There is a rumor going around that no one seems able to stop. In spite of the many people who have tried to stop the rumor, and offer evidence against it, it seems to be growing. The rumor is incredible, but in spite of that there are a great many who accept it as true. It actually started a long time ago, but there are more and more who believe it as time goes on. It is not a bad rumor, in fact it seems to change people for the good and change the way they look at life. It seems to add a new dimension and hope to their existence. The rumor seems to have a transforming power in the lives of those who believe it. Several years ago I began to believe the rumor myself, and felt it changing me and the way I think. It affected my values. The things I used to think were important are no longer important to me. And along with the other people who believe this rumor I believe that no matter how difficult life becomes my life has hope and meaning. I believe that my life is absolutely secure and that I will live forever, and so will those I love who also believe the rumor.
The rumor was started by a couple of women. No one believed them at first. They cast it off as nonsense. And just to prove that they were wrong, and because they wanted to be able to explain what really happened, some of the men went to check out their story. But the more they tried to explain the rumor away the more they became convinced themselves that it was true. Here they were, grown men, and believing the unbelievable. The rumor was validated to them when after they believed, Christ appeared to them and confirmed the truth of the rumor. He was alive. Death could not hold him. They had to see that he really was God after all. No one but God could come back from the grave. Not only was he still alive, but he obviously possessed a health that far surpassed their own. There was something invincible about him. But his body was very real. They could touch him, and he ate with them.
They had seen him raise other people from the dead, but it was understood that they would eventually die again. But there was something different about this rumor. Somehow they knew that death would never again touch him. The rumor was true: Jesus Christ had died, but rose from the dead to live forever. He was also promising that because he was alive forevermore that we would live as well. There awaited, for those believing his promise, eternal life. If the rumor is true there is no need to fear death. For death is only the deterioration of shell of flesh which has housed our spirit, and the spirit will live on and gain a new body that will never die.
I visited Howard Cullen in the hospital this week. Because I asked he told me of some of the physical problems he has and about his constant battle with pain, which he never without. I said to him, “There is a rumor going around that we are going to have new bodies some day.” Without missing a beat he said, “I believe that and I’m counting on it. I’ve already signed up for it.” He believes the rumor.
It is a rumor, but if the rumor is true it matters little whether our existence is easy or difficult, for whether we live or die we are the Lord’s. His love will someday remove us from a dying world and place us in a world that does not know death. The apostle Paul put it like this, “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed — in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.” It is a rumor, but if the rumor is true there is nothing about which we need to worry, and there is a great deal about which we should be excited. The rumor is that he is alive forever, and his promise is that I can live forever. Someday this dying flesh will fall away and I will be clothed with immortality. Someday every tear will be wiped away from my eyes, every fear will be taken from my heart, every hope turned into reality, and every expectation fully realized.
There is a rumor going around, and for some that is a rumor too good to be true. Even for those who knew Jesus best it was too good to be true. The words of the women seemed like an idle tale. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus did not believe the rumor. They heard it like the others had, but they could not bring themselves to believe it. They did not believe it until they had their eyes opened and saw him themselves and shared a meal with him. We have the name of one of them: Cleopas. His companion was more than likely his wife, Mary. We read about her in John 19:25: “Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene.” She is the wife of Cleopas, but more importantly, she had been at the cross and witnessed the horrific scene. She needed encouragement and assurance. She had heard the rumor and needed to know that it was true.
The whole event reminds us of Abraham as he entertained angels, but thought they were just men (Genesis 18). They told him something that seemed to be too good to be true. They said Sarah was going to give him a son. They laughed at the angels. But that boy did come and they called him laughter. Laughter entered their world. Cleopas and Mary entertained Jesus but were unaware of who he was until laughter entered their world. The Bible says, “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2). I suspect that is true of us. Jesus has been right next to us and we didn’t even know it. We go about our business as though the rumor is not true. Just when Jesus seems the most absent may be the time when he is most present. Mary and Cleopas were in the depths of depression and despair. They had lost hope and were trapped in their misery. Not many days ago they had been full of the excitement of life, and now any enthusiasm they had for life was gone. Hope was crushed and despair reigned. As he opened the Scriptures to them, their hearts began to burn with the heat of hope. But it was in the meal, the breaking of bread where their eyes were opened and they saw that the rumor was true.
And that is what we need: Scripture and Eucharist. We learn about Jesus in the Scriptures (in the Old Testament as much as the New), but we experience Jesus in the meal that he told us to celebrate. We find Christ in communion. John Wesley’s mother had been a Christian her entire life, but it had never become real to her until, at the Communion Table, the Words, as she explained, “struck through my heart, and I knew God for Christ’s sake had forgiven me all my sins.” You see we need more than knowledge. The Christian life is not just a set of beliefs, it is an experience. It is not just believing that God exists or even a belief that Jesus rose from the dead. It is an experience where Christ becomes real to you as you invite him into your life. Both Scripture and meal are needed, but it is in the meal where we experience the risen Christ.
It is interesting that Luke uses the phrase, “Then their eyes were opened.” Where have we heard that before? We heard about it in the opening chapters of the Bible with Adam and Eve and a meal. After they had eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the Bible says, “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves” (Genesis 3:7). Their eyes were opened. They saw themselves, but Cleopas and Mary saw Jesus when their eyes were opened. Luke is telling us that this opening of the eyes was a correction and reversal of Adam and Eve’s eyes being opened. Sin opens our eyes to ourselves and centers our vision on ourselves — our sin, our shame, our inadequacy, our nakedness. Paul wrote: “Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature” (Romans 13:14). Here is the undoing of the sin of Adam. What we need is our eyes opened to see Christ with us; Christ who forgives us, Christ who heals us, Christ who clothes us, Christ who loves us as we are.
When we see our nakedness we try to cover that with cosmetics, the latest fashions, the latest diet, the latest jewelry, the trendy car, the big house. We don’t want the nakedness of our inadequacy to be seen. Bring on the leaves. But our covering is a silly as the leaves Adam and Eve covered themselves with. We are still shivering and trembling behind it all, afraid that someone will see who we really are beneath it all. When our eyes are opened to see Jesus we are freed from that. We are free from a self-centeredness that is always trying to hide who we are, and we are free to be ourselves as we look into the eyes of the one who died for our sin and inadequacy and rose again to triumph over it all.
It was not as if Jesus had not told them that they would hear a rumor and that the rumor would be true. Many times he told them what would happen after his death. To the religious leaders who would eventually try and take his life he said, “Destroy the temple of this body, and I will rebuild it in three days.” Over and over he had explained that he would be killed and then be raised from the dead, but their hardened hearts did not hear what he was saying. They were too wrapped up in their fears and the limitations of the natural mind. Their eyes were not opened.
Today it is different. We are exploring deeper and deeper into the world of the supernatural. Dr. Elizabeth Koobler-Ross, among many, continues to study the experiences of those who have died, and through the marvels of modern medical practice been resuscitated. The consistency of the stories these people tell seem to imply that death is not the end, rather it is a passage from this world into another. Books and journals with this kind of research are being published every month. To many this is new evidence of what the Bible has talked about for hundreds of years.
Another recent development is the Shroud of Turin. The claims of the monastery, in which it was kept, are that it is the shroud in which Jesus was wrapped after the crucifixion and passed through at his resurrection. These grave clothes bear the image of a person who was crucified. The shroud has been subjected to numerous scientific tests which some say authenticate the possibility that it was the cloth that bound the body of Christ as it lay in the tomb. Many believe that these were the very cloths the disciples found laying empty when they entered the tomb in an attempt to find their Lord.
But I want to make clear to you this morning that my faith is not in the Shroud of Turin. If it is true it does not help me. If it is false it does not hurt me. My faith is not in the studies of Dr. Koobler-Ross and others like her. My faith is not in any evidence no matter how well documented by medical and scientific research. My faith is in a rumor. I believe in the resurrection, not because there are those who claim they can prove it, but because belief in that rumor has changed my life and the lives of many people that I have known. I believe it because that rumor took the lives of a few ordinary fishermen, who were wallowing in despair after the death of Christ, and turned them into such a dynamic force that they changed the course of human history. I believe it because I have seen people endure unbelievable hardships by simply believing that rumor. I believe it because I have seen the hopelessness and despair of people changed into radiance when this belief burned within them. I have seen people who previously lived for the moment begin to live for eternity. I have witnessed small and petty lives begin to grow into something big and grand as their focus changed to things which are eternal. I have watched people lose their fear of death and gain a new excitement about life — all because of a rumor.
Some, however, still refuse to believe the rumor. A group of skeptics was once putting down Christianity and wondering how so many people could delude themselves, when Voltaire, himself a skeptic and a part of the group said, “Gentlemen, it would be easy to start a new religion to compete with Christianity. All the founder would have to do is die and then be raised from the dead.” He was right. It is as simple as that, and as difficult as that. For all the leaders of world religions today lay dead in their grave, with the exception of one. It is rumored that he is alive. It is rumored that he grants eternal life to all those who belong to him. The Apostle Paul wrote, “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead... And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only or this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men” (1 Corinthians 15:14-19).
During his life here on earth, Jesus not only healed people, he raised them from the dead. There was the daughter of Jairus, only twelve years old. Her father had come to beg Jesus to travel to his home and heal her, but before they arrived some men came from Jairus’ house and said, “Your daughter is dead, why bother the teacher any more?” But Jesus said, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.” When Jesus arrived with the intention of raising the girl from the dead they laughed him to scorn. But with the touch of his life-giving hand the girl stood to her feet.
The same thing happened with a man named Lazarus. He had been dead for four days, but Jesus said to his sister, “Your brother will rise again.” She said, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” And Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said, “Yes,” and then gave the reason for her affirmative faith, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God who was to come into the world.” Then Jesus went to her brother’s tomb and called him out. Lazarus’ sister heard Jesus say, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” Jesus said, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go” (John 11:1-44).
These acts of raising people from the dead were to show us that we all will be raised from the dead. The resurrection of Christ is awesome in its implications for it means that our resurrection is not only possible, it is inevitable. One day everyone who has ever lived, both good and bad, will hear the shout that will wake them from death, and they will see him and be called to appear before him. Jesus said, “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out — those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned” (John 5:28-29). Our faith is that because we have placed our trust in him, and given him our lives we will hear him say, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world” (Matthew 25:34). For he is the resurrection and the life, and the one who believes in him will live even though he dies. Of course it is a rumor — but it is a rumor on which we have built our lives. It is the rumor that makes our hearts burn within us, because the rumor leads us to the reality of the risen Christ who is walking beside us.
Rodney J. Buchanan
April 8, 2011
Amity United Methodist Church
rodbuchanan2000@yahoo.com
