April 20, 2003 - Easter Sunday
Acts 10: 34-43
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John 20:1-18
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“Christ is Risen and So Are WE”

Two voices call to us over the centuries.  One says, "I have seen the Lord!"  The other testifies, ". . . but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose the dead."  Mary Magdalene and Peter witnessed something, experienced something that changed their lives.  The Christ they had seen die upon the cross called them each by name, touched them, spent time with them, and told them to go tell others.  It changed the way they thought about God, about themselves, about the world they lived in.  The Resurrection is a major shift in religious paradigms, to say the least.

Peter offers the new paradigm in his preaching to the people at Caesarea where he lays out what will come to be known as the kerygma, or the 'core proclamation' of Christian faith.  This basic proclamation of faith declares the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies in Jesus of Nazareth, who went about doing good, was persecuted, crucified, died, and rose from the dead.  Now he has appeared to and commissioned witnesses so that all those who hear the message might repent, turn away from self and toward God, and be incorporated into his living body, the church.

In enunciating the kerygma Peter testifies to his own resurrection.  Resurrection, you see is not just for the dead, but for the living as well. Peter had to be raised to a new life in order to understand and make Jesus' Resurrection real.  He had to die to his old understandings, his old ways of thinking about God and how God works in the lives of people.  The problem that the Christian churches have struggled with from just about that very first Easter day has been the inability to do what Peter did -- die to old understandings and rise to new ones.

What Peter experienced is true not only in religious thought, but in just about every area of life.  That which is familiar, the standard paradigms -- best case scenarios, or rules for interpreting reality -- become the accustomed way of seeing the world or doing business and anything outside that paradigmatic reality is quite often almost impossible to see.  Here I would refer you the work of the late Thomas Kuhn and his magnificent book The Structures of Scientific Revolutions.  This classic examines the world of paradigms and the concept of 'paradigm shift' in the way scientists come to new knowledge.  What I find interesting is that he uses religious language to describe the process.  One is "converted" to a new paradigm and the one who advances it, often at the cost of advancement in a career, has to do so based on "faith" in the paradigm.

The futurist Joel Barker works from Kuhn's model applying it to business and organizations and demonstrates that we can miss a great deal because we can't think beyond the limits of what the paradigm tells us we're supposed to see.  He gives an example of this in how the Swiss lost their preeminence as the world's watchmakers.  When the Swiss watchmaking guild was presented with a new concept -- the quartz movement -- they dismissed it. In fact, they dismissed it so thoroughly they failed to even protect themselves by patenting it.  As a consequence two companies, Seiko and Texas Instruments, picked the technology up and . . . how many of you are wearing Swiss watches?  You get my point, then.  One can also see numerous examples of this kind of thinking illustrated in James Collins and Jerry Porras' book Built To Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies.

Now, my point is this, it's no different with spiritual or religious principles.  What has happened so very much is that we have taken the living, therapeutic relationship that God wanted to bring to us in Jesus Christ and turned it into stale, dry, dead dogma.  Why?  Because it's easier to handle, easier to believe, and easier to ignore than a God who wants to walk with us in daily life and effect change in creation through us.  As a historical theologian I find the development and precision of these statements terribly exciting.  However, as a minister and a believer, I find the way we Christians use dogma to close our hearts and minds frightening.

You see, Jesus' Resurrection calls you and me to rise to a whole new understanding of ourselves and of our world.  And this world is no utopia. Utopia comes from two Greek words.  One meaning "good place," the other meaning "no place."  Western culture is studded with utopian movements and literature.  Aristotle and Plato both wrote utopian works.  Some see sections of Isaiah and the Acts of the Apostles as having utopian characteristics.  Many later Christian authors, like Thomas More, have written descriptive utopian works.  There were also numerous nineteenth century authors and movements, like Robert Owen and his model industrial town of New Lanark, the Rappites, the Oneida community, and even elements of the Transcendentalists.  Some have even considered Marx and subsequent communist movements as utopian attempts.

There have been anti-utopians as well.  The writings of Jonathan Swift, George Orwell, and Aldous Huxley all leap to mind.  Each with their pessimistic and sarcastic view of what the yearnings for, in Huxley's words, "a brave new world" would produce.

What each of these movements indicates to me is that humans have known something has been not quite right from the beginning.  We want something better and we know that we're called to be, to become something more than we are or experience now.  If you don't believe me, walk through any bookstore and look at the self-help section.  Look at the proliferation of health studios, diet programs, plastic surgery, liposuction, botox injections, and the list of products and processes which promise a whole new you . . . if not a whole new world . . . goes on and on.

And then there's the empty tomb.

In the minds of the great teachers of the church, God fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament and filled humanity's need in the events of Christ's incarnation, crucifixion, death, and resurrection.  In the action of Jesus, the Creator brought his creation to fulfillment and renewal.  He made a new heaven and a new earth.  But he created from within this time...renewing the spiritual underpinnings of all reality and offering a new, all-encompassing paradigm.

When the disciples followed Mary Magdalene to the tomb early on that first Easter morning they were, without doubt, skeptical.  Only the "beloved disciple," (John) was brought to the experience of faith by what he experienced.  Mary herself would only come to believe when Jesus, whom she thought was the gardener, called her by name.  These actions only confirmed what Jesus had said when he called himself the good shepherd and that "I know my sheep and they know me."  The empty tomb was a sign which pointed to the reality of God's activity . . . that the world was already remade.

God did not, does not, wish to overwhelm us or coerce us to come into relationship.  God offers signs, markers, pointers, which are designed to awaken what is already there within us.  The new life God has promised everyone lies dormant, waiting to bud forth.  Just as seeds wait in the ground for the warmth of the sun and nourishment they need to break forth and grow into what they really are.  Humanity was, oftentimes still is, in a husk.  The husk is selfishness, the desire to control others as well as ourselves.  It shows itself, both Scripture and the church fathers tell us, not only in our actions but also in the whole of the created order.  What God did was send into the midst of us the means by which we could be remade and bring forth good fruit.

The resurrection is not the resuscitation of a dead man, that's what Jesus did for Lazarus and several others.  The resurrection is the beginning of a new world, of a new you and a new me.  In the mind of the early church it was God's eighth day of creation.  That's why classical baptisteries and fonts were octagonal -- because we rise from them new creations.  It's why we keep Sundays.  Listen to Justin Martyr, who wrote in the 2nd century:

It is on Sunday that we all assemble, because Sunday is the first day: the day on which God transformed darkness and matter and created the world, and the day on which Jesus Christ our Savior rose from the dead.  He was crucified on the eve of Saturn's day, and on the day after, on the day of the sun, he appeared to his apostles and disciples and taught them what we have now offered for your examination.

So, what sets this apart from any of the utopian or self-improvement movements I've talked about?  The sign.  Utopian movements want to hark back to some golden age or create a place that never was -- a no place.  Followers of Jesus come to know him and the effect of the empty tomb in their lives and live in the here-and-now.  We are called to simply be what we are.  I like what Thomas Merton wrote:

A tree gives glory to God by being a tree.  For in being what God means it to be it is obeying him.  It "consents," so to speak, to his creative love.  It is expressing an idea which is in God and which is not distinct from the essence of God, and therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree.  The more a tree is like itself, the more it is like him.  If it tried to be like something else which it was never intended to be, it would be less like God and therefore it would give him less glory.

For me to be a saint means to be myself.  Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.  Trees and animals have no problem.  God makes them what they are without consulting them, and they are perfectly satisfied.  With us it is different.  God leaves us free to be whatever we like.  We can be ourselves or not, as we please.

In the resurrection, in the Christ, God has given us the freedom to come to our truest selves.  To truly be made in "the image and likeness of God."

Christians, then, become the signs of God's ongoing activity in remaking the world and us.  As we grow in God's likeness we will reflect it in our attitudes and our actions.  The fruit of the empty tomb is a people who live as selflessly, as joyfully, as trustfully as the one who went to death to bring life.  It is a process that begins when we recognize that something happened, as did John.  Hear our name called, as did Mary Magdalene.  And proclaim the reality of resurrection, as did Peter and Paul.

The whole new world and whole new you may begin with an experience like the empty tomb, or not.  God will speak and work to draw us into his life and love in many ways.  What is important is to realize that the Christian life is a process of growth and change.  As we don't expect fruit from a seedling, we mustn't place unreal expectations on our spiritual growth.  Rather, we should rely on the supports God gives us -- the Word, the sacraments, the church -- and concentrate on growing in the Lord's image and likeness, expanding our paradigms.  I like what John Henry Newman said, "I know not how it may be on other worlds or in higher planes, but here below to live is to change and to be perfect is to change often."