“CAN YOU FEEL EASTER?”

A Sermon Based Upon  Matthew 28: 1-10

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Easter Sunrise:  April 5^th,  2015

 Have you ever experienced an Earthquake?

AN UN-EXTRAORDINARY EARTHQUAKE

Most of our earthquake experiences on the east coast are un-extraordinary.  Most of them we only learned about the next day on the news.  Thank God.

Quite possibly, the earthquake that Matthew recounts was NOT THAT EXTRAORDINARY TOO.   Even though Matthew says it was a ‘great’ earthquake, he’s the only gospel to remember it.   There is no record of it recorded history either.  Perhaps what Matthew means is that it is ‘great’ because of what happens at the tomb, not because of what happened in the world.

 
The truth is, this ‘earthquake’ may have not been world-wide or physical at all, because Matthew seems to imply that AN ANGEL CAUSED IT as the angels descends from heaven.   In other words, if you were not in close proximity to the tomb, you may not have even felt it at all.    Only those who found themselves close to this cemetery or graveyard, who were gathered around the tomb of Jesus may have felt it---as we are told they did. 

Could Matthew’s rare earthquake event help us realize that IF YOU AREN’T LOOKING FOR EASTER, you might just miss it?   If you had been in Jerusalem texting on your cell phone you might have been so preoccupied with other things, you might have missed the whole show---as many did.    YOU CAN MISS EASTER TOO.  Oh, yes you might see a bunny hopping along.  You might dress up in pastel colors or paint an Easter egg.  You might even watch a flowers blooming, or you hear a bird singing his new spring tune.  But if you aren’t looking you could miss it.   But if you are looking for something more, or if you are standing close by the grave of someone you have loved and have loss,  or if you have been following Jesus and listening to him and for him, there is a unique chance that Easter will have an even greater impact upon you.  It may even make you feel as if you too have just experienced an earthquake.  

WHY DOES MATTHEW WANT US TO FEEL THE EARTH MOVE, under our feet?   Does he mean something more than a physical event?   DOES HE MEAN SOMETHING WE CAN FEEL NOW,  not just under our heels, but IN OUR HEARTS?     Could all this talk of an earthquake, an angel ‘descending’ or the mention of guards ‘shaking like dead men’ is be Matthew’s dramatic way of  making just another theory about why the body is gone, or is he on to something else?   What is Matthew really trying to tell us?  

CAN WE REALLY KNOW WHAT HAPPENED?  

Even then, as still today, people are wondering if the ‘bones’ of Jesus could ever been found.   People were making up all kinds of stories about what took place?    Did someone really steal the body?  Is the Shroud for real?  You know the questions that fill up time on the Discovery or History Channel.   On TV you can hear or see all kinds of other theories about how Jesus might have survived or "come back from the dead."  Was he drugged, did he come out of a coma, and then escaped this tomb?   Or did the disciples get so worked up in their grief that they made up the whole thing?   Can we get behind the earthquake to find out what really happened?   Who cares?  Does any of this matter at all?

WHAT WE MUST SAY IS that SOMETHING HAPPENED.  Would there have been all this fuss if Jesus had just been crucified, buried and had simply rotted away, like Nero, like Cleopatra, or like Napoleon?     Of course, people would like to historically find out what happened to Jesus, but who would want to worship him,  to sing about him, or to make outrageous claims that say that on Easter morning everything changed?      

HOW DO WE GET TO THIS ‘EVERYTHING CHANGED’, earth-shaking truth of Easter?   We can’t duplicate an earthquake and we can’t duplicate Easter either.   In other words, while we can study future earthquakes, we can’t look back at an earthquake in the distant past, except by looking at the damage that was done, or the changes that it caused.    In the same way,  we can’t get back to Easter without looking around us, at the difference it might make in how we see life, the world, and ourselves.    How do we get to what happened at Easter?  

THE GOSPELS DON’T HELP US GO BACK TO THE ‘FACTS’ of Easter, because they all tell the story a little bit differently.    YOU CAN’T TAKE ONE SINGLE GOSPEL AND SAY, THIS IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED.    And there may be a GOOD REASON for this.    While many of us want only to focus on the facts, there might be SOMETHING EVEN MORE IMPORTANT  ABOUT EASTER THAN JUST REMEMBERING what happened?   I know that at a murder trial, or at any kind of death investigation, like the one from the missing Indonesian flight, the families of victims would desperately like to know what really happened so so they can have closure.  But what if for us, WHEN IT COMES TO THE TRUTH ABOUT EASTER, THAT IT IS NOT ABOUT HAVING ‘CLOSURE’, nor is it about only remembering or discovering what has happened in the past,  but what if truth about Easter is something altogether different?   What if Easter is FACTUALLY UNDISCOVERABLE ON PURPOSE?  What if it is good that they haven’t found the body?  What if it is good that nothing has ever been written down to prove that Easter actually happened?   And what if what Matthew is trying to say something dramatically more than physical when he tells us about the earthquake, about the angel, or about the guards shaking and quaking at the tomb?   Again, what if Easter has never been about about ‘what happened’ as much as EASTER IS ABOUT ‘WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW” AND WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN THE FUTURE that belongs only to God?  

Will Willimon has wisely pointed out:  "THERE ARE SO MANY WAYS TO "EXPLAIN" THE RESURRECTION.     BUT THE REAL THE POINT IS, WE CAN'T EXPLAIN THE RESURRECTION.    THE POINT IS THAT THE RESURRECTION EXPLAINS US!"

WHAT DO WE LEARN ABOUT US, OR OURSELVES, WHEN WE GET THIS CLOSE TO THE TOMB---whether it is empty or not?    There are all kinds of tombs, or graves around us.   There is SOMETHING DYING IN EACH AND EVERY ONE of us right now, whether we realize it or not.   That truth alone can make you shake like one of these guards.   My point is that I’M NOT ASKING YOU TO BELIEVE IN EASTER BECAUSE OF WHAT HAPPENED way back when, because, even with the gospels in our hands, it’s never most important that we go there.   Although the gospels do tell us that SOMETHING HAPPENED that can’t easily be explained.   Although they also tell us WHAT THAT SOMETHING WAS when the angels declare:  He is Risen!   But WHAT THESE GOSPEL DON’T AND CANNOT DO, IS IT TO REQUIRE that we LOOK STRAIGHT INTO THE STORY FOR OURSELVES.    They can make us wonder, but they can’t make us decide.   These gospels remind us that YOU’LL NEVER FIND EASTER BY LEARNING ABOUT WHAT TOOK PLACE OR BY LOOKING BACK.  Oh yes, we can see enough to get our CURIOSITY UP.  We can even see enough to cause us to WANT TO BELIEVE SOMETHING or even to make the story believable.   But just as no gospel finds Jesus in the empty,  you’ll not find him there today either.   You can only find Easter by feeling what caused these guards to shake with fear as they, for a moment, ‘became like dead men?’ (28:4).   HAVE YOU EVER FELT THE IMPACT OF EASTER LIKE THIS?

FEELING THE FULL IMPACT

Of course,  I don’t want you to have to experience an earthquake, nor see an angel, nor have to ‘shake’ and ‘be like dead’ to experience the impact of Easter.   But I DO WANT YOU TO KNOW IT!  I want you, yourself TO COME FACE TO FACE WITH WHAT EASTER really means, and what Easter really has to say to our own fears,  our own dying, and our own experiences of life and death.  What is it that can help us to feel the impact?

Someone has noted that the HOW WE KNOW THE IMPACT OF EASTER IS FOUND RIGHT IN THE STORY OF HOW THESE GUARDS also experienced (or failed to experience) Easter.   When these ‘guards’ felt the earthquake, saw the angel, and also saw that the stone had been rolled away,  they ‘shook like dead men’, but WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?    We are told later that ‘some of the guard’ went into the city and told the chief priests ‘everything that had happened’.    Then, the ‘chief priests give them ‘a large sum of money’ to make up a story that ‘someone stole him away while we were asleep’ (13).   “IF you tell this story we have made up,”  they explain to them, “we will protect you from getting into trouble” (14).   We read that then, these guards ‘took the money and did as was directed’ (15).   They did not wonder Jesus?  They no longer had to worry about getting in trouble.   WHEN THEY ‘TOOK THE MONEY’  THIS WAS THE END OF THE STORY.   They experienced some of the events of Easter, but Easter GOES NO FURTHER THAN HAVING SOME EXTRA MONEY JINGLING IN THEIR POCKETS.    Easter was a good story, maybe a true story, but this is as far as it goes.   

But for those who followed Jesus as ‘disciples’ EASTER GOES A BIT FURTHER, DOESN’T IT?   It was not just a story of an earthquake, an angel descending, or having a stone rolled away to reveal an empty tomb.    If the impact of Easter were just these things, no matter how dramatic,  some would have worshipped, but others would have just doubted (v. 17), like many still do today.  But WHAT IF THE IMPACT OF EASTER WAS SOMETHING ELSE?  What if the impact of Easter could STILL BE FELT IN OUR LIVES AND OUR WORLD TODAY?   What if what is MOST IMPORTANT TRUTH ABOUT EASTER IS NOT ‘WHAT’ HAPPENED then, but ‘how’ Easter still happens now?   Does your Easter dead end with the money, the new clothes, the festive celebrations and family events, or could the impact of Easter be something more---much more?

Nathan Mattox, has rightly said that the full impact of Easter for these disciples did not take place at the site of the empty tomb.   EASTER DOES NOT REALLY START UNTIL: ‘the disciples left the tomb (8)….and suddenly Jesus met them” (9),  saying,  “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me….”   The point is that the full impact of Easter will never be made by what has happened, it is about what will happen.  The full impact of Easter is not what was in the tomb, but it was about WHO ‘THEY MET’ ON THE ROAD.   And it’s not just that Jesus appears, but it’s WHAT JESUS SAYS that gives Easter its greatest impact.  

WHAT HAPPENS THAT MAKES EASTER REAL?   Well, the last thing we know in the gospel story is how all the disciples had deserted, shrinking away in fear.  They lied about their association with him. They betrayed him. But now an angel who "has the appearance of lightning" is telling us this man is back. Uh-oh!   But notice what Jesus tells the women, when he appears:  "Greetings! Tell my brothers to meet me in Galilee." (10) Did you feel the earthquake?   Jesus identifies his disciples who deserted him as  My brothers! Those may be the most important part of this story. MY BROTHERS.   WE DESERT JESUS, BUT JESUS NEVER DESERTS US.

The women become NOT ONLY MISSIONARIES OF THE RESURRECTION MESSAGE, but also AGENTS OF RECONCILIATION.    We may never get the full impact of the story if we are only looking for a Resurrection story.    Ultimately the STORY OF RESURRECTION FAITH ISN’T JUST A MATTER OF BELIEVING THAT A DEAD BODY CAME BACK to life.  The guards and the priests may have believed this as well, and were quick to work against the resurrection.   Because the story of Easter is NOT JUST ABOUT A DEAD BODY COME BACK TO LIFE,  but knowing the full impact of Resurrection faith IS KNOWING THAT THIS EVENT HEALS A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOU AND GOD.   It is the understanding that you are a “brother” or “sister” being summoned to go and live and to share the good news.  Dear friends, Matthew tells us that it’s not about“believing”something that happened in the past, but Easter is about what your faith means now?   WHAT MAKES YOU A ‘WITNESS’ OF RESURRECTION IS RECONCILIATION?   Only when you get right with God and others, can you feel the fullest impact of what God has done in Jesus Christ.

This story of RESURRECTION DOES NOT COMPEL US (in the West) US TO GO AROUND telling everyone that JESUS ROSE OUT OF THE TOMB.   PEOPLE MIGHT LOOK AT YOU FUNNY, even if they believe it.  But what this story of resurrection still does is call us to realize the full impact of Easter by BECOMING AGENTS OF RECONCILIATION.     Easter can shape us much more by ‘who’ we are and become, than by what we have believed or know.   What I mean is that Easter is MUCH MORE THAN WHAT HAPPENED THEN, but its about WHAT HAPPENS NOW.  

Now, EASTER MEANS YOU HAVE ANOTHER CHANCE to be the person God created you to be, and YOU CAN START DOING THAT AT ANY MOMENT, even after you think it's too late. Jesus has called you his ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ and friends too.   On the road of life and death,  JESUS MEETS US AND CALLS to tell us to MOVE AHEAD BECAUSE IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO SEE THINGS DIFFERENTLY.   BECAUSE EASTER MAKES RECONCILIATION WITH GOD AND WITH OTHERS POSSIBLE, THIS MAKES RESURRECTION BELIEVABLE.  The possibilities of redemption and reconciliation can still happen every day.   When we join in these moments, we can still see Easter all over again.

DOES THIS MEAN WE WILL FINALLY FIGURE EVERYTHING OUT?   No, of course it does not.   In this story, even when Jesus appeared in Galilee,  ‘some saw him and worshipped, but others doubted’ (17).  SOME WERE STILL TRYING TO FIGURE IT ALL out even when the Great Commission was handed to them.    EASTER IS NEVER ABOUT FIGURING EVERYTHING OUT.   Easter is about overcoming our fears.  Easter is about meeting Jesus.  Easter is about moving on beyond the cemetery.  Easter is about find reconciliation—with God and with others .  And one more thing:   Easter is not about overcoming all out doubts—either.   Easter is about having a faith that can handle our fears that is also big enough to handles all our doubts.     Easter is not about having perfect faith, but it is about a forgiving faith and trusting in Jesus and also obeying him, so that we can know that he is always with us. 

WHAT IS MOST EXCITING ABOUT EASTER?  Easter still shakes us to the core when we realize that  all our fears, all our doubts, and our sins are NO MATCH FOR JESUS.  This is what is most soul shaking.  Because Jesus is alive in us,  the story hasn’t ended.  Events of resurrection and reconciliation are still going on in your life and in mine.  WE TOO HAVE BEEN INVITED TO BE PART OF THE STORY which goes beyond the empty tomb to a having a full life of faith, hope, and love.

“Do not be afraid…..” 

Go tell…. 

Move on…  

You will see Jesus on the road….”   

And when you do, you will feel the full impact of Easter.   Amen.

(The idea for this sermon came from a blogpost by Natan Mattox:  http://nathanmattox.blogspot.com/2008/03/easter-sermon-its-how-you-believe.html)