Believe

BELIEVE Luke 24:1-12 April 4, 2021 Do you believe everything you hear? Do you believe most of what you hear? In my marriage Jackie tends to be accepting of what she hears. If someone makes an unusual claim, Jackie gives them the benefit of the doubt and starts from a position of belief. I tend to be very cynical. Typically, I start from a position of doubt, and I need more than just word of mouth to embrace the story. So, it's very common for her to come to me and say - look, they're giving away free vacations. And I say, they're not free. I promise you have to buy something, before you get the vacation. But, it says free. Well, I am certain they are lying. Neither of us has ever met these people. We don't know them from Adam. But, she usually trusts what they say. And, I rarely do. Now, I don't know if that's just our personalities. Or, if that tends to be a gender commonality. I haven't looked for any studies that imply women are more trusting than men. Although, that wouldn't surprise me. Our Easter text reveals a group of four women, who are trusting and believing when they encounter the unknown and unexpected. And, it reveals 11 men who are cynical and doubting in spite of compelling evidence. For the first 100 years after the Resurrection the Christian Church was either run by Apostles, or by those who had learned directly from an Apostle. We call it the Apostolic church. We feel pretty good that what the church believed, and taught, came directly from Jesus. During those days, to join the church, you had to make a profession of belief. You had to believe. And, by that, they specifically meant - you had to believe in the Resurrection.1 It was non-negotiable. After all the first-generation believers begin to pass away, the Church is run by people who did not see the Resurrection, and don't know anyone who has seen the Resurrection. And, the concept of believing begins to change. You should believe Jesus is God. You should believe Jesus is your Savior. You should believe in life after death. And now, 2000 years later, in many churches - belief in the physical Resurrection is optional. It's okay if you doubt. It's okay if you're a cynic. One of the fundamental requirements of the Global Methodist Church, which will break away from the United Methodist Church in 18 months, is a return to the original requirement. Pastors must believe in the physical Resurrection. They must publicly profess that Jesus Christ rose from the grave. As it was in the original church, this will be a deal breaker. And, personally, I agree with that. The women who went to the tomb saw and believed. And, they were charged with sharing that information - whether the people they told believed them or not. And, I agree that the principal purpose of the Christian church today, is not social justice, but to believe in the Resurrection, and share that belief with the world.2 Luke begins the story of the Resurrection with the women coming to the tomb on a Sunday morning. Early on Sunday morning. The Greek word Luke uses for 'early' literally means deep dawn.3 Well before sunrise. And, while you and I probably don't give that a lot of thought, it's a very significant statement. Every year, 100,000 pilgrims came to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. 100,000 unidentifiable strangers. And, unfortunately, a sizeable portion of those visitors were criminals.4 If you're a pickpocket, or a con artist, or a rapist - this was prime hunting grounds. Every year during Passover crime skyrocketed. The women are taking a great risk to be out and about at this time of day. Don't think of this as a fun jaunt to the cemetery. The cemetery was considered a bad place to be, because dead bodies are impure. If you get close you will become impure, during Passover. This was a dangerous trip to an unlit, creepy place, with no police protection. We have to give the women a lot of credit for making this trip. What is so important they would literally risk their lives? Jewish burial customs were very strict. As soon as a body was declared dead it was stripped naked and washed. Then, before sunset, it was transported to a tomb. Inside the tomb were benches, and the body was placed on an open bench. There it was coated with chemicals which accelerated the decomposition of soft material. The goal was to get everything except bone, to dissolve as quickly as possible. Then, on the one-year anniversary of the death, relatives went back into the tomb, gathered up the dry bones, put them in a tiny stone coffin, and buried them in a field. No one wanted to go into the tomb on that anniversary, and find a still decomposing corpse. Jesus was declared dead just before sunset and the start of the Sabbath. He was quickly taken to a tomb. He was not washed. And, he was not coated with chemicals. It's now Sunday morning, and Jesus has been dead for three days. His body is going to be nasty. But, it's not decomposing fast enough. So, the women are making the trip to coat Jesus' body with chemicals, so it will rapidly dissolve, so they can bury him in a coffin in one year. Now, you don't take that risk, and you don't accept such an unpleasant task, if you believe in the Resurrection. At this point, the women are not believers. When the women arrive, the stone blocking the entrance to the tomb has been rolled away. They look inside, and there is no body there. Jesus' body is gone. They are confused, and disoriented. Is this the wrong tomb? Did someone steal Jesus' body? What is going on here? And, in the midst of this discussion, two angels appear.5 Clearly they are angels, because their clothes are dazzling white like looking into the Sun. And, their bodies are like staring into an unending flash of lightning. And, not surprisingly, the women are terrified. That is a perfectly reasonable response. What they are seeing is not natural. This is something no one else has ever seen before. Who knows what is about to happen? Being scared witless is a healthy response. One of the angels speaks to the women. And, he says - why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? He isn't here! In the Greek, the question is clearly rhetorical, and just a little bit insulting. Why are you here? What possible reason could you have for coming here? Jesus is not here, he is alive. He told you he would rise from the dead in three days. Why don't you believe him? Right there is the very first challenge to believe the truth of the physical resurrection.6 And, that's the question your church and your Pastor should be asking you every week. Do you believe in the Resurrection? And, if not, why not? And, if not - then why are you here today? Because of tradition? It's a good family day, and I don't want to rock the boat. Look, it can't be like that. Fifty-two weeks a year, everything we do in this building hinges on the Resurrection of Jesus being a fact. The Apostle Paul spends verse after verse making that point. If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, then there is no life after death. And, if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, you and I will not rise from the dead. And, if Jesus didn't rise from the dead he was a liar, and a liar can't be God. So, why are you here - singing praises to Jesus, if you don't believe? For the women, it all clicks at that moment. They do remember Jesus saying he would be betrayed, he would be handed over to the authorities, and he would be crucified. But, on the third day he would rise again! They talk among themselves. The angel is right! Jesus did say all these things. So, why didn't we believe him? We should have known. Everyone who heard Jesus speak this last week should have known. Why weren't his words enough? Why did we have to see in order to believe? When God says this is the truth, why isn't that enough for us? And, it dawns on the women, it wasn't enough for us, and it wasn't enough for the Apostles. We need to tell the men what has happened. The men are hiding. They are fearful of being found out as followers of dead Jesus. They fear being arrested and crucified themselves. So, they are in hiding. The women burst into the room where all the men are hiding. We have discovered a truth, and you need to hear.7 We don't know how many men are cowering in the room. We know the 11 remaining Apostles are there. And, we know many of the Disciples are there as well. The women burst into the room, and they tell everyone - Jesus is alive. Just like he said, he rose from the grave on the third day, and he is alive. And, while the men's response is somewhat predictable, it's also very disappointing. Luke started life as a medical doctor. He was a physician. And, when he records the men's response he uses a medical term - lerōs. It is the ranting, delirious talk, of someone with a fever so high they are out of their mind.8 You women must be sick in the head. Jesus is dead. John is the only one who saw him die, but we believe John. Jesus is dead. And, dead is dead. There's no coming back from dead. But, the women are insistent. They have not yet seen Jesus himself. No one has actually talked with Jesus. Theoretically it is possible someone stole the body. But, the women believe. They give themselves 100% to the words of Jesus. They embrace the physical reality of the Resurrection.9 The women are the first in history to believe without seeing. You and I face a difficult challenge, that the first century church didn't know. It is impossible for you and I to see the empty tomb, or talk with the Resurrected Jesus, or talk with someone else who talked with the Resurrected Jesus. You and I must believe just because the Bible says so. And, I know that can be difficult. That's why today is so important. On this day, we encourage each other to believe. To believe all the things we talk about during the year. We believe with the Father, and the Holy Spirit, Jesus is God. We believe Jesus is the only way to Heaven. We believe there is life after death, and Jesus is in Heaven now preparing a place for us. We believe one day Jesus will return and take us home. And, we believe all that, because we believe in the physical Resurrection. We believe the women. On that morning, in the deep dawn, they made a dangerous trip to an empty tomb. They did see angels. The angels didn't show them anything new. The angels simply reminded them of the words of Jesus. And, the words of Jesus are enough. We believe. 1 R. C. Sproul, general editor. New Geneva Study Bible (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1995), 1652. 2 Matthew Levering, "Historical Memory and the Resurrection of Jesus: Encountering the Risen Christ," International Journal of Systematic Theology, 20 no. 2 (April 2018), 157-185. 3 Darrell L. Bock, Luke 9:51-24:53 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 1885. 4 NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016), 1798. 5 Ibid. 6 Joel B. Green, New Interpreter's Study Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003), 1902. 7 Sproul, 1653. 8 Bock, 1898. 9 Deborah Thompson Prince, "Why Do You Seek the Living Among the Dead? Rhetorical Questions in the Lukan Resurrection Narrative," The Journal of Biblical Literature, 135 no. 1 (2016), 123-139. --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ 2