Luke 24:1-12
On the first day of the week, very early in the morning,
the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found
the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find
the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two
men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright
the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them,
"Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has
risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee : 'The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands
of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.' " Then
they remembered his words.
When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to
the Eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the
mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. But
they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like
nonsense. Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the
strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself
what had happened.
Several
years ago I was in Haiti
Interesting
man this uncle.
According
to my Haitian friend, this uncle was a zombie.
“Oh
really,” I asked. “So your uncle
died. He was buried, and one day he
popped out of the grave and started walking around.”
“No,”
my friend reassured me – there was no walking out of the grave. Apparently his uncle died. And before the family could bury him, he came
back to life. He couldn’t talk – all he
could do was mumble. His whole right
side was all messed up and he couldn’t use his right arm, and his right leg
didn’t work right and he walked with a shuffle.
I
asked my friend if perhaps his uncle might have had a stroke. Sounded like a stroke to me.
My
Haitian friend was not very educated and did not know what a stroke was – but he
knew what a zombie was and his uncle was a zombie. And he was afraid of his uncle.
I
mean after all, who wouldn’t be afraid of a zombie?
When
you die, you are supposed to stay dead.
And
zombies are scary!
Today
there are zombie movies at the theater. Last
year we were treated with the movie – Abraham Lincolm verses the Zombies. This year we have had Pride and Prejudice and
the Zombies – oh, what would Jane Austin think?
When
I was a kid it was Frankenstien’s monster. And I’m not talking about a fake, pretend
Frankenstein, I’m talking the real deal – the one with Boris Karlov. Every Saturday morning one of the THREE
television stations broadcast something called Shock Theater, which always
showed these monster movies. And
Frankenstein was the best! Scared me to
death. This mad scientist put together
parts from dead people and brought this dead monster to life and yelled, “its
alive, its alive” and late at night….
That
monster came to see me….
I
saw him and his shadow coming into my room late at night and I yelled out for
my family to run and hide – and my Mom wouldn’t let me watch monster movies for
a long time after that.
I
share these stories because it is instinct for us to be afraid of something
that is dead coming back to life.
I
knew it watching Boris Karlov walk down the hallway.
My
Haitian friend knew it when he misunderstood his uncle’s stroke as having died
and then coming back to life as a zombie.
The
women who found the empty tomb had that same feeling on the first Easter
morning. They were, in the words of
Luke, TERRIFIED!
Terror, fear, confusion – those are good solid reactions
to the Resurrection of Christ, “resurrection” meaning he came to life after
being dead.
And buried.
Dead and buried, then
suddenly up and walking around.
That is a scary thing.
And in Luke, the women are
terrified.
In Matthew’s Gospel, the
Roman Guards are witnesses to the resurrection event and in the words of
Matthew, “For
fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men.”
How else are you going to respond to a dead man walking out of a grave?
Mark’s Gospel ends with the women learning of the Resurrection and that
Gospel ends with “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”
Fast forward 2000 years and here we are, Easter Sunday.
Probably no one here is sitting in terror! There is no fear and trembling!
Your greatest fear today is that I might preach a sermon that is way too
long and you might be late for lunch.
So how do we celebrate the resurrection today?
There are Easter Egg Hunts and photo ops for the children – lots of
fun. No fear. I’m not sure what Easter Eggs and the Easter
Bunny has to do with Easter, but they are fun, especially with the children.
We have lost the fear of the resurrection – and I think that is a good
thing. Jesus was not the Frankenstein
Monster coming out of the grave. Jesus
is not a zombie. Jesus is our savior,
and he comes out of the tomb, risen from the dead, and the angels were right
when they said, fear not.
The problem is – when we lost our fear of the resurrection, we lost
something else – our sense of wonder.
Our sense of awe. Our sense of
being amazed.
We have become used to the resurrection – perhaps even bored by it.
The Resurrection was an emotionally powerful moment in history. At first it was fear – and then it matured into
awe and wonder.
But our reaction to it was never meant to mellow into complacency – or boredom.
This was the one day that made all the difference in the world.
Without the Resurrection, Jesus would have become a nearly – or perhaps
even a completely – forgotten footnote in history.
But with the resurrection, this became a day that made all the
difference in the world.
It was the resurrection that moved the early Christians to go into all
the world and make disciples for Jesus.
It was the resurrection that motivated early Christians, especially
during the Middle Ages, to create hospitals throughout the world.
It was the resurrection that motivated the church to build universities
and schools and to overcome illiteracy.
In the early years of American history, when a Presbyterian Church was
established on the frontier, the congregation built the school house first,
then the sanctuary, and the pastor was expected to be the elementary school
teacher as well as the preacher.
It was the resurrection that even today motivates the creation of written
languages for those small tribes of people where illiteracy still continues.
It was the resurrection that challenged the church to question their
acceptance of slavery and to support abolition in this nation over a century
ago, and that in more recent decades moved many clergy and other Christians to
always be at the front of civil rights marches.
It is the resurrection that continues to challenge us today as we have
to let go of prejudices and long held believes as we are moved to accept all
people of various life styles and orientations.
It is the resurrection that moves even the most cold hearted soul to
become generous and gracious.
Resurrection Day is the day that has made all of the difference in the
world.
If you can be open to the moving of the Holy Spirit of God you can
realize that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not something we should get
used to. We should always have a sense
of awe and wonder about it.
I mean – a dead man coming back to life?
That is not something that happens every day.
And while it is fine for us not to be frightened of it, as were those
first witnesses, we should never be complacent.
We should be so filed with the fire of the Holy Spirit that we should be
moved to go out and continue to make a difference in the world.
There is still poverty in the world.
There is still racism. There is
still oppression of people. There is
still injustice. There are people who
are lonely and afraid.
There are people who need the salvation and redemption of Christ.
Has the resurrection made a
difference in your life? And has your
knowledge of the resurrection moved you to make a difference in the lives of
others around you?
If the answer to those two
questions is “no” then that is something to be afraid of!
My friends, believe in the
Resurrection.
Be awed by it.
Be filled with the wonder of
it all.
And by the power of the
resurrection and of the Holy Spirit, go out into the world and make a
difference.
Copyright 2016.
Dr. W. Maynard Pittendreigh
All rights reserved
Ministers may feel free to use some or all of this sermon in their own ministries as long as they do not publish in print or on the Internet without ascribing credit to the author.
