The End of Endings (sermon, April 18, 2010)

John 20:19-31

John 21:1-19

Don’t you just get a wonderfully satisfied feeling when a story ends well? When the author (or storyteller) neatly ties up all the loose ends? When you can lay down a book or walk out of a dark theater into the bright light of day with a sense of closure -- the characters whose lives you became so invested in, the plot lines that seized your attention, everything nicely resolved, all tied up in a neat little package?

In the twentieth chapter of the gospel of John, the author provides just that kind of satisfying ending. The risen Lord Jesus stands among his disciples and gives them peace and the Holy Spirit. Jesus even appears a second time, this time when Thomas is there, so that Thomas, who really needed to see Jesus to believe he is risen, can truly believe. And then there are couple of wrap-up sentences clearly designed to bring John’s whole gospel to a tidy conclusion so that all of us can breathe a satisfied sigh and head on home as the screen fades to black and the lights come up.

But then -- what’s this? -- the lights are going back down, the screen is flickering back to life, the ushers are motioning us to keep our seats, and the story starts up again, in John 21:1-19.

John 21:1-19

After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.

When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” ... After this he said to him, “Follow me.”

*****

The musical “Into the Woods” retells four classic fairy tales with a twist: it tells the stories of what happens to all these well-known characters after they lived “happily ever after.” And, as you might have guessed, the ever after they lived is actually not so happy after all. The musical is entertaining, but it does ruin that nice, satisfied feeling you get after seeing a story end well and hearing those magic words, “and they all lived happily ever after.”

John chapter 21 is certainly entertaining, but it ruins the “happily ever after” we felt at the end of chapter 20. As the curtain rises again, we find a group of the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias trying to figure out what to do now that all the emotion and excitement of Jesus’ trial, death, and resurrection has died down. The story they have been a part of for three years has finally come to a close and they are trying to get on with their lives. When we encounter them, they’re sitting around on the beach like a group of cranky teenagers convinced that there’s nothing to do in their boring hometown. Suddenly, Peter can’t take it any more. He jumps up. “I’m going fishing,” he announces, and inevitably, the rest follow along. If there’s nothing better to do, they figure, we might as well work. Hopefully they’d at least catch enough for a meal.

Sadly, though, their return to the job is more frustrating than satisfying. A whole night out on the water and not one fish to show for it. Then, as the sun begins to rise, they see a man on the beach who calls out to them, “No fish, huh?” The disciples exchange puzzled glances: who is this guy and why does he care whether we caught anything? “No,” they say. Then he speaks again. “Cast your net on the right side of the boat. That’s where the fish are!”

Again, puzzled glances. “Gee,” says Thomas, always the cynic, “why didn’t we think of that?” “Come on,” says Peter, “It’s worth a try.” They throw the empty net over the right side of the boat, and in an instant, it’s teeming with fish. They can’t even pull it up, it’s so full, but remarkably, the net does not break. The sheer abundance of the catch is overwhelming...and oddly familiar...and that’s when one of them realizes what’s just happened. He looks back at that man on the beach, “It’s the Lord!” he shouts.

And Peter -- impetuous, impulsive Peter -- leaps into the water and starts swims shore, desperate to once again meet the risen Lord face to face. When all the disciples arrive on the beach, hauling that straining net of fish behind them they discover that Jesus, always ready with nourishment of one kind or another, has once again prepared a meal for them. They hadn’t realized it before, but after their long night, they are famished, and here, in the place where they once saw Jesus feed five thousand people with just five loaves and two fishes, they haul in their boatload of fish and the seven of them gather around a charcoal fire and eat their fill. It is the most satisfying breakfast they have ever had.

Writing about the death of his mother after a long illness, Tom Long recalls how every day in hospice care, she would beckon one of the loved ones who kept vigil at her bedside and whisper the words, “I’m hungry.” She had a feeding tube and she was getting as much broth and pureed foods as her dying body could handle, but still she kept telling them, day after day: “I’m hungry.” The hospice staff assured the family that her body could not feel hunger pains, but it still upset them. One day, Tom entered the room and found her restless in her bed.

“What’s wrong,” he asked. “Are you hungry?”

“Very,” she whispered. Tom felt helpless. He didn’t know what to do. He tried to give her some soft food, but after a couple of bites, she shook her head. No more.

“Slowly it dawned on me,” he writes. “‘I’m hungry’ was her way of describing the totality of her circumstance. She was not asking for food; she was saying that everything was slipping away, her personal history was closing down, coming to an end. Her days of breath and food and light and family and the touch of love were ebbing, and she was hungry, hungry for more, hungry for the life being taken away from her...very hungry.” (1)

Peter was very hungry too...and for more than just breakfast. He was longing for a resolution to the one story John didn’t tie up tight in chapter 20, the story of another charcoal fire, this one in Jerusalem, the story of a time when rather than leaping in the water and running toward Jesus with abandon, Peter had slithered away from him, denying not once, not twice, but three times that he even knew him. Since then, when he saw the risen Lord, Peter had not been able to look him in the eye. Though his heart leapt to see Jesus again, it was weighed down heavily with guilt and sorrow.

Just as Jesus could see all the way from the shore that the disciples were having a bad night of fishing, Jesus sees right through Peter. He sees Peter’s guilt, sees his hunger for resolution, and so he offers him nourishment of another kind. He looks him in the eye and asks him not once, not twice, but three times, “Do you love me?” And each time, Peter holds his head high, meets Jesus’ gaze, and replies, “Yes, Lord, I love you.” And even with this abundance of grace, the net of Peter’s heart does not break. In these three questions and answers Peter is restored to relationship with Jesus, and to his place in the community of Jesus’ followers. It’s almost the perfect ending.

Almost. You see, Jesus doesn’t just offer Peter forgiveness and by doing so, restore him to the community of the disciples: Jesus also gives Peter work to do, not just any work, but the work of the Good Shepherd, the one who loves his sheep, who knows them by name, who lays down his life for them.

Maybe you’ve read one of the many articles lately detailing the “happiness research” that seems to be all the rage right now as we struggle to figure out exactly what it is that makes human beings happy. The research tends to overlap at one surprisingly simple point: whatever else contributes to happiness -- health, wealth, etc. -- the two absolutely essential components to happiness are these: a sense of belonging to a community and and the belief that what you do matters. These are the key elements of happiness: belonging and purpose. (2)

“Peter, do you love me?...Feed my lambs. Peter, do you love me?...Tend my sheep. Peter, do you love me?...Feed my sheep.” With these commands to Peter, Jesus not only offers him the keys to a life of happiness and fulfillment, he reveals that this story is not your usual story. This is not a great novel or a well-crafted play. It’s not even a great television series that enjoys critical acclaim for nine or ten seasons. This is God’s story, this is creation’s story, this is your story and my story and Peter’s story, and here’s what is truly amazing about it: it doesn’t end.

The Nuremberg Chronicle is an illustrated world history that was published in 1493, one of the earliest printed books and one of the first to combine text and illustrations. In spite of these remarkable achievements, the book describes a civilization with little vision or hope for the future. So sure were the publishers that the world was rapidly coming to an end that they left several pages blank at the end of the book, encouraging readers to record “the rest of the events until the end of the world.” (3)

With this second ending that actually isn’t an ending at all, the gospel of John encourages us to fill in the blanks of this story. Where does the risen Christ show us abundance when our best efforts have come up empty? When does Jesus offer us nourishment, satisfying the hunger we didn’t know we had? How does the risen Lord extend us forgiveness and then what satisfying work does Jesus give us to do? The answers we give are the stories we are called to tell, the ones that make this remarkable story go on.

Oh, I should tell you that the verses I read before weren’t actually the end of the book of John. That gospel ends with verse 25: “But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” No, I suppose it couldn’t...not then, not now. Amen.

Endnotes:

1. Thomas G. Long, “Easter -- The Extra Scenes?” Journal for Preachers, Vol. 23, No. 3, Easter 2010, p. 36.

2. David Lose, “Peter and the Pursuit of Happiness” at WorkingPreacher.org.

3. Edwin Friedman, A Failure of Nerve. Church Publishing Inc., 1999, 2007, p. 29.

Can I Get a Witness (sermon, April 11, 2010)

Acts 5:27-32

Revelation 1:1-8

Theologically speaking, Easter is not just a day, it’s a season, and a long season at that -- longer than Advent and Christmas combined, longer even than Lent. But most of us celebrate Easter in one day or perhaps for a weekend -- with Easter egg hunts, Easter baskets, meals with family, and hopefully, at least one visit to a church to worship. But after the day or the weekend is over, life goes on. As joyous as we might feel on Easter morning, as much as we cling to our firm belief that day that in the resurrection of Jesus Christ God has defeated death and sin once and for all, when the music fades and the fancy new clothes are back in the closet, we find ourselves face to face once again with the things in our lives that seem much more tangible than the promises of Easter: the job that demands too much, the bills piling up, the loneliness, the illness, the broken relationship, the hole in our lives from the person who is gone. In the face of all this, what does it mean for us to proclaim for six more weeks: Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed!? What does it look like for us to be Easter people?

Well, the first followers of Jesus offer us a great answer to those questions. After the resurrected Jesus appeared to them and then eventually returned to God, the apostles got busy with the work of witnessing to the amazing love of God revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. They couldn’t help but tell the story all over Jerusalem, even though it repeatedly got them in trouble.

Charles Colson was a convicted Watergate conspirator who became convinced of the truth in the New Testament and, specifically, its witness to the resurrection. What convinced him of this truth was his own experience of being directly involved in a major cover-up. On his path to prison, Colson discovered that few people are willing to suffer for long in defense of a lie. Very few people are willing to let their family members suffer in defense of a lie. And very, very few people are willing to die for a lie.

After he learned this lesson firsthand watching his fellow Watergate conspirators crack one by one and tell the truth about their crimes, Colson decided that Jesus’ disciples never would have kept telling the story of Jesus’ resurrection if they had simply made it up to keep their new religion going.

The disciples showed an incredible determination and resolve to witness to what they had seen: Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection -- even when that witness meant they risked imprisonment and even death. For the disciples, it was worth the risk to declare the truth of God’s revelation of Jesus Christ. And when we read their stories, like the one today from the book of Acts, we see what it looks like to be Easter people.

The only problem is, as inspiring as the apostles’ actions are, we find them hard to imitate...because we weren’t there when our Lord was crucified, we weren’t there when they laid him in a tomb, we weren’t there when he rose from the dead. Unlike the apostles, our faith does not come from having witnessed firsthand Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

The good news is that there is a book of the Bible that speaks even more directly to our experience as modern-day Christians and to what it might look like for us to truly live as Easter people. Believe it or not, that book is the Book of Revelation. Today’s reading is from the opening of the book, chapter 1, verses 1-8.

Revelation 1:1-8

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place; he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.

Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it; for the time is near.

John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood,and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Look! He is coming with the clouds;

every eye will see him,

even those who pierced him;

and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.

So it is to be. Amen.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

At the session meeting last week, I asked the elders what first came to mind when they thought of the book of Revelation. Immediately someone said, “Scary stuff.” There’s a good reason “scary stuff” is what comes to mind for most of us when we think of Revelation. Not only is there is a lot of scary stuff in it, that “stuff” becomes even scarier when we discover that much of the violence and judgment in the book comes from God. Plus, over the centuries, a variety of groups have deliberately used the imagery in Revelation to scare people into believing or behaving in a certain way. As a result, many of us tend to avoid this book.

But if we look more carefully at what it says and at the context in which it was written, we might just discover that no other book in the Bible has as much to offer the church today as Revelation.

So let’s cover the basics. Revelation is actually a letter, written by a man named John (not the same John as the writer of the Gospel of John) to seven churches in what he called Asia, which actually refers to modern-day Turkey. The letter is believed to have been written about twenty-five years after the resurrection, at a time when Christianity was still in the early stages of becoming a world-wide religion. In other words, this letter was written right at the time when those who believed that Jesus was the Christ but had not witnessed the resurrection firsthand were trying to figure out how to live as Easter people...not so different from us.

What was significantly different for the first Christians over two thousand years ago was that there was absolutely no attempt to separate religion and politics. At that time, Rome occupied all the cities in what John calls Asia, and citizens were expected, if not required, to show their devotion to the Roman emperor through what were essentially religious ceremonies and rituals. The brilliance of the Roman occupation was that along with military might and economic stability, it gave people a role to play in a grand story. The story was this: the emperor is a god and if you worship him and the you will have peace and prosperity. (1)

In Revelation, John offers his readers a different story: the story of the revelation. Although this book is often mistakenly referred to as “RevelationS”, the proper title is “RevelatioN,” as in THE one revelation, and the revelation about which John writes, the story he offers is this: Jesus is Lord.

Perhaps now it’s becoming clear why the Book of Revelation contains so much violent imagery: because the story of Rome and the story of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ are totally and completely incompatible.

As so often happens when two stories are incompatible but undeniably co-existing, many Christians at that time lived a double life. In public they appeared loyal to their Roman occupiers. They attended all the ceremonies, said the right prayers, ate the meat of animals that had been sacrificed to Roman gods. In their hearts, they didn’t believe any of it -- they knew that the real author of their lives was God, not the emperor and the real story was that Jesus is Lord, not that the emperor was divine. But they kept their true beliefs quiet, knowing this was the only way to live in peace.

In Revelation, John is calling such Christians out. He was infuriated at the evidence he saw of Christians who chose to blend in rather than declare their true loyalty to Jesus Christ. At the time, there was essentially a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy where religion was concerned. As long as you took part in the ceremonies affirming the authority of Rome and the divinity of the emperor, no one cared what you actually believed.

There were certainly good reasons for these early Christians to keep their true beliefs quiet. Taking part in ceremonies and rituals that promoted the emperor as a god was important for their social and economic mobility. It was how people “climbed the ladder” in their careers, which, then, as now, was how people provided a good and stable life for themselves and their families. Accommodation, assimilation, blending in -- these are the things that John is upset about. He wants Christians to abandon the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and come out of the Christian closet, even though doing so is sure to lead to persecution and perhaps even death.

Last weekend, watching the Final Four of the NCAA men’s basketball championship, I was struck by the differences in the coaching. There was Brad Stevens, the coach for Butler, who remained incredibly calm during the games, rarely showing emotion toward the refs or his players. Then there was Mike Krzyzewski, the Duke coach, who watched every game with a scowl on his face, spoke to his players with a quiet intensity, and argued animatedly with the refs when he didn’t like a call. But most emotive was the coach of West Virginia University, Bob Huggins. Throughout the semi-final game against Duke, he screamed and yelled at his players from the sidelines, and furiously lit into the referees when he thought a call was unfair. Personally, I couldn’t see the benefit of this strategy, since I don’t respond well to being yelled at, but clearly, the West Virginia players adored their coach and played their hearts out in the game, even after their best player got injured, even when they fell so far behind it was clear to everyone they were in a losing battle.

If John, the writer of Revelation, was a coach, he’d be a lot more like Bob Huggins than Brad Stevens. In order to inspire the Christians in Asia to declare that Jesus is their authority, that the true story is the revelation that Jesus is Lord, John uses strong language and powerful imagery. But he does so in an attempt to inspire Christians to witness to the truth of the revelation and to share that story so that all might know the wondrous love of God.

I have a friend who is a die-hard Michigan fan. He is such a die-hard fan that he tends to have issues with his temper when he watches a game. Finally, his wife delivered an ultimatum: get your temper under control or you can’t watch games at home. Well, he came up with a good solution: he records the games and then, after he finds out whether Michigan won, he watches the game. When he knows the ending, the game is a whole different experience. It matters, but not quite in the same way. Knowing the ending, he’s able to maintain some perspective.

Maybe that’s why John opens this strange and, at times, frightening letter with a glimpse of the ending in store for all of us. “Look -- he is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him... ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” Right at the beginning, John tells us the ending of this story. And it turns out the ending is essentially the same as the beginning, for this world, and the lives of everyone in it, will end as it began, in the hands of God.

In the end, the answer to the question of how we live as Easter people is the same answer in Revelation as it is in Acts. We are called to witness to the story that God has revealed to us...simply because it is true. Right at the beginning, John reminds his readers that Jesus was the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of earth. We can’t be the firstborn of the dead or the ruler of the kings of earth, but we can be faithful witnesses to the revelation that Jesus is Lord, that God--not any human authority--is the author of our lives from beginning to end.

It’s still Easter, and even though our sorrows and anxieties and frustration with this life are as real as ever, we are called to be faithful witnesses. We witness every time we show in word or deed that this life, this world is not the end of God’s story. We witness when we proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord and that one day Christ will come again and everyone will see him clearly. We witness when we refuse to give in to despair because we know despair is not the end of the story. This story--the story of the revelation--will end as it began: with the glory of God. Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. Amen.

Endnotes:

1. In this discussion of the historical context of the Book of Revelation, I am indebted to a wonderful commentary by Dr. Brian Blount: Revelation: A Commentary (New Testament Library). WJK, 2009.

Proof (Easter Sunday sermon, April 4, 2010)

Luke 24:1-12

From the day it arrived in their otherwise tastefully decorated home, Jill and Frank relegated the rocking chair to an obscure corner of the living room. They preferred a more modern look; straight lines, neutral colors. The chair featured ornately carved wood where it wasn’t covered with fraying upholstery in an old-fashioned floral print. It wasn’t much to look at it, and it was terribly uncomfortable to sit in. They only allowed it in their living room because, first of all, it was a wedding gift from Frank’s mother, and second, it had a history. It had been in the family for generations now, and, as the story goes, five generations of Frank’s family had rocked their babies to sleep in that chair. When she presented it to them, Frank’s mother joyfully exclaimed that this was where their children -- her grandchildren! -- would be rocked to sleep night after night. Jill was considerate enough say nothing but “thank you,” but she knew that when they had children -- if they had children -- they would buy one of those comfortable gliding chairs. There was just no way she’d rock her children to sleep in that old, uncomfortable chair.

After a while, they stopped noticing it, like we all do with most things we see every day. It became simply another piece of furniture that their brains barely registered when they walked through the living room. Until, of course, someone asked about it. It was so out of place in the room, people always asked. And it was a good story, so they told it. People liked the story, but inevitably, the conversation quickly turned to more relevant topics: work, politics, the economy, the Oscars, the weather, all the trivial and significant details of life.

*****

Most of our lives the resurrection is like an old-fashioned, out of place chair in the living room of our faith. Most of the time we barely notice it. Compared to the rest of the furniture it looks more than a little odd, but we tolerate it, since after all, it was a gift. If someone notices it and asks about it, we’ll tell the story as best we can, but most of the time -- let’s be honest -- we either fail to even see it or, if we do, we move quickly past, trying to forget how strange and out of place it seems, how uncomfortable it makes us feel.

But today is the day, the one day each year, when we willingly come into church looking for some assurance, some proof, that this strange promise of the resurrection is actually true.

And what do we get? Well, today, from Luke, we get an empty tomb and two messengers in dazzling clothes asking a confusing question: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” Then, when the women tell the other disciples what they’ve seen and heard, what is the disciples’ response? Our translation says they thought the story was nothing more than an “idle tale.” Actually, the Greek is a whole lot stronger than that. The disciples, overcome with grief and confusion after the death of their dear friend and teacher, think the story these women are telling is, well, to put it nicely, nonsense, garbage, the lunatic ravings of delirious women. And even if these women really did see an empty tomb, well, what does that prove? Nothing. As the preacher Fred Craddock puts it, “An empty tomb in and of itself does not present a persuasive argument for the resurrection; an empty tomb means the body is not there.” (1) Nothing more, nothing less.

So this is what we get, here in church on Easter morning. An empty tomb and a story that, if we’re really honest about it, sounds as much like sheer nonsense to us today as it did to those disciples two thousand years ago. We certainly don’t get any proof, nothing more than an empty tomb that we can’t even see for ourselves. So without proof, how are we supposed to believe?

If it’s proof we’re looking for, we’ve got plenty of it all around us. Unfortunately, it’s not proof that Jesus actually came back from the dead, breathed air into his lungs and felt the beating of his heart. It’s not proof that God loves this world enough to send Jesus to show us that love in flesh and blood, word and deed, death and resurrection. The proof we see all around us is that death has the last word. Sorrow and suffering rae everywhere. Everyone we love dies. Money makes the world go ‘round. Power corrupts. God is dead. Religion is a crutch. These are the things we can count on. These are things for which we have proof.

The women who came to the tomb had all the proof in the world that Jesus was dead. They saw him nailed to a cross! They watched him die! They saw his corpse, lifeless as a lump of clay, laid in the tomb! And now that the Sabbath is over, they are hoping that they might tend to that dead body, that corpse, and show it the respect it deserves. When they see the empty tomb, it doesn’t change anything. In fact, it just proves to them the indecency of those who hate Jesus so much that they take away his body so his friends cannot not anoint it with spices and prepare it for a proper burial. The empty tomb proves nothing. Not then, not now.

The empty tomb proves nothing, but what happens when it sparks a memory? “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” ask the messengers in dazzling white. “Remember what he told you...”

Do you remember? Do you remember what Jesus said to his followers not so long before his death? The Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and after three days rise again. It sounded like so much nonsense to the disciples because it didn’t make any sense! It was another of Jesus’ strange comments that the disciples forgot the moment they heard it because what could it possibly mean? They didn’t want him to die and certainly not by the agony of crucifixion. And people who have died simply don’t rise again, whatever that means, not even Jesus, as wonderful as he was. Why would they remember such crazy talk, such utter nonsense?

But, having seen the empty tomb and at the urging of those messengers, the women did remember. And once they remembered Jesus’ words, something stirred deep within them. After all, they had just spent three years of their lives traveling with Jesus, following wherever he went, listening to him, watching him perform miracles. And in all that time they spent with him it seemed that even the most improbable promise he had spoken had lodged deep in their hearts and now, standing in front of an empty tomb they felt the first stirrings of hope: that Jesus did rise from the dead, that somewhere not far away he was walking and breathing and feeling the beat of his heart; that love had conquered evil; that life, not death, had the last word, not just today, but for every day to come! Because these women had followed Jesus and heard the promise, they did not need proof to recognize when that promise was fulfilled. They simply needed to remember what they already knew.

When this country was first settled by our English and Scottish ancestors, there was a region in the Smokey Mountains where the Native Americans were still so dominant that they completely destroyed a military settlement. They killed all the white male soldiers and took the rest of the settlers prisoner. They soon released all the women and children, but they kidnapped all the boys and young men and adopted them into their tribe.

One woman saw her husband murdered and her two sons, ages two and four, hauled away by the Native Americans. For years, this woman roamed all over Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia, hoping against hope that she would find her sons alive. She traveled from reservation to reservation looking for them, but her search was in vain. After fourteen years had passed, she knew that the boys would now be sixteen and eighteen years old and were unlikely to remember the mother they had not seen in so many years. Still, she showed up at yet another reservation and the sergeant with her lined up all the boys in the correct age range...of course, these were no boys, they were young men with war paint on their faces. But in spite of the war paint, the mother saw two of the young men and instinctively recognized her sons. She called out their English names, but they did not respond. She called out their father’s name but they showed no sign of recognition. She began to recite events from the family’s history, but still they remained impassive. Finally, the sergeant said it was time to go.

“No,” said the mother emphatically. “Let me try one more thing.” The mother went over to those two grown up young men. She closed her eyes and pictured them as babies in her arms. She recalled rocking them to sleep in an ornately carved, uncomfortable chair. She remembered the old Scottish lullaby she had sung to them hundreds of times, and she began to sing. As she sang, tears began streaming down the war-painted faces of those two young men. As she sang, those warriors remembered the promises implicit in their mother’s arms as she rocked them to sleep: that she would take care of them, that she would always love them, that if they strayed from her she would go after them and search high and low until she found them. They remembered those promises that they had not understood when they first received them, and in that moment of remembrance, they recognized the promises fulfilled, and everything changed, because they knew with certainty who they were and whose they were. (2)

It really doesn’t matter why you are here today. It doesn’t matter if you believe what we celebrate -- that in the resurrection of Jesus the Christ, God has conquered death once and for all -- or if you think it is, at best, an idle tale, and at worst, a cruel hoax. What matters is that today you have heard again the promise of God: that death and evil and sorrow will not have the last word but will lead the way to new life where love reigns; the promise that in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has claimed you with a love that will not let you go. You have heard the promise in scripture and prayer and song, and whether you believe it or not, when you are lost in the dark tombs of despair and God searches high and low to find you -- and God will search, relentlessly, tirelessly, to find YOU -- when you are lost and God finds you and offers you resurrection, new life, where you thought there was only certain death, then you will remember. You will remember and recognize that the promise you heard today has been true all along. An empty tomb may not be proof, but it changes everything. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia! Amen.

Endnotes:

1. Fred Craddock, Luke: Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. WJK, 1991.

2. From the sermon “Remember Your Baptism,” by the Rev. Mark Phillips, First Presbyterian Church of Mineral Ridge. Used with permission.