When we look at stories from the Bible, one of the things
I often ask you to do is to try to put yourself in the story. Imagine you were there, seeing these things
unfold. I think that’s something we
especially need to do when it comes to stories we’re familiar with, like the
Easter story. Because we know that Jesus
rose from the dead, we miss the real impact of it. It becomes just a story, a story we’ve heard
many times and a story to which we know the ending.
So as we look at the Easter story again today, try to
imagine you’re there. Try to imagine
you’re one of the characters, or that you’re an onlooker who sees this. Try to imagine you’re learning these things
for the first time, discovering them right along with the people in the story.
Our reading started by telling us about Joseph of
Arimathea and Nicodemus. Those of you
who came to the Good Friday service may remember that we talked about how there
were probably some people who did not want Jesus killed, but who kept their
opinions to themselves. Well, these were
two of those people. You may remember
that Nicodemus was the man who did not understand when Jesus said we need to be
born again. Joseph of Arimathea appears
in all four gospels, but it’s all this same story.
The two of them may not have had the courage to try to
stop Jesus’ death, but they still had a role to play. They decided that the least they could do for
Jesus was give him a decent burial. They
took Jesus’ body and placed it in the tomb.
Now, again,
put yourself in the story. When Jesus’
body was discovered to be gone, one of the first things you’d wonder about was,
well, was his body ever there in the first place. But here, we have two men were prominent
among the Jewish people. Joseph of
Arimathea is described in other gospels as a rich man and a member of the
council. Nicodemus was a Pharisee who
was also a member of the council. So,
when the body was missing, you had two members of the council, one a Pharisee
himself, who could testify that they had put the body in that tomb. There could be no doubt, then, that Jesus’
body had, in fact, been there.
The day after Jesus’ death, of course, was Saturday, the
Jewish Sabbath. The tomb was undisturbed
on that day. But then, early Sunday
morning, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb.
And she saw that the stone had been rolled away. The passage does not say whether she looked
inside the tomb or not, but she either saw or assumed that Jesus was no longer
there.
Now of course, we know what happened to Jesus. We know that he rose from the dead. But Mary Magdalene did not know that. She was shocked. Maybe she thought the authorities had moved
the body. Maybe she thought someone had
stolen it. She really had no idea what
had happened. She had no idea what to
do. She probably did not dare go to the
authorities and ask. But apparently, she
knew where Simon Peter and John were, so she went to them and told them what
happened.
And they apparently were shocked, too. They went out to the tomb on a dead run. Now, some have interpreted that as the
disciples not believing Mary Magdalene because she was a woman, and that could
be. Women were not considered reliable
witness at the time. But I suspect they
would not have believed anyone. It’s
kind of like if someone came in here and told you your car had been
stolen. What would you do? You’d run out to where you’d parked it,
right? It’s not that you thought the
person was lying. It’s just that you’d
have to go out and see for yourself.
That’s how the disciples felt.
It’s not so much that they did not believe Mary Magdalene. It’s just that sometimes, you have to go and
see for yourself.
And that leads to this passage. “Simon Peter came along…and went straight
into the tomb. He saw the strips of
linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’
head. The cloth was still lying in
place, separate from the linen. Finally
the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture
that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)”
Think about this.
Look at the sequence here. They
went out to the tomb. They saw what
happened. And they believed. But they still did not understand.
They did not understand, but they believed anyway. They did not let the fact that they did not
understand everything that had happened keep them from believing in Jesus
Christ.
The more I think about it, the more I think that this is
really one of the keys to our Christian faith.
Being able to believe without understanding. And being able to be comfortable with the
fact that we can believe without understanding.
Now, don’t get me wrong.
There’s nothing wrong with trying to understand more: more about God, more about Jesus, more about
how the world works, more about how we should live out our faith. We should always try to understand more. God put the desire to know, the desire to
understand, into our souls. It’s a part
of our DNA to want to understand more.
Proverbs says, “Turn your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to
understanding.” Trying to understand
more is a good thing to do.
But the thing is that, no matter how much we understand,
there will always be more that we don’t understand. And that’s especially true when it comes to
God. God is so much greater and bigger
and wiser than we are that it is literally impossible for us to understand God.
There are all kinds of things that we don’t
understand. There are all kinds of
things that don’t make sense to us. We
talked about some of them in the sermon series we just finished about the end
of time. Whether we’re talking about
situations around the world or situations in our community or even our own
families, there are all kinds of things that don’t make sense, all kinds of
things that don’t seem right. And no
matter how hard we try, we cannot understand why God, who we’re always told
loves us and cares about us, allows those things to happen.
So the question, ultimately, is: can we accept that? Can we accept that God is there, and that God
does love us and care about us, even though we don’t understand why God allows
the things God allows? Or do we decide
that, because we don’t understand, because it does not make sense, then either
God must not be the loving, caring God we’ve heard about or God must not exist
at all?
The idea of the Savior of the world being killed on a
cross did not make much sense to the disciples.
But when they saw that he was gone from the tomb, they believed. They still did not understand it. It still did not make much sense to
them. But they believed it anyway.
We see a lot of things happen that don’t make much sense
to us. And yet, if we open our eyes, we
can see the glory of God all around us.
We can see the glory of sunrises and sunsets. We can see the creative ability that is in
each one of us. We can see the
willingness that people have to help each other. We can see the love that people show for each
other. We can see God at work in a dozen
ways, a hundred ways, a thousand ways every day, if we’ll just stop and open
our eyes to look.
Almost two thousand years ago, the Apostle Paul wrote, “Jews
demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a
stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has
called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For
the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is
stronger than human strength.”
Can we accept that?
Can we be comfortable with it?
Can we accept that God exists and that God loves us based on what we see
all around us, even though there are still all kinds of things we don’t
understand? Or do we demand that God
explain it all to us, and demand that the explanation meet with our approval
before we’ll believe in God?
Simon Peter and John saw what had happened. They saw that Jesus had risen from the
tomb. They saw the glory of God in
that. They did not understand it, but
they believed. Mary Magdalene saw what
had happened. She saw that Jesus had
risen from the tomb. She saw the glory
of God in that. She did not understand
it, but she believed.
We can see the glory of God all around us. We don’t always understand it. Can we believe?
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