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[3264.00 --> 3271.96] unknowing, but wanting to be known, that I love the way the Gospel of Mark ends. |
[3271.96 --> 3278.88] The resurrection story speaks into this precise cultural moment. |
[3278.88 --> 3287.26] So the women head to the tomb, and they do so in order to anoint Jesus' body, because he died just |
[3287.26 --> 3293.72] before the Sabbath was to start. The Sabbath, in Jewish culture, remember that the day begins on |
[3293.72 --> 3301.30] the evening before. And so they couldn't do ordinary labors on the Sabbath, and so his body was placed in |
[3301.30 --> 3308.14] the tomb without ceremony or without funeral preparations. And so the women head to the tomb, |
[3308.54 --> 3318.62] and they wonder, who will move this stone? Now, it was common for tombs to be cut into hillsides, |
[3318.98 --> 3325.84] and to have a round stone, to have stonework on the face, and to have an entrance cut, and then a round |
[3325.84 --> 3330.38] stone that would roll in front of it. I have a picture, actually, that we can put up on the screen. |
[3332.04 --> 3339.48] This is a picture that I took. Do we have the picture? There it is. This is a picture that is |
[3339.48 --> 3345.96] from a trip that I took to Israel, and this is a hill country just outside of Jerusalem. This is |
[3345.96 --> 3353.80] probably very similar to what these women would have gone to find. And because the tombs were usually |
[3353.80 --> 3360.48] for families, they could be opened and then sealed after each burial need. And if you look at the |
[3360.48 --> 3366.10] picture there, you can see that there's a bit of an outer room to it, where they would prepare the body |
[3366.10 --> 3372.78] and where it lays for the first few days after death. And eventually, the body gets moved into, deeper |
[3372.78 --> 3381.18] into the tomb, into the place there, and there would be other sort of rooms off to the side, or chambers, |
[3381.18 --> 3386.08] or boxes where bodies would move, so that when the next person from the family died, they would be |
[3386.08 --> 3390.24] able to come and use that front room, and then move to the back, and the like. And so when we read, |
[3390.56 --> 3394.76] they went into the room, and they looked to the right, even this picture here, exactly, there's a |
[3394.76 --> 3400.60] funeral bench to the right, as you walk in the first door, where the body would have laid. And then |
[3400.60 --> 3406.80] there's a second door beyond, where eventually it would have been moved. So it's into this first chamber |
[3406.80 --> 3412.98] that they go, and they see a young man or an angel dressed in white. And he says to them, |
[3413.38 --> 3419.18] right, he sees their alarm, of course, they see this white person sitting there, and the stone having |
[3419.18 --> 3425.64] been rolled away, and Jesus' body not there, and he says, don't be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus. |
[3425.64 --> 3432.52] He is not here, he has risen. Go, tell the disciples, go to Galilee, and you will see him there. |
[3432.52 --> 3440.00] And then, and this is why I love this story, and the way that Mark tells it here, for our modern |
[3440.00 --> 3446.96] context, right, for the sort of spiritual frame that we find ourselves in now, what does Mark say? |
[3448.88 --> 3457.56] Trembling and bewildered, the woman went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone |
[3457.56 --> 3466.40] because they were afraid. And then Mark just ends the story. Now, I know that if you're looking at it |
[3466.40 --> 3471.22] in your own Bible, some of you will see more text later on, some of you will see that blocked out, |
[3471.26 --> 3476.66] or with a little note there. I don't want to get into the whole weeds of textual criticism and the |
[3476.66 --> 3482.04] like, but suffice it to say that that longer ending probably isn't part of Mark's original. |
[3482.04 --> 3489.10] He wanted to end it abruptly. He wanted to leave us in that place of trembling and bewildered and |
[3489.10 --> 3499.28] fleeing for fear. And I think that that's exactly what Easter Sunday is like for most of us today, |
[3499.50 --> 3508.18] right? We want to believe, but it seems impossible, right? We want certitude, but we're bewildered. |
[3508.18 --> 3517.28] We want conviction and a boldness that comes from that, but we're still afraid, right? The challenge |
[3517.28 --> 3525.44] of belief in an increasingly post-Christian 21st century world is just this, the constant pulling |
[3525.44 --> 3533.60] down of pressure and doubt, knowing that you should, but feeling like you can't, feeling like you do, |
[3533.60 --> 3541.16] but knowing it's impossible, right? The experience of Mary and Mary and Salome define our experience of |
[3541.16 --> 3549.62] faith and resurrection. This is where we live now. And here's the thing, because it's not just Christians, |
[3550.62 --> 3558.14] right? It's all of us. The human condition is to love, the human nature, right? Anthropologically, |
[3558.14 --> 3565.82] we are wired to love and to desire and to believe. Now, we might use different words for that, right? But there is a |
[3565.82 --> 3574.14] pull of eternity on your heart that unsettles, that's a restless wandering, that's not completely satisfied |
[3574.14 --> 3582.62] in a longing for an experience of beauty, and yet distinctly bound to the ground, looking to what is |
[3582.62 --> 3593.70] and knowing what's not. One philosopher writes, he says, even as faith endures in our secular age, |
[3593.84 --> 3600.26] believing does not come easy. Faith is fraught, confession is haunted by an inescapable sense of |
[3600.26 --> 3607.12] its contestability. We don't believe instead of doubting, we believe while doubting. |
[3607.12 --> 3619.62] This is the life of faith that I know, that I bet most of you are familiar with. The same philosopher |
[3619.62 --> 3628.20] will go on, he says, the doubter's doubt is faith, right? His temptation is belief, and it is a temptation |
[3628.20 --> 3636.54] that has not been entirely quelled, even in our secular age, right? We oscillate between faith and doubt, |
[3636.54 --> 3643.16] assurance and skepticism, conviction and complacency. In fact, right, we don't even oscillate back and |
[3643.16 --> 3649.82] forth. All of those feels exist at the same time in us, right? We are pulled up and pushed down at the |
[3649.82 --> 3655.62] same time. Transcendence comes crashing through the neat, organized, bordered, bound picture of reality |
[3655.62 --> 3664.18] only to mess up what we have so carefully crafted all again. And that's just it. |
[3666.54 --> 3676.74] The mystery is messy, and faith won't be confined to our propositional boxes, just like Jesus won't be bound |
[3676.74 --> 3687.34] to a grave. You see, I think, and I know that I am guilty of this, I think we make a mistake when we think of |
[3687.34 --> 3697.42] Easter as being about proving that God has power over sin and death. Now, before you call the heresy police on me, |
[3697.86 --> 3703.78] don't hear what I'm not saying, right? Because the empty tomb does that, right? That is God's proof of power. |
[3704.08 --> 3708.72] I really like the way that Tom Wright puts it so forcefully. He says, |
[3708.72 --> 3714.68] the only possible reason why early Christianity began and took the shape it did is that the tomb |
[3714.68 --> 3719.54] really was empty and that people really did meet Jesus alive again. |
[3722.02 --> 3730.06] There's a story told about a young Robert Louis Stevenson. You may not know who that is. He |
[3730.06 --> 3734.04] was born in 1850. He lived in Scotland. He was a novelist, |
[3734.04 --> 3741.18] and he became famous for his writing. But when he was a child in Scotland, now in those days, |
[3741.64 --> 3748.86] street lights didn't just come on when a photo cell on the top sensed too little light from the sun, |
[3749.48 --> 3755.68] right? People were hired to walk around with a candle and a jar of oil, and they would go from |
[3755.68 --> 3760.88] light post to light post with a ladder slung over their shoulder, lean the ladder up against the light |
[3760.88 --> 3766.72] post, climb up the ladder, open the little jar, top off the oil, light it, close the lid, climb back |
[3766.72 --> 3772.16] down the ladder, and then move 20 feet to the next one and do it all over again, right? Back and forth. |
[3772.28 --> 3778.66] And Robert Louis Stevenson remembers watching this happen from his window, watching the man who was |
[3778.66 --> 3783.86] going from light post to light post to light post in the dark, lighting these lights. He turned to his |
[3783.86 --> 3793.46] parents and he said, look, they're punching holes in the darkness. That's what Easter does, right? Jesus |
[3793.46 --> 3800.30] really did live the life of perfect righteousness. He really did die on Good Friday for the sins of all, |
[3800.48 --> 3807.90] and the tomb in which his body is really laid is really empty. By his resurrection, Jesus is punching |
[3807.90 --> 3815.88] holes in the darkness of sin and death and Satan. And so if today you are facing sin or death or Satan, |
[3816.00 --> 3821.28] if you are feeling overwhelmed and overpressed, if you are feeling brokenhearted or just broken, |
[3821.58 --> 3830.68] the resurrection is Jesus coming into this world and saying, not for ever, not for always, maybe for |
[3830.68 --> 3837.80] right now. But the end of the story is the empty tomb. The end of the story is our resurrection just |
[3837.80 --> 3849.26] as Jesus was resurrected. So I believe all that. But this story, this true story isn't first about |
[3849.26 --> 3857.48] proving, right? If this was first about proving it to be true, we would probably see Jesus in the story. |
[3857.48 --> 3866.60] But we don't. Instead, I suggest to you that this story isn't about proving, it's about stirring, |
[3867.22 --> 3874.02] right? It isn't about the effect, though that is huge and world-changing. This is about the affect, |
[3874.38 --> 3880.32] right? And the affect is effective to punch holes in the darkness, not just 2,000 years ago, but today, |
[3880.32 --> 3889.50] now, in your life. Hearts of stone become hearts of flesh, dead come alive, light shines in the |
[3889.50 --> 3894.88] darkness, imaginations becoming alive for the impossible and the impossible becoming possible. |
[3895.62 --> 3903.68] This is about being bewildered and yet still believing. This is about trembling and being transformed. |
[3903.68 --> 3919.76] Amid your doubts, Jesus says, come, come to me. In your assurances, Jesus says, go, go to all the world. |
[3920.90 --> 3930.16] And to your questions, he says, yes. In your wandering, he calls forth wonder. |
[3930.16 --> 3938.26] Jesus said to Thomas and the other disciples at the end of the Gospel of John, a different account of this, |
[3938.34 --> 3948.72] he said, blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. In those words, Jesus is talking to us. |
[3949.64 --> 3959.42] He's talking to you. Believe and you are blessed. Believe even with doubt and he is with you. |
[3959.42 --> 3965.54] Believe even as you doubt and you are given something more than your heart can imagine, |
[3965.92 --> 3969.12] but exactly what you were created for. |
[3970.52 --> 3972.68] Even as we feel |
[3972.68 --> 3975.36] rootless and unsure, |
[3975.98 --> 3979.42] his resurrection brings to us a rootedness. |
[3979.42 --> 3993.42] Even as we experience the chaos of culture, his resurrection brings a firm truth and foundation. |
[3994.52 --> 4002.68] And the rootedness that he brings is a rootedness of liturgy and word and in just a moment, here, sacrament. |
[4002.68 --> 4010.22] In a moment, we will come to this table and we will take in Jesus through the bread and through the wine. |
[4010.84 --> 4013.50] In a moment, we will touch, taste and see. |
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