A Resurrection: “There's No Doubt About it!”
The resurrection changes everything
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. David McMaster
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Text: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Jim and I had lived on the same street for several years. We were great friends. We played football together (you know, the real football; the game you play with your … feet). We played cricket, tennis and just generally hung around together. Strangers thought that we were brothers because both of us had that flame-red hair that people associate with the Irish or Scottish gene-pool.
I was 13 years old and several nights in a row Jim and I put together a series of football drills at my house to improve our skill at the game. We dreamt of being the next George Best or Pele. Little did either of us know that the dream was about to come to an abrupt end.
The day after the third of those evenings, we set off to our respective schools; Jim, by foot, to the one nearby while I travelled by bus to my mother's alma mater, Sullivan Upper School. The day is forever etched in my memory, not so much for what happened in school, as for what happened after. I went to classes as normal, played rugby as normal, and headed home around 4:30 p.m. As I wandered up my street which was built on a hill, one of my other friends, Ivor, came running after me, calling for me. “David! David!” When I turned around and he caught up, Ivor asked, “Have you heard the news?”
“News,” I said, “What news?”
“Jim's dead!”
“Get outta, here,” I replied, “we were playing at my place last night for a few hours.”
“He is,” said Ivor, “he was killed this morning on the carriageway” (our word for a four lane highway that lay between our home and Jim's school).
“No way!” I continued … until I saw the tell-tale sign of a tear coming out of Ivor's right eye and trickling down his face. Ivor didn't need to go any further for we were 13 years old and everybody knew that boys don't cry.
It was the talk of the neighbourhood that evening. We began to wonder what we should do. We didn't really know how these things worked, but four of us decided that the next evening, we would go down to Jim's house and pay our respects. When that evening came, we donned our school uniforms yet again, polished up our shoes, and walked down the street. Jim's Dad greeted us at the door and thanked us for coming. We were shown into the sitting room where a number of people gathered around Jim's body lying in a casket. The four of us didn't stay long. I don't know what it was doing to the others but I was disturbed. I could say nothing. I remember walking up the street toward home fighting back tears. I walked off a bit from the others as one or two sobs came out but that was all I could allow because everybody knew that boys don't cry. At 13 years of age I had encountered death yet again. I knew the finality of it. Jim was gone. He wasn't coming back.
Death is a part of the human condition. We all encounter it sooner or later. It is sometimes called the last, or the greatest, enemy and from almost the beginning of time, human beings have wondered, questioned, speculated about what may lie beyond the pale. Individuals of every generation have sought to defy it. Some of the earliest writings in existence depict a quest for something that would give eternal life. Gilgamesh, among others, failed in that quest. In more recent times, Walt Disney, for instance, asked that upon death his body be frozen in the hope that future generations of scientists would be able to revivify him and cure him of the illness that would take his life. We want life to continue not end but, every so often, we have to come to grips with death's finality, with the concept that someone in our lives is gone.
Sometimes we like to fool ourselves into thinking that we, today, know more of these things than people who lived in the past, but the ancients knew about death and they knew of the finality of it just as we. They posited a place, an underworld, to which people travelled when earthly days were done. The Hebrews called it She'ol but it is described similarly in various literatures of the ancient world as a shadowy place, a murky existence, almost the antithesis of life, devoid of the joys and light and relationships that we know. It is dark, a place of shadows, a place where the dead seem to fall into an endless sleep. But most importantly, it was a place from which no one came back. When life was done, it was over. There was no coming back from what the ancients called “the land of no return.”
O there was a popular myth in several cultures about the fertility god going down to the netherworld in the winter and rising again in the spring to bring new life. It was an annual ritual associated with agricultural fertility and religion. In the Greek period there were versions of a couple of plays that dabbled with the concept of characters being brought back from “the land of no return.” But these are often vague; they speak of shadows rather than flesh and blood. They are the stuff of the gods or legendary figures and are tied up with religious ritual or story. No one actually believed it possible to come back in bodily form once one had died. Even in Jewish society where there was a belief among some that at the end of days, God's people would be raised together, there was no notion that an individual now, while regular life remained, could rise. For now, life was life, death was death, individuals who went to Sheol did not come back.
So it was in that context that the events following Jesus' death were so difficult to grasp. It was the women who encountered it first. Mary Magdalene and others went to the tomb after the Sabbath to anoint Jesus' body. But it was gone and they are told to tell the others that he had risen. One of the accounts describes how Mary encountered Jesus. She thought he was the gardener for she knew that dead people just don't come back (Jn.20:15). They scarcely believed it as they went off to tell the other disciples. Mark says, “terror and amazement had seized them (Mk.16:8).” The disciples didn't believe them either. Peter and another ran to the tomb to have a look, only to find it empty. It was later that Jesus appeared to the group in a room. They were dumbfounded. Luke says that they thought there were seeing a ghost (their worldview would have allowed for that). But it was not a ghost for Jesus beckoned them to look at his hands and his feet and touch him “for a ghost does not have flesh and blood (Lk.24:39).” Luke continues, “In their joy they were disbelieving,” for this sort of thing was beyond belief.
Perhaps the quintessential story of the struggle to believe is John's account of doubting Thomas who was not present for the first appearance. Thomas absolutely refused to believe saying, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe (Jn.20:25).” Perhaps he thought that they were playing a trick on him and if he caved in to this incredulous story, they would all laugh. Or maybe, he thought they were deluded. A week later, however, Jesus stood among them and invited Thomas to come, touch him and believe. Thomas fell down crying out, “My Lord and my God!”
Later Jesus appeared to others on the road to Emmaus, then to yet others in Galilee. We read of all these appearances in the Gospels, yet decades before the Gospel accounts reached their final, written form, the apostle Paul wrote:
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me (1 Cor.15:3b-8).
It's an incredible claim, isn't it? It pushes our modern, educated, mainline-church minds to the limit. But if we would set aside the assumption for a moment that tends to rule out the unique a priori because the scientific mind says that things like that are not generally observable, perhaps we can come to grips with the possibility of the unique.
Think for instance of how we gain knowledge of the past. Is it not through eyewitnesses, people who were there? We do not always have access, even today, to video cameras, sound recording devices, cell phones that can do absolutely everything. Especially when we go back into the more distant past and history and want to understand events and people and relationships and the thought behind events we need people, eyewitnesses, reports of individuals who were there. Archaeology can inform us to a certain extent but we have to rely on human communication, speech and writing for the details. We take the reports and historians will tell us that not every report is of equal value. There will be differences, inaccuracies, we have to weigh the credibility of one witness versus another. But the broad rule is that our knowledge of the past comes from eyewitnesses; people who were there.
What Paul says to us here is that Cephas, the twelve, 500 persons at one time, James, and all the apostles were all talking about the same basic thing, they had seen a man who had died live again. It wasn't one person who saw him, it was many and when we begin to evaluate these witnesses, we learn from writers of the first century that they were ordinary human beings, fishermen, tax-collectors, people who lived in villages and towns. They were real, normal, human beings who had good days and bad. The twelve, for instance, who were the core group around Jesus, are portrayed as not quite getting him or his message. They are depicted fighting among themselves for seats of honour. When their teacher was being flogged, they feared for their lives, they didn't want to be seen as accomplices and get the same treatment. As he died, they denied him, they cowered in the face of trial. All pretty normal human stuff and when he reappeared after death, they didn't believe even their own eyes, at least at first. Again, normal stuff.
But something happened. Something happened that convinced them, that completely altered their lives, that, in a matter of weeks, took away their fear, their anxiety, informed them and enabled them to stand up even before a Jewish court and proclaim that Jesus had risen from the dead in very concrete terms.
There are those who would have us believe that they were dreamers, that they were hallucinating, or that in some spiritual sense they had felt Jesus' presence with them, sensed that his cause was still going forward and that they should follow this leading into the world. While possible, we must ask if it is historically plausible. Is it plausible that this group that spoke of love and righteousness and honesty would try to fool us with a story of resurrection if it were not true? Is it plausible that individuals would give up so much, even their lives for a feeling, or a dream, or a vision? Is it plausible that these things would lead them to face hardship and persecution and even martyrdom? Or is there another explanation? Is it not more likely that they experienced something that so rocked their little worlds that it changed everything and took all fear away.
Then there's Paul, himself. He writes, “Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God (1Cor.15:8, 9).” You see, Paul had not been around Jesus during his ministry. He had grown up in Roman city of Tarsus and came to Jerusalem to study with the renowned Rabbi Gamaliel. Later, he had been sent by the high priest to deal with “the growing Christian menace.” Paul had arrested, persecuted, even killed individuals who had embraced sectarianism and Jesus. Zealous indeed he was until he was stopped on the Damascus Road (Acts 9). He was stopped, confronted by Jesus and everything he believed was shaken to the core. Something happened to Paul on that road. Something happened that changed his life forever. Instead of persecuting Christ, he began to follow him. What was it, a dream, a vision? He had language available to him that would have allowed him to describe it in such terms. But Paul too used more concrete language, resurrection language, and he went on to risk his very life to reveal what he had experienced. He writes elsewhere that he had incurred imprisonments, countless floggings, and had often been left near death. He writes of whippings, being stoned, shipwrecked, and left adrift at sea. He writes of being in danger from both Jew and Gentile, being in trouble in cities and out of cities, spending many a sleepless night, going without food, and being left cold and naked outside in the face of the elements. (2Cor.11:23-28). What was this for, a dream or vision? I can't find anything in Paul that would suggest that he did all this for some personal gain. Why then? Was it a dream? Or, did something so fantastic happen that he just could not keep his mouth shut?
I remember in the 70s when I used to have time to watch television, there was an ad' that Bing Crosby did for Minute Maid orange juice in which he described the benefits and the joys of Minute Maid. It was 100 per cent pure Florida orange juice, the juice of juices, the best of the best, “There's no doubt about it.”
I think what Paul would say to us is this. “Yes, we all know that people don't come back from the dead but this is something we experienced. Incredible as it may be, Peter saw him, James saw him, all the apostles saw him, over 500 people at one time saw him, even I saw him. ” Unusual, but “there's no doubt about it,” and with that certainty and the hope that came from it, the church was born.
Many, even in the church today, find the notion of a resurrection a bit embarrassing. It was, however, a part of the earliest teaching, and became a part of early hymns and statements of Christian faith. It continued to be a part of medieval teaching and creeds. We sing of it today when we turn to Voices United and sing, “Christ the Lord is risen today.” We affirm it when we quote the United Church's New Creed - “we are called to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen, our judge and our hope.”
That hope bit is important. The day after we paid our respects at Jim's house. Our whole Boys' Brigade Company of which Jim had been a member, about 60 boys, fell in behind the hearse that bore Jim to his final resting place. We marched slowly as the hearse progressed up the road to Roselawn Cemetery. We were allowed to break ranks for the interment and there I heard the Rev. Paul Kingston say the usual words: “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust;” … but it was the prayer that got me. The prayer that was important, “In the sure and certain hope of the resurrection, we entrust Jim into God's loving arms.” Perhaps we do not understand completely … it was an unusual occurrence indeed … but the evidence shows that he has risen and the promise is for all God's people (1Cor.15:20ff.). “There's no doubt about it” and that, my friends, changes everything.