April 4, 2010
John 20:1-18
A man is driving along a highway and sees a rabbit jump out across the middle of the road. He swerves to avoid hitting it, but unfortunately the rabbit jumps right in front of the car. The driver, a sensitive man as well as an animal lover, pulls over and gets out to see what has become of the rabbit.
Much to his dismay, he sees that the rabbit was carrying a basket with colored eggs in it . The driver feels so awful that he has run over the Easter bunny that he begins to cry.
A young lady driving down the highway sees a man crying on the side of the road and pulls over. She steps out of the car and asks the man what's wrong.
“ I feel terrible,"! He explains, "I accidentally hit the Easter bunny and killed it."
The lady says, "Don't worry."
She runs to her car and pulls out a spray can. She walks over to the limp, dead rabbit, bends down, and sprays the contents onto the rabbit.
The rabbit jumps up, waves its paw at the two of them and hops off down the road.
Ten feet away the rabbit stops, turns around and waves again, he hops down the road another 10 feet, turns and waves, hops another ten feet, turns and waves, and repeats this again and again and again, until he hops out of sight.
The man is astonished.
He runs over to the woman and demands, "What is in that can? What did you spray on that rabbit?"
The woman turns the can around so that the man can read the label.
It says..........."Hair Spray - Restores life to dead hair, and adds permanent wave."
Today’s reading is held in high regard by the revised common lectionary. It is listed every year as the gospel reading for Easter.
It is by no means the earliest account of the resurrection, btw according to most Biblical scholars, that honor belong to the apostle Paul in 1 Cor. 15:3-5, written in 55 AD, followed by Mark- 55-60 AD, then Luke-60 AD, next is Matthew-60-65 AD and finally John’s-85-99 AD, but it has been very influential, Numerous hymns and pictures have been inspired by this reading, throughout the ages not only because of its place in the RCL but because of John’s attention to dramatic and narrative detail.
Our reading starts off today with Mary Magdalene heading to the tomb while its dark….symbolism alert there, life without God is dark and dreary.
In all of the other Gospels, Mary Magdalene is accompanied by other women like Mary mother of James and Salome.
Back then, there were no such things as funeral home, so it was customary for the deceased loved one to come and anoint the body with perfume (remember the nard that we mention two weeks ago?)
Anyway, this was primarily more for the benefit of the loved ones. Anyone who has ever had a dead animal like a rabbit or a squirrel (heavens forbid it’s a skunk) lost in their yard somewhere knows that there isn’t enough perfume or spice in the world to cover up that smell; it was kinda their way of saying goodbye.
She arrives there and notices that the stone has been rolled away, out of sheer horror at the fact that someone had taken Christ’s body, runs and fetches Peter and John –AKA “the one whom Jesus loved”
Apparently John missed the part in the beatitudes where it says blessed are the meek and humble, they shall inherit the earth.
Let’s get back to Mary, we established a couple of weeks ago that her and Jesus were great friends, that when one hurt, the other did as well. She is called by some Biblical scholars the “unofficial” thirteenth apostle. So we KNOW that she has heard Jesus speak of his death and resurrection at least ONCE:
Luke 24:6-7 –two men in dazzling white suddenly appear to the ladies and say "He is not here, but He has risen Remember how He spoke to you (F)while He was still in Galilee, 7saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again."
One of his followers, one of his BEST friends, lacked the faith to surrender completely to the power of Jesus Christ.
Peter and John literally raced to the tomb and I think John did it out of sheer excitement and curiosity and Peter was trying to make up for denying Christ the night before he died by getting there first.
John got there first, saw the tomb was empty and stopped and then Peter ran in saw the wrappings. John then joined him and although they did not understand the OT scripture which foretold of his death and resurrection they BELIEVED in his resurrection….I don’t understand the flight manual for an F-117 stealth fighter, but I do believe they can fly.
Notice what they did, afterward, they simply went home. They believed YET they did NOTHING!!!!
When you do nothing to praise God, you are basically denying him what he wants and deserves.
6Sing praises to God, sing praises;
Sing praises to our King, sing praises
Psalms 47:6
Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth.
2Serve the LORD with gladness;
Come before Him with joyful singing.
3Know that the LORD Himself is God;
It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
4Enter His gates with thanksgiving
And His courts with praise
Give thanks to Him, bless His name.
5For the LORD is good;
His lovingkindness is everlasting
And His faithfulness to all generations.
Psalms 100:1-5
After Peter and John leave, Mary stood outside the tomb and wept, she eventually tells two angels who come along that they have taken away her Lord and she doesn’t know where he is.
She then turns around and sees someone there who she thinks is the gardener and asks him if he knows where Jesus is.
Before I continue, let me tell you this, the Hebrew word for conversion is shub, meaning to turn back or return.
The Greek word is metanoia which implies a 180 degree turning.
Jesus then said,”Mary!” which reminds me of what Jesus says in the parable of the Good Shephard:
I am the good shepherd…I have other sheep who are not f this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.
In verse 17 even after Jesus called Mary by name, she tried to physically confirm his presence, we don’t know what she tried to do, but what we do know is that Christ rebuffed her by saying “Jesus said to her, "Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father…”
He quickly follows that up in the very same verse with,
“ go to My brethren and say to them, 'I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.'"
In the last verse she went to the other disciples and announced what he had told her.
What happens on Easter day is that Christ fulfills his own (as well as the prophets) predictions. In other words, Jesus called his shot and makes it.
The reaction of Mary, Peter and John is pretty much a cross-section of Christians. Some of us believe in him but don’t praise or share him, hence denying him and then there’s some of us that say we believe and still have PLENTY of doubts and actually fear surrendering to him.
Do all of you know how to play horse? It is a basketball game where a player says exactly how he is going to shoot the basketball, i.e.-hook shot, jumper, left handed and in some extreme case whether or not it swishes or banks in; if it goes in, the next player has to make the identical shot, if he doesn’t, he gets a letter, starting off with the letter H. When you spell the word horse, you are eliminated from the game. The last person standing wins the game.
If you were playing horse with a guy or a gal and they call a shot right in front of the of the net and make would you be that impressed? No, not really, whether you’ve played basketball before or not, almost anyone can make that shot if not by skill, by luck.
Now, if you were playing someone and they said they were going to get a running start and leap from fifteen feet in front of the net and while in the air spin 360 degrees and then dunk the basketball; I believe every single one of us would stand there in amazement and say, that cat has some serious game and probably say ok you win, no need to worry about finishing this game and you would probably tell everyone you know about that shot.
If you can surrender to a guy who can call an amazing shot on a basketball court and then praise him around the water cooler the next week why can’t you do the same for Christ?
I’d say his resume warrants it. Jesus lived on this Earth a mere 33 years. During his brief time with us he did many things, he banished demons, he healed the sick, allowed the blind to see, allowed the deaf to hear, turned water into wine , fed “five-thousand “ with five loaves of bread and two fish, walked right through angry mobs that wanted to kill him unscathed, calmed a raging see with just one word, brought a man back from the dead, and not to mention the fact that he was born of a VIRGIN.
Then the coup de grais as the French would say, was that Christ said that he would suffer die and would be buried, and on the third day, he would rise again.
Did you hear what I said, he did all that and then single handedly defeated death!!
I’m sure most if not all of you are close to God, if you weren’t, you wouldn’t be here today, but how close are you really; enough to trust him with your life, your family, your money, your future? Then if you are REALLY close, do you praise him enough?
Before you leave here today, I challenge you to listen to Jesus as he says turn to me and be saved; turn around as Mary did and surrender to him.
I don’t mean a quarter of the way like some or even three-quarters of the way like others but I mean COMPLETE and UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER to him.
If and when you do this, you will truly know what a glorious day this is and you too will want to tell everyone you see that Jesus Christ is risen today, just as Mary did.
Amen
