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| The message from our Easter Sunday combined multi cultural service with subtitles in Korean for the slides. |
My mum remembers vividly what she was doing when she heard
the news that Us President, John F Kennedy, had been assassinated. It was news
that changed the world. I have vivid memories of September 11th
2001. Waking up with my alarm clock set to radio sport, and Marty Devline,
almost lost for words saying that it really “seemed so absurd to be talking
about something as trivial as sport when some one had just deliberately flown a
plane into one of the trade towers in New York”. and the world changed.
For you it may have been watching with renewed hope, a tall
proud African man walking out of a prison gate. Nelson Mandela being released
on the 11th February 1990, after 27 years in prison, and the world
changed. It maybe more recent and watching Kim jun Un and Moon Jae-in meeting
together at the blood-stained line that has divided the Korean pinnacular for
so many years. And being willing to cross that line in peace together…A glimmer of Hope, a possibility for reconciliation and peace, an answer to
heart felt prayer on both sides of the border… there is still a long way to go…but
just maybe the world will change again.
It’s Easter Sunday and we come together to celebrate an even
more amazing event, a day that changed the world. An empty tomb and Jesus
Christ who was crucified, dead and buried, now raised to life again. There are no photos, no news reel footage or TV
images instantly beamed around the world, all we have accounts of eye
witnesses, in four gospels and the testimony of many who have been touched and
changed by that event. But the impact of that day that moment still resonates
and brings life and hope and transformation in the world today. Look at us here
and now… from different cultures and generations and backgrounds gathered
together in a small church building in a side street in suburban Auckland,
bought together and unified by the affirmation… He is Risen! He is Risen indeed…
Jesus is Lord!
Today we had Matthew’s account of the resurrection read out.
While we are used to Matthew’s account of Jesus teaching, miracles and
parables, his account of the resurrection isn’t the one we automatically think of.
We are more used to the personal accounts and encounters with the risen Jesus
in Luke’s gospel, and John’s or even that short and rather disturbing account
in Mark’s gospel which seems to end with the women afraid to tell anyone what
they had seen and heard. But today we are going to look at Matthew’s account.
(Click for words) His account of what
happened, as the women came to the tomb. His account of the reaction of the
high priests and religious leaders as they try and deal with an empty tomb. His
account of Jesus meeting his disciples in Galilee, and what this resurrection means
for them and for us.
Matthew’s account of what happened. (Matthew 28:1-10).
Matthew tells us that after the death and burial of Jesus
and the enforced rest of the Jewish sabbath, that Mary Magdalene and the other
Mary went to look at the Tomb. In the other gospels we are told the women were
still concerned with giving Jesus the appropriate, care and customary treatment
for burial. But Matthew simply tells us they had gone to look and see. Again it
was to simply continue to mourn and grieve for the person who had meant so much
to them who they had watched die.
My father died just before my twenty first birthday, and
I’ve only been to where his ashes are buried five time since then, and one of
those times was to bury my mothers’ ashes beside his. But for many of you here
today, that trip to a loved ones grave or tomb is a significant thing, I know
in Pacifica and Asian culture it is part of remembering and honouring people
who have gone before, so you understand what was in the women’s minds, what
guide their actions.
Matthew tells us that an earthquake happened, the ground
shock and an angel of the Lord came, his appearance was dazzling and blinding,
and he rolled the stone away and sat down on it. The guards at the tomb fainted
dead away… which in scriptures is how most people react when an angel of the
Lord appears. Matthew’s gospel seems to be the only one which talks of the
earthquake and the angels in such vivid detail. Luke, simply tells us of two
men dressed in white, that the women wondered how the stone could be rolled
away only to find that it had been… Some people have suggested Matthew simply
added these details to his account for dramatic impact, like the special
effects in a b grade Hollywood movie. They use that to question the validity of
his account and of course the resurrection. NT Wright suggest that maybe the
other gospel writers played these elements down because they didn’t want people
to laugh at the details and therefore dismiss the actual event as true. For
Matthew who through his whole gospel has presented himself as a very Jewish man
speaking to a Jewish audience, angels turning up and signs of theophany, always
accompanied significant events. In the end like all the gospels, he does not
tell us how the resurrection occurred, rather in his account we are to realise
that it is a God event, a miracle.
The angel tell the women that the one they are looking for
is not here he has risen just as he said he would. They are invited to go in
and see for themselves. Then they are
told to go and tell the disciples that Jesus will meet them in Galilee. AS they
go we are told that Jesus appears to them… perhaps here is the encounter with
Mary Magdalene that John so beautiful recounts for us… One of things that
speaks of the validity of this account is that Matthew a Jewish man is willing
to simply give us the story of the empty tomb from the women’s perspective. In
Jewish society women were not permitted to be witnesses in a legal trial as
they were considered to emotional and unreliable, yet even without referring to
Peter and John as with Luke and John, Matthew tells us the women’s account and
we are to take it as well, gospel.
Then as a Jew Matthew moves to look at how the religious
leaders in Jerusalem respond to the empty tomb. (Matthew 28:11-15)
Really, Matthew would hope that they would see this as good
news, this is a validation of Jesus as the long awaited messiah, but when the
guards tell them what had happened the officials bribe them to say that the
disciples had come at night over powered them and stolen the body. At Jesus
arrest the disciples had been full of fear and had fleed, even Peter had been
so afraid of the authorities that he had denied Jesus three times, only John
and the women were at the crucifixion, yet the official story was this
dispirited group had reunited, conspired and pulled off a daring body heist
against heavily armed guards. Of course latter they would all suffer and die
for proclaiming that Jesus had indeed been raised to life again… and who dies for an empty lie?
Matthew
counters the argument which must have been the first official way of refuting
the resurrection by saying the guards were bribed. NT wright says
‘what the Jewish leaders did in this story is not very
different from what generations of sceptics have done ever since. Don’t be
fooled by the idea that modern science has disproved the resurrection of Jesus.
Modern science has done no such thing. Everybody in the ancient world , just
like everyone in the modern world, knew perfectly well that dead people don’t
get resurrected. It didn’t take Copernicus, Newton, or Einstein for that
matter, to prove that; just universal observation of universal fact. The
Christian belief is not that some people sometimes get raised from the dead,
and Jesus happens to be one of them. It is precisely that people don’t ever get
raised from the dead, and something new has happened in and through Jesus which
has blown a hole through that previous observation.’
It is not Jesus bio chemistry, or some cosmic glitch, rather
it is that God who created the universe and called Israel to be his people, is
doing something new, is executing his rescue plan for the world and the
instigation of a new kingdom and creation in Christ. There is logic and reason
for the resurrection but in the end it is a matter of faith, coming to realise
that the resurrection points us to who Jesus was and is.
That leads on nicely to the third part of Matthew’s resurrection
narrative, the response of the disciples. (Matthew 28:16-20)
Matthew tells us that Jesus meet them as they were gathered
together on a mountain in galilee. He
misses the encounters in Jerusalem that the other gospels speak of and
focuses on this one. When the disciples see Jesus, it says they worshipped
him. Matthew is also quick to point out
that some doubted, and scholars have thought this meant that they doubted that
it was Jesus raised to life, and of course in John we have the account of
Thomas doubting Jesus resurrection, but only because he had not seen him
himself. But here it is more that they doubted that worship was the right
response. As Jewish men, worship was reserved for God alone, in worshipping
Jesus the disciples were acknowledging that Jesus is indeed the son of God, indeed
the one true God who had put on flesh and come and dwelt amongst us, was as Matthew
told us back in the first chapter of his gospel… Emmanuel, God with us. When
Thomas meets the risen Jesus, and Jesus lovingly fulfils his need for proof,
Thomas is the first to acknowledge Jesus as “my Lord, and my God’.
This is the response that we are to have to the risen Jesus
as well. It shows us who Jesus is , that he more than just a prophet, or a good
teacher, our response is to worship and acknowledge him as God’s son, the
messiah, the son of David and the son of God…
The second way the disciples were to react to the risen
Jesus is not simply to worship but also to be about God’s mission. Jesus
commissions them to Go into the world and to make disciples of all nations,
baptising them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and teaching
them to obey all that I have commanded you”. We are given the task of
responding to Christ raised to life again, by sharing that with all the nations
of the world. Again, it’s Jesus upside down kingdom style. It’s not by force or
legislation, but by calling people to be disciples, disciples means learners
people who will learn this new resurrection life in Christ from us, Baptising
them signifies that they are willing identify
with Christ’s death and resurrection, to leave their old life and to follow
Christ.
That commission is book ended, at the books end, or
surrounded by two affirmations about Jesus. Both as a result of his
resurrection… Firstly, that all authority in heaven and earth has been given to
Jesus. That he is exalted to the right hand of the father, and the other is
that he is with us to the end of the age. We can go about that commission to Go
that we have been given because Jesus is both sovereign and is with us by the Holy
Spirit. those two things make that commission possible. We are witnesses to
that resurrection life lived out by the apostles and those who have gone about
doing that work of making disciples in the power of Christ, with the presence
of Christ. God’s faithfulness with and through his people from generation to
generation. The fact that we are here from all over bears witness to that.
There are
days that change the world, Easter Sunday and the resurrection is foremost
amongst them. Jesus is risen from the dead, he is alive forever more and the
world has changed It’s not that we remember where we were when we heard that
news, although like many I can tell you the day it changed my life, and if you
here and you haven’t acknowledged Jesus as your Lord and saviour your world can
change today...as you meet the risen Christ… But it’s not remembering back then as a
historical event rather it is that we remember it today and every day, where
ever we are now and wherever we go… in how we live and love… in witnessing to
it in word and deed… He is risen! He is risen indeed.
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