Shaking & Moving

When I preach from the lectionary, which I do most of the time unless I'm working on a series, one of the first things I do is to try and find the common thread among the different passages. And on this glorious day when we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, the central message is God's victory over sin and death. And this is good news, always, every day of the year, not only during this season. We proclaim the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ every time we celebrate communion, every time we request and receive forgiveness for our sins, every time we close our prayers by saying "in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord."

But there's another aspect to be explored, because the proclamation of the good news always takes place within a particular context. The good news comes to a particular people in a particular time, and they respond in very different ways.

The death of Jesus looked like a crushing defeat for his followers. The death of Jesus looked like victory for the status quo, victory for the complacent, victory for the old order, victory for those who were secure in their own righteousness. The death of Jesus meant that people could get on with their lives just the way they had been doing.

A good friend of mine, a highly educated and committed Jewish woman, asked me once why I believed that Jesus was the Messiah since the coming of the Messiah was supposed to be characterized by a radical and complete restoration of the kingdom of Israel, and anyone could see that that had not happened.

The death of Jesus caused barely a ripple on the surface of the empire. The death of one obscure Jewish troublemaker meant nothing to the Romans, and less than that to most of the rest of the Mediterranean world. The earthquake? a coincidence. The tearing of the veil in the temple? Who even noticed outside of a bunch of fanatics? The world went on. And the resurrection? Who could believe that? Everyone knows that once you're dead, you're dead. The soul may be immortal but the body dies. We're talking sophisticated, educated people, here, this was the most literate, well-traveled, cosmopolitan society ever. Only superstitious backwoods hicks could believe a tale like that!

I have a weakness for adventure movies, and not just the classics like the Indiana Jones series. My standards aren't that high. Anyway a few weeks ago I was watching Force Ten from Navarone, a real potboiler cooked up to capture the audience from the blockbuster Guns of Navarone. I should probably be ashamed to admit to enjoying it. At any rate, the plot involved sending a multinational team of highly trained, incredibly brave, outstandingly resourceful combat and demolition mavens behind enemy lines in Yugoslavia to blow up a dam which would unleash the river which would wash out the bridge over which the German army was scheduled to attack. Anyway, to make a long story short, they get the explosive charges laid and escape the soldiers guarding the dam and activate the detonator and rendezvous at the appointed spot and turn to watch the dam blow up and nothing happens.

And the team goes ballistic (you should excuse the expression). Here they have risked life and limb and performed incredible heroics and done everything perfectly and IT DIDN'T WORK! They start yelling at each other and accusing each other of malfeasance and incompetence and who knows what else - all except the cool, laid-back British major. He's just leaning back against the bank, smoking his pipe, listening and watching. And one at a time they fall silent and turn around to see what he's waiting for. And a tiny trickle of water appears on the face of the dam. And then another. And the trickles become spurts and cracks begin to appear in the concrete and the whole dam seems to bulge out in the middle and the entire river bursts forth down the ravine and the team leaps to its feet, shouting and cheering and waving their caps in the air and the bridge is washed out and the German tanks are destroyed.

And that is what the resurrection is like. The old order is destroyed absolutely, but you don't see the results right away. Little by little, drop by drop, with irresistible power and utter inevitability, the resurrection of Jesus Christ changed the fundamental relationship between God and his creation.

It starts very small indeed.

"Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body... As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man. "Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here... But go, tell his disciples and Peter... Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid." [v. 1-8]