It Doesn’t Take Long to Change the World
Easter 2003
It doesn’t take long to change the world in very dramatic ways. “The 1989 Armenian earthquake needed only four minutes to flatten the nation and kill thirty thousand people. Moments after that deadly tremor ceased, a father raced to an elementary school to save his son. When he arrived, he saw that the building had been leveled. Looking at the mass of stones and rubble, he remembered a promise he had made to his child: “No matter what happens, I’ll always be there for you.” Driven by his own promise, he found the area closest to his son’s room and began to pull back the rocks. Other parents arrived and began sobbing for their children. “It’s too late,” they told the man. “You know they are dead. You can’t help.” Even a police officer encouraged him to give up.
But the father refused. For eight hours, then sixteen, then thirty-two, thirty-six hours he dug. His hands were raw and his energy gone, but he refused to quit. Finally, after thirty-eight wrenching hours, he pulled back a boulder and heard his son’s voice. He called his boy’s name, “Arman! Arman!” And a voice answered him, “Dad, it’s me!” Then the boy added these priceless words, “I told the other kids not to worry. I told them if you were alive, you’d save me, and when you saved me, they’d be saved, too. Because you promised, ‘No matter what, I’ll always be there for you.’””
In 1994, a son received a call from his father across the country. “Your mother isn’t doing very well; you’d better come.” She had gone to hospital for surgery- fairly routine surgery- a week after Mother’s Day. She had responded fine, at the start and had seemed to be recovering. But, then….and a son flew across the country, hoping to be there while she was still alive and did make it, and was able to spend three days there before she died. It doesn’t take long to change the world.
Just a little under four weeks ago, a daughter got a call from her mother. “Your father isn’t doing very well.” He had gone to hospital on Friday, for treatment, but something went terribly wrong that Sunday morning. So, then…a daughter raced six hundred miles, hoping to be there with her Dad and to see his improvement and did, but then things went poorly and he died. It doesn’t take long to change the world.
The father, the son, and the daughter all lived in hope, though. Especially, the son and the daughter live in the hope of what God has said to us, just like that father in Armenia said to his son. “I will come back,” he assures us. Rocks may tumble and ground may shake. Our world- in big and in small- may change and seem to come apart. But, as children of God, we do not need to fear- the Father has promised to take us to be with him.
How can we know he’ll do what he said? Maybe you’re not so sure? Maybe this promise is too good to be true, for you.
Let’s think, though, about what happened. Today we celebrate. But what happened that we celebrate? And what happened that gives us that wonderful spiritual gift of hope?
Let’s go to the tomb early on Sunday morning after Jesus’ crucifixion. Jesus lies there. He’s still, cold, stiff. Death claimed its greatest trophy. Hs is not asleep in the tomb or resting in the tomb or comatose in the tomb; he is dead in the tomb. There’s no air in his lungs- no thoughts in his brain- no feeling in his limbs. He body is as lifeless as the stone slab upon which he was laid. The executioners made sure of this. Remember that Pilate asked the soldiers if they were sure that Jesus was dead, when he heard that he was. You have to know that had they seen one twitch, heard one moan, or sensed that he wasn’t dead, they would have made sure he was. That was their job. The thrust of the spear removed all doubt- the Romans knew their job and they were good at it. So, they pried loose the nails, lowered Jesus’ body, and gave it to Joseph and Nicodemus.
As they sponged the blood from Jesus’ beard, don’t you know they listened for his breath? As they wrapped the cloth around his hands, don’t you know they hoped for a pulse? Don’t you know they searched for life? But they didn’t find it.
So, they did what they were expected to do with a dead man. They wrapped his body in clean linen and placed it in a tomb- Joseph’s tomb. Roman guards were stationed to guard the corpse, and a Roman seal was set on the rock of the tomb- and no one could get close to the grave all the time Jesus was there.
But then, Sunday arrived and, with Sunday, came light- a light within the tomb. We don’t know what kind of light it was- subdued or bright or flashing or hovering. But there was light, because he is the light, and with the light came life. Just as the darkness is banished by light, so the decay is reversed. Heaven blew and Jesus breathed. His chest expanded. His lips opened. His fingers lifted. Heart valves swished again and joints bent.
Because that happened, we are in absolute awe, today- this weekend. We know that we, too, will die. We know that we, too, will be buried. Our lungs, like his, will empty. Our hands, like his, will stiffen. But the rising of his body and the rolling of the stone gives birth to our mighty belief and hope!
Ro. 6.5-9- read in The Message.
To the Thessalonians, Paul stated- 1 Thess.4.14. And to the Corinthians, he affirmed- 1 Cor. 15.22-23.
For Paul and any follower of Christ, the promise is simply this: The resurrection of Jesus is proof and preview of our own resurrection.
But can we trust the promise? Is the resurrection a reality? Are the claims of the empty tomb true? This is not only a good question. It is THE question. For as Paul wrote, “IF Christ has not been raised, then your faith has nothing to it; you are still guilty of your sins” (1 Cor. 15.17). In other words, if Christ has been raised, then his followers will join him; but if not, then his followers are fools. The resurrection is the keystone in the arch of the Christian faith. If it is solid, the doorway is trustworthy. Dislodge it and the doorway crumbles. BUT, it is not easily budged- if Jesus is not in the tomb, where is he?
Some speculate that he never even died. People only thought he was dead, but he was actually unconscious. Then he awoke and walked out of the grave. But how likely is this theory? He endured torturous whippings, thirst and dehydration, nails in his hands and feet, and most of all, a spear in his side. Could he survive that treatment? And even if he did, could he single-handedly roll back a huge rock from the tomb and then overpower Roman guards and escape? Hardly. We can dismiss any thought of Jesus not being dead.
Others accuse the disciples of stealing the body in order to fake the resurrection. They say that his followers, who were ordinary people- fishermen and tax collectors- overcame the sophisticated and well- armed Roman soldiers and detained them long enough to roll back the stone, unwrap the body and escape. This doesn’t seem plausible but, even if it were so, how would we explain their martyrdom? Many of them died for their faith- they died for their belief in the resurrected Lord. Would they fake the resurrection and then die for a hoax? No! John R. W. Stott, great Christian theologian, wrote, “Hypocrites and martyrs are not made of the same stuff.”
Some believe the Jews- Jesus’ enemies- stole the corpse. Why? They, of all people, want the body in the tomb. If they stole it, why haven’t they produced it, over the years? They could have paraded the dead carpenter’s son’s body through Jerusalem to show that what he said would happen hadn’t. But they didn’t do this. They haven’t ever done this. It would have led to elimination of Jesus’ movement if they had. There would be no Christianity, if they had simply done this.
Christ’s death was real. The disciples didn’t take his body. The Jews didn’t take it. So, where is it? Over the past 2000 years, millions- no, billions- have opted to believe and accept, simply, the explanation that the angel gave to Mary, when she came to visit the grave and found it empty.
Matt.28.6-
For three days, Jesus’ body decayed. It did not just stay there and do nothing. It decayed. The cheeks sank and the skin paled. But after three days the process reversed. There was a stirring deep within the grave…and the living Christ stepped out. And the moment he stepped out, everything changed. Paul stated it so well when he wrote, “When Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end” (Rom.6.5-6- The Message).
That’s the hope we have right now- “It was the signal of the end of death-as-the-end.” The resurrection is fireworks announcing to all that it is safe to believe. It is safe to believe in ultimate justice, in eternal bodies, in the kingdom as our estate, in a time when questions won’t keep us awake and pain won’t keep us down, and in open graves and endless days and genuine praise!
Because we can accept the resurrection story, it is safe to accept the rest of the story, because the resurrection changes everything. Death changes. It used to be the end; now it is the beginning. The cemetery changes. People once went there to say good-bye; now they go there to say, “We’ll be together again.” (Last Saturday, my brother-in-law referred to what we were involved in as a Commencement Ceremony; it was the beginning, not the end.) Even the coffin changes. The casket is no longer a box where we hide bodies, but rather a cocoon in which the body is kept until God sets it free to fly. According to Christ, he will set us free. He will come back.
John 14.3- “I will come back and take you to be with me.” To prove that he was serious about his promise, the stone was rolled back and his body was raised.
Jesus knows that someday this world will shake again, like in Armenia, and the world will change again, as it has so dramatically in so many lives over the years, including the lives of the son and the daughter. In the blink of an eye, as fast as the lightning flashes from the east to the west, he will come back. And everyone will see him- you will, I will. Bodies will push back the dirt and break the surface of the sea. The earth will tremble, the sky will roar, and those who do not know him will shudder. But in that hour you will not fear, because you know him.
You, like the boy in Armenia, have heard the promise of your Father. You know that he has moved the stone- not the stone of the Armenian earthquake, but the stone of the Arimathean’s grave. And in the moment he removed the stone, he also removed all reason for doubt. And we, like the boy, can believe the words of our Father; “I will come back and take you to be with me so that you may be where I am” (John 14.3).
It doesn’t take long to change the world. It can happen in seconds, or in brief days. And billions have had their world upset over the millennia. But we live- live, I say- believing and hoping in that great absolute and wonderful change to come when Jesus returns. Because he rose before, we will rise, too! That’s what we celebrate today- the promise and the guarantee of our future!
