Takoma Park Baptist Church, Washington, DC, March 26, 1989 (Easter Sunday)
When you see someone running, do not jump to any conclusions about why that person is running. If you see somebody pickin’ ‘em up and layin’ ‘em down, well, there could be a lot of reasons why. And it could have number of meanings, and so we ought not to assume that we know why.
Some run for the sake of exercise. I had thought that the jogging fad was about over until earlier this week when I drove my wife to the airport and had occasion to drive over Memorial Bridge toward the Pentagon. I thought I was in some third-world capital city in the middle of a revolution, to see all those people in military fatigues running every which way. Well, I guess we can sleep more soundly at night knowing that our country’s defense is in the hands of folks who know what to do with sweatbands and Reeboks. Running has many meanings.
And then there is running for the sake of running. Just running because running is running. I finally got around not too long ago to getting a physical examination. If all of 'you treated seeing the pastor the way I’ve treated seeing the physician, this room would have been empty for the last fifteen years. Anyway, they wired me up with an assortment of electrodes and put me on a treadmill, and they said, walk. And a moment later they said jog. And another moment or two later they said run; and then it was RUN, run, run, run. I caught a glimpse of an evil-looking grin on the technician's face about that time, and before you know it I was pounding away for dear life – couldn't stop, couldn't go fast enough, couldn’t do anything except hang on and cry for mercy. If they had asked me for my life savings, they could have had it all, all of it, all three dollars and sixty-two cents of it, because sometimes when you are running for the sake of running, and that’s all, you want out. You want out badly. “Stop the world, I want to get off.” So the title of a musical a few years back.
All kinds of meanings to the act of running. And then of course there is running because you are scared and panicked and you have to get away or you have to get somewhere else, or most of all, you have to tell somebody about it. You run sometimes just because something happens that you can’t handle, and you have to tell somebody. It just won’t stay suppressed. You just have to let somebody know.
The other night Senator Mark Hatfield and his family found themselves on the edge of a gun battle. He realized that if he stayed around it would be very easy to get caught in the crossfire, and so he ran. He put that car in overdrive and he ran. Everybody is a little surprised that he didn’t call the police and report it; you judge that, as you will. But I notice that he did report it. He did have to talk about it. He did not just tuck it away in his private life and forget about it. He ran and he reported to the Senate, reported to the press, reported to the public. When you run in a panic, the chances are you are running to report, you are running to share your panic with somebody who will listen.
Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. The text says “So she ran.” So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple. And she reported her panic and her fear. And we understand that kind of running now, don’t we? We can discern what is happening for Mary Magdalene; when something threatens you, when something happens that upsets your expectations, all you know to do is to run and report it, hoping that some other human mind can offer you a fresh perspective, hoping that the compassion of a friend can slow down your pulsing heart and can find a word of insight.
You see, sometimes destructive events happen to us so swiftly and in such rapid succession that we just cannot absorb it all. We just cannot make sense of it all. And we’re left without any anchor. The week had begun with the teacher entering the city in apparent triumph. The crowd had been waving the palm branches and had been cheering and shouting. And Mary had imagined that if Jesus had wanted to take over the temple, the city, the nation, the people would have supported him. But the events of the rest of the week had moved so swiftly: confrontations at the temple, acid questions from the lawyers, cryptic and puzzling statements from the teacher himself. And then in a dizzying whirl, with no time to think about it, a Passover dinner transformed into some kind of personal testimony about self-sacrifice. A rush of swords and kisses and· stamping feet on the Mount of Olives; cock-crow in the courtyard and whips and purple robes and thorns and the governor's public hand-washing. And before she knew what to think, a long, slow, painful procession up a hillside, the mind-searing sound of hammers pounding nails to rip young flesh; and three hours, three hours in which she had seemed to hold her very breath. How could it all have happened so fast?
I see Mary Magdalene, then, on this bright morning, running, running, running, in a panic. Who can take in all this? Who can absorb it? And when the stone is gone from the tomb and one more incomprehensible thing is added to all that has gone before – when that happens, you run and you report. You panic and you have to share it with someone. When your world has collapsed and you cannot handle it anymore, you run and you report. You know; I know. This is the panic that calls a radio talk show and starts spilling pain all over the airways, just for someone to talk with. This is the pain and the panic that makes someone on an airliner turn to his seat partner, whom he has never seen before and will likely never see again, and tell the whole story. There are times when in our lives it all comes to a climax and we have to run and find some shred of human compassion for ourselves. We run to report to find help when our lives go crazy.
So Mary Magdalene that morning. She ran and told Peter and the other disciple, and now watch what they did. They ran too. They ran and they saw the evidence, but what else? What else?
Peter and the other disciple went toward the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first; and stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw, and then the other disciple also went in, and he saw and believed.
Now get these lines: Then the disciples went back to their homes. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.
I wonder – did you catch the ironies in that? Here are Peter and John present with the evidences of something tremendous, something completely out of the ordinary, and they went back to their homes. They went back to their homes. At the climax point of all human history, and they went back to their homes. Blah. Just plain blah.· Wet blanket effect. Nothing, zip, nada. They went back to their homes.
And worse yet, they left Mary weeping outside the tomb. She had run to them only a few moments earlier, begging their help, hoping they'd have a word of insight, expecting they could help her in some way get past the panic that was gripping her. But not only did they go back to their homes, they also lost any semblance of compassion and care. It’s as if they didn’t even see her. Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.
The problem here is that Peter and John are dealing with nothing but head thinking, nothing but head evidence. They see the empty tomb, they look at the discarded clothes, it seems they even believed that Jesus had somehow been raised from the dead. But it doesn't transform them. It doesn't get down deep. It doesn't really make any difference. They see and hear and even accept the facts of the case, but something is still missing. There's nothing to run for; there’s nothing to report to anybody. No running, no reporting; and there isn't even anything to offer to a weeping woman waiting for some word of hope.
But, you see, we shouldn’t be surprised. A recent poll says that 96% of the American people believe that there is a God. 96% agree with the proposition that there is a God. But you and I well know that if believing in God made a difference, just agreeing to the idea of a god made a difference, well, we’d have no jails, we'd have no drug wars, we’d have churches bulging every Sunday, we’d have world wide missions on a grand scale. Seeing the empty tomb and smelling some discarded grave clothes doesn't quite get it. There’s something missing; there is an absent ingredient. What?
You say: I have my own faith. I know what I believe in. But what does it really do for you other than send you back home like Peter and John? What’s missing?
You say: I may not be the best Christian in the world, but I do consider myself a Christian. I feel I’m honest, I work hard, I try to love other people. Fine. Okay. But what does that do for the Marys who stand weeping outside your door? What does that do for a city in crisis? What does that accomplish for a world filled with violence and racism and political corruption and death? What’s missing? Something is.
The text has the answer: Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. And as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. She turned around and saw Jesus standing. Jesus said to her ‘Mary.’ and she said to him, ‘Rabboni’ my teacher; and Mary Magdalene went and said to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord.”
"I have seen the Lord." That, my friends, is the missing ingredient. I have seen the Lord, the risen Lord. A personal experience with Jesus the Christ. A living encounter with one who is not just an idea, not just a doctrine, not merely a nice way to live, but the living lord of life himself. And when you have that, it makes all the difference in the world.
Peter and John had the information, they knew the facts, but they had not yet encountered Jesus, risen, themselves. And so they went back home and left Mary forlorn in the garden. They needed a personal encounter if they were going to live effectively.
Mary herself had been in a panic, and she had earlier that morning seen just one more frightening sight, an empty tomb. She had run to report it and get some help, but now it was all different. There in the garden she had met the Lord himself, and now she was ready to run and report again. This time not to get help for herself but to tell the world that the Lord lives. This time to report, “I have seen the Lord.”
This morning you may be doing a whole lot of running. There may be a thousand things going on in your life, and just one more will send you over the edge and you’ll be like Mary Magdalene. You'll just have to tell somebody about it. You’ll just have to report it. You’ll just have to pour out your heart to someone. And that's good, that's right, I hope you will. The ministers of this church stand ready to do that listening if you want to trust us with it.
But I want to urge you: today, today, settle the issue. Do you have a relationship, an ongoing encounter, with the risen Christ? Do you know Jesus personally? Do you know him as more than an idea, more than a good man done in by bad people? Do you know him? Not about him buy him himself?
Because if you do not, you will walk out of here like Peter and John did. You will go back home and settle in for a nap and a basketball game and a whole lot of ho-hum, and it will do you no good at all. More than that, you will leave an awful lot of hurting people behind with no help from you and no sense that you can do them any good at all. Marys weeping in the garden.
But I tell you, if this morning you will open your mind and your heart to a God who lives, a Jesus who will call you by name as he called Mary – if you will receive a Christ whom you can truly call Master and Lord – then I tell you you will be able to run and to report to all the world, that there is hope. The one thing you must have is a relationship with the risen Christ.
An American reporter was talking with a Russian track coach about the fact that his athletes always seemed to get out of the starting blocks so quickly. In every race they appeared to have an edge because there was that split second interval and extra push from the starting blocks. The Russian coach offered an explanation, but it's a scary one: "Well, he said, you, see, our starting gun s are loaded with real bullets."
That's one way to run the race: scared that if you don't run it well, you'll get shot in the back. But I' d prefer to run it the way the notorious Wade Boggs does now. Having had his sordid sexual life exposed for everybody see, Wade Boggs found out that his wife, through the help of her God, is forgiving him. He’s experiencing sheer grace; and now, Boggs says, the only way he can play and play well is to look up 1n the stands, see her face, know how much he hurt her and yet how much she loves him and is there for him. And when he draws on that relationship, he can keep on breaking those batting records and he can run those bases faster than ever before.
Those who wait on the Lord, the living and risen Lord, shall renew their strength. They shall run and not grow weary. :
Seeing we are encompassed about by so great a cloud of witnesses let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus .. looking unto the risen Christ.
