“The Unsecurable Tomb”

A Sermon Based Upon Matthew 27: 62-28: 10

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Easter Sunday, April 20, 2013

Pilate said to them, "You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can." (Mat 27:65 NRS)

When President Abraham Lincoln was buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery, 2 miles outside of Springfield, Illinois, his coffin was placed in a white marble sarcophagus in a burial room behind only a steel gate locked with padlock.   But two years later, in 1884, when it became known that a notorious Irish crime boss by the name of “James ‘Big Jim” Kennally was planning to steal the body and hold it for ransom, Secret Service agents foiled the plot and secured Lincoln’s coffin in the basement of the tomb, moving it around some 16 times and encasing it in a brick vault.  A few years later, in 1901, Lincoln’s son Robert Todd had the remains exhumed again and then placed them into a permanent crypt where the coffin would be secured in a steel cage, encased under a concrete floor 10 feet deep.  At the time Lincoln’s body was re-interred, 23 people were present to view his body one last time, fearing that, through the intervening years, the body might had been stolen.  Amazingly, it is said that Lincoln was perfectly recognizable.  The flag he had been buried with had rotted, along with his gloves, and there was yellow mold on his suit, but it was theorized that Lincoln had been embalmed so many times on board his week-and-a-half-long funeral train, that he had been practically mummified.    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funeral_and_burial_of_ Abraham_Lincoln).

While thieves did try several times to steal Lincoln’s body, in today’s Easter text the opposite is happening.  Here, strangely enough, some of the enemies of Jesus go to Pilate with a odd request to ‘secure’ the tomb ‘until the third day.’    They did this because Jesus predicted he’d ‘he rise again’ and they were afraid ‘the disciples” might “steal the body” and claim it to be true.   That’s a rather funny suggestion, when you think about it.   The last time we heard from the disciples, they were in deep denial and scattering in the darkness ‘like sheep without a shepherd’.   But even so, the Pharisees don’t take any chances.  They want to make sure that this ‘imposter’ stays in the tomb where they placed him.   Any form of ‘deception’ which claimed that “He has been raised from the dead’ would make matters worse.  Pilate grants their request and orders his guards to ‘go’ and ‘make it as secure’ as they can.   A tomb that was normally left open for visiting mourners was ‘made secure’ by ‘sealing the stone with a guard’.

YOU CAN’T BE TOO SAFE

Along with the Pharisees and Pilate, we are all thinking more about safety these days.   We want our cars to be safer with better technology.  We want our homes to be built with bigger and better locks.  We want to put up surveillance equipment, install alarm systems and do whatever it takes to keep our families safe.   Last fall, Crime Prevention expert Larry Handy visited both our churches to share how our seniors could better protect themselves from personal attack and prevent attempted robbery.   He showed us all kinds of common sense ways to ‘be safe’ and prevent crime; from parking our cars in well lighted areas, showing what items a woman could use as defensive weapons from a purse, and giving instruction on how to escape an abductor.  These were good lessons on prevention, helping us to do smart things to stay a little ‘safer’ in a very unsafe world.  But of course, there were some, like me, who wanted to know how to go big time, like finding out what kind of gun to carry or what kind of pepper spray to use, but the detective wisely warned us that if you carry a gun pepper spray, you’d better keep the spray up to date, and hope the bad guy doesn’t have a bigger gun than you.  These weapons might make you feel more secure, but they might not make you any safer.   

We all want to be safe, and to protect ourselves and our families, but why are these people in the gospel story, trying to protect themselves from a ‘dead’ man?   Security and safety is an issue that keeps popping up, and the word is used here no less than three times.   What’s going on?   If you remember, when they came to arrest Jesus, they came with the security of swords and clubs (26.48).   That’s a little overkill for arresting a ‘prince of peace’, don’t you think?   Then, quickly thereafter, all the disciples flee in the darkness to protect themselves (26.57) and to find safety.   Peter also wants to be safe, so when he is recognized as being one of Jesus’ followers, he denies it three times (26.69ff).  We also know that Pilate’s wife even tries to protect her husband, telling him to ‘have nothing to do with that righteous man’ (27.19).  Even though this governor commands armies, she still wants to keep her husband safe.  And now, even after Jesus is safely dead, the chief priests and Pharisees know ‘you can’t be too careful’, and evidently Pilate agrees, so he gives them guards, instructing them to ‘make (the tomb) ‘as secure as you can’.   One wonders.  What was it about Jesus that made everyone so nervous? 

Most of you have heard of C.S. Lewis and his series of books entitled “The Chronicles of Narnia.”  After the Oxford Scholar became a Christian, he wrote a series for children, representing the truths of the Christian faith in ways that children would never forget.   At the center of the series of books were four children, who entered a mysterious wardrobe to travel to the hidden kingdom of Narnia, only to encounter a Lion named Aslan.   Upon hearing about the Lion, the youngest of the children named Lucy, asked a friendly beaver about the Lion ruler:  “Is he safe?”  Lucy asked.  “Who said anything about safe?  Of course he isn’t safe,” Mr. Beaver answered, “But he’s good.  He’s the King I tell you.”  C.S. Lewis was right, wasn’t he?   A king can be good, but because if he’s really the king, he’s never safe.   (As quoted by: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/aslan, from “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”, by C.S. Lewis).

We have a hard time imagining Jesus as being as dangerous because he is good.   But we can imagine just how dangerous ‘good’ and ‘light’ can be to those want to do wrong or who want to hide their misdeeds from the light.  Can’t you remember those people in class who were nicknamed ‘goody two shoes’ or others who tattled the misdeeds of others to the teacher?   Many people, including a few politicians don’t like the Press and the media for exactly the same reason; they don’t want everything to come out in the light.   But strangely enough, Jesus is not someone who has come to simply expose all our misdeeds.  Jesus has even bigger fish to fry.  Jesus , but himself says he is has come to be the “light” who is the “way, the truth and the life...” In other words, following Jesus is not an option for those who want eternal life, but Jesus claims to be the only true option.   It is this very peculiar and particular nature of the Christian gospel that still makes people upset and nervous.  Jesus does not in any way say he is a way, a truth, or a life, as one option among many, but Jesus says rather sharply, “I am the way, the truth, and the life”, and he makes the point even clearer: “No one comes to the Father, except through me” (John 14.6).   

There are many people, even Christians, and not a few professors of Christian theology, who still wish Jesus hadn’t said it like this.   They wish Jesus was a little kinder, a lot nicer, and even fairer to other religions, other beliefs, and made all of us feel better by saying that our faith is just another personal matter, an opinion, and not really a matter of public confession that is a matter of life and death.   And if you want to see just how much trouble Jesus can cause, just watch a Christian teacher lead a Christian prayer at school, or listen to a Christian public official pray ‘in Jesus’ name’ at a local town council meeting.   If you don’t believe Jesus can cause problems, just let a preacher preach that that if you are going to be serious about following Jesus, then you’ve got to let go of a few things, change your schedules around a bit, or seek first the kingdom, and then these others things can be added.   Putting Jesus first will not make attendance go up, but big crowds do not mean big faith.

BUT WITH JESUS NOTHING IS EVER SAFE

So, let’s make sure we can make the tomb as secure as we can.   We don’t even have to have this Easter stuff.  Let’s bury Jesus once and for all.  We can live without him.  Can’t we?   That’s what I once asked a reporter for the Berlin Morning News.   He came to my apartment for a long interview. He came to ask about why I came to eastern Germany, when most everyone wanted to leave.   We talked for several hours about my mission work, we discussed the dreams and realities of communism, and we talked about our respective countries, Germany and the United States.  Then, I finally asked him.  “Are you a Christian?”  He answered that he used to be a Christian, but he wasn’t anymore.   He said: “I can live without Christ!”  “Yes, I can understand that, but can you die without him?”  He paused for a moment, and then without surety or certainty he answered:  “Well, I uh, at least I hope I can?”

The Pharisees and Pilate wanted to make the tomb ‘as secure as they can.’   It wasn’t a dead Jesus they were worried about, but they should have been.   Whatever their fears or intentions, it didn’t work.  It doesn’t work for Peter to follow Jesus from a safe distance.  It’s doesn’t work for Pilate to wash his hands and think everything is over.  It also doesn’t work for the Chief Priests or the Pharisees to think they could silence Jesus once and for all.   Because, as Matthew tells us, all these attempts to keep everything secure runs right up against an earthquake.    How do you keep yourself safe from an earthquake?  You might hide under a table and avoid having the ceiling fall on you, but what will you do if the ground opens up under your feet?   And that is exactly what Easter means.  It means that when God raised Jesus from the dead, the ground of everything we once thought we knew about life and death has been pulled out from under us.  These armored ‘guards’ at the tomb are mere mincemeat for an angel whose face is made out of lightening.  Now, in the very first shock of Easter (no pun intended), even before Jesus appears, we already have two things none of us should ever feel safe around, ‘lightening’ and an ‘earthquake’. 

YOU CAN RUN BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary who show up at the tomb and would have been just as insecure as the guards, if the angel had not spoken up, saying: “Be not afraid, I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.  He is not here; for he has been raised….This is my message for you” (28: 5-7).  Those women were the first to experience Easter; not as a wish, a dream, nor as a rumor.  They witnessed Easter for real.  They left the very ‘insecure’ tomb “quickly with fear and great joy!”  With very mixed emotions these women didn’t hide, but they did run.  They ‘ran to tell his disciples’ that “He is risen” just like he said.   But how did they know?   How did they know not to let ‘fear’ return to overwhelm their joy?  

This is exactly how it is for us.  We too, can receive the Easter message with faith, hope, and also joy, but then tragedy comes, heartbreak happens, and the fears return to overshadow our faith and our hope.   How do we keep Easter alive in our hearts?  And besides that, how do we know that Easter is “Good News”?   Do you recall that great hymn that goes “America, America God Shed His grace on thee!”  That is our hope isn’t it?  That no matter what we go through in life, God gives us his grace.   But it could be otherwise, couldn’t it?   Mary Hinkle Shore tells of attending a communion service, where it was customary for people to come forward and receive the bread and the cup.  Mary says that once, when she was handed the cup, that the minister spoke the words, “The blood of Christ, shed for you.”   It was the way the said the words with a pause that struck her.   She suddenly realized he could have said, “The blood of Christ, shed against you.”   (From Mary H. Shore,  “The Insecure Tomb”,  www.day1.org)   How do we know that the risen Christ is for us, not against us?   How do we know that Easter is a celebration of God’s love for us, not a reminder of his judgment upon those who crucified then or reject Jesus now?   And how do we keep the faith, hope and joy, even when life appears to go against us?   We know the same way the women came to know, as they ran from the tomb. For it wasn’t just an empty tomb, nor it the earthquake or the voices of angels that gave them hope.  It was Jesus himself who met them on the road.   He said, “Greetings!   And the Scripture says they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him.   In that moment, they heard Jesus himself say to them, and to all of us: “Do not be afraid!”   That’s when Easter really began.

We know that when Jesus appeared to his disciples, and they recognized his presence, that a new courage and freedom came upon them.   In the story of the early church, the disciples were filled with boldness to speak the truth and were not afraid of those who would scoff at their faith or take their life.   This leads me to ask, “What might this kind of freedom mean to you?”  How different could your life be if you too, could find yourself worshipping not a dead and buried Jesus from the past, but a living Lord, who walks and talks with you along life’s way?  How might such a living Lord, change how you view life, how you see a stranger, or how you live even in the midst of uncertain times? 

Of course we still live in a very dangerous and frightening world.   We need to take care of ourselves and we need to take care of each other too.  But more than anything else, we need to meet a living savior, who gives us the power to walk in faith, not in fear.   “Do not be afraid!”  This is what the risen Jesus still says and his assuring voice and presence is what makes Easter not just a holiday, but a holy day filled with  promise and hope. 

---Do not be afraid, even though you must face life without your loved one! 

---Don’t be afraid, even though the way can still be dark, Jesus goes ahead of you, just like he did those women.  He is the one we can still meet, on the road of life.

---Don’t be afraid, although the world is moving under our feet in this shaky world, they are shifting and shaking because the kingdom of God is on the way.

----Don’t be afraid, for God is not your enemy, he is closer than a any brother.   And if he is for us, and he is with us, what can there ever be that we cannot overcome in him?   Finally, don’t be afraid, for your life and your security are where they have always been, hid with God in Christ.   Christ is Risen and overcame so we can live our lives without fear and fully and completely free, indeed.  Amen.