PEOPLE'S CHURCH OF DOVER

John 20:1-18                                                                                     THE  GOOD  NEWS

Easter Sermon April 12, 2009:  People's United Church of Christ, Dover, DE:  The Rev. Dan Griggs

 

          The classic greeting for Christians around the world today is:  "Alleluia, Christ is risen!"  "He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!"  From ancient times Christians have given voice on Easter to the Good News of the Resurrection—Jesus Christ is risen from the dead!  But this is not good news about some miracle.  By definition a miracle is an act of God which suspends the laws of nature; but resurrection has nothing to do with the laws of nature:  the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is beyond nature.[1]  So we aren't talking about a great "miracle" today.  This good news is that in his Resurrection, his life is life for US.  What Christ did, he did for us.  That's the point I want to make today:  What Jesus did changes US. 

 

          This little half-verse, 17^b, has captured my imagination.  After the Resurrection:

Now I've read that half-verse dozens of times.  I've known that it was there; but every time I read it before, it sounded like the typical repetitious double-talk so typical of the Gospel of John.  This time it registered—there's an important point here.  Jesus equates his heavenly Father and our heavenly Father, his God and our God.  And he calls his disciples his brothers.  Today he would have said "brothers and sisters"—we get the point.  He's saying that we are part of his own family.  We are brothers and sisters together with Jesus!  He has been raised from the dead and claims us as part of himself.  What he did changes US.[2] 

          It's like those stories we've all heard about twins who have an eerie communication between them.  If one of them gets a prick on her finger, the other one's finger hurts.  That's what Jesus is claiming now for you:  you are Jesus' twin in this world, and what he does changes YOU.  In his letters the Apostle Paul used another term to describe this:  "the new humanity."  And he said we partake of "the fullness of Christ."  What Christ did changes US.  In verse 17, Jesus gives us his God and his Father as our own, because of his own resurrection.  We are his brothers and sisters.

          The Gospel of John puts it this way on purpose:  it's the central message of the entire New Testament that Jesus' life gives life to us.  What I'm saying is that the central message of the New Testament is the Easter message:  What Jesus did changes US. 

 

          Think about the magnitude of this Easter message!  Scientists are now debating the theory that the dinosaurs died out because of a great asteroid that hit the earth eleven million years ago and threw up so much ash and dust that it caused the whole world to be obscured long enough to kill all the plants, and the dinosaurs starved.  And there is a growing uneasiness that an asteroid as large as that could hit the earth again; so governments are now spending millions of dollars to search space looking for them.  It's a big deal, and some people believe it ought to be a bigger deal.  But compare that theory and that fear to this ancient proposition:  What if God's Son really did rise from the tomb on Easter, and by doing that, gives God's life to every one of us!  The Resurrection gospel tells us something about ourselves that scientific research, for all its importance, can never tell us:  that our Origin and our Destiny are made plain in Jesus' life:  our  Origin and Destiny is GOD—"my Father and your Father, my God and your God," Jesus said.  What Jesus did changes US, and this gives our lives right here, right now, a hint that there really is infinite meaning for us.  The good news of Easter is that What Jesus did changes US. 

 

          "My Father and your Father, my God and your God":  with these words Jesus identifies with us.  What might that mean?  Well, in part it means that he gives us comfort in our times of sorrow and stress. You've seen a traditional crucifix—it's a miniature cross with a carving of the body of Jesus hanging on it; and if you look at this crucifix closely, the way his body hangs, the expression on his face, the look in his eyes, you can behold with the artist the very suffering of Christ for you.[3]  Christians have used the crucifix in this way for centuries, because it communicates to our hearts that Jesus knew all about our troubles.  When we lose a loved one to death, Jesus has already been there.  But not only in death:  think about those poor babies born to mothers with drug addictions—Harriet used to work with babies like that in the hospital in downtown Richmond:  they are born addicted, or born with fetal alcohol syndrome.  Jesus knew how people get trapped in their lives, and Jesus grieved with us.  He knew the loneliness that a widow knows in that moment when she takes down two cups, and then remembers again that he is gone.  Jesus knew the loneliness of the prisoner, whether it's a political prisoner in a Chinese jail, or a convicted thief "doing time," in a place that's dangerous, and where there seems to be no future:  Jesus knew, Jesus cared.  He knew the anxieties of the unemployed, and the stress of the one who is just retiring, or who has just figured out that she can't retire.  Jesus knew, and Jesus cared. 

          For a millennium of Christian piety we've known that our sorrows are the sorrows of Christ:  he identifies with us—we look into his thorn-crowned face and behold his suffering with us.[4]  But now, after his Resurrection, he says more—he goes far beyond our sorrows in identifying with us.  Easter brings a greater truth than shared suffering:  the Good News of Easter is that in Christ there is life beyond suffering!  The cross is empty!  He is risen for us.  We read in the Letter to the Ephesians:[5]

 

          Easter makes a triumphant proclamation.  The cross and the tomb, as important as they are in the Christian story, are second:  the Resurrection from the dead is the primary point.  Jesus' resurrection is the gospel.  Jesus resurrection is what Jesus Christ shares with us most. 

          His life gives life to us.  And I don't mean just "later":  I mean now.  Resurrection is about redeeming what was lost, redeeming what has died, redeeming what is broken in our lives, and confused, and little, and needy, and sinful.  Jesus Christ lives in you and is redeeming you, day by day.  What Jesus did changes US. 

 

          So, then, a question:  Where is the Christ of the Empty Cross, the Christ of the Empty Tomb?  Where is he?

          He meets you on the road you travel.  I think this is the meaning of that strange detail about Mary Magdalene remaining alone in the garden after Peter and the beloved disciple had left.  She stooped down and looked again into the empty tomb, and there she saw a vision of angels.  A fifth century Christian preacher, John Chrysostom,[6] has suggested that the reason the angels didn't answer Mary's second question is that just as she asked them, someone came up behind her, and the angels saw him and were struck silent.  When Mary saw the expression on the angels' faces, she turned to see whom they see, and there stood the gardener.  He said to her, "Why are you weeping?  Whom are you looking for?"  And she answered, "Sir, if you have taken Jesus' body, tell me; I will take it away."  She wanted something left over from the way it used to be—something of him whom she had called "Master," his familiar voice, the comfort of his words--he used to know her by name.  And in reply Jesus said, "Mary."

          He still knew her name:  he still knows your name—he has come back on Easter to speak it.  And we are redeemed.  The comatose mother wakes up in a hospital bed after six months and holds her new baby.  The estranged husband telephones his wife and after an uncomfortable pause says, "Let's talk."  A former friend, now become an enemy, writes you a letter and says, "I miss you."  Don't our own lives know something of resurrection?! 

          Across the chasm of millennia, he comes back and speaks your name:  "My brother, my sister, I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."  And what he did changes US. 

          The good news for us in the announcement of Jesus' Resurrection is not that some ultimate miracle took place a long time ago:  it is that what he did changes US.  Alleluia:  Christ is risen:  he is risen indeed!  Alleluia! 

AMEN