I have found that I will seek any occasion, come up with any reason, find any excuse to tell you some story about the latest thing my children have done. The other night we were bathing the kids at the same time and it was a blast. The whole bathroom was soaked… with laughter… squeals, and just a little water. Jack decided that he really hadn’t had a bath without trying to get his entire head under the 3 inches of water. Of course I was right there and quickly pulled him out and sat him right which was met at first with a preparatory sob… letting me know that full screaming would quickly ensue, but it didn’t. It seemed that Emily got a kick out of our less than graceful recovery and began to laugh, which made Jack laugh, which then made Jack and Emily at the same time begin splashing and kicking and laughing and then laughing and kicking and splashing. It had to be the most fun I’d seen in years. It was more fun than Whitewater. If we would have known how much fun this was going to be we would’ve had kids years ago.
By the way did I tell you that I would seek any occasion to tell you about the latest thing my children have done. Now as of yet, I’ve bored most people and excited a few, and still no one has yet found fault with me or felt that it was inappropriate that I share so many details. In fact, most folks I’ve talked to seem to expect it…. You see, that is what you do with good news. You tell it. And if its really good news, you’ll tell almost anyone.
Throughout the ministry of Jesus people are so excited either by the work of healing or exorcism or prophecy or just Jesus’ presence that they tell everyone. In some cases, Jesus knows this may become a distraction and so he tells the one who has been redeemed to tell no one… but they never listen, because they’ve experienced good news.
I suppose it is our desire or even temptation to tell any kind of news: bad news, gossip, and tragedy…. So few of us can actually withhold news. So when we actually get good news, news that will bring joy at every telling, it is especially sweet to share. Let me tell you some good news about our church. The friendship kitchen is feeding more than a hundred people each week - good news. Generation Y is attended by nearly 40 students each week, many of them who have no other experience of church apart from this ministry – good news. The children’s choir gets larger each week – good news. The church’s needs are being met with a surplus – good news. Let me be specific, Carol Webb’s daughter Tiffany just had twins and now we’ve learned that her other daughter Theresa is going to have quadruplets. In just a few months Carol will have gone from no grandkids to 6 grandkids…. Is that good news?… Yes of course it is. That is why she told it.
And in our text today God calls Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus to tell some good news. Most of you know the story. You know of the dark days prior to this one. We call it good Friday in the church but that’s only because we have hindsight and when we read the story we know what’s coming. The women who stood by Jesus, and remember it was they that stood with Jesus when all the disciples, save John, left. The women did not know yet to consider it good Friday. Indeed Friday was dark and Saturday even darker. All their hopes were dashed. All Jesus power seemed helpless to save him. In fact, those words seem to hang in Mary Magdalene’s ears, “He saved others, he cannot save himself?” And why didn’t he? He could have saved himself. He could have silenced his critics. He could have called down the host of Heaven, or so He told Peter. So why didn’t he?
These women do not stand where we stand they do not know what we know. The truth is that they don’t understand all that has happened and why everything they had believed in had seemed to fail. Yet they act… in faith. They remain with Jesus through the most horrible moments and its not the 12 who are going early to the tomb that first Easter morning. They go and they act… in faith. And really that is what faith is, believing, hoping, and serving even when you don’t know or understand.
And somehow for some reason God seems to honor that kind of faith. So the first persons to met with the good news that day is not Peter, the rock upon which Jesus would build his church, and its not James and John the sons of thunder, and its not even James the brother of Christ. It’s the persons whose faith was manifested in the darkest hour. It was the women who did not know the plan and could not map the course of God but still trusted. And so the good news they are met with that day is not a superficial fix or some revisionist reinterpretation. They are not met with a spiritual band-aid. They are met with the work of God accomplished by God.
Matthew tells us that it began with a great earthquake, because the Angel of The Lord had descended and rolled back the stone and sat on it, to keep it from rolling back. His countenance and attire caused the posted guards to shake with fear, as helpless as dead men to do anything about it. The women are afraid to just as you and I would have been. The angel tells them not to fear; he knows why they are there, to find Jesus.
But Jesus is not there. Jesus is not in the tomb. The angel, knowing this is impossible to believe even for those of the greatest faith, has already pulled back the stone, to reveal an empty place where Jesus had been laid. Come and see the angel says… and in the same sentence the work of God, shared by the messenger of God is revealed to those who have trusted God in their darkest hour. “He is risen!” That is good news! And just what do you do with good news? The angel clues us in.
Go… quickly, and tell his disciples that He is risen from the dead. Tell them to take heart, to have hope. Tell them to believe again, to calm their fears, and resist their doubts in this dark, dark, world, light has broken forth. The light that overcame the darkness of creation, the light that guided Israel through the dessert, the light that shone so softly in the stable, the life that was the light of men, once quenched is shining brighter than ever before. Go and tell them.
So they go, Matthew says…with great fear… and great joy… and I suppose that’s the best way any of us could describe it. On their way they meet a stranger. With one word any doubt that had remained vanished. “Rejoice”, “Rejoice”, Jesus says. And I suppose I’m speculating here, but I would imagine that in those sweet moments all the sorrow of Friday melted as they held his scarred feet, and with streaming tears of joy, worshipped him.
This is good news! They now have not only heard of the resurrected Jesus, they have met the resurrected Jesus. THIS IS GOOD NEWS! And Jesus knows what to do with good news. “Don’t be afraid!”, he says. Jesus knows the disciples will doubt these women. Jesus knows the tension facing the 12 and the potential for rejection and how painful rejection is. Still, he says “don’t be afraid.” Go, Go and tell my brothers and sisters, tell them to go to Galilee and see me. And so they go, and the 11 still doubting some even to the end go with them to Galillee. And they act anyway and there they see Jesus, and they too worship.
Jesus tells them what the angel had told the women and Jesus had affirmed. Go, Go and tell the world, teaching and discipling them to love them as I have loved you to forgive each other, to care for those who are downtrodden, and live holy lives, to be meek, poor in spirit, and persons of peace, to rejoice in their mourning and persecution, and to be baptized into his death that they too may find life. Go and tell them to believe and hold on, even when they don’t know or understand. Go, not because everything will always be good or easy, or that everything will make sense, or that darkness will never again fill the earth and the hearts of all people but because God himself remains.
He is as with us as he was with the animals in the stable. He is as with us as he was with the centurion whose servant was ill, as with us as with the sisters of Lazarus at the death of their brother. He is with us in darkest hours, in the darkest places, even unto the ends of creation, and in every age. The good news remains! He is risen and he remains!
And by now we know what to do with good news… I hope. We share it, with sincerity and hope and love, not with the arrogance of building our institution but with the humility of building God’s kingdom, not with superficial clichés of insensitivity, but with the broken and empathetic heart of the incarnation. We do not proclaim spiritual band-aids falsely promising that all will be well in this world and age. We acknowledge that world is dark and seems at times only to grow darker even for those who love him most and in the same breath we proclaim with our lives and presence, the gospel the good news that must be told, that even there in that dark world, even now in this oppressive and perverse age that Jesus is risen, and he is with us… to the ends of the Earth and in every age. We tell it because that’s what you do with good news.
Earlier this month, I did not know what to do with the story of 6 year old Kayla, killed be her classmate in another senseless school shooting. I wanted to call Dr. Phillips, in our choir behind be. I wanted to call him at Rome Middle School and find some assurance that this couldn’t happen around here. That no child in our community, in our church… in my family would have to face that kind of fate or even the fear of such. I didn’t because I knew the answer. I wanted to call Dr. Walker, who teaches Theology at Mercer and gain a theological rationale for this tragedy, but I knew the answer and that was there was no good one. And so I just sat down and asked God. I asked God not why but where. Where were you God? Where were you God? And as I petitioned I seem to in my spirit sense the quiet, still, moving of God. “Where were you God? I asked again. (long pause) “I was with the teacher’s that moved their kids in the rooms and locked the doors.”… “I was with the administrators that quickly responded to stop any more loss.”… “I was with the paramedics who worked to save her.”… “And I was with Kayla… all the way home.”…. And that does not remedy the pain of that family, and it does not remove the accountability of the one who carelessly left such a weapon in reach of a 6 year old. And it does not remove the responsibility of the church to challenge the violence that is consuming our culture. That is not the promise. But God in Christ working.. and weeping, in us and with us, in every place and ever age, because He is risen, and he remains. That is good news. And so we must tell it, because that’s what you do with good news.
