This changes everything - Easter Sunday

Introduction

As we turn now to look at the Scripture, I want you to get into a certain frame of mind. It’s the frame of mind that Mark tries to get his readers in with the ending of his Gospel.

So, let’s think about what we’ve been reading about over the last three or four days. If you want to close your eyes and imagine this, that’s fine. If you can imagine better with your eyes open, that’s fine too. The point is, try to imagine that you were there.

The passion

You were there on what the Romans call Thursday night, but we Jews call the evening of Friday morning. Evening precedes morning, as it has since the beginning of creation. Friday evening we were there when Jesus gathered us for the Passover meal. He was so strange, washing our feet, telling us that the bread was his body and the wine his blood, and to remember him whenever we ate and drank it. And then he said that Judas would betray him!

And later that night, that’s exactly what Judas did. We were there when Judas brought soldiers and our enemies, the religious leaders, and took Jesus away. We didn’t follow, but Peter did. Perhaps he was still stung by Jesus declaration that he would betray him. As always, Jesus was right. Peter did betray Jesus when people at Caiaphas’s house recognised him. Only John and some of the women, including his mother, Mary, followed Jesus all the way to that cross. And, unbelievably, watched him die!

I can still hardly believe it. So much power, so much truth, Jesus was always full of God’s presence. How could he just be put to death like that? What happened? What went wrong? And so we cower here in this locked room, waiting. Waiting for we know not what.

The resurrection

Let’s turn now to Mark’s account of what happens next, reading from the New Living Translation:

New Living Translation Chapter 16

Saturday evening, when the Sabbath ended, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome went out and purchased burial spices so they could anoint Jesus’ body. 2 Very early on Sunday morning, just at sunrise, they went to the tomb. 3 On the way they were asking each other, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4 But as they arrived, they looked up and saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled aside.

5 When they entered the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a white robe sitting on the right side. The women were shocked, 6 but the angel said, “Don’t be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! Look, this is where they laid his body. 7 Now go and tell his disciples, including Peter, that Jesus is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there, just as he told you before he died.”

8 The women fled from the tomb, trembling and bewildered, and they said nothing to anyone because they were too frightened.

The weirdness and the wonder

For us as modern Christians it is hard to recognise how weird and wonderful this Sunday morning was. We tend to think, “Well, what did the disciples expect? Jesus had told them he’d rise again, hadn’t he? Didn’t they believe him?”

The answer is, no, of course they didn’t believe him. Why would they believe something so incredible? To try to get a picture of how incredible is the idea that someone would come back from the dead, I’d like to watch a clip from the movie Risen.

A bit of context—the main character here is the Roman Tribune Clavius. He’s a fictional character who has been tasked by Pontius Pilate to find Jesus’s body to make sure that no political mileage can be made out of a supposed resurrection. Clavius had helped in Jesus’s crucifixion, so he knew he was dead. In this sequence Clavius finds Jesus’s body, but it’s not what he expected. Watch his reaction.

[Play Risen]

Wow. That’s powerful, isn’t it? Did you notice how Clavius’s reaction to his encounter with Jesus was to immediately step away from his previous identity? He sent away his second in command, and then he dropped his sword—the symbol and reality of his authority. An encounter with the risen Christ does that—it transforms us and our old self just falls away. It changes everything.

Let’s spend a minute thinking about that sort of encounter, when we come face-to-face with something from beyond this world. How has it changed us? How will it change us? How should it change us?

[A minute]

This changes everything. Jesus’s resurrection turns the world upside down. Let this change everything for us.

And now let’s reflect on that person from beyond the world, as we sing O Praise the Name.