Resurrection of Our Lord/Easter Day

April 4, 2010

Sermon by Rev. Dr. Marcus Pera

The Holy Gospel according to Luke. (Luke 24:1‑12)

On the first day of the week, at early dawn, [the women] came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

The Gospel of Our Lord.

In the name of Our Risen Savior, Jesus Christ, grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. Amen.

As they greeted one another in the early church, “The Lord is risen. He is risen, indeed. Alliluia!” I wish again all of you a most blessed day, that it may be a day of joy and full of meaning for you. It is a special day; and, as the psalmist said, “This is the day which the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

It’s an incredible privilege, and it’s also an awesome responsibility, to proclaim the word on this day. “The Resurrection of Our Lord.” Everything seems so counterintuitive, so antithetical to all of our human experiences, that this plays havoc with our rational mind. But it is what is the proclamation for this day.

John Buchanan, who is the editor of The Christian Century, had a little editorial in which a few years ago he was expressing concern about his Easter sermon coming up. And a person gave him a little advice, a dear friend, and said, “Keep it simple; nothing fancy. I go to church, I want to hear a few hymns, and hear the story retold.” And if I can retranslate that a little bit, I think you are here to be inspired by the music and to sing praises to God. You are here to hear the good news of the story of the resurrection of Jesus Christ once again this day.

In that editorial of John Buchanan’s, he also made reference to a person, who was a dear acquaintance of his, it’s a person I also knew as well, by the name of Walter Bouman. Walter Bouman was a systematic professor at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio. Walter died a few years ago. He had gotten an inoperable cancer, and the Columbus Dispatch, the newspaper there, interviewed him after this had been the verdict for him, and they asked him, “What encourages you these days, Dr. Bouman?” And he said, “I am encouraged by the Christian news of God into which I was baptized in 1929. And I am encouraged by the Christian story that Jesus rose from the dead and that death has no more dominion.” This is the beauty of the good news of this day.

And yet it’s a day that we kind of search for what really is that meaning for us today, and is it really the meaning in the life that is to come, as is inferred. Well, when we look at that a little bit more closely, we understand that there is a searching. More people come to church on Easter Day. I don’t think that’s just custom and convention. I think it’s people who want that tested a little bit farther. They want to hear that good news a little bit more. They want to see what, if, and how that all makes sense.

John Updike, you undoubtedly have heard of him, one of the great American authors. John Updike wrote a poem some years ago and it was titled “Seven Stanzas at Easter.” And in this poem he said, “Do not speak of the resurrection of Jesus with metaphor and with analogy, sidestepping, transcendence, but walk through the door.” That’s what we want to be doing this morning. It is interesting, that story of John Updike. He was a Lutheran at the time. He was a member of Marble Hill Massachusetts Lutheran Church. They had a religious arts festival one year, and they invited people to apply and submit a piece. And it is at that that he submitted the “Seven Stanzas at Easter.” And they gave a hundred dollars, and he won the competition. It is interesting, though also, the story goes on a little bit farther. The pastor at that time was Norman Kretzmann, who later accepted the call to Christ Lutheran in Minneapolis, and was the person who helped birth the Metro Lutheran news, and he wrote frequent editorials in this and described this particular time.

John Updike also says in another stanza in that poem, he talks about if Christ is raised, then he was raised as a body. And he said the molecules of dissolution need to come back together and the cells reknit, and all that happened once again. And he said, if not, the church fails. Somewhat like, I think, the words of Paul in the Second Lesson for today: “If Christ be not raised, then your faith is vain, and you are yet in your sins.”

Well, where do we and how do we search for this and walk through the door boldly and feel confident of that blessed proclamation? One of the things is, the women were on their way to the tomb. As they were on their way to the tomb, they expected a corpse. They got to the grave and looked inside. They had ointments with them, and they were going to appropriately prepare the body for burial, that they were not able to do the day before. When they got there, there was no corpse.

As they looked inside, they saw two men. Now, in Luke’s Gospel, it’s extremely important, that reference to two men. If you think back earlier, there was the story of the transfiguration, and there were two men that appeared there, and one was Moses and one was Elijah, in a sense affirming who this Jesus of Nazareth really was, that he was and is the promised Messiah. This transfiguration story is a kind of pre-resurrection story. And now these two men are there again, with the body not present; but another affirmation, once again, that this in fact was and is the promised Messiah. Now, it isn’t until they remember the words, and the two men recall those for the women, that they realized what happened. And so they go running back to tell the other apostles. And it says the other apostles thought it was an idle tale. In those days especially, they certainly weren’t believing women. And so that was where they left it at that time.

It seems to me that we, too, go in search, we go in search of religious truth, truth about life in places that end up being an empty tomb and, if you will, a dead-end. Certainly, the Epicurean philosophy continues to hold “It’s life in the fast lane. Eat, drink, and be merry; tomorrow we will die.” That certainly is a dead-end philosophy. Or today a lot of what is current is consumerism, which has certainly taken its hit in the last few years. At one time we used to be able to say that G.E. and General Motors will build a better future in life for us. Well, we certainly don’t use G.M. anymore as the illustration. But perhaps it’s Nike, and perhaps it’s I-Pads, the next thing that we stand in line for that perhaps will give us this kind of lease on life that is what we’re really looking for, but usually another dead-end. Or we look once again at just the human species and see a humanist attitude that says, “Every day in every way we are getting better and better,” and we look to ourselves to be able to engender that which provides and makes for the full and abundant life. But that, too, is not able to deliver. Or we even look in this age of spirituality, much of which is a good search, but much of it is also a dead-end, a place which is filled with gnostic kind of searches and foundation, one in which we seem to have to muster the energy to go on the search, to find the transcendence, to reach depths in which we are able to find a new lease on life. Well, if we can’t find it in this way, if the tomb is empty for us as well—empty but also a dead-end, there is no body there—where do we look for the living?

It was interesting that Peter was the one that did go back to the tomb, and he looked inside. It doesn’t say that at that point he believed, but it does say that he was amazed. Perhaps a first step in this whole thing for us, as we hear the good news again, is to say, “We are amazed!” We are amazed at what is seemingly implied. But we ask the question one step farther, “Where do we go and what do we do?” Luke is helpful in this respect to answer this question. Luke has several appearances of Jesus after this story. And one of them is on the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and the second one is around food as well; both of them food, both of them doing remembering. It is as we remember. Now, as we look at the word, the word that is proclaimed, that is what Luke is talking about. Remember those words you heard. And the use of the word “remember” is not simply to say, “Oh, yeah, I remember when this happened.” “I remember when George made this comment.” No, it’s making present a past event.

It’s like when the Seder is celebrated and the story of the Exodus is recalled. It’s not just to remember mentally, but it is to make present that event once again. And it is the same with the Eucharist. “Do this in remembrance of me.” It is making present the past event, all of Calvary and the resurrection. And it is in fact then the risen Christ that is in our midst this day, as we celebrate as well. That is true for the word as well, as the word is proclaimed, as the word is read, as the word is sung and shared. It is not simply about Christ. It is the Christ. It is the word of God that is in our midst. It is the living presence of God. And then when we begin to sense and feel and experience these places where the risen Christ promises to show up, then we begin to sense and see out there in the world those many illustrations of where Christ is alive, and where Christ is present, and where Christ is living.

Do you remember the book “Color Purple,” maybe the movie, “Color Purple”? Celie, the main character in it, lived an abused life; was forced to marry a person by the name of Albert, who abused her only some more. She was very close to her sister Nettie. But Albert made Nettie leave and get out of the house and said she would never hear from Celie again. And she actually ended up in Africa somewhere as a missionary enterprise of some sort. But Nettie kept writing letters to Celie. The difference was that Albert would always intercept these letters, and he would not let her see them. Finally, one day, Celie accidentally discovered all of these letters. And she had taken Nettie to be dead by this time. And in one of the recent letters it said, “I know you probably think that I am dead or have died. I love you. I am not dead.” “I love you. I am not dead.” This is a paraphrase of the Easter Gospel this day.

And you remember that interview with Walt Bouman that I referred to earlier, about what encourages him. There was another sentence to that. In that sentence Walt said, “I bet all of my living and now my dying that Jesus has the last word.”

Jesus’ dominion over death. Jesus has the last word in your life and in mine, this day, tomorrow, and forever.

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.