John 20:1-18
Acts 10:34-43
“Finally! Good News!”
by Rev. Ken Sauer, Pastor, Grace United Methodist Church, Soddy Daisy, TN www.graceumcsd.org
I don’t know about you folks, but I am getting sick of THE NEWS!!!
And I am one who has always had a sort of love affair with news.
As a young boy, I had a paper route.
I would get up really early every single day of the week, and a newspaper distributor would drop off a bundle of newspapers at the bottom of our driveway.
I always got kind of a thrill from being the first to read the headlines, and then being the one who delivered those headlines to all the neighbors!
When I got home from my newspaper route, before going to catch the bus for school, I would read the entire paper…
…and back then…
…especially the sports pages and the comics.
I remember the headline when Pope John Paul got shot. It took up just about the entire first half of the front page in stinging black letters:
Pope Shot!
And I saw that image over and over again as I delivered papers that morning.
I remember the headlines when a plane crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in Washington, D.C. and then fell into the icy Potomac River Below.
I remember when Reagan was shot.
I remember reading about the shooting and the death of John Lennon as I rode my bike and put papers between the storm doors of houses.
Later in college, I would write for the school newspaper, anchor the news on the school radio station.
Following college, I went off and pursued a career in television journalism…working as a reporter for ABC and CBS news affiliates.
Yet, I must say, “I am really getting sick of the news!”
With our 24/7 Cable News Networks we get bad news non-stop…and it’s the same stuff over and over again!!!
We hear about the scandals our politicians sometimes become embroiled in, and then we have to learn every steamy, depressing bit of detail.
I even asked and received for Christmas this year, from Jeanne, Newsweek Magazine so I could read more in-depth analysis of the stories I’ve been reading and hearing about all week!!!
Am I a glutton for punishment?
What did Barack Obama do this week?
How about Hillary and John McCain?
Who’s slinging the most mud?
Who’s being naughty; who’s being nice?
Who’s ahead in the latest poll?
Oh, I think I’m finally getting sick of it…
And then there is the Iraq war and the terrible state of the economy…
…uggh!
I’m sick!
I’m sick of reading and hearing about the greed, the disregard for human life, the terrible state of humanity, and how awful we are capable of acting toward one another!!!
I’m sick!!!
But as we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ we come upon some Good News!!!
Finally!!! Good News!!!
That’s what the word Gospel means: Good News!!!
Would people buy a paper if all it had were good news?
I don’t know.
But people have been keeping the Bible on top of the Best Seller List since they started making a list…
…and the Bible is filled with Good News!!!
When you get sick of the news that the world is spewing at you…sit down, open your Bible and read, and take notes in a journal and as you do this you will find yourself becoming truly filled—filled to the brim with Good News…
…Good News which lifts you up, transforms your life, and makes life worth the living!!!
The news department of almost every television station dubs itself: Eyewitness News, and the apostles and the women were eyewitness reporters to the greatest news in the history of the universe!!!
In our Lesson from Acts Peter is an eyewitness news reporter, telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ who is Lord of all.
Peter reports: “We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem.
They killed him by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen…
He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead.
All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives the forgiveness of sins through his name.”
And the 44th verse informs us that while Peter was giving this eyewitness news update…this breaking news… “the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message.”
When was the last time the Holy Spirit came upon you as you listened to and watched eyewitness news and breaking news on CNN, Fox or MSNBC?
…not that it couldn’t happen…
Anyhow, Peter gave an eyewitness news report in Acts…but Peter wasn’t the first one on the scene nor was Peter the first one to share the Good News of Christ’s Resurrection!!!
As we see in our Gospel Lesson for this morning from John—it was Mary Magdalene who went to Jesus’ tomb early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark and was an eyewitness to the fact that the stone had been removed from the entrance.
She was also the first eyewitness to the Resurrected Christ---for she is the first person Jesus chose to appear too.
Jesus is so cool.
Close to 2,000 years before the woman’s liberation movement allowed woman the right to vote and to have many of the same privileges of men…
…long before women were actually thought of as having any intellectual or moral worth…
…long before women had any rights whatsoever…
…in a day in time when women were the property of men and there was a real debate going on as to whether or not women even had souls…
…Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lord’s, God in human form…
…chose to reveal Himself first to a woman!!!
Everything that Jesus Christ did—down to the very minute details were radical to the core!!!
And Christ is still working this way today.
If we find ourselves caught in some sort of “status quo” religion…
…if our faith is not stretching us and taking us to new and unexpected heights, in the name of and for the sake of Love…
…if our faith is not causing us to embrace all people—whether they look like us, think like us, live like us or whatever…
…then we might probably want to take a closer look at the radical nature of Christ and Christ’s inclusive love for all humanity!!!
Are we following the leading of the Risen Christ or not?
Is the God of Love directing our actions?
Do we harbor any discriminatory patterns of thinking when it comes to persons who are different than we?
If so, we need to ask Christ to take those thoughts away from us…
…for they are born from nothing but hate and fear and insecurity…
…and none of those things come from the One who looked Satan, hell, and death right in the face and overcame them all—for the salvation of the world!!!
Wouldn’t it be exiting to get some more color added to Grace United Methodist Church?
Mary Magdalene was a colorful person.
We don’t know a whole lot about Mary.
Some folks believe she was the woman caught in adultery in John Chapter 8…
…the woman whom the people were about to stone until Jesus stepped in and said, “If anyone of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”
But we are not sure about that.
We do know that Mary had been a very sick and troubled person.
And we do know that Jesus took time to be with her—to spend quality time with her.
Jesus loved Mary Magdalene sickness, sin, self-doubt and all!
And as Mary Magdalene received and accepted the love and friendship of Christ…
…she began to become transformed…
…we are told that in all Mary had been possessed by seven demons…
…but the love of Christ and her experience of the love of Christ drove those demons out!!!
Luke Chapter 8 tells us that Mary “traveled about from one town and village to another—along with the twelve disciples and several other women as Jesus proclaimed ‘the good news of the kingdom of God.’”
So Mary learned her news reporting skills from the Master Himself!!!
But beyond that, Mary was a very marginalized person—by society and by the religious establishment of her day…
…and Jesus loved her, took her in, accepted her and included her in the most important mission that has ever and will ever take place!!!
There can be no doubt that Mary was a colorful person.
If Mary were living among us today, what might she look like?
What demons would possess her?
She might look like a scary biker chick with tattoos up and down her arms and piercings all over her face and body.
Or she might look like a lonely homeless person pushing a grocery cart across the street in downtown Chattanooga.
Perhaps she would look like a goth kid, or an emo kid…
She might be black.
She might be Hispanic.
She might be Caucasian.
She might be one of those folks who walk up to us and ask us for money for a bus ticket or for food.
If Mary lived among us, what kind of lifestyle would she lead?
Would it be acceptable to us?
Perhaps she would be a prostitute.
Maybe she would be an alcoholic or a crack addict or someone addicted to meth-an-phed-o-meins.
Would she be married?
Would she have a “life-partner”?
Would she have children?
Would we take time with her.
Would we love her, no matter how she looked, no matter what she was presently doing, no matter what?
Would we be excited to see her walk through the doors of our church?
I cannot think of anything more exciting!!!
Wouldn’t it be exciting to get some more color added to Grace United Methodist Church?
It can happen.
And it will happen if this is what we seek.
If we want to truly follow the resurrected Christ…many of the folks we will come to know and love will be people like Mary.
If Jesus were in high school, which table in the lunchroom would He sit at?
Would Jesus be hanging out with the jocks?
Would Jesus be spending His time with the rich kids?
Would Jesus be in with the crowd that plays the popularity game?
Or would Jesus be sitting with the kids who don’t quite fit in…
…the marginalized…
…the freaks…
…the druggies…
…the depressed…
…the laughed at…
…the helpless and hopeless…
…the harassed…
…the lonely…
…the quite ones…
…the insecure ones…?
If we really want to be disciples of the Resurrected Christ Grace United Methodist Church is going to become a lot more colorful and a lot more fun!!!
Mary was crying outside the tomb on that first Easter morning.
And then Jesus came to her.
“Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
And of course, she was looking for the body of Jesus, which she thought someone had taken away.
Then Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
And at that Mary turned to Jesus and cried out!!!
After this occurred, “Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news,” she went to the disciples with the eyewitness and breaking news…
…the greatest news anyone could ever share or hear…
… “I have seen the Lord!”
What were you like when Christ accepted you…
…when the Risen Christ appeared to you?
What were you like when the Risen Christ let you know that He loved you…
…warts, sins and all?
Jesus Christ is an inclusive Savior, and we, as Christ’s Church must be inclusive as well!!!
Mary and the disciples shared the Good News about the Resurrected Lord with the rest of the world.
They were eyewitness news reporters!
What can we do, as Grace United Methodist Church, to be reporters of the Good News as well?
How can we “get the word out” that we want to be one of Christ’s colorful churches?
What can we do to “get the word out” that we seek persons with messy lives—the marginalized, the outcast, the poor, the disenchanted, the disenfranchised, those who doubt, those who have been hurt by “the church”…
…that we seek to live in the kind of community that does not pass judgment, but instead, embodies the riches of God’s kindness, tolerance and patience toward all?
There’s too much bad news in the this world.
It’s wearing everybody down!!!
Let’s be one of the Good News Churches!!!
Let’s live into what it means to be people of the Resurrection…
…doing the work of the Kingdom of God on earth as it is done in heaven!
Amen.
