Comments on the Easter Stories

The First United Methodist Church of Napa, CA
April 4, 2010
Easter Sunday Morning

The First Easter Story: Mark 16: 1-8

¹When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. ²And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. ³They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” ⁴When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. ⁵As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. ⁶But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. ⁷But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” ⁸So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

So, that’s the way the story was first remembered. Everybody ran away. They ran for their lives…, because they thought that they’d be the next ones to be hung from a cross. There was fear. There was guilt. There was confusion. Rome and its sympathizers had, once again, prevailed over those they ruled. And the urban elites of Jerusalem had gained an even tighter control over the temple and Torah.

Sometime later, though, the disciples began to think more about the death of their friend and teacher. It mattered to them. But only because his life mattered – what he’d said and done mattered – more than his dying. So they began to speak of his death in ways that affirmed his life; and they came to see that his life stood for something so…well, so extraordinary that he was willing to give up his life for it. And that something was his vision of what we’ve come to call the Kingdom of God. In time – and after they overcame their fear to come out of hiding – his followers, too, came to reaffirm their own commitment to the values and vision represented in Jesus’ life by his words and deeds. Some even came to believe that in his words were God’s words,^² and that his vision of a new empire – made in the image and likeness of God – was a force no executioner or cross could kill. Jesus was dead. But he was not dead to them.

And all that had been commanded them they told briefly to those around Peter. And afterward Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.

⁹Now after he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. ¹⁰She went out and told those who had been with him, while they were mourning and weeping. ¹¹But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it.

¹²After this he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. ¹³And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them.

¹⁴Later he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were sitting at the table; and he upbraided them for their lack of faith and stubbornness, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen….

Each so-called Easter story, you see, has its own distinctive slant on things. For instance, Matthew’s story is the only one that talks about an earthquake. Only Matthew’s story (as you will soon hear) has an angel actually rolling the stone away and then sitting on it.

And Matthew has his own way of dealing with that overwhelming emotion felt, at first, by all of the disciples: fear. The guards become paralyzed with fear, and run away to tell somebody, anybody, in authority. The angel tells the women not to fear. But even after this encounter the women leave quickly, presumably, still afraid. And here, finally, we have a more detailed account of Jesus literally coming back from the dead and saying to the women: “Don’t be afraid…go and tell” my story.

We too live today in a culture dominated by fear and nurtured by media headlines and graphic film footage. Jesus’ execution was primarily the result of fear: the fear of one insecure and unstable Roman Prefect, surely, but also the fear of religious and community leaders as to what might happen to them if real political trouble with Rome broke out in Galilee.

¹After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. ²And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. ³His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. ⁴For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. ⁵But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. ⁶He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. ⁷Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” ⁸So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. ⁹Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. ¹⁰Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

Over the years, then, those early Jesus-followers sought to make sense of his death. One scholar from the Jesus Seminar^⁴ (whose work I find very convincing, by the way) is Stephen Patterson. He says:

I have become convinced that in each of these ways of interpreting Jesus' death, the followers of Jesus were in fact drawing attention to his life. His death mattered to them because his life had mattered to them. …. They too believed in this vision of a new empire. And if this vision was indeed God's Empire, then the bearer of this vision was not dead. No executioner could kill what he was. To kill Jesus, you would have to kill the vision. This is what the cross could not do.^⁵

Our tradition has long taught us that Jesus died for our sins – yours and mine – and that our only hope for salvation is believing that and accepting him as our Lord and Savior. This theory has been given the lofty name of “The theory of Atonement.” A “theory,” by the way, that I believe has become an absolute disaster for the church! Because it’s a theory that has no concern whatsoever for Jesus’ life or what he said or did or stood for. Take a very close look at the historic affirmations of the Christian faith, “The Nicene Creed” or “The Apostles Creed.” There’s not a word in either of them about Jesus’ life and teachings – except that he was “truly human.”^⁶ Sadly, for far, far too many Christians today, raised within traditional Christianity, what Jesus said and did mean very little anymore – if anything at all. We don’t look to the man for a way of life, but to the God we’ve made of him for our salvation.

So whatever you think it might mean to say and sing today, “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today,” it’s got to mean that his vision of a new empire is still possible – after all these years – an empire into which all of us are being invited as equals. What should give us pause to consider, though, is just this: when the life of Jesus no longer matters to those who would call him “Savior,” then that life that changed the lives of so many will have, finally and irrevocably, come to an end.^⁷

¹But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. ²They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, ³but when they went in, they did not find the body. ⁴While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. ⁵The 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. ⁶Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, ⁷that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” ⁸Then they remembered his words, ⁹and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. ¹⁰Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. ¹¹But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. ¹²But 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.

With the singing of the final verse in our Lenten Hymn, “Woman in the Night,”^⁸ we finally come to the “end” of our Easter story: the version here found in the Gospel According to John. What might account for even further dramatic changes in our story is the fact that this last canonical gospel was written some two generations after the death of Jesus.

¹Early 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. ²So 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.” ³Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. ⁴The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. ⁶Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, ⁷and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. ⁸Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; ⁹for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. ¹⁰Then the disciples returned to their homes.

¹¹But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; ¹²and 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. ¹³They 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.” ¹⁴When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. ¹⁵Jesus 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.” ¹⁶Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). ¹⁷Jesus 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.’” ¹⁸Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

So it is that the Easter story continues to be told and re-told, re-shaped and re-understood in new and different ways. In the end, though, Easter is here to remind us that you and I are being called into a deeper kind of community – a unity that we all have in common. The Easter story invites us to be amazed by the rhythms of life and death, endings and new beginnings, not frightened by them. Resurrection is not an escape from death – none of us is going to get out of here alive (as one comedian once put it). It is, however, an invitation to live life with a full, hopeful and happy heart. We are not alone in this life of faith. Life is renewable. The human spirit cannot be conquered or killed. A loving and compassionate existence is, in the end, stronger than death itself.

6 That from The United Methodist version of the traditional wording of “The Nicene Creed” (this from The United Methodist Hymnal – there are, of course, more ancient versions):

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all that is seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary and became truly human. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried. On the third day He rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

And then there’s the, so-called, “Apostles Creed” (again, this is just The United Methodist version):

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth;

And in Jesus Christ His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

born of the virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, dead, and buried;

The third day he rose from the dead;

he ascended into heaven,

and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;

from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy catholic church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting. Amen.