Mark 16:1-8
When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and
Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and
anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had
risen, they went to the tomb. 3 They had been saying to one another, “Who will
roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4 When they looked
up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled
back. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white
robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6 But he said to them,
“Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.
He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7
But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee;
there you will see him, just as he told you.” 8 So they went out and fled from
the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to
anyone, for they were afraid.”
May God Bless to our
understanding the words that we hear today
Will you pray with me please? May the Words of my mouth and the meditation
of all of our hearts and minds be acceptable in your
sight O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen
There is an ancient
liturgy of the Church, which works like this: The worship leader, looking out
on the people gathered for worship and proclaims:
Knock, knock!
And the people would
respond: "who’s there?”
He Is
He is who?
His is Risen!
He is Risen indeed!
He is Risen.
"He is risen
indeed."
Is He? Really?
I mean, yes, the tomb is empty! But is it because he has truly risen or
are we just the butt of big April Fool’s joke, is there really something to
celebrate here?
I am not asking that to
be flip, I don’t mean any disrespect, I am not suggesting that our celebration
today in worship is without meaning. But I just wonder…. I have proclaimed:
"He is Risen." You have responded to this statement of faith with:
"He is risen, indeed." And so, I ask you, as well as myself, what
does it mean?
What does it mean to us that Jesus is Risen?
What does it mean that the tomb is empty? What does it mean, deep down in your
heart, deep within your soul , what does it mean during those late nights alone
with your thoughts, what does it mean as you go about your daily life , what
does it mean in your times of joy and of sorrow, what does it mean when we
stand here today sharing with one another the ancient words of resurrection
"He is Risen! "
“He is risen indeed!”
What does it mean? How do
we respond, when we are on our own, when there is no preacher to prompt us, no
congregation to remind us of what to say and when to say it? When that call
comes, do you pause whatever you are doing and respond?
"He is Risen."
“He is Risen indeed.”
Do you find comfort in
those words or do you find yourself waiting another beat for the cosmic
response of “April Fools!?” Honestly, I wouldn’t blame you if you did. The events leading up to and surrounding this
day are difficult, we are being asked to believe that a badly beaten man, who
suffered death in the most horrific way possible is now no longer dead but has
somehow escaped a well- sealed tomb and is headed for Galilee very much alive.
It’s a lot to believe, but we are Easter people and so we wrestle with what it
means to us and to the world.
He is Risen
He is Risen indeed!
Mark is perhaps the most
interesting and maybe the hardest of the gospels to read on Easter
morning. In Mark’s telling, on the third
day, the women return to the tomb to finally fully prepare Jesus’s body for
entombment. They are greeted by a rolled
away stone, a man dressed in white and the words “Don’t be alarmed! You are
looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised. He isn’t
here. Look, here’s the place where they laid him. 7 Go, tell his disciples,
especially Peter that he is going ahead of you into Galilee. You will see him
there, just as he told you.” Words of
assurance that assure no one. Instead, the women are overcome with terror and
dread and they flee, and they say nothing because they are afraid.
The original writings of
Mark’s gospel end here. There is no
meeting of the beloved teacher in the garden, no sighting of a risen Lord. And I
think that Mark does that on purpose, he is challenging us here, challenging
our faith, challenging us to believe because we know, to believe because we
have been walking with Jesus all of this time, to believe because we have heard
the words and understand the teaching, to believe because we know that Jesus is
the Son of God and we don’t need no stinking empty tombs to prove that to
us. But somewhere, in the back of our
minds aren’t we wondering if this isn’t some crazy, elaborate April Fool’s,
some intricate knock, knock joke? What is the reality? The tomb is empty, Jesus is not here, what
does that mean?
I have to imagine that
the early believers were wondering the same things. Not that it was a walk in the park traveling
the Judean countryside with Jesus as he was preaching and teaching for the past
three years, but now they realize that that was the easy part. Jesus was there in person walking every step
of the way with them, and now it appears that he is gone, and they have to
figure out what that means. What does it
mean to be a follower of Jesus Christ if he is not there in front of them? If
he is not here in front of us?
I am going to say
something this morning that may sound odd to you—the power of Easter is not
whether you intellectually agree with the gospels. The power of Easter is not
found in whether you think Jesus walked from the tomb or was taken from the
tomb. The power of Easter, the power raging through this day of celebration,
throughout the history of humankind, throughout the ministry of the Church, is
not the power of intellectual agreement…It is the power of the resurrection
itself, it is the power of faith, present in the lives of those who follow
Christ.
This past week in Bible
Study we discussed the resurrection stories and talked about what the
resurrection meant. Ron Dobson said it
best...Resurrection is about new life, new creation, new beginnings. I would take it one step further to add,
through the power of God. Resurrection
is the power of God giving us a new beginning, allowing us every day to be
newly created, inviting us into a new life where Jesus is alive, and God is
always present.!
Luke Timothy Johnson
author of The Real Jesus writes: "The Christian claim concerning the
resurrection of Jesus is not that he picked up his old manner of life, but
rather that after death he entered into an entirely new form of existence, one
in which he shared the power of God and in which he shared that power with
others. The resurrection experience, then, is not simply something that
happened to Jesus but is equally something that happened to Jesus’ followers.
The sharing in Jesus’ new life through the power of the Holy Spirit is an
essential dimension of the resurrection." There it is…new life through the power of
resurrection. Our new life and our
power! I wonder what it would be like if we proclaimed loudly:
We are Risen
We are Risen indeed!
THAT my friends is the
power of Easter!
The power of Easter comes
as Jesus is raised to a new way of life, and then, in a miraculous fashion,
shares that new way of life with us.
He is risen; it is not
some elaborate April Fool’s Joke, and those of us who follow Christ, who give
ourselves to him and seek to live as his friends and family left in this world,
we get to share the resurrection life too.
“He is Risen”
“He is risen, indeed!”
Because he is risen, we
share in his new existence. We are an Easter people. For us to be an Easter
people means that more than the day of celebration, it is the promise of new
life that counts. It is the daily realization that the very power of God which
raised Jesus from the dead is also the very same power which flows in and
through us as followers of the Risen Jesus To be an Easter people means that
even as the long dark nights come, even as the daily grind wears at us, even as
the tugs and bumps of the problems of each day come our way, we know that it is
not our own strength which sustains us. It is not our own wisdom and cunning on
which we must depend. It is not by our own wits and resources that we struggle
to survive.
He is risen means that
when the echo comes down the hallways of the workplace, through the silent
nights of worry in hospital rooms, through the grief of funeral parlors and
cemeteries; when the echoes come from all those who surround us in the great
cloud of witnesses, we who are Easter people will know how to respond.
Knock knock
Who’s there?
He Is
His is who
He is Risen.
"He is Risen,
indeed"
HALLEJUHA AMEN