April 8, 2007 Sermon

What If it’s True?
Mark 16:1-8

In the Rorschach Test you look at a blot of ink against a white background, then say what you think the shape represents. We all read into rather than out from things. In other words, we reveal much about our inner selves when “reading” a randomly generated blot of ink. When talking about it we talk, really, about ourselves—or so the theory goes.

What do you see when you look at Christianity? And what does your view of Christianity reveal about you?

People through the ages have viewed Christianity as a power in human affairs, as an enemy, and as the truth revealed by Almighty God. We start with Christianity as a power in human affairs. Like communism, capitalism, Taoism, and many other -isms, Christianity has had great impact on human history. Christianity absorbed the Roman Empire. Christianity moved Europeans in the Middle Ages to attempt the takeover of the Holy Land. These Crusades changed the political map and helped create the hatreds that tear Muslims apart from the rest of the world. Christianity created the conditions for Europeans to gain the wealth and power to colonize most of the globe. Christianity remains decisive in American politics at every level. Christianity has changed the lives of billions of people physically, economically and spiritually.

The April 2, 2007 issue of Time Magazine carries a cover story entitled Why We Should Teach the Bible in Public School (but very, very carefully). The article’s lead summary reads, “Should the Holy Book be on the public-school menu? Yes. It’s bedrock of Western culture. And it’s constitutional—as long we teach but don’t preach it.” Even Time, a bastion of the old media, has accepted the desirability of teaching the Bible. People on both sides of the American Civil War turned to the Bible to justify their positions for, or against, slavery. Our children should know this. Hebrew, English and other languages took shape in large measure in order to bring the Bible to people in words they could understand. Our children should know this. Christianity has had perhaps more influence over human history than any other single force. We should all know this.

But many people look at Christianity as the enemy. Honestly, at times we Christians have given them little reason to see our religion any other way. The Nazis included Christianity as part of the Devil’s brew of reasons they gave for exterminating Jews. Certainly theirs was a perverted brand of Christianity, but tell that to the people who died. Many Muslims across the world take it as an article of faith (literally) that Christianity seeks to destroy their religion. Indeed, Christians have fought them for millennia. Why should they not see us as the enemy?

But many see Christianity as the enemy for reasons that have nothing to do with Islam. One large group who can see Christianity as the enemy is the humanists. Christianity teaches that human nature is depraved (and as we have seen, Christianity has demonstrated this proposition quite well). Humanists believe in the potential of humanity. They believe that reason and science can advance us beyond conflict. Humanists have a great deal of influence in American culture. They dominate the media and the academic world. Linda, Dan and I made a tour of several colleges last week. At one Dan spotted a metal newspaper box on which somebody had scratched the humanist credo: “Question everything.” Beneath it another person had scratched, “Why?”

That one little word, why, demonstrates why humanism cannot break free from its limitations. Humanity carries the seeds of its own destruction: human nature. Human nature is a mixture of good and evil, of potential and destruction. Christianity teaches the truth about this; humanism cannot. Humanism, remember, relies on the belief that human reason can think it’s way through to solutions for all of humanity’s problems. But human nature keeps creating new problems faster than humans can solve them. It has ever been thus; ever so shall it be.

Which leads to the only viable way to view Christianity: as the Truth with a capital “T”. Christianity makes the audacious claim that God has revealed Truth through Jesus Christ. Christians can certainly accept that other religions teach truths. After all, we share our history—and three-fourths of our scripture—with Judaism. Yet Christianity teaches that in Jesus Christ, God took the decisive action that demands a response from each person. Do we believe in Him as the Son of God? We cannot answer this question satisfactorily merely by scratching “Why?” on a newspaper box. We must answer either “Yes” or “No”.

In Mark 16 we learn how a few people answered the Jesus question. The passage starts with Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James (and Jesus!) and Salome approaching the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body. He had died close to the start of the Sabbath. Now that this day of rest has passed they may lawfully work to give him a proper burial. As they walk they wonder how they could possibly move the rock sealing the grave to one side. But when they arrive they see it has already been moved.

Imagine their emotions as they hurry inside. What will they find? Has somebody stolen his body? What ghastly thing might they have done with it? But inside they meet a “young man” dressed in dazzling white. Such “young men” appear in the Bible from beginning to end. They are angels, messengers from God. This angel tells the women not to fear. He knows they have come to dress the body of Jesus. But Jesus has risen from the dead, the messenger claims. He shows them the bench where his body would have lain. Then he charges the women to go tell the disciples to look for the resurrected Jesus in Galilee.

We do not know whether the women believed the angel. Mark tells us they fled from the tomb, trembling, “for they were afraid”. Yet in later verses, and in the other Gospels, these women tell others that Jesus has come back from the dead. Those whom they tell do not believe them. Do you believe them? Do you believe the angel? Do you believe Jesus came back from the dead? The teaching that Jesus died for our sins and then was resurrected from the dead to show God’s power over sin and death lies at the heart of Christianity. What does your belief about the resurrection reveal about your Christianity?

It’s Easter. We have just finished Lent, when church tradition holds we should focus on our sins. We are sinners. Any honest inventory of human behavior proves it. We Christians are sinners, too. But how do you view your Christianity? Do you indeed believe in the resurrection of Christ? Do you believe God has saved you from your sins through the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus?

You owe it to yourself to answer. You owe it to yourself not, as a hair coloring ad would have it, because you deserve it. None of us deserve salvation. That’s part of the miracle God has performed. No, we owe it to ourselves precisely because God has offered us a gift none of us deserve: the gift of a new life in the midst of the messes we have made of our old lives. Let this Easter be for you the day on which you start—or jump-start—your faith in the risen Jesus Christ.

In the past ten days we have walked four campuses. We have moved among hundreds of college students and met dozens of high school juniors and their families. I found myself wondering whether these bright, accomplished young people have tapped the potential of their spiritual lives as well as they have their other potentials. Then I found myself wondering the same for myself. How about you? What does Easter really mean for you? Do not settle for scratching out a half-joking-answer as you pass all-too-quickly through your days. Answer with a resounding “Yes!”