BACK TO THE FUTURE
Scripture: John 20:1-128
FOCUS: It is only as we return to the tomb, find it empty and move forward that we come to experience the joy which is the message of Easter
Over the past few days many of us have been considering the events of Holy Week through the eyes of Peter. For me it was an enlightening and encouraging journey. Enlightening because, though I have read the story of Holy Week, the Passion narrative, many times I have never before followed it from beginning to end with an eye to the unique perspective of Peter. Peter played a central role in the events of the week. Indeed Peter was often at the center of the gospel narratives. And those stories are, in part, responsible for the encouragement I felt as we moved through the days toward the victory which is today, Easter Sunday.
Though Peter is a formidable character, he is also most vulnerable and very human. On Thursday we were reminded of the brash declaration he made as Jesus warned the disciples that they would all desert him. It was Peter who protested most loudly that he would follow Jesus to prison or to the grave only to deny even knowing him three times before the sun rose the next morning. It was Peter who along with John accompanied Jesus deep into the garden that same night. There Jesus had a simple request, that the two stay awake and pray as Jesus went further into the garden to pray alone. It was Peter who couldn’t stay awake, much less be in prayer for even a single hour that night. Three times Jesus gave him the opportunity. Three times Peter failed. It was Peter who, perhaps seeking to atone for his repeated foibles, in a moment of unrestrained exuberance, completely out of touch with the wishes of his Lord, sliced off the ear of the chief priest’s servant.
Excessive exuberance was nothing new to Peter during Holy week. It was Peter who, failing to comprehend the uniqueness of Jesus, sought to build shrines to Jesus, Moses and Elijah on the mountain after the transfiguration. It was to Peter that Jesus offered the opportunity to affirm his faith by walking to him on water. And it was Peter who began to walk but became afraid and lost faith as the winds began to blow and had to be rescued by Jesus as he began to sink beneath the waves. It was Peter who had the audacity to take Jesus aside and to chastise him for speaking the truth of his impending suffering, death and resurrection, declaring that such would never happen. It was Peter who took great pride in asking if he should forgive seven times, expecting to be offered praise for his wisdom and generosity only to be told that seven times was not nearly enough.
The pattern is pretty clear. Peter was often confused, frequently out of control, more than a little bullheaded and perpetually in need of discipline and correction. Sounds like some folks I know. Sounds like me. Sounds like all of you. But there is hope for us all, and that is precisely why we have gathered here this morning, to celebrate the hope and the victory which are ours because of what happened that first Easter morning. Peter didn’t understand at first, but eventually he came to embrace the amazing truth of all that had been accomplished.
Scripture doesn’t tell us much about what was going on with Peter or the other disciples after the crucifixion. None of them even participated in the burial. None of them took the time to properly prepare the body. None of them came forward to claim it. Perhaps they were afraid, after all they were known to be the closest associates of one who had just been put to death as an insurrectionist. I am certain they were disillusioned, for though Jesus had repeatedly foretold the events of Holy Week, laying out plainly what would occur, his followers expected his victory to be political and his kingdom to be of this earth. Now, with his death, their dreams were in shambles. So they most likely slipped away to lick their wounds and to ponder what was now a most uncertain future. Before they could move into God’s future they had to go back, back to the scene of their tragedy, back to look into the tomb.
As is often the case, it was the women whose hearts were first moved to action. All four gospels tell us that it was the women who first went to the tomb. We are told that Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James were among them. The details differ, but the basic story is the same. Moved with deep compassion and love, desiring to show their respect and to make sure the one they had followed was properly honored in death they went early in the morning in hopes of somehow finding a way to move the massive stone which secured the cave in which Jesus’ body had been placed. They arrived bearing spices with which to anoint the body. They arrived with heavy hearts. They arrived with a sense of duty.
One Holy Week detail that I had largely overlooked struck me as significant as I read the various accounts of the Passion narrative this week. I was intrigued by the fact that those closest to Jesus, those to whom, on several occasions, he had revealed clearly the nature of the suffering and death he would experience and of the victory which would be the end result, never gave resurrection a second thought once Jesus’ body was taken away. On the other hand the Jewish authorities certainly remembered the words of Jesus. Early the morning after Jesus was buried they went to Pilate, reminded him that Jesus had said that after three days he would rise again and asked that guards be assigned to stand watch and to insure that his followers did not come to steal the body in hopes of perpetrating a fraudulent resurrection. The faithful, the good church folk, either didn’t remember or didn’t believe what their own Lord and Master had said. But his enemies did and took action.
I fear that I, like those first century disciples, am at times so close to the truth that I fail to see it. Have you ever had that feeling? I think sometimes those of us who gather here regularly, who participate in many of the activities of the faith, we who some folks would say are good church folk, can become too familiar with the message, can live too close to the wonder, and as a result fail to be filled with awe, fail to be amazed by the enormity of the events which form the foundation of our faith. I think sometimes we, like those early followers, are guilty of hearing the message but not listening, of affirming the truth perfunctorily each Sunday then failing to live it out come Monday. So we need to travel through Passion Week, we need to come to Easter, we need to remember why we gather here in the first place, and we need to do so year after year.
We are told that Pilate approved the chief priest’s request. Yet as the women arrived at the tomb there were no guards to turn them away, there was no stone to be removed, and there was no body to be anointed. Three of the four gospels recall that the women arriving to find the stone already rolled away and the body missing. In Matthew’s rendering of the story we are told that the stone was miraculously rolled away before their very eyes. The details may vary, but the results certainly do not. In all of the gospel accounts the women see angels of some sort who announce unequivocally that the one they seek is no longer in the tomb, nor is he dead, he has been resurrected.
In Matthew, Mark and Luke, the women arrive at the tomb and are addressed by angelic creatures. In each case the writer reports that they are instructed to go quickly and to tell the disciples the good news. But in the Gospel of John there is a different and interesting twist. In John Mary Magdalene goes alone, or at least she is the only one mentioned. Perhaps there were others as the synoptic report, but John wants us to focus on Mary and her encounters. In John, Mary is goes to the tomb twice. It is on her return visit that she encounters the angel.
It had no doubt been a sleepless night for Mary. So many things going through her mind. It was as if her whole world was in danger of coming apart. It was still dark outside as Mary made her way to the tomb. It seemed right to her that she would make this solemn journey surrounded by the dimness of early morning. As she walked even the trees seemed to be wearing shrouds of mist. She had known many dark days in her life, most of them brought on by her own irresponsible behavior, but none were as bleak as this day.
As she walked, Mary remembered. She remembered the times of her youth when she thought that she could bring fullness to life by entering completely into all the things of the world. She remembered her relentless search for pleasure above all and the downward spiral which was its cost. She remembered how hopeless life had become, how meaningless. She remembered the despair which engulfed her just as Jesus came into her life. But most of all she remembered how the one to whose tomb she was now going had given her hope in the midst of her brokenness. She remembered how he had offered compassion at a time in her life when she had become accustomed to being treated only with disdain.
Mary remembered how he gave her what no one else could have. Jesus offered forgiveness. Then he had shown her the way to be made whole. He called upon her to repent, to put aside her foolish and sinful ways and to live a life governed by love of God and of all God’s people. He offered an abundant life, and abundant it had been until Friday.
As she approached, her thoughts were focused on the one whose lifeless body lay in the tomb. She was unprepared for what she found when she arrived. The massive stone which secured the cavernous gravesite had been moved. John reports that she immediately fled. It was unimaginable. She ran back to where the disciples were laying low, seeking to avoid the suspicious eyes of the authorities. “Someone has taken away the body of our Lord, and I don’t know where it is!” she said. She probably assumed grave robbers had been at work. There was a lucrative trade in items taken shamefully from the bodies of those recently laid to rest.
It is at this point that we again encounter Peter. Only he and John were moved to action by Mary’s report. They rushed out to the tomb, and entered to find it was indeed empty, save for the grave clothes which were neatly laid out where the body had once been. Only then did they begin to remember what Jesus had said, what scripture had foretold, and they believed. Eleven disciples ran away and were in hiding after the crucifixion. Only two were moved to action when they heard of the empty tomb. Only two returned to the city, only two went back and it was then that they came to understand the truth.
Yesterday I received the latest newsletter from Lori Nied, the missionary to Senegal we support. In it she writes, “Easter is my favorite time of year. For me it’s better than anything else. I suspect there are lots of reasons for this. It’s a little less commercialized than Christmas (though I did see the candy come out in stores on February 15th). The “season” is short (8 days from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday), so you have to enjoy it like a bouquet of fresh flowers before it’s gone. But I suppose that beyond anything else, it’s my favorite time because the whole of what I cherish about my faith and relationship with Christ is emphasized in three days. He took my punishment and died on the cross for me. He was buried, but on the third day was resurrected. And now He is in heaven interceding before God on my behalf.”
It was only as Peter returned to the site of the Passion that he came to understand the full meaning of the events. It was only as he came to understand all that Jesus did for him that he was enabled to move ahead, to face the future and to live into the glory of God’s kingdom. You might say he had to go back to get to the future. So it is for us, that is why we are here, some two millennia later. We need to go back to the cross. On Friday night the choir sang “Jesus, keep me near the cross.” We are indeed people of the cross, those redeemed by God’s grace, those called to remain near the cross. But we need also to go back to the empty tomb, there to marvel at the wonder of it all and to rejoice in the knowledge that Jesus is alive and as Lori reminds us is interceding for us in heaven.
Of course you can’t go back where you have never been. If you have never knelt beneath the cross, have never marveled at the wonder of the resurrection, have never come to a personal relationship with the risen Lord, I encourage you to make that commitment. Many of us have done that, some of us a long, long time ago. But I fear we are like those disciples who didn’t understand or didn’t remember, like the nine who missed the wonder of an experience at the empty tomb because of fear or skepticism. We may well need to go back to the cross, back to the empty tomb so that having revisited the story we can move boldly into the future, a future filled with God’s grace, a future marked by life abundant and eternal.
For your sake and for the sake of the kingdom of God, let it be so. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN
