An Easter Sunday Message

In lieu of a more formal post, I thought I'd post my Easter message from today.

“Do You Fear the Risen One?”
Mark 16:1 – 8

Introduction—Back from the Dead?! C’mon!!

On a lot of TV shows it’s not uncommon for a major character to die and then later to re-appear, having somehow miraculously escaped death’s clutches or having mysteriously been brought back from the grave through supernatural means. You see this in science fiction shows quite often. And I’m pretty sure it happens in soap operas. It’s probably become so common that most of us, if we ever make a habit of watching such shows, are no longer surprised at such plot twists. We almost expect them, even if there’s a part of us that when it happens thinks, “Aw, c’mon! Give me a break! The guy was dead!”

As common as this is, though, I suspect most of us would be wholly unprepared if we were to walk into a room and find ourselves face to face with someone we know to be dead. Think about it. How would you react if you were to encounter someone you thought—indeed, believed!—to be dead? I mean, assuming you didn’t have a heart attack and drop dead yourself, once you regained your consciousness and picked yourself up off the floor, what would you think? What would you say? What emotions would be swirling around inside you? How would such an experience change you? How would such an experience change your life?

Keep these questions in mind as we look at Mark’s resurrection account—and in particular on the experience of the women who went to Jesus’ tomb to anoint his body. Because as much as today is indeed a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, and a celebration of the new life we can have in him, I wonder if our text suggests that sometimes we’re less comfortable with an empty tomb than we’d care to admit! Perhaps it even frightens us a little—perhaps it ought to!

Wholly Unprepared for the Holy

Our story begins on the third day—Sunday, the first day of the week. On the previous Friday Jesus had been crucified and buried, and this had all happened before sundown, the official start of the Sabbath. Three women—Mary Magdalene, Mary (James’ mother), and Salome—make their way to Jesus’ tomb the first chance they get. They would have to have waited until the end of the Sabbath, which would have been sundown the night before. So, at the crack of dawn they go, bringing spices to anoint Jesus’ body.

Stop right here for a moment. Think about this for a second. These three women, companions of Jesus, are traveling to his tomb expecting to see his body. Makes sense, right? Jesus was dead, after all. There was no doubting the facts of his crucifixion and its consequences.

The Rabbi and Lord they had followed for so long had been executed by order of Pontius Pilate two days ago. But because of the haste with which he had to be buried, since the Sabbath was near, there had been no time to anoint and prepare the body. So now is that time—and, of course, his body would still be there. Where else would it be?

So the women clearly expected Jesus’ corpse to be lying on a stone slab in this tomb. But the question is: why? After all, had he not told them that on the third day he would be raised? Had they believed all his words but not these?

And if we wonder whether these specific women were privy to Jesus’ prediction of his own resurrection, look at what the angelic figure tells them: “Tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” Just as he told you were the angel’s words. They should have known, right? Should they not have expected an empty tomb?

But either what Jesus had said hadn’t sunk in or it just seemed impossible to believe or maybe it was too much to process. Certainly the disciples were not known for grasping with great ability Jesus’ teaching on his resurrection—why would it be any more so with these women?

As prepared as they were to anoint Jesus’ body, they were wholly unprepared for this body not to be there—they were, you might say, wholly unprepared for the holy! For indeed, the resurrection of Jesus is a holy moment, a moment, an occasion, during which God’s glory explodes into our world.

Which one of us could have been prepared for this? Had we lived in that day, and had we been aware of Jesus’ predictions of his resurrection, I think all of us would no doubt have been caught just as unawares as everyone else. No one really expected Jesus’ resurrection.

But, the question is, what happens when the unexpected actually does happen? What happens when God does something so wholly surprising and so beyond the realm of our common experience that it comes at us sideways and we’re left bewildered and filled with awe? Has that ever happened to you? What has God done that you never expected? What happens when life opens up to horizons you’ve never glimpsed? Let’s look at what happened to the women—what was their reaction to what God did?

“For they were afraid”

So the women get to the tomb and discover that not only had the large stone covering the entrance been rolled away, but that an angelic messenger was present. He says: “Don’t be shocked by this, but this Jesus that you’re here to anoint isn’t here anymore—God raised him from the dead! He’s alive! Remember him telling you this would happen? No? Well, that doesn’t matter now. Go, and tell all the other disciples! Tell them Jesus will meet them in Galilee!”

So what do the women do in response to this? Our text says: “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

Terror. Amazement. Fear. These are the words that describe what these women felt. The word for terror implies trembling. The word for amazement could also mean bewilderment. The word for fear means exactly that: fear.

These women were shaking in their sandals. They were scared-stiff. They were terrified. And they did what any sensible and frightened person would do—they got out of there! They ran!

But why fear? Why this reaction to what should have been a wonderful revelation?

I think that there’s something to the idea of the-fear-of-the-Lord, that sense of holy awe when we come close to mystery, when something of God’s glory is revealed and, whether we hear a voice say so or not, we realize we should take off our shoes because we tread on holy ground. In this way, the empty tomb stands in the same category as Moses’ fiery bush, Elijah’s cave, and Isaiah’s moment in the temple. Indeed, I think we lack this fear-of-the-Lord much of the time.

But of course the women didn’t take off their shoes. They didn’t fold to their knees in reverent prayer. It doesn’t say that they spoke in hushed tones. They ran as fast as their feet could carry them!

And so I also think they were frightened—and unsurprisingly so—because they were completely unprepared for this moment. As we said, they expected Jesus to remain dead and buried. There’s no hint, no suggestion, no mention of the possibility that anyone actually thought that maybe there was something to this whole resurrection thing, and that come Sunday the tomb would be empty and they’d have something to celebrate.

And maybe they were terrified by more than this—by more than simply the unexpected nature of Jesus having been raised. Perhaps they were scared by what this meant; that is, if Jesus is alive, what does this mean? What does this change? What does this say about life?

“Just as Christ was raised . . .”

I think a lot of people resist placing their faith in Christ not just for reasons of the mind but for reasons of the heart. Yes, they may have reasonable questions about this or that aspect of the faith that keep them from taking further steps, but what really holds them back is what it would mean for their lives.

It means they would have to change—if Christianity is true, if Jesus has been raised from the dead, then that makes all the difference in the world. Easter, if what it says is true, changes everything. So people instead choose to run from the empty tomb, from the words of the angel.

And it’s true. If Jesus has been raised—and there is every reason to believe he has been!—then that changes everything. It means I can’t live as I’ve lived. It means I have to re-adjust everything. It means all the categories by which I have understood life have to be re-organized. And it means I have to be willing to change—to let God in and let him change me.

In Romans 10:9 Paul says this: “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” You will be saved. There are two questions, one more obvious than the other, that come to mind when I hear these words: first, the more obvious one, saved from what? And second, saved for what?

The first question—saved from what—speaks about the consequences of being saved or not saved: either be reconciled to God or separated from God. By believing in and confessing Jesus as Lord and that he was raised from the dead, I am saved from the consequences of my sin, of my wrongdoing, of all my mistakes. I am saved, in short, from eternal separation from God, what the Bible calls Hell.

The second question—saved for what—speaks about the purpose of our being saved. It speaks about how my life now is impacted by the reality of Jesus’ resurrection. In Romans 6:4 Paul says this: “Therefore we have been buried with him [Christ] by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

And this newness of life Paul speaks of here is not eternal life—not life after death once Jesus returns. No, he is speaking of our life in Christ here and now. That is, as a consequence of accepting the reality of that empty tomb and the risen Christ our lives change in the present—maybe not altogether right away, but noticeably, demonstrably, by the power of God at work in us, the same power that brought Jesus back from the grave.

But some people don’t want to change the way they are. Some people fear change. This is true of both unbelievers and believers alike. Unbelievers are resistant to the first steps of that newness of life Paul speaks about. Believers can be resistant in allowing it to really take hold of them and draw them upward towards greater maturity in Christ. In both cases, the empty tomb can be more of a threat, a source of fear, rather than a promise and a source of joy and assurance.

So, where I am going with this? I think it’s possible that the women ran from the tomb, that the fear they felt, had to do with what his would mean for them if it were true.

They hadn’t expected this. Had they wanted it? We know eventually, once the risen Jesus appeared to the disciples, that joy overcame fear—but in this moment perhaps they feared how this would necessitate change in them.

What about you? Do you fear the risen Lord? What is your reaction to this empty tomb? Is your impulse to run away, frightened at what it might mean for how you live your life now? I suppose all of us have had this feeling here and there—none of us naturally wants to change to accommodate God’s will for our lives.

Conclusion—Facing Our Fears

Let me say this: this Jesus, the one who lived 2,000 years ago is presently alive and in our midst. He is present to us by his Spirit. He is here. And he is here because he was raised from the grave by God the Father. I can’t claim to completely understand this. But let’s just say I am grateful that my heart can accept what my mind can’t fathom!

That Jesus was raised from the dead—that there was an empty tomb on that first Easter Sunday—means that everything about Jesus is true: all he said, all he taught, all he did, all he claimed.

It means that this Jesus was, as Paul says in Romans 1:4, “declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead.”

It means, astonishing as it sounds, that this Jesus is presently at the right hand of God the Father in heaven. It means that this Jesus is coming back to judge the living and the dead: you, me, everyone. And ultimately it means that this Jesus is trustworthy, that you and I can place our faith in him and not be disappointed.

Where does this leave us? Former US President Roosevelt once said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself!” And I want to say that this is especially true here. I already said that eventually these very women felt their fear cease. They and the other disciples encounter the risen Jesus—he comes to them, assures them, comforts them, and reveals himself to them. In the presence of the risen Lord, fear evaporates.

This happens for us too when rather than simply finding ourselves face to face with the absence of Jesus in the tomb we find ourselves face to face with the presence of Jesus in our hearts—when we allow ourselves, willingly, believingly, to confess Jesus as Lord and believe in our hearts that he has been raised from the dead.

This can only happen for us when we face our fears rather than run from them, and run instead towards the Risen One who, with his perfect love, as Scripture tells us, drives out our fear.

Jesus’ resurrection, because it is true, changes everything, including us if we would but allow this living Jesus into our hearts and lives. And we will find that once we do—either for the first time or once again in a fresh way—that all of our reasons for fear disappear like that body in the tomb; and we will find, then, that all that is left is life, newness of life, eternal life, and that we too, like Jesus, will one day be raised and revealed in glory.

Why I'm Sometimes a Closet Gnostic (or Why the Incarnation Necessitates a Spirituality of Earth-Bound Realism)

Sometimes I’m a closet Gnostic. Put another way, sometimes, I must confess, I wish there was something to Gnosticism.

But before I go any further, let me first explain the term “Gnostic.” Without getting into a lot of scholarly detail, Gnosticism comes from the Greek term for knowledge, gnosis. It refers to a collection of religious groups that emerged in the first decades of Christianity. Here are a few details about Gnosticism. If any of you out there are NT scholars or experts on this subject matter, feel free to correct any errors or oversights. I’m not aspiring to academic perfection at the moment.

The first identifying characteristic of Gnosticism—as indicated by its name—is that it is a form of spirituality and religious practice that is based on secret knowledge into which its members have to be initiated. It’s about being in the know, and is elitist: “I know something that you don’t know!”

Another element that is characteristic of most forms of Gnosticism is its disdain of the material world. That is, this is a form of spirituality that says our bodies, our physical existence, all of our earthly entanglements, are bad. People practice Gnostic forms of religion in order to escape and achieve freedom from the physical and material.

This is the aspect of Gnostic religious practice that, in opposition to sound biblical theology, I unconsciously (and occasionally consciously) long for: a spirituality, a form of religious practice, a faith commitment, that frees me from all of the earth-bound considerations that face us every day by virtue of living in the world that God has made.

So in what specific sense do I sometimes long to be Gnostic?

Let me say, to begin, that life is messy. Life can be complicated. Life can be difficult. Each of us is implicated—unless we practice isolationism of some form!—in a multitude of relationships: families, neighbours, co-workers, fellow church members, friends. And the more people are involved in our lives, the more relationships we are in, the more likely we are to experience just how messy and complicated life can be.

Here’s an analogy that is close to home for me. Our house, especially right now with getting used to our new twin boys, is often messy and cluttered. There are kids’ toys in most rooms. Piles of clutter decorate various surface areas. There is always some house work to do.

Now if I lived on my own—if I were single—no doubt I could keep my house clean pretty easily. For example, if I were single, it would be considerably easier to keep my bathroom clean. But because I have a wife and a few kids (admittedly, the twins are less able to contribute directly to our mess!), it is considerably more difficult to keep the bathroom clean.

Here’s the thing: I would absolutely love it if my bathroom (not to mention the rest of my house) were mess-free and pretty much always clean. But only if I were on my own would this be remotely possible. As time progresses and my twin boys grow from infancy to toddler-hood to adolescence, it will be even harder to keep our house as I’d like.

So here’s the choice: a full, loving family or a clean house, a network of meaningful, intimate relationships or a home free of mess. You see, the former will not lead to the latter. Avoiding the former is the only way to (potentially) avoid the latter.

The quandary is as follows: most of us aren’t terribly fond of mess, either in our homes, our relationships, or in our churches. So we try and manipulate these various realms of life so that we can minimize the mess as much as possible; to do so most successfully means having to avoid relationships of consequence altogether.

Apply this to spirituality or faith practice. Because of life’s complications and entanglements, we often hope, whether we realize it or not, for some form of release or escape from these complications. Often this is why we pursue religious practice. We think that being religious may allow us to transcend or get away from all those things that cause mess in our lives.

I know that I can sometimes feel this way. I want to be able to pray away life’s messes. I want, as a closet Gnostic, to have a form of spirituality that separates me from all these messes rather than one which helps me in the midst of them. I want a relationship with God that helps me walk on clouds all day rather than one which keeps my feet planted on terra firma. I want my bathroom clean, in other words.

We can’t have God without other people. The greatest commandment is “Love the Lord God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and all your strength,” and the second is very much like it, “Love your neighbour as yourself.” You can’t have one without the other. The letter of 1 John makes this crystal clear: “Those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen” (4:20).

But to love other people means having to accept the likelihood of messes.

In fact, God himself accepted the likelihood of such mess too. The opening of 1 John testifies to the fact that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh: “We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it.”

When John speaks about what was from the beginning, what was heard, seen, and touched, the life that was revealed, he is talking about Jesus Christ, the Son of God made flesh. He is talking about the fact that the Second Person of the Trinity—the Godhead—took on flesh, bone, and blood, and did so as the ultimate expression of divine love and grace, and in so doing, revealed the heart of God.

At the start of his Gospel, John puts it this way: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” Peterson, in his paraphrase The Message, says, “The Word became flesh and moved in to the neighbourhood.” I like that. God moved in next door, across the hall, across the street. God, in Jesus, is in the neighbourhood. Theologians call this the doctrine of the incarnation: God made man.

That this is so means that God takes with ultimate seriousness our physical, material existence and that our relationship with him is not about escaping this reality but living in relationship with God in the midst of this reality.

Gnosticism doesn’t sit comfortably with the incarnation. Incarnational theology, in contrast with a Gnostic theology, practices a faith of involvement and engagement rather than escape and avoidance. It is more apt to dive into the mess than run away from it. For some of us human beings, this takes getting some used to.

Incarnational theology brings us back to the Genesis-affirmation, when God said: “It is good,” speaking of the world he made. Bringing our world into existence was not an accidental by-product of some other divine act but an act of divine will and purpose, an expression not of God’s need for human beings and a universe but rather of his desire to have a creation to share in the love that he enjoys in himself from all eternity.

So God made this world and said, “It is good.” He also entered this world. The Word became flesh and moved into the neighbourhood. And to love God—to live truthfully—we also have to love one another, and there’s no way to do this and avoid life’s messes at the same time. There’s just no way, no matter how much I may sometimes wish there were, to be a follower of Jesus—the Word made flesh—and indulge my closet Gnosticism at the same time.