(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Easter Monday in the Aftermath”, originally shared on April 18, 2022. It was the 207th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
Today is Easter Monday. It’s kind of a let-down, the aftermath of a
great celebration. On the other hand, it’s a day to reflect on the meaning of
Easter, without all the expectations. That’s what we’re going to do.
Today is a day of great relief. Yes, it’s the day taxes are due, and if
yours aren’t in yet, you have your work cut out for you. But for most people, a
sigh of relief has been breathed.
It’s also the day after Easter Sunday, the celebration of the Resurrection
of Our Lord.
What does that mean? Jesus rose from the dead.
That’s nice for him. Everybody loves a happy ending. But what does that
mean for us?
It’s a big deal because we died in Christ in our baptism. Death is a
past tense experience for us. We are born again.
We are a new creation. Our lives are hidden in Christ and because he
lives, we shall live also.
It’s one of the few things we can know are good for us in life.
I heard a story once about a Chinese rancher who was visited by his
neighbor, who hadn’t been by for a while.
“How are things going?” the neighbor said.
“I don’t know,” replied the rancher.
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“Well, he said, “do you remember the big thunderstorm we had a couple of
months ago?”
“Yes.”
“All my horses got spooked and smashed out or the coral.”
“That’s bad, right?” said the neighbor.
“I don’t know,” replied the rancher.
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“My men went out to get them and they found my horses and 5 mustangs.”
“That’s good, right?”
“I don’t know,” replied the rancher.
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“My son tried to break one of them and got thrown and broke his arm.”
“That’s bad, right?” said the neighbor.
“I don’t know,” replied the rancher.
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“A warlord came by the next day and conscripted all my men, but he didn’t
take my son because he had a broken arm.”
“That’s good, right?” said the neighbor.
“I don’t know,” replied the rancher.
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
And the story keeps going like that.
We may not know whether what happens to us is really good or bad in life,
but we can know the power of the Resurrection, because it come as something
from outside ourselves.
Resurrection comes as a gift from God!
Look at where things are in the pandemic. You think you know what’s
going on, but then things change.
In LA County, you now don’t have to
self-isolate after coming into contact with someone who has tested positive if
you don’t have any symptoms.
Cases are starting to rise again but resulting
in few hospitalizations and deaths because of the number of people who are
vaccinated and the antibodies of those who have survived the virus.
Cities, starting with Philadelphia, are
reinstating indoor mask mandates because of rising infections, and cases are skyrocketing
in England and China.
What’s
going on? It’s confusing.
I read a short article the other day called something like, “What People
in the Pandemic Can Learn from Skydivers.” It was an interview with a man who
had taught skydiving for decades. He said that he had noticed that, while
skydiving equipment had become safer and safer in recent years, injuries and
deaths from skydiving accidents had stayed almost the same.
He puzzled over that for a long time, until he realized that as people felt
safer because of their equipment, they were willing to engage in more dangerous
behavior. They felt safer, so they would try to glide through a narrow canyon,
for example, and would be injured or killed. The same is happening with the
pandemic.
Circumstances
change, but people don’t necessarily change in a way that their circumstances
warrant.
For example, when Jesus was confronted with
the death of his friend Lazarus and made the statement that he would rise
again, before he raised him this exchange took place in in John 11:23-26,
23 Jesus said to
her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said
to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last
day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection
and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will
live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me
will never die. Do you believe this?”
Do you
believe it? Do you believe that the key to life and death is in Jesus Christ?
That it is not something we achieve, but something that is received as the gift
of God in Jesus Christ?
Did he give his life and then take it back again?
Did Jesus rise from the dead?
Here are 12 things that give us evidence
for the Resurrection
- Evidence of death
- The Bible says
that when the soldier pierced Jesus’ side with his spear, blood and water
poured out. This indicates that Jesus had been dead long enough for the
solid and liquid parts of his blood to separate.
- 16 Roman guards
and the stone seal
- 16 Roman
soldiers was a pretty good defense. If the seal on the stone over the
tomb had been broken, if they had slept on guard duty, they would have
been executed immediately.
- The disciples in
shock
- The disciples
didn’t understand what was going on. Some of them returned to work as
fishermen! They thought that the story was over and they didn’t know what
to do.
- No body and no
benefit to steal the body
- The had all
abandoned Jesus. They had no expectations for the future.
- The witness of
women
- Women were not
considered reliable witnesses. Their testimony was not acceptable in
courts of law. This was Patriarchy. Yet, women were the first witnesses
and the first evangelists. If you were making up this story, the last people
you would put at its center were women.
- Martyrdom of
witnesses
- All of the 11
remaining disciples, but one, were killed for their faith. If you were
making up a story, it seems unlikely that you, or anyone, would die for
it.
- Martyrdom of
early Christians
- People who were
not among the inner 11 also died for their faith. They had even less to
gain.
- Eyewitness
testimony
- Hundreds of
people saw Jesus after he rose from the dead.
- Experience of
Christians
- People who never
saw Jesus in his post-resurrection body have experienced his living
presence for almost 2,000 years and continue to die rather than deny this
reality.
- Day of worship
for the Church now begun
- The resurrection
of Jesus was so profoundly shattering that people began worshiping on the
day of Jesus’ resurrection, first day of the week, what we call Sunday,
rather than on the seventh.
- Lack of details
- None of the four
gospels have the kind of details one would expect if the story was
made-up. There are few specifics, little backstory, and very little
context provided.
- Hostile witnesses
turn Christian
- Even indifferent
witnesses turn Christian. Doubting Thomas believes when he sees the risen
Christ. People throughout history who have been skeptical have come to
believe and to receive a living relationship with the risen Christ.
Is that enough? No, because if someone can
talk you into being a Christian, someone else can talk you out of it.
What’s the key to understanding the
resurrection?
Before pop-tops, beer and soda cans, which
were rimmed on both ends at that time, had to be opened with a special pry-tool
that made a triangular hole on one side of the can to drink from and another hole
on the other side to allow air to flow in in order to let a person drink from
the other.
When pop-tops made their appearance, my
grandfather on my father’s side didn’t like them. He said they made the beer
taste funny. So, he would drive all over town looking for places that still
sold beer in the plain cans. One day, my dad said to his dad, “Why don’t you
just turn the can upside down?”
Do you remember, or know, what people called
the tool used to open soda and beer cans before pop-tops? A church key.
What’s the key to understanding the
resurrection? Turn it upside down. It’s the cross!
Without the meaning of the cross, it’s just
a happy ending. But the cross means so much more for us!
We have been redeemed! We were reconciled to
God, that all who believe and are baptized shall be saved!
That sacrifice has made of us a new
creation. We who are in Christ have been born again by the work of Jesus, the
love of God made visible, on the cross. Our transformed lives are lived in
response to that sacrifice.
How do we proclaim the resurrection in our
nearly post-pandemic world? Maskers and Non-maskers. Vaxers and Non-vaxers. Republicans/Democrats.
Conservatives/Liberals. It’s popular to say that we are polarized, that social
media has given everyone a tribe and that our tribes are getting smaller and
smaller. I’d say that we are not polarized, we are fractured.
How will be get past that? I think that
Christians have an answer, and it’s found in the Resurrection.
The key is demonstrating that Christ is
risen in us! In being known for loving one another and living in harmony with
one another.
And I will be the first to say that
something like that doesn’t just happen. It takes work. And it takes sacrifice.
It took the cross to reconcile us to God. We
are given there the model of what reconciliation means. If you want to follow
Jesus, you must take up your cross and follow him. The challenge is that we are
often fine with this, as long as the sacrifice is made by someone else.
Two little boys were eating the
pancakes their mother had made for breakfast one day.
When the mother stepped out for a few
minutes and came back she found them fighting over the last pancake. “Boy,
boys”, she said. “What would Jesus do?”
The older brother said, “She’s right, Billy.
You be Jesus.”
Nowhere is this seen more clearly today than
in the war in Ukraine.
The dominant religious group in Ukraine as
been the Russian Orthodox Church. When the war started, the head of the Russian
Orthodox Church declared it a holy war. The Russian Orthodox in Ukraine said, “Wait
a minute! We’re the innocent victims here.” Church members in both Russia and
Ukraine are upset about this declaration. The depth of the evil people can
inflict on each other is on full display. Christians are killing Christians,
and over what?
What witness can we give to the world when we
as a people are to be known for our love for one another but instead are killing
one another?
The plain fact is that human beings are a
mess. We have always been a mess. We sin, we separate ourselves from God. We
can make no claim f or righteousness of
our own.
Our only witness to the world is the cross,
that Jesus gave his life for we sinners, and then took it back again in the
Resurrection to validate the power of the cross.
Christ has died. Christ is Risen. Christ will
come again. That’s not the mystery of our faith in the sense that it’s a
problem to be solved, but in the sense that it’s beyond our understanding. It
is a gift from God that comes, and can only come, from God.
I saw a T-shirt the other day that said, “Normal
is not coming back. But, Jesus is!”
Nothing and no one will be perfect until then. Only saved for eternity.
Meanwhile we are called to live in response
to the love of God by exhibiting that love naturally and sacrificially, as the
new Creation God has made of us, living lives of repentance and resolve to be
who we have been redeemed to be.
Let that be our proclamation, our message of
hope, and let us live that message of God’s redeemed each day as the people
Christ.
He is Risen!
He is Risen, Indeed!
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