“If This Doesn't Grab You, What Does?”
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Text: Matthew 28:1-10
I sometimes think that we live in a rather cynical and skeptical world, particularly in our western culture. It seems to be a cynic and skeptic is in vogue, particularly when it comes to matters of faith or religion or belief. In fact, over the last few weeks, in reading some of the local newspapers, I have realized just how prevalent this cynicism is and how deep it lies within the heart of our culture.
For example, I read in the National Post a couple of weeks ago, a lead article that said that those in the ranks of no affiliation to religion are growing. It says and I want to quote it, “Religion may be on the road to extinction in Canada - mathematically speaking.” And then it puts us alongside nations such as the Czech Republic, Austria, the Netherlands or New Zealand, predicting that eventually those who have no affiliation to any religion, will far, far, outnumber those who do. It spells the death toll for the Church. It really made me want to go to work the next day, did that one!
To make matters a little more interesting, this past week, in the Metro News, there was another article. It was entitled, A Religious Fattening. “New study finds that those with high religious participation were more likely to be obese.” They blame, listen to this, calorie-rich comfort food that is served by religious institutions to its members. I took this to my doctor. I said, “Doctor, my problem is not the intake of calories. The problem is my religion. That's the problem.” How absurd!
But you know it gets even more absurd and actually quite serious, that there are now foundations who grant money to institutions, such as religious institutions, who have placed in their criteria for giving a gift, the notion that a religious institution before being the recipient to a gift, must prove, that it performs some positive function within society. What ostensibly it is arguing is that you will not get any money unless you can show the functionality of your faith. Well of course one can recite a litany of all the things that the church does, from food banks to supporting the Alcoholics Anonymous, to care for seniors, for making one's buildings available to all kinds of outreach groups, and on and on and on, but there is something dark in this requirement. It is the assumption that faith must prove itself to be functional, that there is no sort of inherent social good to belief and to faith. That faith itself does not animate or create or do anything profoundly good on its own volition, but only in its manifestations. Oh we live in a cynical world at times when it comes to faith.
And yet as I look around the world, and see the state of it and realize that oftentimes our country is still at war and young men and women die from our nation fighting, when I see violence in our high schools and shutting down of buildings because of threats, when I see corruption in high places, at the highest economic levels within our nation, when I see the degradation of social ethics and a lack of care for the poor, when I realize that every three seconds on this earth some child dies because of malnutrition, or because of diseases like malaria, I wonder, “Should I be cynical as a person of faith about the state of the world?” And yet, I can never be.
I love Garrison Keillor. He has some marvellous quotes and I'm particularly delighted that he is no longer on the radio at 11:00 AM on Sunday mornings, because I missed hearing him. He had some great things to say, “What else will do except faith in such a cynical and corrupt time? When the country goes temporarily to the dogs, cats must learn to be circumspect, walk on fences, sleep in trees, and have faith that all this woofing is not the last word.”
The Christian faith is anything but cynical and should be anything but skeptical. The Christian faith is neither. The Christian faith believes in the power of God. It believes in the victory of grace. It believes in the wisdom of forgiveness. It believes in the power of love. It believes in the hope of eternity. It is neither cynical nor skeptical about the human condition, nor of the God who comes to redeem it.
And here in our text this magnificent moment when Mary Magdalene and Mary, probably the mother of James, goes to the tomb to see Jesus, we see the death of cynicism. Oh they went to the tomb all right. They went knowing that Jesus had been crucified. They went knowing Jesus was dead. They knew Jesus had been buried, all as the Creed would later on say. They knew that, but Mary Magdalene goes to this tomb.
It's fascinating that it is Mary Magdalene who goes. We know that the different gospels give different accounts of who goes with Mary to the tomb, but as Dr. Craig Evans the Acadia biblical scholar rightly says, “We do know at the very least that Mary Magdalene went, that she was the first to witness the empty tomb, the first to proclaim the resurrection of Jesus.” And in all likelihood she would not go to that tomb alone out of fear and so some companion would go with her. Mary Magdalene goes, according to Matthew, with Mary, and she goes for the simple reason of bringing spices to a dead body. She expects to go into the tomb and place the spices there because it's a source of honour. It is also a way to cover the decay of a corpse.
But really, Mary Magdalene went to the burial site of Jesus to confirm the death of her hopes. It was over. But was it? Suddenly an angel appears, some theophany, some magnificent presence. The stone had been rolled away, the body wasn't there. They'd gone to prepare spices for a dead body, and it was gone. All they knew when they went there was that they'd gone to see a body to prepare it for its eventual destination to the dust, and it wasn't there.
And I'm sure her mind must have flashed back to all those moments when she had heard people declare things about Jesus, when they had called him the King of Kings or mocked him as the King of the Jews, whether they had called him Lord, whether he'd been described as the Light of the World or the Bread of Life, whether he was the King of Kings, whether he was the Lord of Lords. All of a sudden he's no longer there. And with all the examinations I've done of the historical narratives and the original texts, I am convinced that the only explanation for that empty tomb was the bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. That God, who, after all had created the universe, the Lord of the Heavens and the Earth, had once again done something marvellous, this time as a new creation by the raising of his son from the dead. And in this moment, Mary Magdalene is transformed. She'd gone to confirm the death of her hopes. She left finding hope in the midst of death. But look at her emotions. Look at the language that is used to describe how Mary felt throughout all of this. It's no coincidence that Matthew uses some strong words to describe the deep down passion that Mary Magdalene must have felt. And it is this very passion that should be our passion this Easter Sunday. These are the emotions that we might have as we gather in this place.
The first of them was fear. Well you can understand why the guards were frightened. You can understand that. I can just picture them. Let's call them Romulus and Paulus, just for the sake of it, standing at a tomb they're supposed to guard in case someone might steal the body, when there's an earthquake, the stone is rolled away, and the body is gone. Can you imagine the conversation that would have taken place? Romulus would have said to Paulus, “This is a career-limiting move.” I understand why they're frightened. Not a lot of job security for those boys and under Roman law, probably seen to have actually been conspicuous by their absence and worthy of death, serious business.
But Mary, why would she be frightened? There are many who speculate as to the reasons why. Some have suggested that the reason why Mary was frightened is simply because she might be accused of having stolen the body. And there are all kinds of books and myths written about this, that maybe she and her friends and the henchman and women were responsible for removing it and she says, “Oh dear, maybe they're going to think I did it.” Maybe the fear was borne out of the fact that she would have to go back to the men, the disciples, and as a woman tell them that she'd seen this magnificent thing and they would tell her she's out of her mind. Maybe that's what she feared. Or maybe, and I think this is the most plausible, she was frightened because there was no precedent for what she'd experienced. It was awesome. It was overwhelming. It was life-changing.
And I think, my friends, in many ways Christians are like Mary at the tomb. In the face of cynicism and skepticism, we're sometimes frightened to talk about the power of the resurrection and we recoil. When it becomes a matter of talking about the baby Jesus and his life, we're quite happy. People can understand that. When we talk about his wise teachings, his parables, his rabbinic style, we're quite comfortable. He's seen generally to say good things. We might even be quite prepared to go to Good Friday and to recognize the death of a good man at the hands of the powers. But Easter Sunday, how do we bear witness to this awesome reality? How do we proclaim this with vigour and conviction? And yet, the irony of all ironies is this is the foundation of the church. Had it not been for the resurrection of Jesus, all the gospels would simply have been footnotes in the annals of history, one scintilla in the history of the Middle East or the outposts to the Roman Empire. Who would have written about it? Who would have talked about it, had Jesus of Nazareth not been raised from the dead? Had Mary not been there to pay testimony to his presence? It is an awesome thing. We must get over our fears. This is our faith. This is our conviction. This is what we proclaim to the world.
But look at her next response. Her next response was one of overwhelming joy, of victory, of passion. The word that is used to describe how she felt was: “ekstasis.” So marvellous that she was literally out of herself, out of herself, out of her fears, out of her concerns, now thinking only about the Lord who was there in front of her. And the angel appears and the words from the angel are words that really echo and resonate throughout all of the gospels, “He is risen just as he said,” just as he said. That all of a sudden, all the speeches that Jesus gave, all the references to being lifted up, all the references to the third day, all the references to victory and the triumph of God, all of these things would have been in her mind. She was now ecstatic, outside of herself because of the joy of knowing that her redeemer lived.
I don't know how many of you watched Hockey Night in Canada last night, but I did and I'm a Canadiens fan and I'm hurting today. But I did hear something nice about the Maple Leafs. They have a Christian goalie. David was so excited, the Reverend McMaster that he phoned me and said, “Did you know that the goalie for the Maple Leafs is a Christian?”
I said, “No, I don't know that, he's a bit porous, but he's a Christian, yes.”
And he says, “Well Don Cherry says he's a Christian.”
I said, “Well that must be true then.”
And then David was so excited, he said, “You aren't going to believe what Don Cherry said.”
And I said, “I often don't believe what Don Cherry says.”
And he said, “No, no, no,” he says, “Easter, Easter, it's all about Jesus, it's all about Jesus. Isn't that marvellous?”
And I said, “Yeah, yeah, it's all about Jesus. Yeah, no Don Cherry finally has got it right, yes, it's all about Jesus.” And it is all about Jesus. And it is all about God's last word. We hear penultimate words. He's dead, he's gone, he's suffered, but the last word, the ultimate word is he is raised as he said. And there is our joy.
But there is one final thing that happened. And it is I think the most telling of all. Matthew says that Mary Magdalene, when she encountered the risen Jesus, got on her knees, she bowed down and she worshiped him, she worshiped him. I think it is remarkable that a person of such faith, from such a great and a rich tradition as Judaism, fell on her knees and worshiped Jesus. All of the disciples were men of faith. The followers were people of faith. They believed in God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Many of them had been brought up in the synagogues and the temples and had worshiped the Adonai, but now Mary is worshiping Jesus. Why? Because she knew that in this very moment, a new age had dawned. She knew that God had done something mighty and powerful. She knew that God's spirit had been at work in this event. She knew that Jesus was the Son of God after all. She knew when she worshiped Jesus, she worshiped the Father as well. And that's why we're here isn't it? Isn't that why on a day like today, we gather, all of us together, from the four winds to worship and to say that in Jesus, God has done something magnificent.
You know there's something remarkable about Easter. It's sort of like Christmas. It's a family time. Many of us remember where we were on Easters past. I still don't think anything in my life will ever replace the first Sunday that I worshiped here at Timothy Eaton Memorial Church on an Easter day, and had the magnificence of this music and the beauty of this place. I was in awe and I'm in awe every Easter. But if you were to really ask me the Easters that I remember the most, it was when I would go with my mother and father, who are now both deceased, to a little church on the south shore of Bermuda at 3:00 o'clock on an Easter Sunday afternoon. In the morning we would go to our bigger home church, for they always had the grand music and the spectacular worship and the fiery preaching. It was great. But my parents even convinced me, as a little boy, to go in the afternoon and worship as well. Trust me, I thought once is more than enough to go to church on a Sunday, but not Easter Sunday. You see the church we went to in the morning was originally built for the owners of slaves. It was a big and a bright a cheerful church, an affluent one. The one that we went to in the afternoon was one that was built for the slaves. It was always held in the afternoons because they weren't allowed to take the morning off from work. And I would go to church on the south shore in Bermuda, and all the women would be dressed in their finery, colours brighter than I have ever seen, and the men would dress up to the nines, some wearing tuxedos I remember, and the children, all the children singing and dancing and waving their hands at the front in such joy, it was an amazing service. And then at the end, everyone sang a Negro spiritual. When the minister proclaimed the benediction, everyone got up and sang and this is what I remember about Easter. The song was entitled “Who Will Be A-Living When I Am Dead,” and the last refrain goes as follows, “Trees will be a-living and a-waving when I am dead. Birds will be a-living and a-singing when I am dead. But who will be a-living when I am dead? I will. I will because of Jesus.” Hallelujah. Amen.