Call Me, Jesus
By Rev Steven R
Mitchell
Mountain View
United, Aurora, CO 3-31-2013
Based on John
20:1-18
Have
you ever watched a good “Who done it” mystery and found yourself so engaged in
the story that you realized that every movement the character was making, every
gesture made, every innuendo presented, you were looking beyond the surface and
trying to figure out if that one piece had something significant to say about
what would see later on in the story?
If
we take this morning’s scene at the tomb here Jesus had been laid just a couple
of days before we can see a number of suggestions in which to think about such
as: Mary going to the tomb while it was still dark, one disciple out runs the
other and yet doesn’t enter into the tomb, while the other after getting to the
tomb, rushes in, they both see the wrappings lying on the ground, yet the head
dress is neatly wrapped and placed by itself.
The tomb was totally empty with the two disciples, but when Mary Magdalene
went back, she was speaking to two angels.
Why didn’t she recognize Jesus in her conversation, yet when hearing her
name spoken, she then recognizes who she has been speaking with? Is there any hidden meaning about Mary
needing to turn around before she realized that Jesus was standing behind her? Why are there only three members of Jesus’ group
going to the tomb? Is there something
important about John believing, but neither he nor Peter understanding
scripture?
There
has been a group gathering during the Lenten season and studying a book by John
Crossan and Marcus Borg titled “The Last Week”, which follows the last week of
Jesus’ life as written by Mark. As we started
to study this book, it quickly became apparent to me that I too often do not
look deeply enough into what is going on behind the story. This book
challenges a lot of historical understanding that many of us have grown
up learning about the ministry of Jesus.
Much of what most of us understand about the Good News that Jesus’
ministry proclaims has been romanized over the centuries, minimizing the actual
message of Jesus.
As
a culture we have come to understand Jesus as a non-political figure, whose
mission was healing the sick and teaching about the love of God. We view the story of the Triumphal Entry into
Jerusalem as only speaking about the resentment from the Religious leaders and
not recognizing that it was a signal to Rome that Jesus was being seen not only
as a King, but as a King, He was also a Son of God. This was a direct attack upon Caesar who as
Empire was thought to be the true Son of God, by virtue of his birth from the
original Caesar who was declared a God.
We see the story of Jesus turning over the tables of the money changers
as a way of his cleansing the temple from an activity that was somehow
forbidden by God. Yet, the money
changers were actually there to do a service for those Pilgrims who journeyed
from their homes afar to worship at the temple.
What Jesus was doing in that demonstration was to disrupt the business
of the temple, which had over time bought into a system that rewarded the
wealthy at the expense of the poor, a direct violation of God’s law. Over the decades, the church has taken the
crucifixion of Jesus and built a theology of “substitution” for our sins; Jesus
died upon the cross sinless and by doing so, took upon himself all of our sins
thus allowing entrance into heaven. Yet the
phrase, “take up your cross and follow me”, doesn’t point to
substitution but rather toward a theology of “participation.”
What
then was the ministry of Jesus? What was
His message, the Good News that He was preaching? Jesus was preaching against a system that
held most of the resources at the expense of those who had little to begin
with. Jesus’ message was that God
created enough for all, but because of the greed of humanity, we tend to
operate with a philosophy of “scarcity”
which leads to the excessive accumulation of resources and hindering the
just distribution of God’s resources. This
can be understood through the story of the “feeding of the 5,000.” Jesus was seen by Rome and the religious
leaders of his day as an insurrectionist, which was the only crime that Romans
use crucifixion as punishment. Jesus was
not an innocent man being unjustly crucified, he was a man who was exposing a
corrupt system and was demanding change.
It
was in this crucifixion on Friday that the Empire, who perpetuates this system
of domination, said, “We are in control, we have the power, and we can stop
you.” Comes Sunday morning, Mary
Magdalene goes to administer the ritual for the dead and finds an empty
tomb. The only thing that she can think
to do is to run and tell Peter and John, who run to the tomb to see for
themselves that the tomb is empty. What
they find is curious to say the least, for grave robbers wouldn’t have left the
linen wrappings if they had taken the body, or if they did, they would not have
taken care in folding the cloth that had wrapped Jesus’ head, first clue! Scripture says that after John see’s the
evidence “he believes, yet they do not understand the scripture
about Jesus must rise from the dead.”
This poses the
question: does a person need to
understand an experience that is between them and God in order to believe? I often have conversations with people
where at some point they begin to share experiences that cannot be explained by
our current knowledge of the laws of physics, yet they firmly believe in those
experiences. For example: We hear
stories of people who had feelings of danger if they take the scheduled flight
they have booked, cancel their plans, and then learn about that particular
flight ends with the plan crashing. When
we hear stories such as these, we have no physical proof about to back up these
claims, but because of the deep sincerity of their sharing, we believe what
they are telling us as truth.
Then there is
Mary’s story at this empty tomb. She is
the one who goes early in the morning to tend to Jesus’ body and finds the tomb
empty. After telling Peter and John, she
finds the courage to return to the tomb after they have gone where she
encounters two people that she supposes to be angels. She is weeping over not finding Jesus’ body. It isn’t until she turns around that she
realizes that there is a third man at the tomb.
She doesn’t recognize who she is speaking with until he speaks her name
“Mary”, then she realizes this is Jesus, her beloved teacher.
I wonder how many
of us have conversations with angels over and over and do not recognize them to
be of God? I wonder how many times many
of us have encounters with Jesus and do not recognize it that is until we
finally hear our name spoken? An empty
tomb – not really, for once she is able to open herself up to finding Jesus in
a form she was not expecting to find, she was no longer alone, the tomb was no
longer empty.
What I gain from
this story comes from the different reactions of Peter, John, and Mary. Peter is never said to “believe” while at the
tomb, but eventually becomes the cornerstone of the church. John, doesn’t need much to believe that Jesus
is alive, yet doesn’t need to understand what scripture says about Jesus rising
from the grave. Mary doesn’t seem to
pull it together until she hears her name called by Jesus. We have three differing experiences and all
three come to recognize that Jesus is not dead, but alive. This gives hope for each of us that we don’t
have to react to the message of Jesus’ resurrection in just one particular way,
but can honor our own experiences in what “Jesus
resurrected” means to each one of us.
The ultimate
message about the empty tomb comes back to what the message of the
crucifixion. In the death of Jesus, Rome
was saying that the god Caesar won. In
the empty tomb the message to the world is that God won, that death was not the
end, but that Jesus is still alive, alive in his disciples and alive in the
church today. The empty tomb has put
those who live by the theology of scarcity on notice that God is still in the
game and through those who chose to participate with Jesus working toward
creating God’s kingdom here on earth.
Amen
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