after the crucifixion of their Lord.

            (as you can imagine) That evening there was a great festival in the settlement as people celebrated the good news the missionaries brought.

Yet, as the night progressed, one of the missionaries noticed that the leader of the community was absent. This bothered the young woman, so she set out to look for this respected elder.

            She found him crouched low in a hut - praying and weeping.             “Why are you in such sorrow?” she asked in amazement. “Today is a time to celebrate the resurrection!”

            “It may indeed be a day for great celebration, but this is also a day of sorrow,” replied the elder.

“Since the founding of this community

1.   we have followed the ways taught to us by Christ.

2.   We have been faithful even though it cost us dearly, and

3.   we remained resolute despite the belief that death had defeated Jesus and would one day defeat us also.”

            The elder slowly got to his feet and looked the young woman in the eye.

“Each day we have forsaken our very lives for him because we judged him wholly worthy of the sacrifice, wholly worthy of our being.            

But now, following your news, I am concerned that my children and my children’s children may follow him, not because of his radical life and supreme sacrifice, but selfishly, because his sacrifice will ensure their personal salvation and eternal life.”

            (The elder turned and left the hut to go to the celebration  and left the young missionary stayed crouched on the floor of the hut in tears. . .)[v]

Community Keeps Jesus Alive

These solitary Jesus’ followers knew the ‘dangerous Jesus’ and they kept his ways in spite of the cost.

They never domesticated him into the safe-stuffed Jesus who, with non-threatening smiles, offers US eternal life.

For too many people today, Easter’s resurrection story is simply a guarantee of eternal life – without the dangerous personal relationship that challenges our day to day living.

We need the REAL experience of the Living Lord and our world needs his resurrected presence, not a stuffed replica.

In order for the world to MEET and truly ENCOUNTER the Living Lord, the Dangerous Jesus, WE HAVE TO BE THE TESTIMONY TO HIS PRESENCE.

• It is IN OUR LIVES, that the “resurrection is made manifest.” 

The thing is - we need encouragement too.

We need to be reminded of the personal relationship we have so we can risk living the way Jesus requires.

Encouragement is why we come here, to today to hear the story again.

"We do not come to church simply to remind our conscious minds that Jesus lives."[vi]

We come to be prodded to take ‘safe Jesus’ off the shelf.

We come for the courage to go with ‘dangerous Jesus’ into the world and to BE HIS LIVING PRESENCE TODAY.

(put away stuffed animals)

We do not worship a stuffed Jesus & we don’t need stuffed reminders him.

We worship the Risen Lord, raised to a new order of being and who gives us new life; life to be lived right now with all its danger and risk.

‘Dangerous Jesus’ is alive and loose in the world!

We proclaim him when we say,

the Lord is risen...he is risen indeed.

Amen

---

[i] Boring and Craddock New Testament Commentary  (Louisville: WJK 2004?)356

[ii] ibid

[iii] Serene Jones, feasting on the Word –theo (Louisville:WJK 2008) 376

[iv] ibid serene jones p. 378

[v] Peter Rollins The Orthodox Heretic (Brewster, MA:Paraclete Press 2009) ch.12

[vi] (s.Jones 380)