And returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. [10] Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, [11] but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.
This is our text
It was just too good to be true. This message that the women came proclaiming. It was too fantastic. Too spectacular. Too unbelievably good to be real.
The disciples were gathered all together, still reeling from the events of the past Friday. Trying to figure out what to do now – now that their leader was dead, now that Jesus was dead – they had all seen him die.
With their own two eyes they saw him arrested, they saw his trial. They saw him as he carried his cross to the place of the skull. They saw him hoisted up as a common criminal. They heard him cry out in agony. They saw him breathe his last. Those images were all too real. They had seen them with their eyes. There was no dispute. There was no waking from this nightmare.
So when the women came, was there any other possible response? Suddenly their mourning was disturbed by a handful of women who said they had been to Jesus' tomb to anoint his dead body. They said that they found the tomb empty, they said that they had spoken to two men in dazzling white clothing who claimed that Jesus was alive – was there any other logical response than to be skeptical? Sure they all hoped he was alive. Sure they all would have loved to believe that he was alive. But death is all too real and the reality of death is that it is all too final. They didn't believe the women. Would you?
After all, how often does it happen that people simply believe what they want to believe. The truth is just too hard to take so instead of accepting it and dealing with it, they make up an alternative – one that better suits their needs. Wasn't that what these women were doing? Weren't they just trying to find a way to cope with the tragedy? Or was there more to it?
Of course there was more to it. These women were better grounded in reality than the unbelieving disciples. They had a better grasp of what had happened than the logically dismissive 11. They came bearing the truth. They came to proclaim the gospel – the gospel that Jesus Christ, the Son of God was not dead. He was alive. It was just as the angels had said. He was not in the tomb. He had risen again from the dead. He is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Hallelujah!
And this truth. This reality. This gospel message that was proclaimed by the angels, that was repeated by the women, that was doubted by the disciples is that Jesus is alive. And because Jesus is alive we too shall live – in fact we do live. We have life. We have the hope of heaven. We have the promise that God is with us now until the end of the age.
When you stop to think about it, it seems to good to be true. IT seems like we are making it up just because it sounds so good. But it is true and it is real and it is ours because of the resurrection.
We are confronted with unbelievable scenarios all the time; things are presented to us that we dismiss because we have come to understand that they are too good to be true. We get offers in the mail all the time from Credit card companies that offer us free balance transfers, free ATM with drawls, and free cash back savings – but we know that we pay for those things with high interest rates if we are late or default on our payments. There are always lots of “great deals” that are dangled in front of us only to find out later that there is always some hidden agenda, that there are always some strings attached.
We find this to be true even in our relationships with each other. All too often we place our hopes and our dreams in the hands of some person only to be let down. Young people have day dreams of being in love, believing that they have finally discovered Mr. or Ms. Right and then after it's all said and done, they find that they have kissed a frog that turned out to be only a frog. Occasionally churches will become enamored with the personality of a particular pastor and construct the entire ministry around the man. How disappointed they are or they have been when they discover the hidden life of sin that has been lead by their leader. It seems that there are too many reasons why we should be skeptical when we hear of such good news.
At first hearing, it seems that the good news of the gospel is also too good to be true. IT seems that the words and the teachings of the bible are more than what could be real.
Take for example this doctrine of the resurrection. According to the bible Jesus was dead. His heart stopped pumping blood. His brain stopped functioning. His lungs stopped filling with air. He was gone. His body was completely and totally lifeless. He was placed in tomb. According to the bible, this dead corpse of a body that was Jesus came back to life. Life was restored where there was death. Death, that is so final, death that claims the life of those we love, that cuts down those we care about and takes them away from us Death, the one single disease from which there is no cure was cured. Death was forced to give back one it had taken. Death was forced to cough up the life of one it had claimed. That just doesn't happen. As much as we would like to believe it, it just can't be.
Because it seems to be too good to be true, people often assume that there must be some logical explanation. If we believe the historical evidence there must be some scientific explanation – maybe Jesus wasn't all the way dead when they put him in the tomb. Maybe a few days of rest enabled him to heal and wake up from his supposed death. Or we could discount the historical evidence all together. We could claim that Jesus never actually rose after he was crucified. We could spend millions of dollars on a documentary claiming that a tomb unearthed in Jerusalem contained the bones of Jesus. After all, this doctrine of the resurrection is and must be too good to be true.
But there is more to it than just a resurrection. There is also this idea that death is the punishment for sin – that death is an un-natural part of the human experience. That is what st Paul is telling us in our epistle lesson when he says that death came by one man – Adam. Before Adam sinned, there was no such thing as death. If Adam and Eve had never sinned then you and I would live forever without dying. Doesn't that seem to be an unnatural explanation for things? Isn’t death just a part of life? Isn’t it a continuation of the cycle of life and death in that is visible in the 4 seasons – the death of winter becomes the new life of spring? Isn’t death there to simply complete the circle. Humanly speaking that might make sense – but that doesn't fit with the biblical explanation. The wages of sin is death. If there were no sin there would be no death.
And then, there is this idea that Jesus' death was payment for our sin and that because he died and was raised we won't ever die. Again, that is the message of our Epistle lesson from 1 Corinthians. “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. [22] For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” In Christ we have the hope that we won't ever die. In fact, if you read all of chapter 15 from 1 Corinthians, Paul doesn't ever talk about believers in Christ ever dying at all – he says that they simply fall asleep. Doesn't that sound too good to be true? Doesn't that sound like we are just trying to find a way to make our selves feel better about losing those we love to death. Doesn't that sound like we are just trying to find a way to come to grips with our own mortality? Doesn't it all sound too good to be true?
Yes it does! Of course it sounds too good to be true. But does that mean that it is not true? Does that mean that the God who was so powerful that he made the entire universe in a weeks time cannot overcome death? Does that mean that the God who gives new life every time a baby is born is not able to restore life to one who has died? God can do anything! God has done this! God sent his son, born of a woman to be sin for us so that through his life we also might receive life.
It happened! As we learned from reading our text this morning, on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, some women went to the tomb where Jesus’ dead body had been laid. They went carrying spices that they had prepared so that they could anoint his body for burial. When they got to the tomb they discovered that the large stone that had been placed in front of the opening to the tomb had been rolled away. They entered the tomb only to discover that the body of Jesus was gone. This perplexed them, until they were met by two men, standing beside them in dazzling white clothing – reminiscent of the face of Jesus when he was transfigured before Peter James and John. They were shining with heavenly glory. These men, these messengers of God reminded them of the words of Jesus. Jesus himself had promised that this very thing would happen. He would be handed over. They would crucify him. But on the third day he would rise.
Suddenly they remembered. Yes. Yes he had said that. He said that very thing. They thought little of it at the time, because of course they all knew that no such thing would ever happen. They all knew that Jesus would go to Jerusalem. That he would be crowned king and that he would lead them on to victory as the king sitting on the throne of his father David. But he died. He said that he would die and he died. He said that he would be raised again from the dead and now here they were at his tomb. It was empty. There was no one there except for the women and the angels.
The women returned. They went back to the disciples. They told the disciples what had happened. The disciples didn't believe. Would you?
Perhaps the question is “do you?” At the time the disciples did not believe. It after all seemed too good to be true. But they would believe. Faith doesn’t come simply by taking someone else's word for it. Faith in Jesus never comes by simply hearing a story. It never comes by mere exploration or physical evidence or even forensic evidence. This is faith. This is the stuff that is given by God as he works through his word. The disciples did not yet believe. But soon they would hear the Word of God. They would remember the word of God spoken by Jesus. They would hear that word again reported to them, and even given to them again through the mouth of the savior himself. They would come to believe in the same way that we have believed. They would come to believe by the power of the Holy Spirit working through the Word of God.
This message certainly seems to be nonsense. It appears as though it is too good to be true. But it is the message that has been given to us by God. It is the message that Jesus died for our sins and that ton the third day he rose again from the dead. And that because he lives we too shall live, forever! In heaven. With him. All because of this one simple fact.
He is Risen! He is Risen indeed. Hallelujah!
No comments:
Post a Comment