Sermon 4/17/2022 “The promise of Resurrection”
Preacher: Jo J. Belser
Location: Church of the Resurrection, Alexandria, Virginia
Text: Luke 24:1-12
Day: 1Easter (Easter Sunday) 2022
his is OUR DAY, CHURCH OF THE RESURRECTION. Our church is named for this day. We therefore derive our identity in the act that we re-member today. Christ Jesus’s resurrection from death is a hope-inspiring promise of life.
I’m telling you this from the very start today. I want you to know where we are “going” because the path to get there is a bit, well, circuitous. But my goal is to explore the promise of the Resurrectionin which we have placed our hope.
Ready?
My favorite cartoon features two children arguing in their mother’s womb. The twins are afraid about what’s to come as they debate whether there’s life after birth. One of the twins doesn’t think there will be life after birth; he thinks that life in the womb is all there is. His argument is, “No one’s ever come back after they were born.”
I’ve shared this cartoon with you before. Truth be told—which is to say “full disclosure is coming”—this cartoon is very reassuring to me. I doubt that anyone, before being born, could perceive of what would happen after they are pushed from their mother’s womb. And yet, here we all are. None of us could fit back into our mother’s womb—we are too full of knowledge and ego and pride.
Imagine for a minute, though, what staying in our mother’s womb our whole life would be like: This would be a small life, confined, closed to new possibilities. Oh, we could busy ourselves by doing good for ourselves in that small space—but think of the life we would miss if we never got to live beyond our mother’s womb.
Once we are born, of course, we can’t go back. As a secret disciple of Jesus’ named Nicodemus once asked him, “Surely [a person] cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” (John 3:4)
Nicodemus had asked Jesus this question when Jesus was in Jerusalem for Passover in the year 30 of the Common Era. Jesus told Nicodemus that true life, authentic life, involves being “reborn” into God’s Kingdom, and that to be reborn we have to be “born from water and spirit.”
Now, three years later, Jesus was in Jerusalem again. Now, though, Jesus was dead, having just been crucified, and his body was in a tomb. Those who had come with Jesus from Galilee were grieving. Presumably they had worshiped on the sabbath and now dawn of the following day who had come from Galilee with Jesus had come to the tomb. The women did their loving duty. At least they set out to do their loving duty of tending Jesus’ dead body. This part of the Easter story should perplex us. Jesus told all his disciples—including the women—what would happen to him in Jerusalem. Shouldn’t they all have been expecting a newly reborn Jesus?
- At least two of the disciples had set out for their home in Emmaus.
- The 11 apostles and the other disciples weren’t at Jesus’ tomb with the women; they carried on with their lives, grieving, and would have missed the promise of Resurrection had not the women told them.
- The women at the tomb weren’t much better, though. THEY clearly expected a corpse. These women had come to Jerusalem with Jesus. They had heard him say that after being dead three days he would “rise again.” Surely, after Jesus had died on the cross the women must have been wondering if Jesus would “rise” again, as he said he would.
I guess we shouldn’t criticize these women to harshly. Weren’t they just doing the next thing expected of them? When a loved one died in those days, the women prepared the body as a last loving act. So, in a small and tentative way, these women were on their way to worship.
- There were linen cloths on the altar of the tomb.
- There was incense: 100 pounds of Joseph of Arimathea’s precious spices.
- There was a mystical experience, a deep understanding of scripture revealed to these women, breaking open their minds to a new truth, that there definitely is life after death, just as there is life after birth. This—and the empty tomb—is how the women knew that JESUS, THE CHRIST, IS ALIVE!
This is the promise of resurrection: a future life beyond the grave. However, Christ Jesus’ resurrection promises us more than just surviving the death of our physical body. Christ’s resurrection also gives us hope in the here-and-now, hope that what is dead about the lives we are now living doesn’t have to stay dead. The promise of resurrection is that we don’t have to be physically dead to be resurrected; we can be “reborn” in this life to new possibilities, sins can be forgiven, broken relationships can be mended, and addictions can be wrestled to a stalemate if not healed outright.
The promise of Christ Jesus’ resurrection is an antidote to a life closed off to new possibilities as we shrink into nothingness in our own little cocoons, our own little “woe is me” tombs, our own little worlds that we shrink our lives into to retain control. This is because the promise of resurrection is a future, a future that gives us hope, a future that can change our lives today.
Everyone here has already been physically born. I am assuming we all also have been reborn of water and the spirit, as Christ instructed. All we need for living a resurrected life is that we have faith in the risen Christ, faith to accept the resurrection’s promise of hope, and allow ourselves to share the hope that Christ’s resurrection brings.
Alleluia, the Lord is Risen.
The Lord is risen indeed, alleluia!
