April 12, 2009 Sermon
Easter Sunday

Why It Matters
John 20:1-10

In 1998 the Tampa Bay area got a major league baseball team, the Devil Rays. For the next ten years the Devil Rays “achieved” the worst record in baseball. Following the 2007 season the team changed its name. It dropped the “Devil” and became simply the Tampa Bay Rays. That year they won the American League pennant. Coincidence? I think not.

Baseball has begun. It is difficult to explain what this means for guys like me, who cry when they watch father and son play catch at the end of the movie Field of Dreams. Baseball reconnects us with the traditions of the past. My father and I played many hours of catch in our backyard. It brings spring (allegedly) with summer to follow. Baseball brings a kind of peace. Do you think I exaggerate the emotional power of baseball? Look at the slide up on the wall. It shows a young couple at Fenway Park, the Boston Red Sox' home. The young man, Eli Miller, happens to be the longest-surviving recipient of a ground-breaking heart surgery performed some twenty years ago. He has just proposed to the young woman, Margaret Richards. The Boston Globe quoted her: “When I saw the TV camera coming at me I thought, 'I can't believe this is happening...This boy who loves the Red Sox so much is going to propose to me in the middle of Fenway Park. I'm going to say yes in front of thousands of people, but I mean it and it's going to last forever and we're going to take our kids here and we're going to tell them this story.”

I believe her. Look at the smile on her face. Here is a young woman who knows that her boyfriend has just done about the most romantic thing of which he is capable. If we only knew the power of Easter we would smile, too. Easter reconnects us with the traditions, the steadfastness, of God's promises. Easter brings the springing forth of new life into the death this world of sin imposes over us. Easter brings peace. Easter brings hope and joy. Easter commemorates the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. In order to understand why this matters, in order to experience the power of Easter, all we must do is believe in the resurrection. Do we?

The Easter story is not complicated. The Roman and Jewish authorities had conspired to crucify Jesus on trumped-up charges. A rich guy offered his tomb for the burial, which some women who had followed Jesus accomplished quickly so as to beat sundown on the day of his death. The Sabbath began at nightfall, you see, and they could do no work until the second sunrise to follow. Early that Sunday morning Mary of Magdela walked to the tomb. She hoped to honor him by completing the job of giving his body a respectful burial according to the law of God. But she found that the massive rock blocking the tomb's opening had been rolled aside. What must she have felt in that moment? Her fear drips off the page. The text tells us she ran to Simon Peter and “the other disciple, the one Jesus loved” (usually interpreted to mean John himself, the author of this Gospel).

The strange footrace between Peter and the other disciple followed. Peter lost, but the other disciple stopped at the tomb's opening. Dread again? When Peter arrived he barged right in and discovered the burial cloths neatly folded on the stone ledge where Jesus' body had lain. Only then did the other disciple brave the tomb. But to his credit, the text tells us he immediately “saw and believed”. This is a crucial moment in the Easter story. John the Gospel writer explains why it matters so greatly: “for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.” The other disciple was afraid. He did not understand. But he believed. The power of Easter works on us fully when we believe.

We should not judge the disciples too harshly. John tells us they did not understand the scripture. We might ask, “If there's a scripture why did they not understand it?” But that is precisely the problem. The disciples considered the Old Testament their scripture. But while the Old Testament contains many references to the Messiah and to the Son of God, and even a few references to the resurrection of the dead, it does not present one, neat, clean, comprehensive reference to how the Son of God would come as the Messiah in a human body, die, and then get resurrected. And during his walk among them Jesus had insisted on speaking about the topic in parables and oblique references. He did not just come out and say it. Why not? Why the riddles in the written and spoken Word? John Calvin, spiritual father of the Presbyterian Church, wrote that God chose this ambiguity so our relationship with Jesus Christ would rely on faith not proof.

God desires our faith. God desires our love. God desires our voluntary commitment of ourselves. Linda and I have a friend from college named Mary Sue. We were in the marching band together. Our families befriended each other. In fact, when I observed the relationship she had with her father, Allen, I knew someday I wanted to have a daughter whom I could love as deeply. She fell in love with Phil; they married a couple of years later. Mary Sue's mother, Rosemary, began to succumb to the emphysema she had battled for years. While she lay dying Phil made her a promise. He would always love her daughter and their sons, and he would graduate from college. Phil had quit school. He had a good job in his family's business. He had no need for a degree. But Rosemary wanted him to finish.

So Phil took a class here and a class there. He went late at night. He went on Saturdays. It took him twenty-plus years. Finally, he did it. He kept his promise. Now Rosemary had not used her impending death as a tool to get him to do it. He just wanted to please her. He wanted to honor her desire. He made a voluntary commitment. He does not see himself as a hero. He made a promise and then kept it. He will be amused when he learns that I have used his promise to illustrate the point of an Easter sermon. Mary Sue will be touched. She understands that in making his promise Phil was expressing his love for her. Unlike so many, she does not have to worry about her spouse's faithfulness. Out of death he made a promise that shaped his—and her—life. Do we understand that this is exactly what God asks us to do in response to the resurrection? God has made a promise out of death. Let us respond with faith to His faithfulness.

Do you believe that Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, truly died on the cross and then actually rose from the dead? Belief in the resurrection is the hinge of all life. Everything swings on it. You can live without faith in the resurrection. But your religion will become empty of spirit. You might live an ethical life, but you will lack hope. You will have no God with whom to live in relationship. Ultimately your soul will become empty and you will know it. Maybe you feel that emptiness now. Easter matters because it presents us with a challenge. Will we voluntarily commit ourselves to the One who rose from the dead? Will we shape our lives by our love for Him? Will we make our promises to Him? Or will we try to make it through somehow without faith in the risen Jesus Christ?

The “other disciple” had no reason to believe in the resurrection. He just did. Eventually Peter did to. So did Mary of Magdela. Do you? If you wonder, or if your answer is no, try this: pray and live in the midst of the church as though you did believe. I know: it sounds like a trick. But it works. People have proven it again and again. When we pray and fellowship with the church, the Body of Christ, our faith in the resurrected Jesus grows. Life gains color, purpose, meaning. We feel Life warming us from the inside out. The Light comes to us and we follow it—imperfectly, sinfully, but sincerely. And that changes everything.

Make your promise to Jesus. Like a young man proposing to his beloved in front of 37,000 witnesses at a ballpark, promise your life to Jesus. Like a man committing to a dying woman that he will always love her daughter, promise your love to Jesus. Like the other disciple, Peter and Mary, like a follower of Jesus Christ, promise your faithful walk with Him. Keep your promise and the Holy Spirit of God will respond by giving you deeper faith. Easter matters because it gives us the chance to commit ourselves one more time to our risen Lord, Jesus Christ. Make the promise. Live the life. Receive the peace, the hope, the joy. The resurrection makes it happen.