Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
April 11, 2004 Easter Sunday
Matthew 27: 62-66-28: 1-10
Recently I have been pondering a heavy theological question and maybe you can give me some help. My question is this: does anyone in the universe know a quick way to open a new CD? Are those babies sealed well or what? They should put a sign on them that says “We dare you to open this!” I can’t tell you how many CD’s I’ve damaged trying to open the package with a knife or an ax, or any sharp object I can find. I still haven’t figured it out! And not only CD’s, I have to admit. Just the other day I struggled mightily with a new bottle of aspirin. “To open, push down and turn.” I pushed down, and I turned, and turned and turned and nothing happened. All the lid did was spin around. But I did have a solution: “Betty! Could you come open this please!”
My goodness products are sealed well these days! Dave Barry wrote a column in which he said that he mystified his children with stories of how, in his day, you could take a bottle of aspirin and open it with one hand. They looked at him like he was some kind of dinosaur that did not know it was extinct. Today opening that bottle of aspirin, as far as I am concerned, takes an advanced degree in engineering. Of course, it is all in the name of safety and safety is good. We’ve seen the warnings: IF PROTECTIVE SEAL IS BROKEN, DO NOT USE. If the protective seal is broken, we had better use some caution. If the protective seal is broken, what’s inside, or what was inside, might be dangerous. Which, it seems to me, is not a bad description of Easter. Because this morning, folks, the protective seal is broken and what are we going to do about it?
It is the Saturday after Jesus’ crucifixion. Joseph of Arimathea has been allowed by the authorities to take the body down from the cross – which they didn’t always allow – and put it into a new tomb… but why not? After all, this “Jesus” won’t be bothering anyone anymore. The peace of the status quo has once again, been preserved. Oh, there were those rumors, some of the crazy things he said about being raised. No truth to it, of course. He was nothing more than some wild-eyed prophet, like hundreds before him. The chief priests, scribes and Pharisees and the Romans, all just wanted to maintain the peace, after all, and ensure domestic tranquility, uphold law and order. That’s all it was. They weren’t afraid of anything. The things he said couldn’t possibly be true…could they? Jesus was dead. There was nothing more to fear from him…was there? Of course not!
Yet still they go to Pilate. “Nothing to be afraid of, Governor, but just to make sure there is no monkey business, that his followers aren’t up to anything, maybe it would be best if we sealed the tomb…keep everything safe and secure. Stop the rumors before they can start – don’t give his followers anything to talk about.” Pilate’s response? “You have your own guards. Go, make it as secure as you can.” So they go and seal that tomb tighter than the seal around a new CD. Nothing will ever get in; nothing will ever get out. They are safe; the world is safe. Jesus will never trouble anyone again. End of story.
And I confess to you that it is very tempting to stop this sermon right here. Let’s remember Jesus. Let’s remember his wonderful teachings. Let’s remember his wonderful life. What a great teacher; what a great example for us all. We’ll never forget his wonderful words. Too bad he had to die so young, but we’ll keep a warm feeling for him in our hearts. Now let’s sing a hymn and go home. Don’t want that Easter dinner to get cold. Tempting to stop right here, while things are still safe and secure. Stop before those women get to the tomb, before they discover that the seal is broken.
I am reminded of one of Lyn Johnston’s, For Better or Worse, comic strips. A little girl is sitting by a window, watching the light from the sun come through. She turns to her mother and says, “Look, Mom, there’s a sunbeam coming through the window! Doesn’t it look like something you can touch? I’m pretending it’s a piece of cloth that angels’ gowns are made of. Now I’m pretending it’s a magic slide. Now I’m pretending it’s a movie projector. You can see neat things in a sunbeam, can’t you, Mom?” The mom responds with an, “Uh-huh,” even as she thinks to herself, “And a few minutes ago, all I saw was dust.”
Easter wants to know…what do you see? It’s interesting…the women at the tomb are told twice not to be afraid. When they come upon that tomb and see that the stone is rolled away, when they realize that the seal is broken, their first emotion is not joy, but fear. Why fear? I once came across an Easter sermon in which the preacher said this: “And so Sunday morning, these women came to the unnamed garden near Calvary. The Sabbath over, they went shopping for burial spices and arrived, nervous, apprehensive, at the grave. What a shock: it’s open, an angel sitting there. He says, ‘Don’t be afraid,’ and gives them Jesus’ forwarding address…But they are afraid...Something has gone wrong – or has gone so right they can’t take it in…But one thing they know; somehow it is clear to them that the world is not the same anymore. It is now a new world. They just didn’t know what to do with it yet.” It’s a new world. The seal is broken. And where we used to see only dust, we are now invited to see angels’ gowns.
Are we ready for this? If Jesus has been raised, if God has stubbornly insisted on the last word, if a new world has indeed been born, are we ready? Are we ready for a world that bright, that new, a world in which God is now on the loose – on the move, where old securities, old certainties, may not longer apply? The angel sits there on that stone and says to the status quo, “Be afraid, be very afraid. From this day forward, everything you have believed about the world is in jeopardy.” Are we ready for good news which brings such change, such insecurity?
Well, that’s Easter. In the words of New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright, “Easter is the most thunderous moment in the whole year. Easter is such a huge event that even in the churches we can’t cope with it, and we’ve scaled it down to fit our little minds. The world turns it into fluffy rabbits and chocolate eggs…Easter isn’t just about you and me and our spiritual experience, or even our hope beyond the grave. Easter is the beginning of God’s new world.” In other words, the seal is broken, what was in is now out, and things will never return to normal. “Make it as secure as you can,” said Pilate, but how do you secure the world against a miracle? Against a savior who is on the loose?
Easter is so much more than a warm feeling in our hearts, sharing fond memories of a dynamic preacher and teacher named Jesus. If that’s really all it is, a warm feeling, then, frankly, we are wasting our time here today. The question Easter asks us is not, “Do you believe in the resurrection?” That’s a good question but it is so much in the head. Easter really isn’t about belief. No, the question Easter asks is, “Have you encountered a risen, living Christ, and what difference is that encounter making in your life – not in some great by and by, but here and now?”
Now I am well aware that for many of you, Jesus’ resurrection doesn’t mean much. It may be of some interest, but really has no claim on you or your life’s journey and I thank you for coming here today. But here, in this place, if we are doing our job, week after week, we stubbornly continue to tell this story – to speak of this encounter – because, from the moment those women met Jesus on that first Easter, it is an encounter that has continued to change lives and expectations. It is so easy to look out on life and just see the dust – self-centered excess, hard work, futility, tragedy, hopelessness, and death. And then it’s Easter…and if you allow it in, you just might see more than even that little girl in the comic strip ever imagined – real love and compassion, commitment, hope, healing, possibility, new life, and the assurance that this is not all there is – that nothing, nothing in life and nothing in death, can separate us from the love of God.
Are you ready for that kind of an encounter? Are you ready to change your expectations and assumptions about life? The seal is broken, folks. It means that there is now hope even when we must face the broken and unreconciled pieces of our lives. It means that joy is possible. It means that life can be found even in places where we had only expected to find death. It means that we can dare to confront the evil in ourselves and in our world because God has already acted to deliver us from its power. Those first witnesses to Easter knew full well that something – actually, better, that someone – had happened to them and to their world. Their world had been entered, encountered, transformed. Are we ready for that? As one theologian has said: “Death is natural. Loss is natural. Grief is natural. But those stones have been rolled away this happy morning, to reveal a highly unnatural truth. By the light of this day, God has planted a seed of life in us that cannot be killed, and if we remember that, then there is nothing we cannot do: move mountains, banish fear, love our enemies, change the world.”
One final story – I’ve shared it with you before, it is one of my favorite Easter stories- you’ll probably hear it again: Charles Blondin, a Frenchman, was the world’s greatest tight-rope walker. A century and a half ago, he crossed Niagara on a tightrope. After the stunt – the year was 1859 – he asked an admiring onlooker, “Do you believe I can carry a man on my back across Niagara?” The man, breathless with enthusiasm, replied that he believed he could! “Then,” said Blondin, “will you be the man?”
The year is not 1859, not even 30 A.D. But a risen Christ comes to us still and asks, “Will you be the one? For I can raise up anyone from death to new life and I can do it right now! Will you be the one?”