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Elma United Methodist Church |
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We Just Can’t Believe It! |
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Elma United Methodist Church |
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We Just Can’t Believe It! Dan Shelly Elma United Methodist Church April 16, 2006 (Mark 16:1-15)
Some years back, my spouse & I were in Las Vegas, Nevada and while we were there, we wanted to go see a show. So we decided to go see Siegfried & Roy – two of the penultimate magicians and showmen of Las Vegas. Not only did we go to see their magic act, but we also wanted to see the white tigers that they used in their show. And I’m glad we got the chance to see them when we did, because several years ago one of the tigers panicked onstage and seriously injured Roy effectively putting an end to the show. But that night, we were right up near the front of the stage. Probably a little too close, because a lot of what from a distance looks like Las Vegas flash and glamour, looks a little too much like grease paint trying to make aging stars still appear youthful when you get up to the front. But I was glad to be up in front for a different reason. I wanted to be close to the stage to be able to closely watch their magic tricks and see if I could figure out how they did them.
Figuring out magic tricks has been a passion of mine since I was a little kid, because in his youth, my Father had been an amateur magician and all through my childhood, he was constantly doing little tricks like pulling quarters out of our ears or catching imaginary flies out of the air and making them appear on popsicle sticks. (Don’t worry Mom’s they were just ink drawings nor real flies) so I was glad we were right up front where I could keep an eye on Siegfried and Roy. And staring as hard as I could on all sides, looking for wires and mirrors, I had to agree that they were showing me a perfectly empty cage, yet seconds later it was filled with a 2000 lb beautiful white tiger. And the audience was amazed. No one could believe that this tiger was now filling the cage because moments before, we had all seen that it was clearly empty. We just couldn’t believe our Eyes!
And that’s what we hear going on in our gospel reading today. You see the women who came to the tomb early on Easter morning were the same women who had stayed with Jesus at the foot of the cross. They had seen their beloved Master and Teacher hanging there, beaten and bruised, condemned as a dissident, and cruelly executed by the Roman authorities. They had been there when he breathed his last and committed his Spirit into the hands of his Father, and they had been there when his body was hurriedly taken down, placed and sealed in a tomb just prior to the beginning of the Passover Sabbath.
Now that it was Sunday morning and as Sabbath ended with the sunrise, they came here to properly care and tend for Jesus’ body. They came to anoint his body for a proper Jewish burial. But when they arrived, they found that the large stone in front of the tomb had been rolled away. And when they dared to look inside, instead of the cold, dead body of Jesus, they saw instead a young man dressed in a white robe who announced to them the “Jesus of Nazareth, who they had all seen crucified, dead, and buried, was not here. He had been raised from the dead!” They quickly looked at the place where he had been laid and it was true. Jesus wasn’t there any longer, there was no body there! They could all see it, but they couldn’t believe their eyes. They just couldn’t believe it!
The angel instructed them to go tell Peter and the other disciples that Jesus was going ahead of them to Galilee and he would meet them there. But these women were terrified by what they saw and they heard there. They turned and they fled from the tomb, and the writer of Mark’s gospel tells us “they said nothing to anyone” about what they had seen and heard there. They were the very first people to hear the Good News of Easter, but they just couldn’t believe it!
Mark is the shortest and earliest of the synoptic gospels and in its’ earliest known manuscripts, this is where the writer finishes the story. The women are terrified by what they have seen and heard, they run from the tomb, and they don’t tell anyone anything. They just can’t believe it, and that’s the end of the story!
But thank God that God is faithful. Even when like those women at the tomb, we clearly hear and see God’s message of forgiveness and redemption. Even when through the life, the death, and especially the resurrection of Jesus on Easter morning, we come to understand how much we are loved by God – how we are seen not as horrible, fallen sinners deserving punishment – but instead as beloved children, brothers and sisters of Jesus. Often we just can’t believe it. We’ve seen with our own eyes how often we have fallen short of that description – how we’ve lied, and cheated others, thought badly of others, acted badly towards others and towards ourselves – and we identify more with those thieves who hung on either side of the cross then with Jesus himself. Out of love, God refuses to let that be the end of the story. God keeps coming to us time after time trying to break through our unbelief to get us to see ourselves the way we are seen by God.
And God kept working to break through to those early Christians as well. Jesus came and appeared to Mary Magdalene. He appeared to the one who had loved him so deeply, grieved for him, and was now in shock because even his body was gone. He came to her first, and showed her firsthand that God had raised him from the dead. That through his actions, death itself had been defeated and he asked her to go and tell the disciples the Good News. But what does Mark tell us?
But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it.
Several of the disciples then left and began journeying on the road to Emmaus. And along the way, they met a stranger who taught them from scripture all about God’s messiah and how he would suffer, die, and be raised again. Then as they ate with him and he broke the bread, they suddenly realized they were in the presence of the living Lord! Afterwards, what did they do?
And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them.
Finally, Jesus comes and appears to the gathered group of his disciples and Mark tells us:
He upbraided them for their lack of faith and stubbornness, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen.
His own disciples, hearing the words of their trusted friends, just couldn’t believe it. They’d seen Jesus, their master, dead and buried, and like that original writer of Mark, they were ready to end the story right there. They were ready to call it a day, fold up their tents, and go back to fishing. But I love that quote from Gracie Allen the wife of George Burns. And it’s a quote that has been appropriated by the United Church of Christ but I don’t think they’ll mind us using it to describe the message of Easter morning. She said, “Never put a period, where God has put a comma!”
Never put a period, where God has put a comma! The disciples thought that with the cross, the story of Jesus was over. But the Good News of Easter is that beyond the cross comes God’s resurrection. And the resurrection is where our story with Jesus begins. With the resurrection, our restored relationship as beloved children of God has just begun. And this is the Good News of Easter.
Even when we’ve given up on God and given up on ourselves, God still loves and calls us. And through the Holy Spirit, Jesus still encounters us time after time telling us we CAN believe it and we ARE beloved and treasured children of God. They thought Jesus was dead and gone, but as Psalm 118 tells us today, “The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” Jesus was the rock that was rejected, but the rock upon which God built a new relationship with the world.
And Jesus told his disciples, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.’ Go tell everyone of God’s love for creation, of God’s redemption and forgiveness, of God’s healing and wholeness freely given and displayed through the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus gave the Easter message to his disciples and he gives that same message to us today. He sends us to proclaim and to share God’s love with all creation. To care for one another and to care for the gift of the Earth with which we’ve been blessed, to care for all of creation. To live lives that show God’s love shining out of our hearts, made visible by our words and our actions.
Through the Easter message God tells us the story isn’t finished, but it’s only just begun. Through the Easter message, God calls us once again to believe what we so often declare is unbelievable; to do what we so often declare is unachievable; and to be the people we so often can’t believe we are – the beloved children of God.
Believe it, Receive it, and Proclaim it. For Easter Morning declares God’s love and acceptance for all – no exceptions and no exclusions. |