Tomb
was empty – what was going on?
Let’s
remind ourselves of what had happened:
First Reading - Matthew
27: 57-66
First
slide – what is this? Any guesses?
Second
slide - Great Tapestry of Scotland – over 150 different panels.
Burke
and Hare – who were they?
Couple
of Irish labourers who lived in Edinburgh in the 1820’s.
Back
then, there was a lot of money to be made in supplying bodies to the university
for medical dissections, and so some bad people started stealing bodies from
graves to make themselves some extra cash.
And
when the police got to the scene in the graveyard, it looked like the dead
person had come back to life and burst out of their coffin. That’s why these
grave robbers were nicknamed resurrectionists.
You’ll
often find that old churches, like our Old Kirk down off the A90, have a wee
building at the gate called a mort-safe. And to stop people like Burke and Hare
getting up to their tricks, they’d keep the coffin in the mortsafe until the
body was of no use for medical science, and then they’d do the burial.
And
I tell you that story this morning because when it comes to Easter Sunday, some
people think that the resurrection wasn’t a miracle at all. There’s a very
simple explanation for the empty tomb, they say. We know that people don’t come
back from the dead, so the only conclusion is that somebody must have taken
Jesus’ body.
That
might sound very convincing, until you ask yourself the rather obvious
question, why would anybody in this story want to remove Jesus body from the
tomb? Who would want to do that?
The
Romans didn’t want to – they wanted him buried and forgotten about as soon as
possible. They wanted all the fuss around him to die down.
The
Jewish leaders didn’t want to. As you heard from the story, they wanted to make
very sure that Jesus stayed in the tomb. They were so determined, they went to
see Pontius Pilate and asked for help to secure the tomb. And Pilate had the
Roman seal placed on the stone for added security. People knew that if you
broke that seal and tampered with the stone, it’d be you who’d end up on a
cross.
So
the Romans and the Jewish leaders had no interest in taking Jesus’ body away.
The only reason anyone might have done that is if the disciples were planning
to take his body away and then pretend that he’d come back from the dead.
Now
let’s say, for the sake of argument, that’s what they were aiming to do.
Where
did they find the courage to try that kind of stunt, having run away and hidden
like cowards as Jesus was being killed? They ran from the Romans and the Temple
Guard. They were gutted at the death of their friend. Would they have had the
heart to even try this?
Even
if they did, how did they get past the Roman guard who were there to protect
the tomb?
How
did they manage to carry a dead body through the streets of Jerusalem unnoticed
during the busiest festival of the year when you could hardly move in the
place?
How
did they manage to convince hundreds of others that Jesus was alive in the days
that followed?
And
if it were all just a pretence, a lie that they’d cooked up together, how do
you explain that every one of the disciples, bar Judas, went on to face
persecution and even execution for proclaiming that Jesus had risen from the dead?
If
it were all just a pretence, don’t you think at some point, someone would have
admitted that to save their own skin?
It’s
easy to suggest that someone took Jesus’ body that first Easter morning. But if
you sit down and think about it for a moment – it doesn’t make any sense at
all. No-one had either the ability or the motive to do so.
And
what we’re left with is the story we’re reading this morning which tells us
that Jesus was raised from the dead. Resurrected. If that’s true – and I
believe it is – it shakes the foundations of everything we thought we knew
about life and death. And it reminds us that whatever happens in the Lower
story, God’s Upper story will always win the day.
Readings: A couple of readings about peoples’
encounters with Jesus that first Easter morning:
John
20:11 – 18
Luke
24:13-16, 28-35
Video – The Test!
Well
– how many of you noticed all those things that were going past your eyes as
you were trying to count the cards?!
Struck
me as a good illustration of what might be going on in these two stories from
Easter morning. How could these folk meet the risen Jesus but not recognise
him?
Maybe
he was trying to disguise himself? It doesn’t take much to hide your identity.
A hood over your head, or a scarf over your mouth would do it. Makes sense if
the authorities are suddenly very interested in your whereabouts.
Maybe
there was something spiritual going on. It sounds like Cleopas and his
companion might have been kept from recognising Jesus in some way. Luke’s
phrase ‘then their eyes were opened’ makes it sound like there’s more going on
here than meets the eye.
Or
maybe the card illustration has something to say to us on this. Maybe they
struggle to recognise Jesus because their attention is elsewhere.
If
we were to watch that video again, and instead of looking at the colour of the
cards, you looked at the backs of them before they were turned over, it would
seem so obvious.
I’ve
said it many times before, but it bears repeating. Where we look determines
what we see.
Mary’s
grief-stricken. Confused. She’s looking at her pain, her loss. She’s holding
them so tightly that she misses the Jesus
who’s right beside her until he speaks her name.
Cleopas
and his friend are bereft. They’re looking at the past, wondering about the
future. They almost miss the Christ who’s with them in the present – opening up
the Scriptures, breaking bread with them.
According
to Matthew, the last words of the risen Christ before his ascension were “I
will be with you always.”
The
Christ is always here with us, through his Spirit. His presence is promised. The real question is – what are we looking at?
Where are we focusing our attention?
I
think most of us don’t need to be driven to distraction. We’re already living there,
most of the time. Distracted by work, by worries, by our pastimes and hobbies.
By money, relationships, health concerns.
We’re
only human, after all. But it’s in that very humanity that Christ wants to meet
us. Looking to him won’t make those issues fade away. But what it will do is
help us see them in a different way. They won’t be all that’s on the horizon
any longer. They won’t have the last word.
Is
something possessing you just now – some worry or fear? Some set of
circumstances you have to deal with?
Are
you deliberately keeping yourself distracted so you don’t have to think too much
about life and faith and where it’s all going?
Jesus
spoke Mary’s name that first Easter morning. He broke bread with his friends in
his usual way. And at that – suddenly - he had their full attention. What’s it
going to take to get yours and mine?
Reading: John 20:
24-29 – Doubting
A
last word, in closing, about Thomas.
Poor
Thomas gets a bad press most of the time. We remember his doubting, but we
forget that when Jesus was preparing to go back to Jerusalem, knowing he was
walking into danger, it was Thomas who urged them all to follow, saying “Let us go also, that we may die with him.”
But
even that bold rallying cry smacks of fatalism. If Thomas had a fault it’s that
he’s too immersed in the Lower Story. He can’t see beyond the bare facts of how
things are. He struggles to believe that God’s at work in the background to bring about his purposes.
And
in the Lower Story, dead people stay dead. That’s why he can’t believe what the
other disciples are telling him.
“Unless I see the
scars of the nails in his hands and put my finger on those scars and my hand in
his side, I will not believe”.
I
guess he speaks for lots of people when he talks that way. Faith’s taken a
battering over the past few decades because the only things people seem ready
to believe in are things they can see and touch and explain.
But
what if…..
What
if there are mysteries out there so vast and incomprehensible that all our
theories and certainties crumble to dust in the face of them?
What
if all that we think is set in stone, is as enduring as a child’s soap bubble
blown on the breeze?
And
what if someone of infinite knowledge and power visited our little corner of
the universe and demonstrated to us that there’s more going on out there than
we will ever fathom or know.
What
if we took that person and crucified him,
and hung a sign above his head, saying ‘does not compute’?
What
if the Thomases, the rationalists, the atheists are like my little penguin
friend here in this image– looking over the landscape of what they can see and
proclaiming ‘this is all there
is!’!! When underneath them, out of
sight, is the 9/10ths of reality that they can’t see from where they’re
standing.
What
if Easter Sunday tells us that despite all our rational objections, there’s a
power at work in the world that’s stronger even than death
and
that there is nothing in all creation,
In
the realm of spirits or higher powers,
in
the world as it is or the world as it shall be,
in
the forces of the universe,
in
heights or depths -
nothing
in all creation
that
can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The
love that was demonstrated at Calvary, and vindicated by the empty tomb.
A
week after that first appearance, Thomas did indeed see Jesus with his own
eyes. Funnily enough, the business about touching the wounds and sticking his
hand in Jesus’ side seemed to fall off the agenda once the two of them were actually
face to face.
“Because you have
seen me. you have believed; said Jesus. Blessed are those who have not seen and
yet have believed.”
That’s
you and me, and almost every believer since Jesus spoke those words.
Are
we foolish for believing what we’ve not seen with our own eyes?
I
don’t think so.
A
man throws a stone into a pond. We hear the splash and turn around. Do we see
the stone? No. But we see the ripples, and we know what’s happened.
The
ripples from that first Easter Morning continue to roll across the world, two
thousand years on; changing lives, bringing hope. Telling us that in Christ
death and sin have lost their power for ever.
Blessed
are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.
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