Luke24:1-12
During this season of Lent I took on a daily discipline of writing. A
group called Rethink Church, affiliated with the United Methodist Church,
offered something they call the photo-a-day challenge for Lent. Each day they
offered a word and invited people to share a photo on social media that
expresses that word for them. I decided to also use words, to think through
what the word prompt means to me and share that, along with a picture.
It’s been an interesting and challenging experience, the kind of
exercise that helps me think deeply about what words mean to me. Something I
think is worth doing, because words are important. Words provide much of the
meaning in our lives. even little words like “but.”
You might have thought this a strange sermon title. “But” is not much of
a word. It does not really stand alone, nor is it a proper way to begin a
sentence, so we were taught in school. Yet, this is the word that begins the 24th
chapter of Luke’s gospel.
It’s a very strange way to begin something new, because the very nature
of the word means you have to look back to see what happened before it. What
happened before this chapter that is being rebutted? What happened before this
chapter that has been disrupted? What happened just before this which makes the
events of this chapter a surprise? We actually know the answer to that.
We know what happened before. Jesus was hung on a cross, the Roman
instrument of torture and execution. He breathed his last breath. His friends
stood by and bore witness to this. Then they went to get permission to take
down his body. They took his body down and wrapped it in a linen cloth and laid
it in a tomb.
Then they left, for it was the eve of the sabbath, a day that would require
rest. “On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment,” Luke says at
the end of chapter 23. Then we turn the page, and we find that word:
But, early in the morning of the first day of the week, the women went back
to the tomb with the intent of tending to his corpse, the thing they were
prevented from doing the Friday before. They were expecting to find a
three-day-dead body to deal with, but –
They found the stone had been rolled away. They found no body in the
tomb. Instead, they found two men in dazzling clothes standing beside them –
angels, we might assume – who asked them why they were looking for the living
among the dead. He is not here. He is risen.
And here, really, is where the story of the good news begins. If not for
the but, there would be no gospel. If
not for the but, nothing in Chapters
1 through 23 would have been written. If not for the but, we would not be here today.
“But” is the promise, the hope, the assurance of things not seen. It is
a strong word of faith.
It’s not much of a word, I admit. But. It’s a little thing, overused and
underappreciated. Nevertheless, it is the engine that turns the page.
It tells us something disruptive happened on that weekend 2,000 years
ago. It tells us that God has broken in to disrupt the cycle of death. God has
made a move to disturb the forces of evil in the world with good. God has
interrupted our usual programming with breaking news! Some really good news.
When we hear “but,” we know that what the world had come to assume and
expect, would no longer be the norm. God has intruded into our lives, intruded
into the work, the domain of death, and restored life. Today we celebrate that God
has done a new thing.
On Friday, he died. On Saturday, they rested. But – on Sunday, he is
risen!
When the women stepped into the tomb Sunday morning and saw the dazzling
men instead of the body of Jesus, they were flooded with feelings. Perplexed,
disoriented, confused, anxious, terrified. In terror, they fell to the ground,
hiding their faces. And they hear the dazzling men say to them, why do you look
for the living among the dead? You thought he was here, but he is risen.
Well, that’s something we haven’t seen before, isn’t it? Okay, there was
that one time when Jesus called Lazarus out of the grave. Lazarus was restored
to life, but he was going to die again. This thing that happened with Jesus at
the tomb was different. This is God reaching into our world and saying, death doesn’t
mean a thing. The life I am offering you is bigger than that. I’m talking about
a new kind of life.
God reached into this world and changed things. God gave Jesus new life;
and through the risen Christ, God is offering it to us too.
Easter, life eternal, is not a thing that only means something to us at
the time of our death. It means something every day of our life.
He was in the grave, but now he is risen. He was dead, but now he is
alive. We were filled with sadness, but now we are filled with joy. The power,
the anticipation, the hope expressed in this word “but.” Everything turns on
this word. “But” is the hinge that opens the door to new life.
Now that we know this, now that we stand in front of this open door,
what do we do? How does this impact the way we live our lives today?
The truth is much of the time we still live our lives as though this had
never happened. We live as though the most important things are the things that
are perishable. We attach great value to things in the world that are as good
as dead. We carry on with the old life, the one that God broke into the world
to disrupt, the one where death still has the final word. We live this old life
which is a zero-sum game, where in order for me to gain something someone else
has to lose something. This is the way the world works. It offers a life where the
things we fight for, obsess about, boast of, are things that will all perish
anyway.
That is the old life that God broke into and offered something new. In
this new life, everything is changed. We know that not only does death no
longer have the final word, but also that there is greater life – deeper,
joyful, and abundant life – when we stop trying to hold this perishable life
with such a tight fist.
The dazzling men/angels said to the women, “Why do you look for the
living among the dead? Don’t you remember all that he told you? That all these
things would happen and on the third day he would rise up. Remember?”
And then they did remember, and they went back to find the men and tell
them everything. But, the men did not
believe them. These words seemed to them an idle tale.
Again, it turns on this hinge – the word “but.” This time, however, that
little word turns them not toward life but away from life.
We all are given this opportunity. We have heard the story, probably
many times over. We recite the lines in the Apostles’ Creed: Jesus was
crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into hell; the third day he rose
again. We say these words, but the real truth of the resurrection comes to us
in the experience of our lives.
If we want to truly know the resurrection from the dead, we need to live
this new life God offers us through Christ, walk through that door and live
that life. We do that best when we do it for each other. When we help one
another live a resurrected life, in the little ways we often do –
teaching a child how to worship, holding the hymnal with them, giving
them their first communion bread;
sitting with one who is facing the really hard questions, the questions
that can’t be answered to our satisfaction, the questions that test our faith;
being the help that someone needs, even when helping is hard;
being the cool glass of water for the one who is thirsty, the piece of
bread that is broken off for the one who is hungry.
We do it best when we do it for each other.
The new life in Christ, the resurrected life, comes to us when we let go
of the old life, because the old life weighs us down and fills us up with things
that don’t matter ultimately, things that are perishable. Open your hand, let them go, and receive the
new life in Christ.
But I have some things I need to take care of first, you might say. Like
some characters we meet in the gospels – the ones who said they wanted to
follow Jesus, but they had some things they needed to do first.
The hinge turns both ways. We can hear and see and believe how God has
broken into the world and rebutted the wisdom of the world. Or we can offer our
own “but,” turning away from the life that is offered. It is our choice. We can
walk through the open door, or we can shut the door. Our choice.
The stone is rolled away. The tomb is empty. Christ is risen and he has
opened the door to life for you and me. Let us walk through that door together.
Photo credit: Leitzschederivative work: MagentaGreen [CC0]
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