On Thursday of this week, as we recalled the Last Supper
and the Garden of Gethsemane, I focused my message on Jesus praying for God to
remove this cup of suffering from his lips, “Yet,
not what I want, but what you want.” Then on Friday, as we meditated on the
crucifixion, Jesus’ death at the hands of all of us, I focused my message on
Jesus’ final words on the cross, quoting Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have
you forsaken me?” Well, today I am going to focus on Jesus’ words following the
resurrection, which, according to the Gospel of Mark are:
…
…
…
Nothing, actually.
In Mark’s
Gospel not only do we not see Jesus raised from the dead; we also have this
unexpected, Christopher Nolan-esque finale, where the disciples have the
following reaction to the resurrection: Chapter 16, verse 8, “So they went out
and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said
nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”
End of
Gospel.
It’s like
that spinning top at the end of Inception
where the scene cuts out just as we are about to find out if he is dreaming or
not, leaving us all asking, “Wait, what the heck did I just see?” That’s what
happens on Easter morning according to the Gospel of Mark, and that, again
according to Mark, is the end of the story. A giant cliffhanger.
For those
of you who haven’t been with us since Christmas, and for those who maybe
haven’t been paying too close of attention as we’ve read through Mark’s Gospel
each Sunday, there is a repeated theme in the Gospel of Mark, which is Jesus
telling his disciples to be quiet and not to tell anybody about him. No matter
how often he heals people, even when he raises Lazarus from the dead, even when
he does things that are impossible for human beings, he orders them clearly: Do
not say anything to anybody.
And he
does this in order that they might wait on the big miracle that’s coming.
Everything is directed to the cross. Every little bit of the action is heading
toward the cross and the empty tomb. But, if you know a little of the story,
you probably know that the disciples never listen to Jesus when he tells them
to be quiet. They are always disobeying his orders and telling everybody about
what he has done. And it’s the same with all the people that Jesus heals. He
sternly orders them: Don’t say anything to anybody! And what do they do? They
go off telling the world what Jesus has done! Of course. Who wouldn’t share
about the man who cured them of incurable disease? Today you’d make a movie
about it and people would go see it because they love this healing stuff. They
know someone, or they themselves have been faced with a disease, and they need
to know they have a healing God. I get it. Jesus did, too, and yet he told them
again and again: Do not say anything to anybody. And they never listened.
The side
effect of their misbehaving by telling the world about the healing-Jesus shows
itself today as we reach the end of the story, because the greatest miracle the
world has ever known has come to pass. Jesus Christ was dead, crucified by
Romans and Jews and by you and by me, because we are sinners who have fallen
short of God’s glory, and so we do what we always do with good things: We kill
them. That’s what happened on Good Friday. That’s what was set in motion on
Maundy Thursday, stretching back much before that all the way back to the
Garden of Eden, when you and I in the persons of Adam and Eve decided we know
better than God. All of this set the stage for Easter morning; this is no
secret! Jesus told the disciples it would happen! He told everyone who would
listen and even those who wouldn’t. He said the Son of Man would be betrayed
into the hands of sinners, he would be killed, and three days later he would
rise again. It doesn’t get much clearer than that.
But nobody
actually believed him! And the proof that nobody believed was what happened on
Easter morning when they discovered that the tomb was empty, because for the
first time in their lives of following Jesus the disciples shut their mouths.
The one time they were expected to go and share the good news and they shut up!
They failed the only time that Jesus was preparing them for, because the empty
tomb is the one moment that matters. This is the central, pivotal moment of the
Christian faith; in fact, it’s the most important moment in history; it’s the
thing that Jesus has been grooming the disciples for from the first time he
called them from their boats and their tax jobs and told them to leave behind their
families and to come and follow him. This moment! This is what we’ve been
waiting for, and when it comes to be just as he described it the disciples
respond by utterly failing.
“They said
nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”
They had
spent so much time telling the world about little miracles that they were too
astounded and afraid to speak up when the big miracle happened. They liked the
prospect of being healed so much that they didn’t imagine that maybe there was
something better—that maybe healing was just a foretaste of resurrection. Their
expectations were too small. And so are ours.
Easter
shatters expectations, but like the disciples I’m not sure how often we get it.
You can’t be a resurrection-witness then go out from here and complain that
Easter service was ten minutes too long. You can’t be a resurrection-witness
then gossip about the way that people act on Easter morning or that so-and-so
hasn’t been here since last Christmas. You can’t be a resurrection-witness and
worry about getting home to watch the Elite 8. You can’t be a
resurrection-witness and decide that sometimes your Christian faith isn’t
particularly convenient. You can’t be a resurrection-witness and live the same
as you were before. The empty tomb changes everything, and the disciples were
not ready for it, and neither are we.
So here’s
the good news, and the really good news is that we get a whole lot of good news
on Easter morning:. Jesus Christ died for you, and rose for you, because you
are going to be terrible resurrection-witnesses, just as the disciples were.
You are going to talk a lot about the things that matter less and not at all
about the things that matter most. But thanks be to God that Jesus Christ died
and rose for you and for me not so that we could be perfect but so that when we
are failures he takes the judgment that hangs over our heads on to himself. We
are dead in sin; Christ is raised from the dead and obliterates all the things
that we carry with us and consider to be oh-so-important.
We are
terrible resurrection witnesses because we like the show more than the Savior.
We like the trumpets and the singing more than the cross. We like the
celebration more than the commitment of discipleship. We like to do it our own
way.
God knows
this. It’s why it went down the way it did. It’s why Jesus had to die. And,
still, God loves you and me enough to give us today. Easter morning. Thanks be
to God, because Lord knows we don’t deserve it and that’s actually 100% the
point.
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