Let It Be True

The disciples were in hiding. Jesus had tried, before his arrest and crucifixion, to prepare them. All four Gospels record Jesus explaining multiple times and multiple ways that “his hour was approaching” that the “Son of Man must suffer many things” and that He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. But they did not understand, could not comprehend. It didn’t fit with their concept of a leader; it wasn’t what they were hoping for in a Messiah; it just didn’t make sense.

He was humble and peaceful, prayerful and loving to the end. He didn’t fight back. He didn’t spit back. He didn’t curse. He didn’t even scorn the criminals that were dying next to him. Instead, he promised “Today you will be with me in the presence of God.” Then from noon until 3 in the afternoon, the world went dark, no sun; the curtain in the Temple, that symbolized the division between what is holy and what is earthly, ripped in two from top to bottom; he exhaled and his chest didn’t rise again.

Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin who had not agreed with the decision to arrest and execute Jesus, asked for Jesus’s body. He wrapped it in a linen shroud, and placed it in a new tomb that he had had hewn out the rock for himself and his family. Sabbath began at dusk, so the women had not been able to complete the proper burial rituals that night or all the next day, so early on the third day they made their way to complete his burial.

This morning we read the account from John’s Gospel. Each of the 4 Gospels describes the scene a little differently, they didn’t confer to get their story straight. Each Gospel tells us that women went early in the morning on the first day of the week, before light broke. Which women? How many women? It’s not clear. John only names Mary Magdalene, who runs in a panic to Peter, who is with another disciple, and shouts, “They have taken the body of our Lord, and we cannot find him!” Was the tomb rolled away already, or did an angel roll the tomb? Was there one angel or were there two angels present in the tomb to bear the news that Jesus is not there because he is risen.

Rev. Dr. Jock Stein, a retired minister in the Church of Scotland notes that “The accounts of the Resurrection are different,…it must have impacted different people and been reported in different ways. Were they very similar, one would suspect co-ordination of testimony. The really extraordinary thing is that there was a Resurrection for anyone to experience and report! The common testimony is that the tomb was empty – something not denied by any of those who opposed Christians in the first two centuries.”

The tomb was empty – it would have been shocking under any circumstances. If you go to the grave of a loved one and the deceased is missing – you are going to express some concerns. Where is the body? Who took it? What’s been done to it? My guess is that you might ask those questions fairly passionately.

When Mary Magdalene shouts in a panic to Peter and the other disciple with him, “They have taken the body of our Lord, and we cannot find him!” They take off running to the tomb, and Peter can’t keep up.

I wonder what he thought about as he ran. I wonder if he thought back to that day that he and his brother Andrew left their nets to follow Jesus, or to the time Jesus asked “Who do you say that I am” and he blurted out “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God” and Jesus gave him a new name that day, Peter, Rock…and said on this rock I will build my church, surely he couldn’t help but think back to their conversation just a few days before, when he had pledged to Jesus that he would go with him to prison and death and Jesus responded, “I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.” I wonder if the echo of that rooster haunted his thoughts as his feet couldn’t carry him fast enough to the tomb.

Or were the pieces starting to come together? Was he hoping with every step, “Let it be true, let it be true, let it be true…” not slowing down when he caught up with the others standing outside the tomb, but running straight inside. Looking around.

What was strange was that the burial shroud was there, neatly folded, and the cloth that covered his face was there, too. No one would have removed it to take the body.

John tells us, “Before this moment, none of them understood the Scriptures and why Jesus must be raised from the dead.”

But after this moment,… Now, I really wanted to write “Nothing was ever the same.” And move right to Acts 10 and Peter’s sermon witnessing to what he had seen that day and what it meant. But you know what? Right after this moment, Peter and the other disciple who ran ahead of him are just as human as they have always been. They go back where they have been staying since Jesus was arrested and lock the doors and hide.

Here’s the thing, the world is still dark, and even after we arrive panting “let it be true, let it be true, let it be true,” the meaning of resurrection is not something that we can grasp right off – it works on us like water poured over rock, slowly reshaping us and making a path for God’s grace to flow through us.

For the disciples, the truth of resurrection and what it means is like watching sunrise or waiting for a trickle to become a stream…Jesus appears to them, lets them touch his hands and feet, and reminds them that he tried to prepare them, it is only after Jesus ascends and they receive the Holy Spirit that they begin to witness – to share who Jesus is and his message.

The Book of Acts traces the flow of the Gospel message. As the Holy Spirit fills them, Peter preaches in Jerusalem. Then the Gospel spills out to Joppa, to the converted Samaritans, then the Ethiopian eunuch, and now Peter is face to face in the home of Cornelius, a Roman centurion. UM Bishop and former Dean of Chapel at Duke Will Willimon writes that in this encounter between Peter and the Roman centurion, Cornelius, “we…feel the full blast of the gospel, …know the reluctance of the disciples to be here, …know how long and painful…their journey [was] to realize the full and frightening implications of the gospel…” It is EVEN for a Roman army commander.

Theologian Willie James Jennings, a professor at Yale points out in his commentary on Acts that “The deepest reality of life in the Spirit . . . is that the disciples of Jesus rarely, if ever, go where they want to go or to whom they would want to go. Indeed, the Spirit seems to always be pressing the disciples to go to those to whom they would in fact strongly prefer never to share space, or a meal, and definitely not life together. Yet it is precisely this prodding to be boundary-crossing and border-transgressing that marks the presence of the Spirit of God.” (Willie James Jennings, Acts: Belief Commentary Series, p. 11)

So, Peter tells Cornelius, “I now understand that there is no partiality toward any group of people in God’s eyes, no classes or ranks. But in all people groups, the one who reveres God with awe and works toward righteousness is acceptable to God.” The power of resurrection has worked on Peter, who might have been tempted to believe he was closer to God than this Gentile commander of the oppressing occupation’s army! Afterall, he was born Jewish, chosen to be a disciple of Jesus and then a witness to Jesus’s resurrection! But Peter realizes God is pouring grace right through him to this person God loves as much as God loves him.

Peter witnesses to what Cornelius has heard about Jesus: he was anointed by God with the Holy Spirit and power, did good and healed all who were oppressed by lies about who God is and how God is. He was put to death on a cross, but three days later, God raised him to life and let him be seen. Not to everyone but by the ones God chose to be witnesses, to tell others about him.

Peter shares with Cornelius, “The Word God sent (in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God) that Word God sent heralding “eranay” the Greek word for peace, wholeness, abundant life through, by means of, flowing through Jesus the Messiah – the Lord of all.” God sent Jesus to announce that he is the conduit of God’s peace, the way to live fully and abundantly, the way that God envisioned for us.

Peter concludes, “God told us to announce clearly to the people that Jesus, sent to teach and show us the way to live, is the one God has chosen as judge of the living and the dead.” Jesus will separate those who truly lived abundantly, following his example of caring for the least and seeking the lost, and those who did not. “Every one of the prophets has said that all who have faith in Jesus will have their sins forgiven in his name.” All of us will make mistakes, but Jesus is God’s conduit of peace, channeling God’s grace to us.
It was still dark when the women got up and made their way to the tomb. And in our world today, there is still a lot of darkness. But the tomb was empty.

Now it is up to us…will we let the meaning of resurrection fill us to overflowing? Will we allow hope to expand in our lungs like Peter as he ran to the tomb in the shadows before dawn? Let it be true, let it be true, let it be true… Will our lives spill forth with the meaning of resurrection? To every person, without partiality, God sent the Word into the world to herald God’s message, “I came that you might have life, and have it abundantly.”