Resurrection Day, April 4, 2010

Luke 24:1-35
Of all the stories of the Old and New Testament, this is the one we need to be able to hear and resonate with.
Most of us have never seen Gopher Wood, let alone know what a cubit is, to understand God's command to Noah in building the Ark, we have seen news film of flooding, even tsunami, but 40 days and nights of rain, when all the earth is awash in chaos is hard for us.
Moses on a mountain and coming back with his face shining carrying stone tablets is not part of our context.
Elijah sacrificing a Bull and commanding a lightning bolt to consume his offering then killing 400 Baal Priests,
Even the birth of a baby in a stable, having Kings arrive bearing gifts from far distant lands, then our family having to flee to a distant country because all the babies are being slaughtered, is not something we can know.
But death, death's emptiness where we are left with this void of expectancy is something we are too acquainted.

The wonder of Easter's Resurrection is that we have confused EXISTENCE, with ETERNITY. We mark our calendars and set our clocks to look for Jesus to return from death to life, as if we could have a Welcome Home Party at the Tomb, as if He were to live for another 30 years before dying. That is EXISTENCE, Not RESURRECTION ETERNITY.

We believe far too well in MANIFEST DESTINY, that each person can only succeed as much as they try for themselves! Easter is not something we as the Believers, as the Church, can do, not even something Jesus could have done for himself! Easter is God's response! All the verbs in the Easter story are passive past tense, to identify that it is not Jesus who IS RISING from the dead, But Jesus who HAS BEEN RAISED. The Resurrection Day is God's Response to Jesus' Death. Jesus' suffered and died and was buried, and God raised him. Jesus had compassion for the poor and the hungry, Jesus had forgiven the sinners, Jesus had healed Lepers, the deaf and blind, God took Jesus from death to Eternal Life!

Luke's telling of Easter is so VERY HUMAN! The passages we read on Maundy Thursday ended with naming several women who had watched the crucifixion, had watched him die and marked the place where the soldiers buried him. The Soldiers sealed the tomb with a large rock and posted a guard that no one could steal the body. This first day of the week, the women go to mourn the dead, they go wanting to cleanse and anoint the body with oils and spices, knowing that they probably will not be allowed by the guard, they will not be able because of the rock, they cannot see him again because he is dead. But still they go to the tomb, and he was not there, he was risen. They go and tell the Disciples, but it seems a foolish idle tale, no one would believe. Peter goes to check it out, and finds nothing at the tomb but begins to wonder and to believe.

With all the archaeological work that has been done, no one has been able to find where Emmaus was, or of what significance. We do know it was about 7 miles from Jerusalem, so about as far from here as Auburn or Bordino. According to Frederick Buechner, Emmaus represents where we go when we want to avoid life. Emmaus is a bar, a movie, the internet, the television, that place you go when you are fed up, and want to scream “Nothing makes any difference!” Perhaps it is buying a new car, or a new pair of shoes, buying an extra scoop of ice cream that you know is not on the diet, going alone into the woods or out on the lake, to get away from everything and everyone. Yet it is on the road to Emmaus, where we retreat when life is too much with us, that we encounter the risen Savior. Who as we explain ourselves responds “Don't you understand?”

How often, we describe other people being uncommitted or too tired to help us. How often we imagine no one else cares. We see how a circumstance effects us, we complain and judge others on our way out, without questioning what if the world does not revolve around me, but instead revolves as God ordained? What then does this circumstance mean in God's creation? and What am I, what are we going to do?

Jesus explained the connections between everything from Moses and the 10 Commandments, down through the Prophets and how all their teachings, all of history has been fulfilled in the death and resurrection of the Messiah. This week, on Good Friday, a Cardinal at the Vatican defensively correlated the subpoena of the Pope for condoning molestation to persecution of Anti-Semitism. This was wrong on so many levels. First, because anti-Semitism is wrongly blaming the jewish people for the death of the Savior, when Jesus was Jewish! And while it was in Jerusalem, the Crowds represent just that, a human mob, who presented their case to the State and the Roman Empire condemned him. Anti-Semitism, judging any group of people because of their race, because of their culture and religion, is WRONG, and should be called for what it is.
For the church, Protestant or Catholic, to condone ministers in positions of power, abusing others with touch, is an offense against the body of Christ. Here we are NOT condemning the Catholic Church for our own church and denomination and every one has turned a blind eye in the passed. The ministry is personal, is intimate, you are dealing with people at their most fragile and vulnerable. But in addition to the abuse caused by the abusers, this means that every time any of us minister to another, we must be conscious of the accusations that may come, we must be skeptical of being on alone on the road together, or visiting someone in their home, or in the office. Christianity is focused on the incarnation of God in a human body, on the death and resurrection of that body, and yet painfully we must be aware and cautious of our touch and our authority and power.

About a month ago, there was a wonderful article in USA Today Newspaper, asking the Question: Where have all the Believers Gone? As many churches have equated regular attendance with belief and Yet according to all the polls, more people believe in God today than ever before. The author Oliver Thomas makes the point that all the things the church has preached for the last Century Freedom, Racial Justice, Women's Rights, Concern for the Poor and Hungry and of differing abilities, have been enacted into Law. They are not right perfect yet, but a long difference from where the world was with an 18 hour work day and Child labor. And yet the Church did not adapt and have a what then story. How shall we live and believe as a Resurrected people? What does it mean to be an Easter People living beyond the resurrection?