Readers to this blog and members of my church know that I have been reading and recommending, N.T. Wright's newest book Surprised by Hope. On Wednesday evening, I will be starting a four-week discussion of the book at SCPC as a way of providing a kind of tutorial for those who would like to read it and discuss it. Surprised by Hope is challenging, provocative, and really, really helpful for those of who truly want to understand the practical relevance of our Christian hope. Like all books by Wright, it is a thoroughly biblical treatise. But it also demonstrates a pastoral sensitivity and a prophetic urgency for those of us who have relegated the resurrection to nothing more than a guarantee for believers to gain heaven when we die. (For an excellent article by Wright that introduces these themes see this.)
Recently, I was fortunate enough to spend a couple of hours with Bishop Tom and confessed to him, that I have struggled through the years with figuring out what the atonement has to do with the Kingdom of heaven. As I told him, " A few years ago it dawned on me that I can preach the kingdom right through the gospels, but when I get to Good Friday and Easter, but then I lose sight of the Kingdom in the cross and then empty tomb." I told him that a good deal of my reading of his material has been to try to solve this problem. Thankfully this book and the scholarly book behind it (The Resurrection and the Son of God) have helped me bring Kingdom, Cross and Resurrection together.
And my Easter sermon this year, is my first real attempt at doing so, publicly. In the weeks ahead, I will be blogging on these themes as I lead my church through a long "Eastertide" reflection on "The Resurrection, the Kingdom and the Hope of All."
Easter Sermon given at San Clemente Presbyterian Church, 2008
I must confess to you that I am not ready for Easter this year. It has
completely and utterly snuck up on me. If you don’t believe me, drive
by my house after the services and you will notice that my Christmas
lights are still up.
Thankfully, I don’t live in Marblehead or I am sure I would be the topic of many a Homeowners Association Meetings. Some may think that I am making some statement about the Christmas spirit lasting all year. But my neighbors know better. They commiserate with Beth about her lazy husband who isn’t very handy around the house. Poor girl. If you see her and mention this to her, be kind. She probably hates that I am pointing this out, but it’s true. I am not ready for Easter at all.
We turned the clocks ahead for Daylight Savings Time a month early this year and I have been sleepy ever since. The schools are not even at Spring Break yet and I still have a lot more skiing I want to get in this year. I am not ready for Spring, I am not ready for Easter and all week long, I have been feeling kind of guilty about it, actually. You see Easter is a big deal in our business. In fact, it’s the biggest deal. Heck, I even wear a tie.
But I just haven’t been ready. It kind of snuck up on me. Then I got an email recently that at least helped me realize that I am not the problem…All this time, I thought this was about my lack of spirituality, or my mismanagement of my life. But now I know that I am the VICTIM here. Easter is the problem. Easter showed up early.
Did you see this email, too? Easter this year is the earliest that it has been since 1913, over 95 years ago. Anybody here 95? (Ok, you should have been ready, you’ve been through this before!) But because of the way Easter falls on the calendar, it hasn’t been this early in almost a century and won’t be this early again until 220 years from now. So most of us don’t have to worry about that, do we? No one alive today has ever or will ever see it earlier than it is this year.
So we can relax. We can take down the Christmas lights tomorrow (I promise, honey, really!). We can feel good about ourselves and blame Easter for barging in on our St. Patrick’s day party’s like guest that shows up when you are still in the shower.
This year Easter is the problem. Except…
This is exactly the same as the FIRST Easter. The first Easter came early, too.
You see, in the first century, if you asked the religious folks milling around Jesus if they believed that someone could rise from the dead, you would gotten one of two answers:
From most people who weren’t Jews, the answer would have been, “Of course not.” They were the rational people. The reasonable people. The people who were practical and down-to-earth. They were philosophical and thought of themselves beyond silly superstitions like people raising from the dead. And here is a fact that mostly overlooked: Less people believed that it was possible for a man to rise from the dead in the first century than they do today. I mean, they would ask, “Have you ever seen one.” This crucifixion and resurrection thing was foolishness to Greeks and Romans.
But if you asked the Jews, Jesus’ own people, and our spiritual ancestors, most would have said, “Of course there is a resurrection. This is our great hope. This is what we believe. This is exactly what God is going to do at the end of the world. Resurrection is the way that God will bring this creation to an end and usher in the new creation. And all who belong to God will be vindicated for trusting him, will be healed of their brokenness and will live in the world that they have always longed for. We believe in the resurrection, it is our great hope and the hope of all the earth and it will happen at the end of time.”
So what do you think that Jesus’ disciples thought when the women came from the empty tomb and told them that an angel had said that Jesus had been raised from the dead?
Do you know what Jesus’ best friends, his closest followers—these “great” men of faith, who heard him say on a whole bunch of occasions that on the third day he would be raised from the dead—do you know what they thought?
Luke 24:11 tells us: But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.
They did not believe them because they just knew that the resurrection would not come until the end of history and the beginning of God’s new creation.
If those disciples had Christmas lights they would have still been on their houses, too. Because, they weren’t ready for Easter, either.
The resurrection of Jesus came way earlier than anyone thought it would. It did not come at the end of history, the resurrection came smack dab in the middle of history when nobody was expecting it.
This is one of the reasons why I believe that it actually, historically, factually happened: Because nobody was expecting it, nobody believed Jesus when he predicted it; nobody had any other reason to claim it, except that it did.
Their insistence, even to their own deaths in Jesus’ resurrection made their movement more difficult for others to follow. There was absolutely nothing for them to gain by doing so. There was no earthly good that came to them. No power, no influence, no safety or security resulted because they did. For the Jews it was a stumbling block, to the Greeks it was foolishness. They had absolutely nothing to gain, and everything to lose and not one of them—not one—not one of the over 500 people who saw Jesus alive after his resurrection ever contradicted the story. Not one.
But the Jews of Jesus’ day, even those who didn’t believe in the resurrection and follow him were absolutely correct about one thing: The resurrection is the day of vindication, the day of healing and the day that ushers in the world we have always longed for.
And this is what God has done in Jesus. Jesus was hanged as a criminal and jeered as a failure. Mocked and beaten; ridiculed and scandalized as just another idealist who was smashed by human power. But in the resurrection, God vindicated Jesus and demonstrates that he is the world’s true and rightful King before whom every knee will bow and every tongue confess.
After his resurrection, Jesus received a new, healed resurrection body that both bore the scars of his life from this world and yet is able to live in the next one.
And in the resurrection God ushered in the inauguration of the new creation. As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:17: If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new.
Vindication, healing, new creation, yes! But NOT at the end of history, but right in the middle of history. And this is the good news and the hope of all.
My friends, Easter is the grand demonstration of how the Creator God has come into the middle of history to secure a good outcome for his creation. The Author and Director walks onto the stage, not to take a final bow, but to join the scene and make sure that nothing stops his grand play from coming to its rightful conclusion.
The God of Jesus is not a disinterested deist God sitting at the beginning of history, who has wound up the cosmos and released it out of his control. He is not a benign spirit of all things, nor an embodiment of an ideal that is impersonally detached from the world.
The God of Jesus is not a god sitting at the end of history with a black robe at Judge’s bench, wagging his finger, with a long list of things that we need to do to make it to him. If only, we think, we are good enough, kind enough, if our morals are straight and we don’t smoke and we rid the world of greenhouse gasses and we elect the right leaders and do the right rituals and say the right religious words, then well, maybe, we’ll be able to make it someday to his Kingdom-to-Come.
But, no…
The God of Jesus is the God who is the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega showing up in the here and now, right in the middle of history right in the middle of Roman tyranny and Jewish oppression, right in the middle of the mess and muddle, the conflict and tragedy, the pain and heartache, the war and famine, the poverty and despair.
The God of Jesus is the one who shows up right in the middle of history. And not just world history, the God of Jesus is the one who shows up right in middle of your personal history. Right where you need him, right now. No matter what.
The Good News of Easter is that God shows up in the middle of our mess with the power to make things new.
If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new. (2 Cor 5:17)
Where do you need the newness of God, the power of God in your life right now? Where do you need God to enter into the middle of your personal history, no matter how messy, no matter how bleak and let loose his resurrection power? Where do you need him to make things new? Just ask. Because…
The hope of Easter is that what God did for Jesus he will do for all the world... beginning with those who believe.
For this is what the Bible promises us: For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. (Romans 6:5).
This is our hope, dear friends. This is the hope of those who trust in his death on the cross and unite their lives with him. This is the hope of those of us who follow Christ in serving and sacrificing for the world that he came to save. This is our hope.
We too, if we trust Jesus, will be vindicated. Recently, a 13 year-old girl asked me, “When you were young, Pastor Tod, did people make fun of you for being a Christian?” (Did she think this only happens to those who are young?)
We too, if we trust Jesus, will be healed. And not just in body, but also all the ways in which we are broken body and soul, heart and mind, trapped in our histories and the curses of our addictions and anxieties, our insecurities and insensitivities. Some, day we will take on new bodies (1 Cor 15) and that will be fit for living in the new creation.
We too, if we trust Jesus, will see the world we have always longed for, where “Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more,” where “God himself will wipe every tear from our eyes” (Revelation 21:4).
The hope of Easter is that what God did for Jesus he will do for all the world... beginning with those who believe.
My son is a miler on the track team at the high school. And lately I have been joining in a ritual that is becoming commonplace amongst the other parents of kids who run the mile. We run TO the track for the meet. Why? Because it is the very first event of every meet and every single time, it seems to start earlier and earlier.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I watched as a few of my friends showed up to watch their daughters run the mile only to get there just as the girls crossed the finish line. “We missed it,” they said, “It started too early.” (I wonder if they still have their Christmas lights up?)
This is exactly the way that Jesus described his ministry . God’s “Kingdom come” is already beginning and you are missing it…
Those who didn’t believe in him were missing out on the vindication, the healing and the new creation that God was bringing. He comes to them over and over again and tells them, “You are missing it. It has already started and you are standing outside the party. You are missing it.”
God is already at work, God is already involved in this world changing it. God is already bringing his power right into the middle of every circumstance, every trial, every place of pain in the world and he is ready to invite you into it.
But if you don’t believe, you are missing it.
Julian of Norwich, a 13th Century Mystic reflected on the resurrection and wrote: “But all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
I can imagine that some of you are saying:
"Sure. Right. Wishful thinking. Easy for you to write, oh mystic one. I might feel the same way if all I had to do was sit around praying all day. Try saying that when you have suffered like I am suffering. Try saying that when they are coming to repossess the car, when you are declaring bankruptcy, when the bottom has fallen out of your American dream? Try facing down the diagnosis that I got smacked with, or another deployment into a war zone. Try selling that all is well stuff when all is most definitely not well!
Do you even know, O Julian, what this world is really like?"
Actually I think she did. She wrote those words in the middle of a plague famously called the Black Death, where half the population of Europe died.
This is what it means to live in the hope that someday Jesus will vindicate our faith in him, heal us of our brokenness and usher us into the new creation that has already begun with his resurrection. It is to believe and let your life confidently reflect:
“But all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
Julie was in my college group and she could sing like an angel. She was a brilliant, blond beauty, who loved Latin and poetry and music and made many of the young men in my college department sick with love. (It sometimes felt that I spent more time talking to College-aged young men about Julie then Jesus!) But she loved Tony. And they married. And had a little house near the school where they both taught. And they had two babies and she reveled in them. And then she got cancer. And she died. Barely in her thirties. I went back to Hollywood to help officiate at her funeral and there on the memorial program was a quote that she had picked out.
“But all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
Julie early. But she died in the hope of the resurrection. She died knowing that the God who had entered into human history, took on human sin and broke the power of human death would one day raise her with him from the dead, vindicating her faith, healing her body, and placing her with Tony, her babies, her family and friend in the middle of the new creation.
God had entered right into the middle of our human mess and through his death and resurrection has secured the good outcome for those who believe. Julie died early dear friend, but she didn’t miss it.
The Good News of Easter is that God shows up in the middle of our mess. The hope of Easter is that what God did for Jesus he will do for all the world…It has already begun for those who believe in Jesus Christ.
Don’t miss it…
Recent Comments