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sermon
March 23, 2008, Easter Sunday
"Seeing Doesn’t Guarantee Believing"
For those of you are guests today, you should know that the biggest difference between our contemporary and traditional services is that we sing primarily choruses at one and hymns at the other. While some of us enjoy both, there are many people who have a strong preference for either choruses or hymns. It’s like the old farmer who went to the city one weekend and attended a big city church. He came home and his wife asked him how it was. "Well," said the farmer, "it was good. They did something different, however. They sang choruses instead of hymns." "Choruses?" said his wife. "What are those?"
"Oh, they're OK. They are sort of like hymns, only different," said the farmer.
"Well, what's the difference?" asked his wife. The farmer said, "Well, it's like this - If I were to say to you: "Martha, the cows are in the corn"' - well, that would be a hymn. If on the other hand, I were to say to you: 'Martha, Martha, Martha, Oh Martha, MARTHA, MARTHA, the cows, the big cows, the brown cows, the black cows, the white cows, the black and white cows, the COWS, COWS, COWS are in the corn, are in the corn, are in the corn, are in the corn, the CORN, CORN, CORN.' Then, if I were to repeat the whole thing two or three times, well, that would be a chorus."
The next weekend, his nephew, a young, new Christian from the city
came to visit and attended the farmer’s local church in the small town. He went home and his mother asked him how it was. "Well," said the young man, "it was good. They did something different however. They sang hymns instead of regular songs." "Hymns?" asked his mother. "What are those?"
"Oh, they're OK. They are sort of like regular songs, only different," said the young man. "Well, what's the difference?" asked his mother.
The young man said, "Well, it's like this - If I were to say to you:
'Martha, the cows are in the corn' - well, that would be a regular song.
If on the other hand, I were to say to you:
'Oh Martha, dear Martha, hear thou my cry
Inclinest thine ear to the words of my mouth
Turn thou thy whole wondrous ear by and by
to the righteous, inimitable, glorious truth.
For the way of the animals who can explain
There in their heads is no shadow of sense
Hearkenest they in God's sun or His rain
Unless from the mild, tempting corn they are fenced.
Yea those cows in glad bovine, rebellious delight
Have broke free their shackles, their warm pens eschewed
Then goaded by minions of darkness and night
They all my mild Chilliwack sweet corn have chewed.
So look to the bright shining day by and by
Where all foul corruptions of earth are reborn
Where no vicious animals make my soul cry
And I no longer see those foul cows in the corn.'
Then if I were to do only verses one, three and four and do a key change on the last verse, well that would be a hymn.”
So based on which version of those two you like better, you know which service to attend.
Many people have commented on how early Easter is this year. Easter is always the first Sunday after the first full moon (which was Friday) after the Spring Equinox (which was Thursday, March 20). This dating of Easter is based on the lunar calendar that Hebrew people used to identify Passover, which is why it moves around on our Roman calendar. Easter can actually be one day earlier (March 22) but that is pretty rare. This is the earliest Easter any of us will see and only the most senior among us (95 years old or above) was alive when Easter was this early in 1913. The next time Easter will be this early will be the year 2228 (220 years from now). The next time it will be a day earlier, March 22, will be in the year 2285 (277 years from now). The last time it was on March 22 was 1818. So, if you don’t like the fact that Easter was so early this year, relax, you don’t have to worry about it happening again for the rest of your life!
The fact that Easter is so close to the vernal equinox is not necessarily a bad thing. Because we set our clocks ahead two weeks before Easter this year, we have been experiencing more day light later in the evening before Easter.
It is also true when life looks bleak and cold and the world is a mess that we most need to hear the Easter story that reminds us new life, new hope, and new beginnings are possible. The crocuses have been popping up in our front yard and the pussy willow are out in our backyard and as you drive around town there is now a red hue visible on the grey branches of the trees. Spring is coming even though it sure hasn’t felt like it. The Easter message of hope is ours, even when we don’t feel like it. For people who are sick of the cold or darkness, or weary from the weight of heart ache and grief or loneliness, like many of us are today, like Mary Magdalene, and the disciples were on that first Easter, remembering and celebrating the resurrection of Jesus and the hope of eternal life when we are still in the cold, grey of March can be a good thing. Listen to the Easter story from John’s gospel.
“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him,
“Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew,b “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.”
On that first Easter morning, Mary Magdalene sees a number of things that are signs of the resurrection. She sees an empty tomb (20:1-2), she sees two angels (20:12-13) who she talks to, and she even sees the risen Jesus (20:14-15) but seeing all those things, none of them caused her to believe in the resurrection. Mary reacts in a typically human way to discovering the open tomb and the missing body– she assumed it was an act of robbery or vandalism and that the body had been stolen.
In addition to Mary, Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved, (most likely John), also see the empty tomb and the grave clothes lying there with no body in them. John believes and Peter does not. Seeing doesn’t guarantee believing even for those who were with Jesus and knew him best. It is when Mary hears Jesus calls her by name, “Mary” that she cries out in recognition (20:16). Her recognition comes from hearing the word Jesus spoke. Mary shows that seeing alone doesn’t necessarily lead directly to believing. If there is to be faith in the resurrection it needs to come from something more than seeing an empty tomb.
Hearing is crucial to faith because John’s Gospel was written to folks who lived after Jesus had been physically present so hearing was more crucial to coming to faith than seeing. Mary is the pattern for Christians in later generations including ourselves who come to know Jesus on the basis of what we hear rather than on the basis of physically seeing Jesus.
One thing about the resurrection story is that it leads us to be humble about our own believing. Mary, Peter, and John all saw the empty tomb and they all had a different response. Even when Peter and John saw the empty tomb, these two men who were closer to Jesus than anyone, didn’t immediately believe and grasp fully what it meant. The scripture says, “for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.” There is an element of mystery and humility that are a part of believing. It seems to me that this is incredibly important in the world in which we live when political, economic, environmental, and religious issues, decisions and choices are so global in scope and so far reaching in their consequences. Now more than ever, it is crucial for Christians to demonstrate that we are disciples of Jesus by doing what Jesus said. Jesus said in John 13:35, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
My Uncle shared the following story with me; I don’t know the woman who told it. “I'll never forget Easter 1946. I was 14, my little sister Ocy was 12, and my older sister Darlene 16. We lived at home with our mother, and the four of us knew what it was to do without many things. My dad had died five years before, leaving Mom with seven school kids to raise and no money. By 1946 my older sisters were married and my brothers had left home. A month before Easter the pastor of our church announced that a special Easter offering would be taken to help a poor family. He asked everyone to save and give sacrificially. When we got home, we talked about what we could do. We decided to buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live on them for a month. This would allow us to save $20 of our grocery money for the offering. Then we thought that if we kept our electric lights turned out as much as possible and didn't listen to the radio, we'd save money on that month's electric bill. Darlene got as many house and yard cleaning jobs as possible, and both of us babysat for everyone we could. For 15 cents we could buy enough cotton loops to make three pot holders to sell for $1. We made $20 on pot holders. That month was one of the best of our lives.
Every day we counted the money to see how much we had saved. At night we'd sit in the dark and talk about how the poor family was going to enjoy having the money the church would give them. We had about 80 people in church, so we figured that whatever amount of money we had to give, the offering would surely be 20 times that much. Every Sunday the pastor had reminded everyone to save for the sacrificial offering. The day before Easter, Ocy and I walked to the grocery store and got the manager to give us three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for all our change. We ran all the way home to show Mom and Darlene. We had never had so much money before.
That night we were so excited we could hardly sleep. We didn't care that we wouldn't have new clothes for Easter; we had $70 for the sacrificial offering.
We could hardly wait to get to church! On Sunday morning, rain was pouring. We didn't own an umbrella, and the church was over a mile from our home, but it didn't seem to matter how wet we got. Darlene had cardboard in her shoes to fill the holes. The cardboard came apart, and her feet got wet. But we sat in church proudly. I heard some teenagers talking about the Smith girls having on their old dresses. I looked at them in their new clothes, and I felt rich. When the sacrificial offering was taken, we were sitting on the second row from the front. Mom put in the $10 bill, and each of us kids put in a $20.
As we walked home after church, we sang all the way. At lunch Mom had a surprise for us. She had bought a dozen eggs, and we had boiled Easter eggs with our fried potatoes! Late that afternoon the minister drove up in his car. Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment, and then came back with an envelope in her hand. We asked what it was, but she didn't say a word. She opened the envelope and out fell a bunch of money. There were three crisp $20 bills, one $10 and seventeen $1 bills.
Mom put the money back in the envelope. We didn't talk, just sat and stared at the floor. We had gone from feeling like millionaires to feeling like poor white trash. We kids had such a happy life that we felt sorry for anyone who didn't have our Mom and Dad for parents and a house full of brothers and sisters and other kids visiting constantly. We thought it was fun to share silverware and see whether we got the spoon or the fork that night. We had two knifes that we passed around to whoever needed them. I knew we didn't have a lot of things that other people had, but I'd never thought we were poor. That Easter day I found out we were. The minister had brought us the money for the poor family, so we must be poor.
I looked at my dress and worn-out shoes and felt so ashamed - I didn't even want to go back to church.
We sat in silence for a long time. Then it got dark, and we went to bed. All that week, we girls went to school and came home, and no one talked much. Finally on Saturday, Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money. We didn't know. We didn't want to go to church on Sunday, but Mom said we had to. Although it was a sunny day, we didn't talk on the way. Mom started to sing, but no one joined in and she only sang one verse. At church we had a missionary speaker. He talked about how churches in Africa made buildings out of sun dried bricks, but they needed money to buy roofs. He said $100 would put a roof on a church. The minister said, "Can't we all sacrifice to help these poor people?" We looked at each other and smiled for the first time in a week. Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope. She passed it to Darlene. Darlene gave it to me, and I handed it to Ocy. Ocy put it in the offering. When the offering was counted, the minister announced that it was a little over $100. The missionary was excited. He hadn't expected such a large offering from our small church.
He said, "You must have some rich people in this church."
Suddenly it struck us! We had given $87 of that "little over $100."
We were the rich family in the church! The missionary said so. From that day on I've never been poor again. I've always remembered how rich I am because I have Jesus!”
I imagine that may be the way Mary felt on that first Easter morning.
Andrew Sullivan, wrote an article in Time Magazine a while ago, called, When Not Seeing Is Believing. It said, in part, “A Christian is not a Christian simply because she agrees to conform her life to some set of external principles or dogmas, or because at a particular moment in her life, she experienced a rupture and changed herself entirely. She is a Christian primarily because she acts like one. She loves and forgives; she listens and prays; she contemplates and befriends…in that…understanding of faith, practice is more important than theory, love is more important than law, and mystery is seen as an insight into truth rather than an obstacle.”[1]
We will not have the chance to see the signs of the resurrection that Mary saw - an empty tomb, abandoned grave cloths, and most likely we won’t be spoken to by a couple of angels or even the risen Christ. Today the greatest signs of the reality and validity of Easter’s resurrection message are the lives of those who have heard the good news and responded in faith by acting like a follower of Jesus. Each person by the love, kindness, and service we share in Jesus name by the power of the Spirit of God at work in our lives, bears witness each day that Christ Jesus has risen and that he lives in our hearts and in our lives.
b That is, Aramaic
[1] Andrew Sullivan, When Not Seeing Is Believing, Time Magazine, October 2, 2006.