When the Sabbath was
over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought
spices, so that they might go and anoint him.
And very
early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to
the tomb. They had
been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the
entrance to the tomb?”
When they looked up, they
saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.
As they entered the
tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right
side; and they were alarmed.
But 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.
But 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.”
Jesus Lives Now
I saw a poll that reported that
more than 90% of American Christians say that the resurrection of Jesus
matters greatly to them. That’s a pretty amazing number given the fact that a
lot of those who confess to be Christian consider themselves “cultural”
Christians. Perhaps that’s the reason why church is full on Easter Sunday and
Christmas Eve.
As you all know, I am an adherent of progressive theology, or as I like to
call it: positive theology. As such, one of my favorite scholars is Marcus
Borg.
And he makes some really good
points about the meaning of Easter:
To think that Easter
intrinsically involves the transformation of Jesus’ corpse turns it into an
utterly spectacular event that happened once upon a time long ago...Rather,
the meanings of the Easter stories in the gospels and the affirmation of
Jesus’ resurrection in the rest of the New Testament are much more
significant….In the gospels and the New Testament as a whole, the meaning of
Easter is twofold. First, Jesus lives; and second, Jesus is Lord.*
And that is the most amazing
message about Easter anyway. Mary and the Disciples were told: “don’t look for
the living among the dead. Go to Galilee and you’ll find him. And so they
did: The disciples encountered Jesus in a stranger that told them how to catch
fish. St. Paul had a vision of Jesus on “the road to Damascus.”
The disciples walked with a
traveler toward Emmaus and they found the spirit of Jesus in that stranger.
And isn’t that also what Jesus said in Matthew 25? “Whatever you have done to
these least of my siblings, you have done to me.”
Fast-forward 2000 years and the Easter message still holds true: we, too
encounter the living Christ of our faith. Christ is alive and Christ is still
Lord. Now that is a message we can celebrate, especially during those hard
times that we all experience. “Jesus lives.” He is not simply dead and gone
and “Jesus is Lord.”
[The following conclusion is
taken directly from Marcus Borg]
So it was for early Christians.
“Jesus is Lord” is the constant affirmation of the New Testament. It has even
been called the earliest Christian creed. “Jesus is Lord” – and the lords of
this world are not. Indeed, the lords of this world crucified him, publicly
executed him to make a statement: “This is what we do to those who oppose us.”
In Mark’s story of the first
Easter, three women followers of Jesus go to his tomb on Easter morning in
order to anoint his body. They expect his body to be there. Instead, they
discover that the tomb was empty. Then an angel asks them why they seek the
living among the dead and proclaims that he is not here – he is risen. The
risen Jesus does not appear in Mark’s gospel. Instead, the angel promises the
women that they will see him in Galilee – where the story began.
You won’t find Jesus in the land of the dead. He is still with us.
The powers killed him – but
they couldn’t stop him. They crucified him and buried him in a rich man’s
tomb. But imperial execution and a tomb couldn’t hold him.
He’s still loose in the world.
He’s still out there, still here, still recruiting people to share his passion
for the Kingdom of God – a transformed world here and now. It’s not over.
Easter is about all of this. It
is about the transformation of this world. Jesus was killed because of his
passion for a different kind of world. Easter is about God’s “Yes” to what we
see in Jesus.*
Amen.
____________
*Marcus Borg,
https://marcusjborg.org/author/marcus/ April 13, 2012
Closing prayer/Benediction (by Saint Patrick)
Christ be with us, Christ before us, Christ behind us,
Christ in us, Christ beneath us, Christ above us,
Christ on our right, Christ on our left,
Christ where we lie, Christ where we sit,
Christ where we arise.
Christ in the heart of every one who thinks of us,
Christ in every eye that sees us,
Christ in every ear that hears us.
Salvation is of the Lord, salvation is of the Christ,
May your salvation, O Lord, be ever with us. Amen
Jesus
Lives Now