Comments for Jim Other sermons.                 

I’d like you to imagine something with me this afternoon. Imagine that somebody has figured out a way to make time travel possible and we can take a trip together in a time machine. And because we are especially curious Christians, we are going back to the events of Good Friday, Easter morning, and afterwards. We are going to find out, once and for all, what really happened. And since we want others to believe our eyewitness accounts when we return, we are taking along a very sophisticated camcorder. We are going to videotape the whole thing, from beginning to end, especially what happened at and right after the resurrection of Jesus.

Why, you might ask, are we doing this? Many Christians have long held that the resurrection literally happened; that it is a historical event. It has been said that the Gospels cannot explain the resurrection; only the resurrection can explain the Gospels. Something happened. Something. I believe that. The New Testament has four eyewitness accounts (five if you include the Book of Acts) by people who visited the empty tomb and later saw Jesus alive. While agreeing in general (Jesus was raised on the morning of the third day after his crucifixion, on the first day of the week), those accounts differ in significant details: like who and how many people were there, who said what to whom, how many angels appeared, when the stone got rolled away, how many days Jesus stayed on earth, and so forth. So we will go back and observe what did happen and record those events and bring back the tape. Then we will plan a little gathering, invite the press, and tell about our journey and show the recording.

Now, imagine fast forwarding that tape to that first Easter Sunday morning. What would it show? What do you think? Interesting question, isn’t it? Now, since we obviously haven’t done it yet, we have no way of knowing. But I believe there could be any number of possibilities as to what we would find on that tape. To begin with, maybe one particular Gospel version of the events turns out to be right. We watch and see that, say, Mark was right: Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James, and Salome, the stone rolled away, and an angel in a white robe in the tomb. Or, one of the other gospel versions. That would settle the matter. But what if, for example, the tape would run and it showed nothing? That is, no tomb, no people, no Jesus. This would be the case if that part of the story were totally made up, and actually never happened. We might want to rewind the tape back to the crucifixion itself. Most scholars say there was a crucifixion. But what happened to Jesus’ body? Would the camera show Jesus’ body still on the cross, left there abandoned to predatory animals? Or Romans dumping his body into a mass grave? Or, at the tomb, would we see some of the disciples surreptitiously removing Jesus’ body and carrying it away? Or we might run the tape and find Jesus waking up, apparently having been drugged, and sneaking off? Or might we find people, several women for example, passionately addressing somebody that they are apparently imagining because the camera isn’t picking up anyone else but them? Jesus, angels, or whomever are not registering on the tape. Can you think of other possibilities?

What do you think the tape would show? If any one of these scenarios, or another, were what appeared on the tape, what impact would that have on your faith? Ponder that a moment. Let me tell you what I think, and you can think about what you think. To begin with, I would have to honestly say that I would be surprised to find the tape literally showing any one of the four gospel accounts. Maybe. Who can say, of course, and it would be a nice surprise. But I don’t think so. And if any of those other possibilities were on the tape, these others like I have just described, it would have little or no impact on my faith. Why is that? Because I believe that the resurrection of Jesus was not a historical event, at least in the way we normally use that term. It was not a happening that would be observable to any objective third-party witness. Many philosophers in the century just ended were fond of saying that you can’t call something real unless it is "empirically verifiable." They meant that if you can’t observe and measure something, it didn’t happen. Understood this way, I would have to say that I don’t believe that Jesus’ resurrection was an empirically verifiable historical event. I do believe something happened, but I guess I am using the word happen differently. God did something that we cannot see or record. But the impact of what God did can be seen and recorded in the faces and in the lives of the followers of Jesus. It’s like what they call "reaction shots" in the movies. What happened can only be evoked in the most metaphorical and poetic of language. But in a deeper sense, I think we are talking about the impact on people of the life of one human being, who was a real historical figure; a person who actually said things and did things.

This brings me to our scripture today from the Gospel of John. The scene is Jesus’ farewell to his disciples at the Last Supper. The Jesus of John knows what is about to happen and he is trying to help the disciples to make sense of it. He says this:

I will not leave you orphaned (desolate - KJV); I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you…

Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot, but another disciple) asks a quite obvious, very twenty-first century kind of question. "Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?" Judas is saying that he understands that Jesus is coming back. But he also hears Jesus clearly saying that not everybody is going to be able to recognize him. In other words, the Risen Christ is not a camcorder accessible phenomenon. The resurrection is not the kind of public, historical event that can be covered by FOX 5 News, as it happens. Jesus says that the risen Christ is not available to everyone. Jesus said before that the world would not see him but "you will see me." In answer to Judas he says:

Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but it is from the Father who sent me.

What is resurrection? That is the title of the sermon. I have said what I believe it is not. I believe the resurrection was not an empirically verifiable or measurable historical event. Whatever happened then and whatever happened when Jesus appeared as the risen Christ, was of a different order of reality entirely.

First, resurrection happens when we receive the transforming insight that Jesus and God the Creator and human beings are spiritually one. I use the term "spiritual" because I can’t think of another. In this I am simply affirming what Jesus himself said in John: "In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you." This is mystical, spiritual, non-empirical language. Jesus has said this before – he is the vine rooted in God, we are the branches. All one essence.

Second, how does this realization, this transforming insight, come about? By trusting Jesus’ words and deeds, that is, through faith. But most importantly, through love. By our receiving God’s love, by loving God in return, and by loving one another. Again, this is just what Jesus says, "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them." To live in the resurrection is to welcome God spiritually into your heart, recognizing that God’s presence has been there all along. And love is the key to having this happen.

Third, since in the resurrection you and I are in God and Christ, and God and Christ are in you and me, we are different. We are transformed. How are we different? Because now we are not seeing with our eyes alone, we are seeing with God’s eyes. We are not hearing with our ears alone, but with God’s ears. We are not feeling with our hearts alone, but with the heart of God. We are not thinking with our own minds, but with the mind of Christ. I believe that what makes Christianity a historical religion is this: when your way of perceiving changes, you change. When your way of looking at the world changes, you change. And your behavior changes. It is different behavior from the people of the world; by which John means the current set-up, the system of domination and exploitation. The people of this world see only with their own limited vision, hear only with their own plugged up ears, and feel only with their own hardened hearts, and think only in conventional ways.

And finally, what is the connection between the meaning of resurrection and faith? There are those who insist on interpreting the resurrection as an observable, historically verifiable event, and believe that if we had been there (with or without our camcorders) we’d know that for sure. Knowing that for sure is the basis of their faith. But it seems to me that they are trying to avoid a leap of faith in what really counts; and that is what the human Jesus stood for. The Jesus Seminar folks think we put far too much emphasis on the historicity of the resurrection. And they point out that since early Egypt, 3,000 years before Jesus, many people believed in some kind of resurrection. People in antiquity would not have seen Jesus’ resurrection as itself especially unique. What was unique was the life. What is historically important is that there lived a real human being, Jesus of Nazareth, who said things and did things. And because of what he said and did, some people dropped what they were doing and followed him. Other people weren’t interested. And for some, his words and deeds were seen as so dangerous and subversive that they had him put to death.

What Jesus said and did had power and people reacted. The most important question is how do you react? That is, where do you put your faith? His followers believed that Jesus through word and deed revealed to them, indeed showed them, who God was. That’s really all they meant when they called Jesus the Son of God. And in faith and love, we are invited to trust in what he said and did, and in the God he shows us. Furthermore, we are invited to place our lives on the line as he did. We are promised that if we die his death – spiritually, or even physically – we can live his life. That is the kind of self-emptying love Jesus described and lived. It has been said that the resurrection is best seen (whatever happened) as God’s way of saying "Yes!" to what Jesus said and did, even though the world’s powers clearly said "No!" Our "Yes!" to Jesus’ words and deeds of love is then, really, our "Yes!" to God’s "Yes!" to us. AMEN.

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