Sermons

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He Isn't Here, Why Are You?
Easter Sunday
March 31, 2002
Pastor Dan Baumgartner

Matthew 28:1-10

Yahoo! I am so glad it's Easter…I am SO glad it is Easter.

What a week it has been. It has seemed like a long week to me. Each day this week, people have gathered here in this sanctuary at noon to worship, to hear the story together…plodding with Jesus through the washing of feet, the Last Supper, His arrest. On Maundy Thursday evening we met here, in a full sanctuary (which, one phone call this week said, should make us feel really good…considering we were competing with "Survivor."!) …we gathered, and soberly pondered the betrayal and crucifixion of Christ, our own sin and responsibility…some of you wept as you came for communion. And then back again at noon on Good Friday, considering Jesus' death on the cross again.

My emotions have gone up and down like the waves of the sea…and then this morning, with the rich color and clean whiteness of Easter morning. How do you describe this wide spectrum of just one week…the story, the emotions? The German theologian Moltmann said it like this: "God weeps with us so that we may someday laugh with Him."

This morning, we read the Easter story found in the gospel of Matthew, 28:1-10.

My father has always been a very cautious person. I remember many times when my brother and I were boys, my dad would sit us down and sternly warn us about being careful. He was concerned that, in our youth and inexperience, we might make a mistake that could cause us permanent physical harm. And so, when we were old enough to use the power mower, he would make us wear baseball cleats when we mowed the steep bank in front of the house.

"It only takes one time," he would say, "one slip of the foot and it's under the mower and it's permanent."

There were other similar warnings…for trips to farms where they had BB guns, for careless driving that would cause a serious accident. Those are the kinds of injuries that can't be fixed…the damage is irreversible. I don't think we were too different from most of you. I tell my kids similar things. "Avoid the things that are irreversible, final."

And so we seek safety, security. We train for it, we are steeped in it our whole lives. And the ultimate, the MOST irreversible thing, of course, is death. We spend our whole life avoiding it, postponing it, fighting it. Why? Because death cannot be reversed, it is final. When we attend a funeral service, it is to literally pay our LAST respects.

These women in Matthew's story were doing exactly that: paying last respects to Jesus. Interesting, isn't it, that in a culture where women couldn't even testify in court, this story repeatedly holds up the women as the faithful ones? They were the ones anointing Jesus (as Jeff talked about last week), the one following Jesus all the way from Galilee, providing for him, staying near him as he died, watching over his burial…even as the disciples utterly disappeared. And here we have these women, two Marys, going to visit the sealed tomb. And strange, bizarre things begin to happen.

There is a great earthquake. Like the one when God met the Israelites to give Moses the tablets of the law…and the holy mountain "shook violently." Like the earthquake when Elijah waited for the presence of God to approach. Like the earthquake when the Apostle Paul and Silas were in jail in Philippi, and it the ground shook "so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken," and the doors of the cells flew open…and the presence of God blew through the place. In the Bible, an earthquake means "GOD IS DOING SOMETHING IMPORTANT…PAY ATTENTION!"

And then an angel appears. Now, that doesn't just happen everywhere. Angels were God's messengers for IMPORTANT messages…like when an angel told Abraham "Do NOT sacrifice your son Isaac!" Like when an angel appeared to Mary, the mother of Jesus and said, "You will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus." The appearance of an angel also says "PAY ATTENTION!"

So SOMETHING is going on in the light of that early dawn, as Mary and Mary go to pay their final respects at the sealed tomb. But for these women…not even the earthquake, not even the appearance of the angel…prepares them for what they are about to hear. The stone is rolled away to let them in…and they hear four words. He is not here. He is not here!

He is not here. Omigosh. Was his body taken by thieves or enemies? Not likely…because when Christians immediately began to claim that Jesus was alive, opponents would only have had to produce the body to quench the movement before it started. They didn't.

Did the disciples of Jesus sneak in and take the body? Not likely. Not with a huge stone blocking the tomb, not with armed guards in front of it.

He is not here…He has been raised, as he said. We have been brought up, steeped…we have lived our lives based on one unchangeable, certain fact…death is both final and irreversible. And all of the sudden, Easter DEMANDS that we unlearn it all. NOTHING is irreversible. Nothing is final. If death is NOT final, nothing is. GOD HAS DONE SOMETHING WHICH CANNOT BE DONE!

And if he has done it…he has removed finality from LIFE…and has placed it into eternity. Everything is thrown on its head. No wonder the earth quakes under our feet, no wonder the brilliant light shines in our face, no wonder the women trembled in fear, no wonder the living soldiers guarding the dead man fell down as though THEY were dead…because a dead man lives! Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead! It is like a huge meteor streaking across the galaxy, striking the surface of the moon and displacing a billion tons of rock, changing the landscape forever. That's what the resurrection does for us.

He is not here… "he has been raised from the dead, and is going on ahead of you…and you will see Him." He is not HERE, in the tomb…He is out THERE…in your life…that is why He was raised. He is now PERMANENTLY… God-with-us.

I told you a few weeks ago that one of my seminary professors, James Loder, had passed away this fall. Now, Dr. Loder was one of the most brilliant men I have ever been around in my life. When I went to his office, his chalkboard had Einstein's Theory of Relativity on one side, and a list of scriptures on the other, and all sorts of lines going back and forth. Way over my head. In fact, much of his writing and much of his teaching went right over our heads.

But a couple of things didn't. One is his story of the event that moved him from being a person with some religious ideas…to a follower of Jesus Christ. Perhaps I told it to you before. It was the day in 1970, when he pulled over to the side of a New York highway to change a tire for a stranded motorist. Another driver fell asleep at the wheel and rammed into the back of the car Dr. Loder was working under, knocking it off the jack and onto his chest, puncturing a lung, starting internal bleeding, breaking collar bones and five ribs. Dr. Loder's very slim, 5-foot-tall wife went to the back of the car, and muttering, "In the name of Jesus Christ, in the name of Jesus Christ," she LIFTED the car off her husband. And despite his serious injuries, he had the most incredible sense that "life was pouring into me from a gracious source beyond the power of that accident to damage or destroy me."

The most enduring memory he had from all of the surgery and emergency medical care that followed…was not the accident or the doctors…but the large cross on the wall of the hospital. On that day, the spirit of the Resurrected Christ grabbed hold of Jim Loder…and never let go. By the time I met him, 24 years had gone by. Yet when this quiet, reserved professor shared this story in our class…he began to weep. And every time, every time he would open the scriptures to read in chapel or some other service…his voice would break, and the tears would flow.

Dr. Loder had experienced the Risen Jesus. Jesus was raised from the dead, and comes to raise us up as well, in death…and in life. What part do we have in that? None! Resurrection is something that comes totally from outside of us. It is sheer grace. Robert Capon says, "The only qualification for the gospel is to be dead. You don't have to be smart. You don't have to be good. You don't have to be wise. You don't have to be wonderful. You don't have to be anything. You just have to be dead. That's it."

So accept the angel's invitation: take a look at the tomb…but don't stay long. Don't get too comfortable there. Tombs can start to feel safe to the living. Tombs are dark places, where you can't even see yourself. Tombs are places that will swallow up your life. Tombs are the kind of places we retreat to when we've lost heart, or been hurt. Sometimes we just nurture that hurt, cling to it, build our lives around it. Tombs are when we find ourselves addicted to almost anything, from ourselves to money to alcohol to status…and we despair of ever being able to change. Tombs are built from things that have been done to you, from the things you've done, or left undone.

So go ahead, check the tomb to assure yourself that HE isn't there…but the angel would say, "don't poke around too long." It will keep you from seeing the sun coming up. It might even keep you from seeing the one thing that is really important about the tomb: Jesus isn't in it. So step back out and look around. Everything is different. Can you imagine if we REALLY believed it? I went to pick up coffee this morning on my way here. I got out of the car, Easter morning…and I saw other people getting out to go get coffee…just like they do every day, or every Sunday. And it just struck me that for many of them, they had no idea…that God had done something that changes everything.

I asked a friend of mine to tell me about his experience in becoming a Christian as an adult. He told me about being in a church one night (he had been in one many times), and for the first time hearing, really hearing the good news of Jesus Christ, and knowing that God was FOR HIM. He said, "It was the strangest thing…after Christ met me like that…the choir sang…and it was like it was the first time I'd heard a choir. I heard every single voice. And I went outside, and I saw colors that I had never seen before, the colors all changed. The bricks on the building were red, really red…I'd never noticed it before." The dawn light of Easter morning changes everything.

As I read this Matthew story over again these weeks, several things struck me that hadn't before. After the angel tells the women, "He isn't here," he says, "go quickly and tell the disciples He's been raised from the dead." And as they do that, Jesus suddenly meets them on the road. HE meets them on the road…He meets THEM on the road…He resumes His relationship with them that he had before… which is another way of describing forgiveness, which is a huge part of this resurrection story. And they fall down and grab his feet (making sure he was real, not a dream or mirage), and then they worship Him.

All of the sadness and doubt and mourning drains away. "God weeps with us so that we may someday laugh with him." Time stops for a moment. And then Jesus says, "Don't be afraid. Go tell my brothers what is going on, tell them to meet me in Galilee." Tell them, in other words…to start walking…by faith. God asked it of Moses, of Joshua, of the Israelites…and now the Resurrected Jesus asks it of those who follow. "Start walking…by faith…it will become clearer as you go."

And when they gather all in Galilee at the end of this gospel, just a few verses down, Jesus meets them, and gives them the Great Commission. "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

What is the first thing the resurrected, living Christ says? The very first thing, He calls those who follow Him, who are walking with Him, who are bowled over that He is with them again…calls them to go out and tell the whole world about it. WE would call that evangelizing. We'd make it a program for our church, make it something we do, we'd discuss techniques, we'd call it the Evangelism Department. I think Jesus would just call it "living." As though, if the resurrection were really true…we could somehow NOT talk about it…as though it wouldn't totally change how we live! To them, that must seem like an impossible task, a handful of people and this incredible story. But then again…why not? If Jesus has been raised from the dead…Now anything can happen. So go. Go find Him, start walking, make disciples, baptize, teach...and remember, you don't go alone.

Wendell Berry wrote a marvelous poem called "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front." It's too long for me to read this morning, but in it he lists out dozens of ways to live which are radically different than the world expects or encourages. He starts with things like: "Everyday do something that won't compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor. Love someone who does not deserve it." Then he moves to others like, "praise ignorance, for what man has not encountered he has not destroyed," or "say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant, that you will not live to harvest." But it's the last line that intrigues me: "Practice resurrection." Practice resurrection… LIVE in light of it.

So…if He isn't in His tomb…why do we insist on staying in ours? The resurrected Christ calls US out of our own tombs. Nothing is irreversible: No shameful experience of the past, no remorse of opportunities missed, NOTHING is final…if death is not. And in Jesus Christ it is not. "God weeps with us so that we may someday laugh with him." It's Easter morning…we hear God's laughter…thanks be to God!