The Resurrection What More Is There To Say

After all the words have been said about Easter what are we to do?  Luke 24: 1 – 12

Check out Simona Frenkel, Lydia Diaz and the choir as they sing:  Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee

“Now there were Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James; also, the other women with them were telling these things (concerning Jesus’ resurrection) to the apostles.  But these words appeared to the disciples as nonsense, and they would not believe them.”

But someone believed. Someone, then a second one, and a third till there are over a billion today who claim the name Christian. Wow!  It truly is the greatest story ever told.  To quote C.S. Lewis – It’s either the complete truth or it’s the greatest lie ever told.  It’s not like anything else, but creation does give witness to it every spring. But the scandal of our faith is that we believe that Jesus rose in bodily form even though he wasn’t recognizable to those who knew him best.

The resurrection stories are about more than survival after death, they tell how a totally new mode of being has arisen in the universe.  Something truly new has happened in the universe:  as new as the first coming of organic life.  This man, after death, does not get divided into spirit and flesh.  No, a new mode of being has arisen.

But what are we to make of this?  Or maybe the real question isn’t what we are to make of this but what is he too make of us? This is where Paul speaks as clearly as he can:  This story he says is foolishness to intellectuals as represented by the Greeks, and it is a scandal to all good Jews because this is simply not what happens to God’s Messiah.  But for us this story is the

key to life and life everlasting.

He didn’t come to start a new religion he came to show us how to live a new life.  A life that incarnates faith, hope and love in it.  Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt a leader in the Lutheran Confessing Church movement, when Hitler was coming to power, put it like this: “It is not enough to celebrate Easter and say ‘Christ is risen.’  It is useless to proclaim this unless at the same time we can say that we have also risen, that we have received something from heaven.  How is it that we can feel appalled at what happened to Jesus so long ago and yet happens within us today with our fellow human beings.  It has no effect on our lives.
So the question is do our lives show evidence that we truly believe in this story or not?  But I warn you the things Jesus says are not like what any other teachers say.  Philosphers may argue over what is ultimate truth, but Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”  “Give your life away for others and you will save your life.

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.  If anything, whatsoever is keeping you from God and from me, whatever that is, throw it away.  If it’s your eye, pull it out.  If it’s your hand, cut it off.  If you put yourself first you will be last.  Oh, and your sins, all of them, are wiped out, I can do that!  I have done that?  Now what about you?

And it’s not a question of being betterthan you were before.  The resurrection means that forces for life can now be seen within you, that something of God and of heaven, something holy, something like kindness, humility, justice, truth telling, forgiveness and love can grow in you and in me.  It means we can actually see that it is no longer the sinful desires that have power over our lives, but that there is something of Christ’s resurrection, something of his life that has power through the Spirit that leads you and me toward wholeness, serenity and wisdom.

What is God’s kingdom anyway?  I don’t believe it’s Christian causes or even Christian institutions.  God’s kingdom is beyond religion and man-made institutions.  God’s kingdom is God’s kingdom alone and its evidence in us here on earth as new birth, as a new heart, a new mind, new feelings, new possibilities.  This is God’s coming kingdom, first seen in Jesus’ resurrection and now awaiting ours.  He is quite simply the one who shows me the way to be a human being, who tells me the truth about life and offers me a life and love that will not end.  I hope he does the same for all of us!  What more is there to say?  Time to move beyond words.  Let our being do the testifying!  Amen.