Alleluia! Christ is risen!
While Jesus predicted it and fully expected that he would rise on the third day, he was the only one who anticipated it. Everyone else thought that the crucifixion was a horrible end to what had looked like a promising future. Then Sunday came and women who had gone to the tomb found the stone rolled away and the tomb empty. Two men, who were obviously divine messengers, told them that Jesus was alive and afterward he appeared to many in his risen body.
From the very beginning, people have denied it and tried to explain it away. There are those today, even in the Church, who believe it is simply a pious legend. But make no mistake about it, New Testament faith is faith in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. It is the experience of the risen Christ that transformed the disciples from timid, fearful, defeated followers of a fallen hero, into fully convinced, highly motivated, and enthusiastic proclaimers of the Gospel of their risen Lord. It was no pious legend that brought that transformation about, no metaphor that they proclaimed and ultimately for which they were willing to suffer and die.
As we observe and celebrate Easter, in the words of John Updike, “It was not as the flowers, each soft spring recurrent; it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the eleven apostles; it was as his flesh: ours.
The same hinged thumbs and toes, the same valved heart that—pierced—died, withered, paused, and then regathered out of enduring Might, new strength to enclose.
Let us not mock God with metaphor, analogy, sidestepping, transcendence, making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded credulity of earlier ages: let us walk through the door.
“The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché, not a stone in a story, but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of time will eclipse for each of us the wide light of day.
“Let us not seek to make it less monstrous, for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty, lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed by the miracle, and crushed by remonstrance.”
Former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, whom many of you know, says this: “I believe that Jesus was crucified, buried, and that his cold, dead body was raised alive by God. If it is of any comfort to others, I have never found it easy to believe in God.”
I always have at least two books going at a time. One of the books is often the choice of a theology group of which I am a part that meets monthly. For the last couple of months we have been reading John Bunyan’s Pilgrims’ Progress. The other book that I’m reading is The Swerve, by Stephen Greenblatt.
I don’t know how I had gotten this far along in my life without having read Pilgrims’ Progress, but I’m glad that I finally have the opportunity to do so. The story is an allegory about the Christian’s pilgrimage in this life toward the kingdom of God. The main character’s name is Christian, and in his journey from his home in the city of destruction toward the Celestial City, Mount Zion, he has to overcome many difficult obstacles that would keep him from reaching his goal. The whole point is that everything in this life has spiritual significance that will either help us or get in the way or even prevent us from reaching the presence of God.
The other book, titled The Swerve, is about a philosophy with these tenets: There are no such things as miracles. Nothing can violate the laws of nature. The universe is made up of atoms randomly moving in an infinite universe. There is no God and no afterlife. Therefore, the goal of the human being should be to pursue pleasure and avoid pain.
It’s a modern philosophy, or should I say postmodern philosophy, isn’t it? The interesting thing is that this philosophy is found in a treatise by a man named Lucretius, who died in the year 55 BC. The treatise is titled De Rerum Natura, “On the Nature of Things,” and the philosophy it espouses is much older and is known as Epicureanism.
What I found really interesting is that, without planning it this way, I was reading two books that were completely opposite one another and that clearly state the two major philosophies of life in this world in which we live. In one, God is everywhere and the battle between good and evil is what life is about. That battle has ultimately been won by Christ and the Christian’s goal is, by the grace of God, to claim that victory for himself or herself and have everlasting life.
In the other, there is no God and this life is all there is. Ironically, both philosophies are based on faith, one on faith in God and the other on faith in no God. And both determine the most important things in how one lives one’s life.
My faith is in God. As the creed states it, I “look for the world to come.” And the foundation of that faith is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. That resurrection affirms everything else in scripture, and the whole Christian faith depends upon it. Jesus is alive, and because he is alive, we, too, shall live. Therefore, the meaning of life is so much more than the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. How we live our lives today has eternal significance because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. As John Bunyan said in Pilgrim’s Progress, “Since, Lord, thou dost defend us with thy Spirit, we know we at the end shall life inherit. Then fancies flee away; I’ll fear not what men say, I’ll labor night and day to be a pilgrim.”
Sermon preached by the Very Reverend Fredrick A. Robinson
The Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Florida
Easter Sunday
27 March 2016