Matthew 28: 1-10 (Common English Bible)
Philippians 2: 5-11 (Common English Bible)
Acts 10: 34-43 (Good News Translation)
Easter Sunday is often a mix of trust and doubt, belief and disbelief. There are at least two ways to dismiss a miracle. The first is to dismiss it and reject it too readily, as if miracles never happen. And the second way is to domesticate it, and accept it too readily, as if it is not astonishing at all concerning its background.
But Easter calls us to imagine reality reborn. Humans are three-dimensional beings whose spiritual experience can introduce another dimension. The idea is to think beyond the current horizon. To believe the resurrection did happen, opens up the possibility to connect with the Risen Christ, not just on Easter morning, but on every morning.
The fact that two women were the first witnesses to the resurrection was important in itself. Women were very much second-class people in 1st century Judea. It was the women and not the male disciples of Jesus who had the courage to approach Jesus’ tomb on that dark early morning. Of course they couldn’t get too close because Roman soldiers were guarding the tomb. They were commanded to prevent anyone from removing the body of Jesus. A phony resurrection story was the last thing the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate and the hierarchy of the Jewish religious establishment, the Sanhedrin wanted to hear.
But perhaps the Romans and the Sanhedrin had something to fear. They were the ones who had Jesus tortured and crucified. What would happen to them if a resurrected Jesus came back for revenge? Of course, they never really knew Jesus to expect such a thing.
But a messenger from God called an “angel” combined with the power of God changed all of that. The Roman guards were so terrified to see the angel remove the stone from the tomb, they probably had an accident in their pants while running all the way back to their barracks in Jerusalem.
But what happened? That is the question that millions of believers and unbelievers have asked for nearly 2,000 years. Could someone with a camera be able to film the resurrection? The best explanation I’ve ever read was from Richard Rohr in his book “The Universal Christ.” Father Rohr mentions his theology teacher, Father Cyrin Maus, a member of the Order of Friars Minor (OFM), who told him, if a video camera had been placed in front of Jesus’ tomb, it would not have filmed a lone man emerging from the tomb. More likely, it would’ve captured something like beams of light extending in all directions. During the resurrection, the single physical body of Jesus moved beyond all limits of space and time into a new notion of existence and light, which includes all of its embodiment. Christians usually call this the “glorified body.” Buddhists and Hindus call it the “subtle body.” Both religions picture this by what becomes the aura or halo. Christians place this “halo” around the saints of the Church. For countless eons the Christ was the eternal Light before Christ became a human being within the body of Jesus of Nazareth. And if you read the Apostle Paul’s 1st Corinthian letter, chapter 15 beginning with verse 40, it almost sounds similar to what Richard Rohr wrote. And the authentic letters of Paul like 1st Corinthians were written several decades before the gospels.
But what does all of this mean for us today and beyond Easter? For one thing, nothing remained the same for the two Marys at the tomb and the other disciples of Jesus. They had experienced the Risen Christ. And we can also. The first followers of the Risen Christ experienced both fear and joy in their lives. And so do we. But we also live in another realm called the Kingdom of God as they did, wrapped in our baptismal vows either by our parents or ourselves. This gives us the courage to continue just as Peter did, even though he denied Jesus three times on the night he was betrayed and handed over to the Sanhedrin for an unjust trial.
In Peter’s message in the book of Acts, he speaks boldly and without fear. Peter’s message was to explain the gospel in its simplest terms, without the heavy theology and dogma which came much later. His message is that God desires to redeem all creation through the teachings of Jesus and his triumph over the forces of darkness that crucified him. God loves all of creation with its multitude of diversity. As Peter states in Acts 10: 35, “all races of people are accepted by God.” Black, white, brown, male, female and any gender is loved by God. And all nations are blessed by God, not just one or two.
Peter realized the true power of the death and resurrection of Jesus, when the Temple veil was rendered in half when Jesus died. This symbolized the barriers to God had ended. No nationality or religion had an exclusive right to God. Peter accepted a gentile, Cornelius, a captain in the Roman army into the Jesus faith. Of course this caused an outrage and condemnation among many of the traditionalist leaders of the Jewish faith who had accepted Jesus as the Messiah. How dare Peter, they said, accept a gentile who has not been circumcised and does not observe kosher laws! But doesn’t this attitude always surface in churches when they reject change and a challenge to the status-quo? Churches no longer argue over circumcision and kosher laws anymore. Today’s big issue is about who a person can love or not love and what roles they should have in a church. The United Methodist Church is splitting over this very issue. The Presbyterian Church USA went through this about a dozen years ago and survived. The main body of the Presbyterian Church stood firm and welcomed the change. Thanks be to God! This is the way to live out Jesus’ vision of peace and inclusion in the light of the resurrection.
Hopefully, we will begin to understand what it means to live free from a sin committed in a mythical past that never existed. Instead of Original Sin let us instead focus on Original Blessing like the Eastern Church does. Jesus wasn’t about saving us from the past, but was reminding us that we can become the Light of the world. We already possess the spiritual ability to evolve and become the true Human One (“Son of Man”) like Jesus. Jesus’ life, death and resurrection show us the way to be Love. As John writes in his 1st Epistle, chapter four, verse eight, “for God is love.”
When I was studying for this sermon, I was surprised to find out there was never any major church council to explain the meaning of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Yes, there have been many major church councils on the meaning of the Trinity, the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD being the first among several others to follow. Was Christ created by God? Was Jesus totally human, both human and God or coequal with God? Or was Jesus just a spirit? These fights, and sometimes literal fights, about these questions went on for several centuries. But nothing about the meaning of the cross on which Jesus died.
Well, there have been many opinions about this. Some people believe the cross and empty tomb means God’s victory over the world’s death-dealing powers. For others, Jesus’ death represents God “paying the price” for sin once and for all, liberating humanity from guilt and shame. Others say that Jesus’ suffering testifies to God’s solidarity with all those who suffer, including the oppressed, the lonely and those deprived of the necessities to live. Still others emphasize how the Passion story functions as a critique of human hatred and violence. Another opinion is that the heart of the story is God’s creative, subversive redemption, transforming the worst type of execution on a Roman cross into the wondrous Tree of Life, thereby proclaiming God’s intention to redeem the entire creation in the end. And others combine two or more of these opinions together as their view. The main point here is that the divine mystery of the cross is like a cathedral, an architecture with many entrances. To insist on one avenue alone is to deny the hospitality and richness of God’s redemptive work and love.
In closing, I’d like to paraphrase some of the reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, chapter two, verses 6-8. “The Christ Light had the nature of God, but it did not think by its power it should try to remain equal with God. Instead, by the Light’s own free will it gave up all it had before and took the nature of a servant. The Light became like a human being and appeared in human likeness. The Light became a humble person and walked the path of obedience all the way to death, the death on the cross.”
To walk the resurrected life as the Christ Light is “to do justice, love kindness and to walk humbly with God.” (Micah 6:8). And I believe that is the creed of a church we all love.
AMEN
