The
Eternal Resurrection of the Christ
By
the Rev. Lee Woofenden
Bridgewater,
Massachusetts, April 11, 2004
Easter
Sunday
Readings
Isaiah
60:1-3 Arise! Shine!
Arise,
shine, for your light has come, and the
glory of the Lord rises upon you. See,
darkness covers the earth and thick
darkness is over the peoples; but the
Lord rises upon you and his glory
appears over you. Nations will come to
your light, and kings to the brightness
of your dawn.
Mark
16:1-20 The resurrection of Jesus
When
the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene,
Mary the mother of James, and Salome
bought spices so that they might go to
anoint Jesus' body. Very early on the
first day of the week, just after
sunrise, they were on their way to the
tomb and they asked each other,
"Who will roll the stone away from
the entrance of the tomb?"
But
when they looked up, they saw that the
stone, which was very large, had been
rolled away. As they entered the tomb,
they saw a young man dressed in a white
robe sitting on the right side, and they
were frightened. "Don't be
afraid," he said. "You are
looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was
crucified. He has risen! He is not here.
See the place where they laid him. But
go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is
going ahead of you into Galilee. There
you will see him, just as he told
you.'"
Trembling
and bewildered, the women went out and
fled from the tomb. They said nothing to
anyone, because they were afraid.
When
Jesus rose early on the first day of the
week, he appeared first to Mary
Magdalene, out of whom he had driven
seven demons. She went and told those
who had been with him and who were
mourning and weeping. When they heard
that Jesus was alive and that she had
seen him, they did not believe it.
Afterwards
Jesus appeared in a different form to
two of them while they were walking in
the country. These returned and reported
it to the rest; but they did not believe
them either.
Later
Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they
were eating; he rebuked them for their
lack of faith and their stubborn refusal
to believe those who had seen him after
he had risen.
He
said to them, "Go into all the
world and preach the good news to all
creation. Whoever believes and is
baptized will be saved, but whoever does
not believe will be condemned. And these
signs will accompany those who believe:
In my name they will drive out demons;
they will speak in new tongues; they
will pick up snakes with their hands;
and when they drink deadly poison, it
will not hurt them at all; they will
place their hands on sick people, and
they will get well."
After
the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he
was taken up into heaven and he sat at
the right hand of God. Then the
disciples went out and preached
everywhere, and the Lord worked with
them, and confirmed his word by the
signs that accompanied it.
Arcana
Coelestia #2405.8 The Lord's
resurrection in us
The
Lord's kingdom is used in both a
collective and an individual sense, as
well as in a specific sense. The kingdom
of the Lord comes collectively
when any church on earth is
re-established on a new basis. It comes individually
when we as individuals are spiritually
reborn and become new people. The Lord's
kingdom is then being established in us,
and we are becoming the church. And it
happens in specific instances as
often as the goodness that flows from
love and faith is at work in us--since
this is what the Lord's coming means.
So
in an individual and specific sense, the
Lord's resurrection on the third morning
embodies the truth that the Lord rises
in our minds every day, and even every
single moment, when we have been
spiritually reborn.
Sermon
Arise,
shine, for your light has come, and the
glory of the Lord rises upon you. See,
darkness covers the earth and thick
darkness is over the peoples; but the
Lord rises upon you and his glory
appears over you. Nations will come to
your light, and kings to the brightness
of your dawn. (Isaiah 60:1-3)
With
all the hoopla surrounding the Lord's
Passion these days, you would think that
the crucifixion of Jesus were the main
event--the climax of the Gospel story.
And in the most traditional version of
Christian theology, it is. From that
perspective, the whole reason Jesus came
was to be crucified, and pay the penalty
for our sins by his death. Never mind
that the Bible never actually says
that Jesus paid the penalty for our
sins! It says some things that sound
that way to some people. But if that is
what the Bible means, why doesn't it
come right out and say so?
But
an even more basic problem with this
heavy focus on the crucifixion is that
the crucifixion and passion of the
Christ is not, in fact, the main event
and climax of the Gospel story. And
whatever the doctrines of various
Christian churches may say, the
Christian world as a whole recognizes
this fact in the way it celebrates the
religious festivals of Holy Week. The
main event of our celebrations is not
Good Friday, but Easter Sunday. It is
not the passion, but the resurrection of
the Christ that is the climax of the
story. The focal point of the Gospels is
not the fact that Jesus Christ died, but
the fact that he overcame death.
If
the main reason Christ came were to die,
there would be no need for a
resurrection. If the primary purpose
were to pay for our sins through his
suffering and death, the Gospel stories
could have ended after the crucifixion,
and there would be nothing essential
missing. In fact, in the most radical
form of traditional Christian theology,
even the life and teachings of Jesus
become almost like filler to get us to
the crucifixion, and to make sure we
appreciate Christ's passion and death
sufficiently.
Though
it may be having a bit of a heyday right
now, I believe that this old Christian
theology, with its focus on Christ's
death, is on the wane. A few hundred
years ago, Christ's death was the focal
point of nearly all of the Christian
churches. Today, many are moving away
from this fixation on Christ's death,
and putting much more emphasis on his
life and teachings, and on his
resurrection. I believe that in this new
Christian era, the Lord is renewing
Christianity. The Lord is gradually, yet
inexorably pulling the Christian world
out of its focus on death, and moving
its focus over to life. More and more as
the decades go by, the Christian world
as a whole is choosing life over death.
The Christian Church is moving out of
the thick darkness of a materialistic
and medieval theology into the glorious
dawning of a new spiritual era centered
on resurrection, light, and life.
And
what better time than Easter to
celebrate this new life in the church?
This is the day when the whole Christian
world celebrates the real climax
of the Gospel story. This is the day
when we celebrate the Lord's victory
over death. This is the day when we
celebrate the wonderful news brought by
the angel at the Lord's tomb: "He
is not here; he has risen!"
If
there had been no resurrection, there
would be no Christian Church. If the
bare requirements of traditional
Christian theology were met, and Jesus
died on the cross without any
resurrection, the scattered and
disheartened Apostles would have gone
back to their fishing and tax
collecting, and there would have been no
Gospels. We would not even know that a
man named Jesus Christ ever existed. And
there would be no reason for both the
scholarly and the religious world to
sift through every scrap of testimony
and evidence to piece together the
events of an obscure Jewish teacher who
lived during the ancient Roman
occupation of Palestine. If Jesus' death
had been the end of the story, it would,
indeed, have been the end of the
story, because the story never would
have been told in the first place.
But
it was not the end of the story. Nor was
it just an add-on to make sure that the
story of the crucifixion got told. The
resurrection of the Christ is our
salvation every bit as much as the
passion of the Christ is. We are saved
not only through the death of Jesus
Christ, but through his entire life, his
death, and his resurrection.
And
it is when the resurrection happens in
us that we are truly saved.
From
our church's perspective, the main
source of the error in traditional
Christian theology is that it focuses on
the outward, material events rather than
on their spiritual meaning. As an
outward, material event, both the
crucifixion and the resurrection of
Christ happened nearly two thousand
years ago. And though these events did
have a major impact on history, that in
itself is more a historical than a
spiritual issue. What matters most about
the Lord's life, death, and resurrection
is how it affects each one of us today
in our soul and in our life.
In
a favorite Easter hymn, we sing,
"Jesus Christ is risen today."
And that is exactly the point. Yes,
Jesus Christ was risen two thousand
years ago. But the important thing is
not what happened two thousand years
ago, but what happens for each one of
us, and for all of us together, today!
The
Lord's resurrection is not a one-time
event. When the Lord Jesus rose from
death, it did not just provide the
inspiration for the beginning of the
Christian Church; it provided the divine
pattern for an endless, eternal cycle of
resurrections and rebirths. The
resurrection of the Christ is not just
something that happened two thousand
years ago. It is something that can
happen for us every year, every day, and
even every moment.
Even
materially, we human beings are
continually being resurrected. Every
seven years, the entire substance of our
body is replaced, and we have a new
physical body. Every year we emerge from
the death of winter to the life of
spring. Every morning we awake from the
unconsciousness of sleep to the
conscious wakefulness of a new day.
Yet
the greatest resurrection is spiritual,
not material. The greatest resurrection
is not the one that Jesus accomplished
in Bible times. Rather, it is the
resurrection that he continually
accomplishes both in the church as a
body and in each person who follows the
way of the spirit. The greatest
resurrection is not the continual cycle
of coming around to a new spring or
waking up to another day; it is the inner
cycle that happens each time our spirit
wakes up from the sleep of spiritual
death to the joy of new spiritual life.
The
resurrection of the Christ moves onward
in eternal, spiritual cycles. Those
cycles are not outside us, but within
us--if we open our hearts to the Lord.
Jesus Christ is risen today every time
we turn away from the death of our old
material desires and habits to a new
spiritual life of radiating God's light
and love to everyone around us. Out of
the darkness and death in our own souls,
the Lord rises in glory and splendor,
renewing us from the inside out. This is
the eternal resurrection, the eternal
dawning of the Christ. Amen.
Music:
Christ the Lord is Risen Today
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