My first Easter sermon serving St. Andrew Presbyterian. Grand and glorious music as part of the worship service. I began the week working the Lazarus story (the first Scripture lesson) for the Lenten small group study. At that point, I came up with the sermon title, but by the time Sunday arrived a better title would have been "What are you looking for?" I had to do a little work to get from that to the "What Do You Do with a Resurrection."
The sermon might have been a bit too long. The Associate Pastor noted that I could have finished the sermon with the line just before my concluding story. As I reflected on the end of the sermon, i think she is correct. Ending with "...beware, Christ is alive and among us." would have provided a more dramatic ending. Plus, i could have saved this conclusion for a future sermon (it's always good to pace the use of good illustrations!).
The ending I did use worked fairly well. In fact, in the second service, the congregation filled in the last line "He is risen, indeed." to the story. That was pretty cool.
“What Do You Do with a Resurrection” SAPC, Easter, 2017; John 11: 17-27; John 20: 1-18
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples returned to their homes.
11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look[a] into the tomb; 12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew,[b] “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
Introduction: In the first chapter of the Gospel of John, two of John the Baptist's disciples meet Jesus, and he looks at them and asks, “What are you looking for?”
As Mary stand before Jesus at the empty tomb, she does not recognize him, but he has a question for her: “whom are you looking for?”
A good question for today.
What are you looking for this morning?
Mary’s answer might have been, “I am looking for the body of the my dead friend Jesus.”
But you know the story of his resurrection.
You came here this morning knowing we were going to announce “Jesus Christ is Risen today.”
So why are you here? What are you looking for this morning?
1. are you looking for hope in the face of illness or difficulties
2. Or maybe you are just here for the timpani and brass?
3. Are you looking for new possibilities for your life that can only be powered by the God of resurrection?
4. Or maybe it’s part of a the family tradition.
b. Mary was looking for the dead body, and instead she discovers resurrection.
1. the tomb is empty.
2. the one she supposes is the gardener is Jesus, alive again!
c. now the question — what is she going to do with the resurrection.
Or better yet, what are you going to do with the resurrection.
Move 2: You can cling to the hope that our mortality and death are no longer the final answers.
a. Thomas Lynch, a poet and writer who writes out of his life long experience as an undertaker not in his book the Undertaking: the idea of eternal life or the afterlife “begins to make the most sense after life – when someone we love is dead...”
1. he notes that when you're sitting in a hot tub enjoying the evening, you need resurrection like you need another belly button.
2. But some of us are here today need resurrection because we arrive full of grief over a loved one who is not able to be here.
1. Or we are living out the challenges of our medical journeys and the uncertainty of the future.
2. It’s sad, and scary, and hard.
b. Mary and those first disciples know that feeling.
1. their good friend Jesus has died.
2. the one in whom they had hope for a future has was last seen hanging on the cross dead.
3. the discovery of the empty tomb means they have a hope that extends beyond death.
4. Whatever can be lost along the way of our medical journeys, even our life itself, is only a temporary loss because death and our mortality have been overcome.
c. Not only is the tomb empty, but Christ is alive.
1. Their future has changed.
2. their hopes have changed.
3. They can dare to believe that there is something more than our bodies which break down; there is something more than even death.
c. Presbyterian Ruling Elder John Glenn, you may think of him as war hero famous astronaut, but I think of him as a Presbyterian!
He died last December.
Due to scheduling issues and the family trying to find the perfect day for his burial, the committal service at Arlington National Cemetery took place just a week and a half ago, on what would have been his 74th wedding anniversary.
Pouring rain. Fitting for a commital, I suppose, as our mortality is revealed.
A ceremonial service worthy of a military and astronaut here.
A horse drawn caisson with the casket to the grave site.
Six marines in dress blues to carried the casket the final steps.
The U.S. Navy Band Sea Chanters quartet sang "Amazing Grace," and "The Lord's Prayer.”
Marines fired ceremonial rounds as a salute.
Then the bugler sounding Taps, the traditional end of the service.
And then the bugler began again. he sounded Reveille, the traditional tune to wake up the troops.
He sounded Reveille at John Glenn’s request because Glenn believed in the resurrection, that his death was not just and end as indicated by Taps, but a day of resurrection. So let Reveille sound out.(http://www.the-review.com/local%20news/2017/04/07/john-glenn-laid-to-rest-at-arlington the Alliance Review, 4/14/17; Julia Wharff, my colleague who serves in Columbus, OH and went to see John Glenn’s body as it laid in state, first shared this story with me)
If you come here this morning because you need hope as you grieve or face medical challenges, you are at the right place.
Christ has overcome death.
Move 3: The resurrection means that God has deemed the world worthy of being saved; that God has deemed you worthy of being saved.
a. The resurrection is not just some miracle in which we have to believe.
1. The resurrection of Christ means that God values being in right relationship with us enough to let Christ die on the cross and then raise him from the dead.
2. the resurrection makes a claim on you.
b. Notice that when Jesus calls “Mary,” by name she recognizes him.
1. it’s personal.
2. the resurrection has far and wide-reaching implications, but for Mary it impacts her in that moment and the in the next moment, and the next moments as she lives into this new reality.
3. It’s personal for you as well.
4. It means giving up looking in the mirror and seeing the person who is not good enough and instead seeing the person God has said is worth saving.
What do you do with a resurrection — take it personally!
Move 4: we are also invited to be swept away by the power of God who resurrects.
a. The first passage we read from the Gospel of John this morning is the story of Jesus raising his friend Lazarus from the dead.
1.the religious authorities decided the best way to deal with a resurrection was to kill Lazarus — get rid of the proof.
2. Instead of embracing resurrection, get rid of it.
3. It seems to me that when confronted with resurrection, one instinct might be to try and kill it off or run away from it.
4. Resurrection can be sort of scary.
5. if God can resurrection, what might God want to do with me or expect from me?
d. Following the God of resurrection means giving up all the reasons we have for not moving into those new possibilities God puts before us and claiming that new creation God calls us to be.
1. Not too long ago, I had a conversation with someone who was in the interview process for what appeared to be an exciting new job situation.
AS the person shared with me about the new job and how the interview process, they was clearly some apprehension. I thought maybe the person was afraid of not getting the job, so in all my pastoral care wisdom I asked, “Are you scared of not getting the job?”
After a long pause, the person replied, “No. I'm scared that I might actually choose me. That they might actually think I'm the one who can do this job.”
4. Maybe it’s easier not to be the chosen one. To just go along with how things are.
5. But remember what Jesus told Martha when he explained who he was. “i am the resurrection and the life.” Not just a distant event that speaks to eternal things, but a life powered by God’s desire to do a new thing.
6. the empty tomb is before us, and from it we hear God saying, “I choose you. I choose you to be part of a great new thing I am doing!”
6. not just in our own lives, but even in our world of violence and war.
7. the hymn we will sing after the sermon, Christ Is Alive, was penned in the days before Easter just after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.
8. God’s power to resurrect calls us to act out of our hope now.
d. Rob Fuquay, the author of the book we used for our Lenten study, wrote: “Death cannot give a future. death cannot create. Death cannot do a new thing” (Fuquay, 113, the God We Can Know).
1. But the God who resurrects can.
2. the empty tomb means God is not done.
3. If you come here this morning looking for the Messiah, the one who can change your life, the one who brings you hope, beware, he is alive and among us.
Conclusion: this story goes back to the time of the Cold War when the Soviet Union and its communism dominated Eastern Europe.
there was a meeting with leaders from all the satellite countries present. Sort of a pep rally for several thousand members of the party, a time to restate their purpose and to build up enthusiasm among its members.
As a part of the meeting, a Marxist philosopher, lectured the assembly on atheism. He fully explained why there is no God. He spoke for almost an hour. When the official was finished with his lecture, there was scattered, polite applause.
Then an Orthodox priest was introduced and brought to the podium. He was told that he would have only three minutes for his response to the official’s lecture.
The priest began by saying he would not need three minutes. He needed only three words. And then he raised his arms and shouted at the top of his voice, “Christ is risen!”
And then the great assembly, whose members could not resist the response that was deep within, thundered: “Christ is risen indeed!”
Again the priest called out, “Christ is risen!” And again the people replied with the words of the Orthodox church’s liturgy, “Christ is risen indeed!”
Yet a third time the priest announced to this crowd of party bureaucrats and nominal atheists, “Christ is risen!” And for a third time, they in unison affirmed, “Christ is risen indeed!” With that, the priest left the podium. (See “Homiletics” January-March, 1993, p. 41).
Christ is Risen. What are you going to do?
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