Sermon "He Is Alive"
Rev. Lonnie Richardson
Sunday, April 4, 1999
John 20:1-18
All four gospels include the resurrection story in their accounts of the ministry of Jesus. All of these resurrection stories have one thing in common. God does something so strange and singular in nature that there is no way to explain what happened. And this strange thing that God does has, as its consequence either faith or disbelief.
The biblical accounts leave us with many questions unanswered. We are left questioning the manner of his resurrection and the way the appearances fit with the empty tomb. We are left with questions about the nature of Christ's resurrection body. It appears to be the same as before, but there are qualitative differences about it. In almost every account Jesus is not recognized at first; not by Mary, not by the two disciples going to Emmaus, nor by the bigger groups of disciples gathered in the upper room and beside the Sea of Tiberius. Yes, there are things we do not know and cannot explain, but two things stand out: his body was buried and God raised it.
If Christ is risen, then life and love ultimately triumph. St. Paul is as blunt about it as any materialist today could be. He wrote: 'If Christ has not been raised then our preaching is empty, your faith is vain ... And we are of all most to be pitied.' He was a realist, he knew that the fact of the resurrection is the bedrock on which Christianity rests. It is the church's message of eternal hope to the world. What a wonderful gift it is from God to all people. Life for all who come to God. Come, all are welcome here.
There is also the matter of belief and life. The resurrection challenges the church to get its priorities sorted out. Sometimes, in the superstructure of theology, liturgy and covenants built up by the church, there may seem to be too much abstraction and too much talk. But here in the encounter with the living Christ we find the essence of the gospel. The disciples were met by a love that all their betrayals, doubt and fear could never destroy. The resurrection proclaims to a tormented world that God absorbs all human sin and defeats it with love. It challenges the church to be an Easter people and to trust God for the future.
We live in a time of drift from explicit Christian values and hope. The Easter message says to us all that if we try to live life without God we shall be powerless and constantly defeated by the chains of our sins, by the fickleness of our nature and the weakness of our will.
Our society invites us to concentrate on short-term pleasures and leave the big questions of life and death to someone else. Cynicism and fatalism all play too big a part, crowding out the pursuit of higher things which give life its true splendor. But the breathtaking thing about God is the way God challenges the way of the world and defeats it. The world shames and humiliates, God comes with forgiveness and hope. The world speaks a word of cheer to the strong and successful, God comes with a message to the weak. The world often condemns, God rushes to us with his love and embraces us with his greeting 'Peace be with you.' Easter says that nothing can kill God's love. Easter is God's statement that he makes things new. In the church he is fashioning for himself a resurrection people, a people who are not afraid of crucifixions because they believe in a God who raises the dead, a people who have the courage to carry the Easter message of life and love to the wider world.
Just a few blocks away from here there is the Olympic skating training facility. The high point of the Olympics, from a sentimental standpoint, is those award ceremonies. When the victors stand on those three pedestals, that's where everybody is crying. The three flags are raised, and the national anthem of the gold medalist is played. Something else is signified there: not only did the various skaters win, but their countries won, too. Not only their countries but their families. Notice how the cameras try to find parents in the audience and the skaters' trainers and sometimes a whole town--they all share in that victory. That's what makes it great. They won not only for themselves, they won for us, too. In the Easter narratives of the New Testament, two great affirmations are made. One affirmation is that Christ has won the victory, and it's his alone. But the second theme, perhaps more subtly portrayed but also present in all the gospel narratives, is that we too win a victory on Easter day. He is alive because he lives in us. Amen.
