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HAPPY EASTER!!! He is Risen! He is RISEN Indeed!

 

Some hopes fail to deliver… but not this one! (03/23/08)

Some hopes fail to deliver… but not this one!

(Matthew 28:1-10)

In one of his recent books, Christian author Max Lucado tells the story of being contacted by a friend from his hometown in West Texas with some big news.  “My father saw your mother’s name in an unclaimed property column of the local newspaper,” said his boyhood friend.

Lucado’s first reaction was that he couldn’t imagine what this property might be.  You see, his father had died years ago, and his mother now lived near his sister in Arkansas.  The family home had already been sold and, as far as he knew, they didn’t own anything else in the city.  “Unclaimed property?” he wondered out loud.

“Sure,” said the friend, “City Hall is obliged to list the names of the folks who own this stuff.  And lots of times it’s just money.”

Lucado was intrigued, “You don’t say.”  So his friend added,  “I’ll send you the contact information.”

Well, that’s was on a Sunday, writes Lucado.  But his friend’s e-mail with the contact information didn’t arrive until Tuesday. 

So that left him with two entire days to wonder and speculate about what his parents, unbeknownst to their kids apparently, had somehow managed to squirrel away. 

Initially, he was stumped, though.  His parents had spent their formative years growing up in the Great Depression, and they emerged from that experience, notes Lucado, as penny pinchers.  “They did to dollars,” he writes, “what boa constrictors do to rats – (they) s-q-u-e-e-z-e-d the life out of them.”

But then he recalled that his father had once worked in the Texas oil fields as a mechanic, and therefore had undoubtedly crossed paths out there with wildcatters.  “Did one convince him to quietly invest in a long-shot oil well?  Did he keep it from Mom lest she erupt?  And now, could it be that the well has oil?”

That might mean millions, no, zillions of barrels of “black gold” he suddenly realized.  And if Jack Lucado had perhaps been one of those original investors, maybe now they’ve come looking for his heirs! 

At this, his mind really started racing.  This could be huge! 

And soon his imagination even began to run away from him.  Already by Sunday evening, he had funded his yet-to-be-born grandchildren’s college education.  On Monday he had figured how to end world hunger.  And on Tuesday (the day he received the friend’s e-mail), he was already well on his way to solving the AIDS crisis…

As soon as the e-mail arrived, he immediately dialed the number of the courthouse back in his hometown, and was promptly put through to a clerk who just happened to remember his mother.  “I’ve been hoping you’d call,” she said enthusiastically.  Lucado then heard some papers shuffling in the background, and the clerk mumbling to herself, “Now where did I put that check?”

Check!?  His ears perked up with that word, and, in anticipation, he quickly pulled a calculator out of his desk and limbered up his fingers.

“Here it is!” she exclaimed, speaking back into the phone now. 

“It looks like we owe your mom some money.  Whoa… this has been here quite awhile,” she added.

Impatiently, Lucado drummed his fingers on the desk…

“Let’s see, Mr. Lucado.  Where should we send this check?”

He gave her the address and then waited…

She continued, “Looks like we owe your mom three fifty.”

Did she say th-th-three hundred and fifty million?  As he fought to collect himself, he realized that maybe she just meant “thousand” – three hundred and fifty thousand.  Still, that in itself was pretty good.  “Whichever… way to go Dad!”

“Yes, sir,” said the clerk, “Your mother overpaid her final water bill by three dollars and fifty cents.  Shall I send it out to you today?”

…A suddenly deflated Lucado answered, “Sure… thanks.  Just put it in the mail.”  As he then sadly observed, “Some hopes… fail to deliver.”

And whether we’ve had an experience exactly like Lucado’s – or not – most of us would have to admit that the sentiment is true.

Somewhere along the way, we’ve probably all had to deal with unfulfilled hopes and unrealized dreams.  At one time or another, just about everyone has felt deflated because something they anxiously wanted and waited to happen… just didn’t pan out.

I imagine that it must have been like that for Jesus’ disciples and closest followers as well.  Especially on that Friday as they watched them take his lifeless body down from the cross and then waited for Pilate, the Roman governor, to release it for burial. 

And it must have felt like that for Joseph of Arimathea, as well, the one who actually made this request of Pilate, and who then wrapped the body with a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb (which had been hewn in the rock), before sealing the doorway of the tomb with a great stone.  

Some hopes fail to deliver…

For three years, Jesus had captivated the crowds with his teaching, and preaching, and healing.  For three years, people had been wondering… and then actually daring to believe… that he was indeed the promised Messiah.  For three years he had raised their hopes and fueled their dreams and ignited their passions.  Perhaps Jesus was finally the one, they speculated, who could free us from Roman oppression, and establish a godly kingdom here on earth.

Of course, those hopes and dreams had reached a fevered pitch only the previous Sunday as Jesus had entered triumphantly into Jerusalem.  The crowds of pilgrims, streaming into the city to celebrate the Passover, had laid palm branches, and even their own garments, in his pathway as if he was a conquering king or something.  And many, if not most, truly hoped and believed he was. 

But, then, in five… short… days everything had been turned completely upside down.  All their hopes and dreams had been dashed…

It happened so suddenly… so covertly.  Jesus literally disappeared into the darkness of the night, swallowed up by the evil of those who had decided that it was only expedient for one man to die for the people, rather than to have the whole nation perish instead.  Ironically… they had no idea how true those words really were. 

In a so-called trial, that was nothing more than a travesty of justice, Jesus was quickly condemned on trumped-up charges.  Even Pilate, the Roman governor, smelled something “fishy” about what had taken place, when they announced their findings to him the following morning.  Nor could he find any guilt in Jesus.  But the Romans were nothing if they weren’t big on “law and order.”  So, with Pilate’s blessing, Jesus was swiftly executed before those who cared probably had any idea what just happened.

Their rabbi… their friend… their Lord… was dead.  And utterly resigned to that sad and painful fact, they scattered to observe the Sabbath in seclusion.  Some hopes fail to deliver…

 Finally, on the morning of the third day, some of the women went to see the tomb where he had been placed.  The Sabbath had technically ended at sundown, the previous evening.  But it wasn’t until dawn, in the light of a new day, that anyone had ventured out.

Was it mere curiosity that compelled them?  Or was it the desire, as some of the gospel accounts suggest, to properly prepare a body for burial that had been placed in the tomb in haste?  Maybe it was a little of both.

The gospels also differ as to who were the ones who went to the tomb.  However, they all agree that they were women, and that Mary Magdalene was among them.  Apparently, the eleven remaining disciples, the men that is, were not the slightest bit interested. 

Nor were the disciples seemingly concerned about observing the proper burial customs, even though this had been their beloved master and friend.  Were they still in shock?  Or now, with all their hopes and dreams shattered before them, were they simply ready to move on with their lives?

That’s where things stood on Sunday morning, the first day of the week.  Jesus was, as far as anyone knew, dead and buried in that tomb.  The disciples had scattered, presumably in hiding.  No one was expecting anything.  Whatever hope they may have had was long gone.  Like so many hopes, it too had failed to deliver.

And even though Jesus had repeatedly talked about his passion and death, as well as the expectation of rising again on the third day… no one among his closest followers seems to have remembered, let alone understood, or believed in, what he had said.

In yet another supreme irony, only the chief priests and Pharisees recalled Jesus having said, “After three days I will rise again.”  So, according to the Gospel of Matthew, at least, they went to Pilate and asked that he secure the tomb, lest Jesus’ disciples come and steal the body, and then tell the people that he’d been raised from the dead.  In response, Pilate gave them a guard of soldiers and told them, “Go, make it as secure as you can.”  So they went with the soldiers and made the tomb doubly secure by “sealing” the stone which covered the entrance.

Now there have been those, in the intervening years – nearly two thousand years at this point – who dispute what the gospels report next.  Stanley Hauerwas describes it this way: “(They) think the disciples had an experience.  (The disciples) said, ‘Wasn’t it great being with Jesus before they killed him?  You remember those great stories he told?  The lectures, er, sermons?  Just thinking about it makes him seem almost still here.  Yep, by God, he is still here.  Let’s all close our eyes and believe real hard that he’s still here.  Okay?’”       

There’s just one small problem with this, however.  According to the gospels – mind you, they differ on lots of stuff, but here they’re in total agreement – according to the gospels, the disciples aren’t thinking about much of anything, let alone “imagining” that Jesus was somehow still with them; like “in spirit,” or something.

Just look at the evidence…  As already pointed out, it’s the women who came poking around the tomb – not the disciples.  Peter, James, and John, and the rest, don’t seem to have a clue.  And then, when they are finally confronted with the empty tomb, they still don’t get it!

Remember John’s gospel?  After Mary Magdalene sounds the alarm about the empty tomb, Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved (presumably John himself), went running to check it out.  There they found the linen wrappings, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head rolled up in a place by itself – but no body.  So what do they do?  After standing there dumbstruck for a moment or two, they simply go back home.

And in Luke, it’s the same thing.  The news, we are told, seemed like an “idle tale” to the disciples and initially they didn’t believe it.  Here, too, Peter did, however, get up and run over to check things out.  And finding the empty tomb and the linen cloths by themselves, he was amazed, but, again, just turned around and went straight back home.

Also in Luke, we have those two other disciples, one of them named Cleopas we’re told, who are on the road to Emmaus.  They had heard from the women that Jesus was alive.  Nevertheless, they are still headed out of town!  Huh?  It’s like maybe they had dinner reservations over there in Emmaus and didn’t want to change them!  As William Willimon has written, “A man has been raised from the dead and you can’t cancel lunch?  How dumb are these disciples?”

 Pretty dumb, apparently.  Maybe we should even rename the Easter story: “Dumb and Dumber.”  Because that’s certainly how it depicts the disciples and followers of Jesus… 

But is that necessarily a bad thing?  I mean, look at it this way – if the disciples are having such a hard time believing… then it isn’t very likely that they were making this stuff up?  Is it? 

Mark’s gospel, by the way – the original ending at least – doesn’t even describe the reaction of the disciples.  Instead, it ends rather abruptly with the women being seized with such terror and amazement that they simply flee from the empty tomb in fear without even stopping to say anything to anybody!  Now does that sound like the behavior of people planning to fabricate a lie?  Or does it sound like people who were taken completely off-guard by what had just happened?

And isn’t their fear and confusion, and lack of faith and understanding actually compelling evidence for the veracity of the Easter story?  That is, it’s truthfulness and accuracy?  As Dan Clendenin has written, “It’s in the disbelief of the first believers that I base my own belief.”

Which brings us back to this morning’s gospel from Matthew.

Of all the accounts, Matthew seems to understand the dynamics of the situation best of all.  Those first disciples and followers weren’t going to catch on to what had just happened unless something big and dramatic somehow caught their attention.  “I think that’s why Matthew says that when there was Easter,” writes William Willimon, “the whole earth shook…  Easter is an earthquake with doors shaken off tombs and dead people walking the streets, the stone rolled away by the ruckus and an imprudent angel sitting on it.”

I have a daughter at home who’s taking physics this year.  She doesn’t much like it, apparently, because we’re not allowed to use that word, or even utter the name of her teacher, around the house.  But she’s obviously more advanced than I ever was, since I lasted exactly one day in physics, back when I was in high school.  I showed up for that first class, saw what it was all about, and, as soon as the class was over, I marched straight down to the guidance office to drop the course!

Now I offer this disclaimer simply as a way of saying that I have a very limited understanding of the laws of physics.  Which is to say, I basically understand that if you drop an apple from a tree, it’s going to fall to the ground, and that’s about it.

 However, I’m told that another one of Newton’s laws is the simple observation that an object at rest tends to stay at rest unless some outside force acts on it to get it moving.  It’s called inertia.  (I guess I understand this one, too.  Because if I’m taking a nap on the couch on a Saturday afternoon, when there are chores to be done, it does take an “outside force” – namely, my wife, Jeanette – to get me up and moving!)

Anyway, the point is simply this: on that first Easter those women knew that the big stone covering the entrance to the tomb wasn’t going anywhere unless an outside force acted on it.  And Matthew alone, among the gospels, tells us what that outside force was – a dazzling angel whose appearance was like lightning and whose clothing was white as snow.  There’s the big earthquake we’ve been talking about, and when the women look up, he’s sitting right there on top of that stone, like it was a park bench or something.  And Pilate’ guards are shaking in their boots.

But here’s the thing!  Listen to what the angel says to them…  “Do not be afraid; I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.  He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said.  Come, see the place where he lay.”

Think about that for a second….  Did the stone have to be moved in order for the risen Jesus to exit?  No…  “He is not here,” said the angel.  It was just moments after the earthquake had rolled the stone away.  That is, Jesus was already long gone!  Or as Max Lucado has written, “The stone was moved – not for Jesus – but for the women; not so Jesus could come out, but so the women could see in!”

And so can we!  Of all the gospels, Matthew, alone, seems to understand that it’s going to take something big and dramatic to get our attention, as well – otherwise we might just miss it!  In other words, we’re no different than those first disciples.  Or as my old friend Edwin Weiss, back in Kentucky, used to say, “we’re not the sharpest knives in the drawer.”

“People like us,” writes William Willimon, “are the sort who like to believe that you can have resurrection and still have the world as it was yesterday.  We want to have Easter and still have our world unrocked  by resurrection.”

Well, Matthew is here to tell us this morning that by raising Jesus on Easter, God rocked our world… and nothing, absolutely nothing, will ever be the same again.  It takes an outside force to get an object at rest moving, said Sir Isaac Newton.  Well, that’s exactly what happened on Easter morning.  And I’m not just talking about the stone here.  I’m talking about us!

Again, I have to quote William Willimon one last time, because I don’t think you can say it any better.  “On the cross,” he writes, “the world did all it could to Jesus…  At Easter, God did all God could do… to the world.  And the earth shook…”

The cross signaled death, and with it all the hopes that were placed in Jesus seemingly died with him.  But, as we heard, on the third day there was an empty tomb.  Jesus was no longer there; he had risen.  And with this victory over the grave, all those hopes – and more – were once again restored.

Now some hopes fail to deliver, it’s true…  But not this one…  Oh no, not this one!

Amen.