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Rev. David Inglis Luke 24:1-12

Easter April 12, 2009

Before I read the story of Jesus’ resurrection, I’d like to challenge you to imagine that you were born into the world that Jesus’ first followers lived in 2000 years ago. I’ll try to help you out.

As a child, your family’s life is about survival, and as soon as you can do anything useful, you’re pressed into service fetching and carrying, planting, picking, cooking, and washing. You learn quickly and painfully to obey your parents without question–there’s no place for what you want or don’t want.

You know lots of children whose fathers have lost the little piece of land they farm because of the high Roman tax and greedy lenders. Those children live in rags, have a haunted, hungry look, and often die. You pray that won’t happen to your family.

Sickness and death are part of everyday life. You’ve already lost a sister and a brother to illness, and a number of children you know have lost their mothers from having trouble during childbirth. And everywhere you walk, pitiful people who are sick, crippled, blind, or widowed are begging for handouts so they can survive another day.

You’ve been taught that you have to be good and follow God’s commandments, or the same thing will happen to you. The reason there’s so much sickness and poverty, and the reason the Romans are controlling your country, is because your people haven’t carefully obeyed all the religious laws that govern every aspect of your life. You learn to despise the sinners and non-devout Jews who are bringing God’s punishment on all of you.

Leaders have risen up who have tried to free your people from Rome’s corrupt, oppressive, pagan rule. When cruel King Herod died, several revolts against Rome broke out. Legions of Roman troops responded by conquering Sepphoris, just four miles from Nazareth, and selling its survivors into slavery. Then they marched south and reconquered Jerusalem, and they lined the roads with 2000 crosses, on which they crucified Jerusalem’s freedom fighters as a public example. Not only did the Romans know that crucifixion was the most agonizing way to kill someone, but they also knew that, according to Jewish belief, it put a curse on its victims and their families.

If you had been an ordinary person in First Century Palestine, your world would have felt dark [all lights go out], overshadowed by fear, guilt, hostility,and powerlessness.

Into these grim times came the son of a poor, ordinary carpenter by the name of Jesus. He was ablaze with the Spirit of God [light the lantern]. He was on fire with a vision of a whole different reality that he called the kingdom of God, that ordinary people could experience and help create for each other if only they repented–turned away from the dark fears, resentments, shame, and greed that bound them to themselves, and fully opened to this powerful light of God through trust, humility, surrender, and love.

Jesus shown God’s healing light to the very people who felt they were the farthest from God’s grace. He stretched out his hands to the lepers–the dreaded untouchables–and made them clean. He restored sight to the blind, set the crippled home carrying their mats, and restored peace to those who were wracked by violent spirits.

He carried this all-embracing light to prostitutes, tax collectors, and sinners. He sat down and ate with them and talked about the kingdom of God being like a banquet to which everyone was invited.

He assured the poor that they weren’t being punished by God. “How blessed are you poor,” he said. You will experience God’s kingdom before those who are too full of pride and pretense to enter its narrow gate. It is the humble, the poor in spirit, those who know their need for God, who will find this treasure.

He challenged those whose souls were roiling with judgments, resentments and anger to open their hearts to the light of understanding, forgiveness, and a love that was so big it could extend to their enemies. Everyone stands in need God’s mercy, he said, and those who give mercy will receive mercy.

To the teachers like Nicodemus, trying so hard to comprehend God and to fulfill all the requirements of righteousness he said, “You must let yourself be born again.” Don’t try to become godly by being high and mighty and full of knowledge. Find the place in you that’s trusting, open, and innocent like a newborn, and you will find yourself close to God there.

Jesus sought to shine the light of God’s healing, life-giving, freeing, redeeming, love and truth into every pocket of darkness that held people’s souls in its grip.

But there was another dark shadow that held the soul of all his people hostage. That was the system of domination, exploitation, and oppression that was held in place by a collusion between the Roman occupiers and the religious leaders. So in the last week of his earthly life, Jesus rode into Jerusalem to shine the penetrating light of truth there. In the words of Brian McLaren,

So what would happen now? Would God send a legion of angels to rescue him from certain death? No. There were still more dark shadows to free, that hold all of us humans in their grip–the fear of total rejection, public humiliation, agony, and death. Jesus offered no resistance. He didn’t even accept a swallow of sedative from the soldier’s sponge. He stretched out his hands onto the beam of the cross and made himself totally vulnerable to every person’s darkest fears, crying out for God’s forgiveness for those who were nailing him there. And after three hours of being taunted, spat at, and experiencing unspeakable agony as his sagging body forced him to gasp for each breath, he died. [The lantern is extinguished.] It was finished. His body hung lifeless and blood-caked on the cross, as his followers looked on in horror.

Can you imagine the depth of darkness and soul-wrenching desolation that all who had followed him felt at that sight? The only light they had ever known and dared to believe in had been put out. But of course. What had they been thinking–that this unarmed, innocent son of a carpenter would be able to take on these forces of evil and win somehow?

The disciples fled in confusion and fear. Only those faithful women who had followed him from Galilee watched as the his corpse was pried off the cross, fell in a heap, and was half-dragged, half-carried to a cave-like tomb, and was sealed in place by a large circular stone.

The next day was Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. What do you suppose the women and the rest of his followers did? Sat around in a daze of despair, I imagine. They had never known that darkness could be so deep.

Now I think we’re ready to hear our scripture reading for today, Luke 24:1-12.

1But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, [the women] came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3but when they went in, they did not find the body. 4While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. 6Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” 8Then they remembered his words, 9and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. 10Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. 11But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 12But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

[Lantern is re-lit.] And Jesus himself began to appear to them, in different places in different ways. Sometimes he ate food or invited them to touch his wounds. Sometimes he passed through a closed door or seemed to appear and disappear. The important thing wasn’t how he was alive and present, but that he was alive and present. Even the most ignoble, horrible death imaginable had not been able to extinguish that light.

And soon his followers experienced him mysteriously, profoundly and powerfully–not as a physical presence, but as a spiritual presence that lived within them–guiding, inspiring, uniting and empowering them. Instead of being motivated by their human fears, pride or greed, they shone Christ’s light of peace into the strong divisions that separated them. They created radical new faith communities where there were “neither male nor female, Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free.” [Chancel lights are turned on.] And today, guided by Christ’s light and inspired by his spirit, we right here at Henrietta UCC are working to create a loving and “safe community for all, regardless of ability, race, age, gender, sexual orientation, or means,” as we wrote in our mission statement. Christ’s light shines on.

Jesus’ first followers shone the light of Christ’s compassion onto the suffering around them. They provided food for the widows and started the precursors to our hospitals and orphanages. [First set of sanctuary lights are turned on.] And today, guided by Christ’s light and inspired by his spirit, we have sponsored refugee families, built houses for Habitat for Humanity, operate a food cupboard, drive for FISH, support Cameron Community Ministries, and walk in CROP Walks. Christ’s light shines on.

Jesus’ first followers shone the light of courage in the face of the abuse of power in their world. They refused to bow before Caesar, and they prayed for the spectators as they were thrown to the lions. [The remaining sanctuary lights are turned on.] And today, guided by Christ’s light and inspired by his spirit, we stand against the abuses of materialism, militarism, and the plundering of God’s creation, and we work to create a just, peaceful and sustainable world. Christ’s light shines on.

Jesus’ followers slowly, gradually began kneading the leaven of God’s kingdom into whatever part of the world their lives touched. Over time, tyrannies began to be replaced by democracies; child labor gave way to universal education; slavery was outlawed; women and minorities were seen as fully human and deserving of equal rights; cures were found for most diseases; and, in our generation, we are finding ways to sustain the creation that sustains the whole human family.

Christ’s light lives on in our world, not because Jesus made it out of the tomb, but because that spiritual light is stronger than death, greater than any human empire, and deeper than the reality of pain and suffering that we have created. Once in awhile, we might even see the world through this light and find ourselves in the kingdom of God.

Christian author Frederick Buechner was at Sea World with his family, watching the orca whales perform on a gorgeous Florida day. He writes,

He turned to his wife and daughter and told them what he was feeling, and they said they felt the same thing. What was it that touched them to the point of tears? He explains,

Is there somewhere deep in your soul a homesickness, a longing, for a peace that passes understanding and that makes you and all things one? For a love that embraces all of you and makes you whole? For the courage to live with a heart that’s bigger than your doubts and fears? For the faith to embrace all of God’s gifts in whatever form they come? For the passion to offer all your gifts to the world, no matter how humble they seem?

This is your longing to be part of God’s kingdom. This is the part of you that is most yourself when you are living in Christ’s light and reflecting it into the world. This light is the spiritual Source of your life and of all that is, and it is your ultimate destiny. This is the light that will never go out. Seek this light. Follow this light. Be this light. The dark shadows in your corner of the world are waiting for the resurrection of the light of Christ in you.