The Empty Tomb

The reading today is from the Gospel of Luke chapter 24. Very early in the morning on the first day of the week the women went to the tomb bringing the fragrance spices they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb it when they went in. They didn't find the body of the Lord Jesus. They didn't know what to make of this. Suddenly two men were standing beside them in gleaming bright clothing. The women were frightened and found their faces toward the ground, but the men said to them, why do you look for the living among the dead he isn't here but has been raised. Remember what he told you while he was still in Galilee that the son of man must be handed over to spinner be crucified and on the third day rise again. And they remembered his words and their returns from the tomb they reported all these things to the 11 and all the other. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles. Edwards truck the apostles as nonsense and they didn't believe the women but Peter ran to the tomb. When he bent over to look inside, he saw only the linen cloth and he returned home wondering what happened. your instant meeting

growing up as a an uncharged person who was not attending church are really involved in the church. I had a really hard time with the resurrection, but they idea that Jesus Christ was killed and then brought back from the dead. I was a very scientific person growing up. I did a lot of things science and math computer and I just found this to be too much to believe. I thought it was a silly Superstition the people hung onto and then I became more religious than my young adulthood and I first met church and I eventually became a Christian and enjoying the Christian church. This was still something that I probably still something that I kind of pushed off to the side people would say it it would talk about it and I would kind of brush it off and I'm not really worried about it. I thought you know, it's not really important to my fate my faith is based around the here in the now about the living and doing good and listening to Jesus's Commandments in touch what you just said. Helping poor and the needy helping my community. And so I got to push it off and even when I got into Ministry and I was doing research and I was learning more about the Bible and I have to work a contacts and on all of these kinds of things. I still really couldn't come to grips with this. I had a hard time with it. And I remember I had a conversation with my My Mentor in Ministry early on and he told me you know, what if what if it is true. What if it is true? What if it really happened? How would that change the way that we understand the faith and the way that we interact with each other in the way that we think about biblical story. What if it is true? and ever since then I've been grappling with it and for a long time I had a hard at hard time accepting it, but recently I have had come to a place where I'm much more comfortable with it and I left before. So what is it? What is it? What is the resurrection, you know in there in the reading we had today that what we see is that the women come that the man is sunlight in the previous reading Jesus is crucified and a man named Joseph of Arimathea takes the body and buried it in a brand new Tomb in The Rock has never been used and roll the stone in front of the gym and according to some of the other gospels VI. The religious leaders were concerned because they knew that the followers of Jesus have been saying that used to be raised from the dead on the third day. They were concerned that the Legend of the Fall. We're going to go and raid the tomb and take away the body and make it seem like you've been raised from the dead and so they sent soldiers to guard the tomb now, I'm this version of the story. We don't hear about the folder and and then it's not mentioned before this and stop mentioned when the women arrived at the tomb but in the in the story that the does mention them I forget I can marker Matthew both but I never saw one of the tube. When the wind arrived they find the soldiers are all asleep have all been kind of knocked out and the tomb is open. so even in juice a day there was uncertainty about this event even have that in the early days of the church. There was a lot of uncertainty about the dead people found this event to be hard to believe. People that will maybe maybe Jesus was actually drug in Elizabeth. The last thing he does before getting up his life if you ask for the for the sour wine and they give him the star wine and that's it is finished and he he dies right people that will maybe that was really some kind of drug and it knocked him unconscious but it seemed like he was dead and then They Carried him away and put him out and you know, it will come back up and and took him away someplace else, but even in early days of the church, there were Rumours like this conspiracy theory.

but Regardless of that regardless of if that's true or not if the resurrection really happened or not. It doesn't change the fact that the the apostles and the disciples experience Jesus in a very different way after his crucifixion in the way. They had experienced it before the women who arrived and I really want to point out that all of the stories but especially in Luke is point out that it was the women not the men who discovered the Jesus have been raised and impact the women of the ones who stay with you. That's all the way through, you know, Peter Peter runs away because he's afraid afraid of being a being arrested with Jesus, but the women stay by his side the whole time if they buy aside while he's hanging on the cross the every other there the whole time and one of the things that the two men then in shining clothing mention to the women in this reading they say you remember what he said when he was in Galilee. Bet that he would he would be killed and on the third day will that thing as we kind of talked about over the past few weeks that the teaching was going to be that it was not a common teaching you didn't you didn't tell that to everybody you only told us his inner circle. And so we have to assume from this with written that those women were part of that inner circle. The very beginning of the church since the time of Jesus's Ministry women have been an integral part of the church's Ministry and I think that's something they got lost over the years especially as kind of one with the Empire and and there was the patriarchy and and things that they got involved it becomes corrupted this message, but originally women were just as involved as member. So I just want to point that out cuz this this reading mission is so well, but they are experienced willing to experience was they arrived in the to venture an empty and some and some ghazals even say what have you done to the minutes? What have you done? Where you taking Jesus? You know, I'm actually in the in the other gospel when I say that with it. They see a man to man if it what have you done with with our masquerade v20, but they don't recognize him at first and then this in Luke's gospel immediately after the first we just saw we get the road to Emmaus because these two disciples who are on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus and I run into somebody the random person and they they talked about Jesus with this person and end in o All the way to Emmaus and then they they have dinner and they and they they do something that that very much is a you Crystal you Chris type of service and afterwards they realized suddenly the person they're with is actually Jesus and so they were with him all day and didn't realize we was so obviously they're experiencing Jesus in a very different way than it did before. Maybe. It's true. Maybe Jesus was actually raised from the dead end into a new body and certainly when they when they need to get some apples in half a liter and there, Thomas, who is there do not believe in Resurrection could have happened. He has Thomas filled with holes in his hands in the holes in the side where he was nailed to the cross where he was stabbed. And so it seems you had a physical body. And yet maybe there was a body maybe with a spiritual Resurrection. Maybe it will yield he was resurrected in some way that may have been made him unrecognizable it for everybody. Maybe maybe the disciples just saw Jesus in the people around them. Maybe they they met people who reminded them of Jesus. Maybe they saw Jesus in the faces of it one another maybe they saw Jesus in their memories in their dreams. They remembered his fangs. There's no way for us to know for sure. We can take with the biblical text says and we should take it seriously and it'll text says but in the end, there's no way for us to know with certainty and we haven't found any hard article archaeological evidence. We haven't found any any real detail writing besides. It was written by the early church about Jesus resurrection. I would you find other writings about his desk is crucifixion, but not his resurrection as much so We can be fairly certain that the Jesus crucifixion with a historical event that he was crucified as a political political problems report for saying that he was the king of the Jews right now. That's the day that the official reason that he's that he's killed but that the Crusades were aware of the crucifixion and the resurrection is much more of a spiritual event and the I like the way the previous birth end because it ends with Peter running to that to the tomb and seeing an empty in finding the linen clot and it doesn't say and then she believed it says that you went back home and it wasn't sure what to think yet. He didn't know what to make of all of this and I think that's really important. He didn't know what to make of it. He didn't know what What happened to Eve dishes just didn't understand it wasn't until later when the the disciples and the apostles interacted with the resurrected Jesus, but they really came to believe that Jesus has been resurrected all this time. They're they're really not sure what to believe. And that's an important lesson for us. I think there are a lot of things about the face that that we try of that modern people just to find scientific solutions to Define historical Solutions. I don't think we always going to do that, you know, one of the one of the portions of of the statement of faith of the Christian Universalist Association and also Stephen the face of our our first Community says that we believe in miracles such as the resurrection of Jesus Christ which transcend materialistic views of reality and honestly when I when I signed my agreement to the statement of faith on my part of my ordination process, even then I was unsure of this line. I thought the rest of this basement the spot on this one saying, you know, I'm not so sure about this one thing but I think it's important to be able to sit with the mystery. It's okay to not always have an answer. In fact, I think it's much better to have good question that you were constantly asking that you think you have all the answers. I think that you just know for sure how things work and what things are. I questioning and mystery is better than certainty and I think in this Easter season with this with this reading shows us and what they do with the empty tomb shows us it is. Sometimes we just have to sit with the mystery. Sometimes we just have to be okay with being unsure. You have to be okay with with just taking a leap of faith. Just trusting you trusting in. God trusting in Jesus trusting in our faith trusting in our community trusting in our friend our family and just sit in the mystery and let it be and not let that overwhelm us and not let that scare us. But just let it be part of our experience part of our spiritual journey. So with that said again Christ is risen, Alleluia. Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia.