Luke 24:1-12

04/04/10
Luke 24:1-12
Hudson UMC

What a glorious day to gather together as the people of God, who have been purchased with the blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ the Son of God. Today we celebrate one of the most amazing things in all of history. God, who had taken on human flesh, was nailed to a cross, bearing and bearing away our sins with the very power of God. Three days later, He rose from the dead, taking our humanity and overcoming death in it, demonstrating that, in the end, not even death can stop God’s will.

Before I make some general comments about the resurrection as one of the central parts of the Christian faith, I want to spend at least a few minutes on the actual text that we have this morning. Particularly, I want to focus on the words of the two men, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” The women had brought spices with them to the tomb, which were meant to care for Jesus’ dead body. This question must have absolutely blown them over. Why were they looking for Jesus among the dead? The answer was simply this, they thought He was dead. The last time they saw Him, He was dead. How could they possibly imagine that Jesus was alive? They looked for Him among the dead because that was where they expected to find Him.

Now, we in the church might think this is somewhat odd. We know that Jesus was raised on the third day, we know that Jesus told them over and over again that this was going to happen, but we have to remember that we live on the other side of the resurrection from the disciples. We already know how the story ends; they didn’t.

I think that this might reflect on how we often live our lives. Jesus promises us extravagant things, eternal life, abundant life even here and now, joy, peace, love, and more, and yet we often live our lives as if the status quo is all there is. We have the very presence of God among us in the Holy Spirit, and all too often, we allow ourselves to be satisfied simply with the way things have always been. God tells us that by faith we can move mountains, but we say to Him, “No thank you. I take great pride in doing things myself. If I can’t move that mountain on my own, then I don’t want it moved.” Lives get changed and we are amazed, because, in spite of the repeated promises of the gospel, we sometimes just don’t really believe that God actually does these things.

And yet, if there is one thing that the resurrection of Christ from the dead proves to us, it is that God keeps His promises. We can see that, even when it takes nothing less than the second Person of the Trinity taking on human flesh, and dying the most painful death imaginable, God does not waver, but does everything He promises us, and does so in more amazing ways than we ever thought possible. God endured the pains of death, not because He did anything to deserve it, but because you and I deserve it and He did it on our behalf and in our place in a total act of self-giving love. If He will do that, we can trust with everything we are that He will fulfill all His other promises to us. Our trust in the love of God is rooted in the resurrection. It is of absolutely pivotal importance but the world we live in makes it difficult to keep it in the forefront.

Between the trend that our culture has towards secularism and the commercialization of the Christian holidays, I think that we as a society have tended to forget how incredible this event really is. Not only is it incredible, but, if we look at the facts through our modern lenses, it is incredibly hard to believe. Last year, I found myself explaining the idea of Pentecost to a young person who had absolutely no background in the church. I found myself reflecting on the fact that, in spite of the fact that the amazing work of God seems completely normal to me because I have been so deeply shaped by the Gospel, it probably sounds like the most ridiculous thing in the world to someone who has been raised in a skeptical modern society.

We celebrate today what is perhaps the very central event in the life of the church. We celebrate the fact that a human being, who was at the very same time the God of the universe, was dead and yet was raised. When we say He was dead, we mean that He was dead; His life functions had completely ceased, His heart had stopped beating, His brain was no longer responsive. His eyes were dilated and fixed. When Jesus was on the cross and they wanted to make sure He was dead, they pierced His side and we read that blood and water came out. The reason for this is because, once the heart stops circulating fluids, they begin to pool. We Christians proclaim without flinching and without hesitation that this man who was very dead was raised from the dead. His heart began beating, His brain resumed function, He was able to stand up and walk. Despite the fact that, in our every day experience, this kind of thing just doesn’t happen, we declare in no uncertain terms that this is exactly what happened to Jesus.

We have a story at the end of every single Gospel that tells us about people coming to the place where Jesus was buried and finding the tomb empty. Even though the disciples had been told over and over again that He was going to be raised, they still didn’t believe it, couldn’t imagine that it would actually happen; and yet it did. We could look through the whole New Testament and find a whole pile of texts that either explicitly talk about the resurrection of Christ or strongly imply it. But that is not all. It has been argued that the entire New Testament is written from the point of view of the resurrection and, if we deny that the man Jesus of Nazareth was physically raised from the dead, the entire Gospel message collapses to the ground as irrelevant and groundless. Truly the resurrection is extremely important.

What is amazing is that even committed atheists see the resurrection as central to Christian faith. Christopher Hitchens, who wrote the book God is Not Great, who has no reason to defend any claim by Christianity, in a recent interview with a Unitarian minister said, “I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.” Even those who don’t believe see this as supremely important to the integrity of Christian faith.

So I could stand up here all day and tell you that the resurrection is important for the Christian life, but you might be wondering how it matters to you in practical, every day life. The first thing I want to remind you of is that the resurrection of Christ is the guarantee that this life that we are living is not the only one we have. There will come a time when we too will be raised from the dead, joined in Christ’s resurrection, and we will be joined in fellowship to God for all eternity. If we say that Jesus was not raised from the dead because the dead are simply not raised, all our hopes to see our loved ones again, to have a life beyond this one, go out the window. Paul makes exactly this point in First Corinthians. He says, “For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” We can trust that we will be raised because Christ was raised.

The resurrection is also the final root for Christian ethics. God entered into our humanity, giving it worth beyond what it had on its own. But the resurrection proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that what happens to our physical bodies matters to God. Ancient Greek philosophies often said that the soul is good but the body is evil. In that case, we should strive to get rid of the body as fast as possible so we can be free from it. Not so in Christian faith. God not only took our humanity upon Himself, not only allowed it to die, but raised it from the dead and ascended it to heaven where the physical body of Christ dwells forever. The body never finally goes away. Because God places such a high value on our bodies, we must take care of them and not abuse the bodies of others.

Finally, as people who follow Christ, who have been promised the incredible future of being resurrected in glory like Christ was, we can live our lives knowing that our God has overcome our weakness, has taken our sin and nailed it to the cross. We can go into the world with the confidence of the children of God who know that their sins have been forgiven, their guilt and shame have been taken away and they have been made children of God.

This freedom and joy is not dependent on how much we have done to deserve it because, as the Gospel tells us, we know the depths of God’s love for us because Christ died for us, not when we were righteous, but while we were still sinners. We don’t have to worry that we haven’t been faithful in the past because God does not hold our past against us, no matter what we may have done, but offers us a new start, where we do not need to be chained by our weakness or what other people might think about us, but can live in the liberty and glory of the Spirit of God. Paul reminded the Roman church, “the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives inside of you.” Imagine that! The Spirit of God has taken up residence in you and in me; all because Jesus took everything that stands against God in our hearts and lives upon Himself and allowed it to be crucified with Him, never to return. You and I, brothers and sisters, are resurrection people, with a freedom that those who are strangers to the promise of eternal life cannot even imagine. Let us go forth into the world as those who have been raised from the death of our pasts, who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God. Our God is good and has already won the victory over the powers of sin and death. Let us go forth in that victory and allow God to transform the world through us. Let us pray.

AMEN