Trinity Sermons

You’re Not Going to Believe This

April 8, 2007 Rev. David C. Huffman Lk. 24:1-12

I have very fond memories of Easter when I was a child. This was in the fifties, before Global Warming, El Nino, and Ipods – when gasoline was 18 cents a gallon, a loaf of bread cost 23 cents, and you could by a car for a $1,000 and a house for $8,000. Easter was always warm, and our yard was always full of daffodils, azaleas, and dogwood blossoms. I remember getting my first blue suit, complete with a hat (one like Frank Sinatra used to wear), and my sisters getting new frilly yellow and white dresses accessorized with white patent leather shoes, white hats, and white vinyl purses.

I remember my parents, sisters, and me piling into our 1956 green Pontiac sedan and heading to church with the rest of our neighborhood and town. Those were the days! I can still smell the sweet aroma of the ham and the sweet potatoes as we entered the back door of my grandparents’ house after church. Comfort food and comfort memories: there is nothing like it.

Perhaps that is why we have gathered here today: because decades ago, your parents taught you some valuable traditions that have helped to define your life in a transcendent and spiritual way – because your parents loved you enough to take you to church on Christmas and Easter and hopefully most Sundays in between, so that you could learn what Jesus taught and did to give our lives meaning and purpose. I raise my glass to my parents, grandparents, and the members of Grove Park Baptist Church who taught me the gospel and lived it day to day. That is no small reason why I stand before you today with this robe on to remind you that Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

It had been a rough couple of days for Jesus on Thursday and Friday. On Thursday evening he gathered his beloved disciples in an Upper Room in Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. This must have been a very painful experience for Jesus, celebrating the emancipation of the Hebrews from Egyptian slavery with his good friends, knowing that one of them would betray him, another deny him, and all of them abandon him in his hour of need. And so the usual festive tone of this great celebration must have become somber, as Jesus gave the bread and the wine new meaning: “This is my body broken for you; this is my blood shed for you for the remission of sins.”

Perhaps even more painful was the disciples’ inability to understand what was going on. I can relate it that; teachers know the frustration of trying to teach something over and over again and their students not getting it. And then came the long, agonizing prayer in the garden, his disciples falling asleep at the switch; Judas sending the temple guard and betraying him with a kiss. This was followed by Peter cutting off an officer’s ear, which gave way to Jesus’ arrest, interrogation, severe beating, humiliation, and mock trials. And then on Friday at noon God’s anointed Son was nailed to the cross between two thieves. How could this be? How could the leaders of Israel and Rome execute the One for whom Israel had been watching and waiting for 500 years? It didn’t make sense.

Sadly, only the women and a few others were at the cross. The 11 disciples had fled for their own safety, thinking that they might be next. But not the women: Jesus’ mother, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Mary the wife of Clopas, and many other women not named, including the mother of James and John. Ironic, is it not, that only women stood by Jesus to the bitter end, while the men had fled? Especially since women would be denied official leadership in the church for the next 19 centuries. So at three in the afternoon on that Friday we call Good, Jesus breathed his last and said “it is finished,” but not before he had prayed to God, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Ironic too that a member of the ruling council that had turned Jesus over to the Roman officials asked for the body and laid it in a borrowed tomb that had never been used – virgin birth; virgin donkey; virgin tomb. And, so all was lost: their hopes and dreams for a new day had been dashed by the death of their teacher and Lord. They had thought that he was One God had sent to redeem Israel and save the world. It had been a great ride, but now it was over. Jesus was dead and buried, and so were their plans and aspirations.

And then – something happened. While the disciples were in hiding worrying about their fate, the women got up before dawn and went to the tomb to finish a proper burial by anointing Jesus’ body with oil and spices, since that procedure had been interrupted on Friday at sunset, the beginning of the Sabbath. These women, whom Luke names as Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women, were not concerned about their own welfare but were up at dawn doing their faithful duty to care for the remains of their Lord and friend. This reminds me of our deacons and Stephen Ministers, most of whom are women, and their ministry of compassion. And because these women were faithful, they were the first to see the empty tomb and the first to hear the good news of Easter morning: “He is not here; he is risen,” and the first to remember that Jesus himself had told them three times that he must be crucified and be raised on the third day. And because of their loving commitment to Jesus they were also the first human evangelists to share the news that Jesus was alive again, although the disciples dismissed it as an idle tale when they heard it – except Peter, who ran to the tomb, was amazed that it was empty, but then went home and did nothing, according to Luke’s account.

Wow! What a weekend! When we have fantastic news to tell people we usually ask them to sit down and say “you’re not going to believe this.” It was hard to believe. There had been many eye witnesses to Jesus’ death and to his burial, and these events had struck grief deep into their hearts and souls. The tragic news of Jesus’ death was beginning to sink in, and then suddenly without warning they heard that he was alive! Talk about an emotional rollercoaster! I guess we would call this post traumatic experience syndrome, but the early church called it Easter, which means dawn, the time of the discovery of the resurrection.

I am glad to see all of you here today. I guess James Cameron’s documentary on the discovery of Jesus’ and Mary’s bones in a tomb in Jerusalem hasn’t destroyed your faith. If this has caused anyone any stress or doubt, please be assured that all reputable archaeologists have dismissed this claim as preposterous. Friends, Paul got it right when he wrote, “if there is no resurrection then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” I learned a long time ago, after spending two summers on archaeological digs in Israel and writing a very long paper at seminary. that our faith does not depend upon the latest archaeological discovery. It depends upon a personal encounter with the living God through the risen Christ, which is aided and abetted by the Holy Spirit. The Christian faith is a relationship, not a set of doctrines or a term paper.

That is why we are here this morning – instead of playing golf or watching the Masters on ESPN, or reading the newspaper at Starbuck’s, or walking on the beach or catching up on our sleep. Instead, as I speak, millions of pigs who have given the ultimate sacrifice are now warming in our ovens so that we can gather with our families and friends and enjoy Easter dinner. But friends, we have gathered here today for far more than Easter hams and chocolate bunnies. We have come here because when the Good Lord created the human race, he gave us a brain, a heart and soul that seek a higher meaning and purpose to life. We are here because deep down in our heart of hearts we know that there is more to life than Entertainment Tonight, Paris Hilton, Brad Pitt, the Lottery, and Friday Night Smack Down. We are here because we know that our society is saturated with enough wealth, comfort, freedom and privilege to choke a herd of buffalo. And we know that no matter how many toys we buy, none of them can give us the peace and the joy we all seek and know only in the One who was not in the tomb on Easter morning.

I’m here because I am getting sick and tired of TV and mega church preachers living in mansions and acting like kings and movie stars and a lot of people posing as Christians who haven’t a clue what the gospel is about. I am here because I still feel called to preach the gospel and the gospel I read tells me that it is easier for camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into heaven; that those who say they love God and hate their neighbors are liars; and that loving God and loving neighbor are far more important than winning the lottery or becoming the next American Idol or national champion in whatever sport happens to scratch your itch. Are you with me?

I hope you are here because you too have discovered that the lies the media tell us are about as hollow as the chocolate bunnies in our Easter baskets. As I plied the aisles of the drugstore this week I saw miles of chocolate bunnies, Easter eggs, jelly beans, and marshmallow Peeps, but I didn’t see a single cross, empty tomb, or any other remotely religious symbol. Whose holiday is it anyway – Cadbury’s or the Lord Jesus Christ? If I sound a little exasperated and perplexed it is because I am. I’m getting tired of the secular culture stealing the church’s holidays and turning them into money-making machines. Jesus threw the moneychangers out of the temple because they were desecrating God’s house.

Now, I am sure that if you came here today to hear me talk about bunnies, Easter eggs, and new beginnings you are by now quite disappointed. Because I came here today to talk about the awful cross of Good Friday and the glorious news of the empty tomb on Easter morning. I came here to talk about the power of God’s steadfast love and mercy that was so great that it would not let sin and death or the greed and self-interest of the religious and political leaders have the day. I came here to talk about the power of divine love that can trump anything human ingenuity and malfeasance can produce. Hitler once snidely asked an envoy from the Vatican, who had come to lobby for mercy on his enemies, “How many divisions does the Pope have?” And where is Hitler today? I came here today to give witness to the fact that the risen Christ has changed my life and has changed yours from a life without meaning into a life full of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control.

Napoleon once wisely said that the world knows only two real powers: the power of the sword and the power of the spirit. And the spirit is the most powerful. If he was correct, then divide 2 billion Christians by the number in a military division and that’s how many divisions the Christian church has. Lenin once boasted that under communism, Christianity would die out in a few generations. Little did he know that Russian grandmothers would kidnap their own grandchildren from their parents at night and steal away to meet the local priest to have their grandchildren secretly baptized in the church basement. Where is Lenin today? Embalmed, lying in a glass coffin in Moscow, while the church in Russia is alive and well because of the faith and the commitment of those Russian grandmothers who believed in the power of the resurrection. Just like all those women who went to Jesus’ tomb on the first day of the week at dawn. “He is not here; he has risen.” Thanks be to God who gives us the victory in Jesus Christ! Happy Easter. Let us pray.