Faith!
Easter Day 3/23/08
A pastor in the rural south was making some communion visits one day when he ran out of gas. Being near one of his parishioner’s farms, he stopped in to see if he could get any gas from him. The old man who lived there said he reckoned the preacher could have some gas—he had a 55 gallon drum of it. But he had no container handy. So off he went into the barn to see what he could find to dispense the petrol into. A few minutes later he came back out holding a bedpan aloft. “Figure this’ll do the trick,” he allowed.
So they filled the bedpan up with unleaded and the pastor hiked back to his car and began to pour the contents into his gas tank. Just then the local priest happened to drive past. Catching a glimpse of this peculiar incident, he did a double take, then looked in the rear view mirror to confirm that what he thought he saw was indeed what he saw. It was. The priest shook his head in admiration and said to himself, “What faith!”
What faith! That’s why we’re all here this morning. Faith. Faith in someone. Jesus Christ. Faith in something. He is risen! Faith in sometime. We shall one day share in that resurrection with him. And so we proclaim the mystery of faith—Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. A faith that appears to the rest of the world to be every bit as foolish as pouring the contents of a bedpan into your gas tank. Every bit as foolish, but every bit as faith-full too. What faith!
Faith was not high on the list of spiritual attributes of Mary Magdalene and the other Mary as they went out early Sunday morning, heading for the tomb where they had seen Jesus hastily interred Friday just before sundown and the beginning of the Sabbath. They had watched Joseph of Arimathea’s men roll the heavy stone over the entrance to the tomb. It was over—Jesus was dead. He couldn’t save himself.
So, despair was more likely what they were experiencing. Even their hope against hope—that he had been raised as he had promised—that hope was dashed when the two women arrived to see the stone still against the tomb’s opening, the guards still lounging about, speaking vulgarly to each other and laughing at them. Little did these soldiers know that the dead man they had been guarding was no longer in that tomb, and the joke was on them.
Oh. But perhaps you’re thinking I’ve gotten a little out of sequence here. The stone was still against the opening. So, Jesus had to be inside still, right? No, of course not. Jesus didn’t need an angel, or an earthquake, or anything else to roll away the stone. He didn’t need the stone rolled away at all. He was Jesus. The same Jesus who walked on water. The same Jesus who commanded the storm to be still. The same Jesus who had cured the sick, fed the hungry, and changed water into wine. He was Jesus, the messiah, the Son of God. No rock could hold him in, no stone could contain him—no matter how big.
So why the earthquake? Why the angel—remembering that a biblical angel is not some cute chubby valentine’s cherub but a fearsome supernatural creature with an appearance like lightning? And why does the angel roll back the stone, and, in arguably one of the funniest scenes in the gospel, then proceed to sit on it? Can only be one reason. To awaken their faith. To stir up in them the faith needed to override their reason, their logic, their human expectations.
They expected to sit at the tomb and weep and wail for their Lord. They didn’t expect a risen Christ. So they needed perhaps just a little push, a little nudge, if you will, a little nudge towards faith. And so God sends the angel to open the door, not so Jesus can get out. He’s already out. No. So, they can get in. Get in and see that the tomb which was full Friday is now empty. Get in to see how death had been vanquished. To see how that which was logical and reasonable had flown right out the door. To witness God resting after the eighth day of creation. They go in empty handed and come out with faith in the risen Christ!
There’s a clue to support this in the text, though it appears only in the Greek. The angel says, “Do not be afraid.” But the Greek grammar suggests that a better translation would be, “You of all people, do not be afraid.” The angel understands the two to be women of faith, and so should have been expecting this. Then he invites them to see the place where Jesus was laid. So that they might believe and have faith.
And if that wasn’t enough, and it clearly wasn’t since they left the tomb with both great joy and fear, Jesus suddenly meets them and says basically, “Hi there!” Again, to counteract their doubts and give them faith, Jesus appears to them in the flesh. And how do we know he’s in the flesh and not a ghost? Because they touch him—and not just anywhere—his feet—they grab a-hold of his feet. That’s because (and this is way cool) in ancient times, ghosts just kind of wafted around—they weren’t pictured as having feet. So by grasping his feet the two Marys are assured that Jesus is no ghost—he’s real! What faith!
Okay, now, you might say, “That’s all well and good for two women back in those days. But what about for me? And what about for us as the church? We could use some of that kind of faith building too.
Well, I doubt if an angel of biblical proportions is going to appear and sit on anything here today. But an angel is a messenger for God, and I believe that there’s plenty of them here today—not rolling boulders, but peeling back the veneer of our world and revealing a glimpse of the coming
These messengers of God say to us, “You of all people, don’t be afraid. You believe in the risen Christ. Come, see where he has been.” And then they show us Anne Marie House, where homelessness has been transformed into hope. Or the Ash Street Shelter, where hunger has been transformed into meals shared around a table. Or SHARE, where abject need has been turned into the spirit of giving by a little girl collecting toothbrushes. Or Crop Walk, where poverty has morphed into partnerships of economic development. Or the local prison and jail, where places of human incarceration have been transformed into places of freedom in Jesus Christ.
The messengers are showing us these things, not only to get our support and dollars—but to reveal the power of the risen Christ to take the cold, harsh reality of this world and alter it into resurrection reality. These places are the “empty tombs” of our time. And we are invited in to see, and to believe. Believe it is true also for you. Faith!
As for the church, we have a lesson to learn from the women’s encounter with the empty tomb. It was empty—Jesus was not there. He was out and about! They met him out there in the world.
So, too is it for us. We like to think we “bring Jesus” to those places in need of him. Truth is, Jesus is already there in those places. Working, teaching, healing, advocating for the poor, seeking justice for those who are different, and spreading the good news that all are acceptable to God thanks to the cross. He is going ahead of us to the mission front, there he will meet us—there in the world. And so it is that we receive the gift of faith in the resurrected Christ
One last story: A temporary Sunday School teacher was struggling to open a combination lock on the supply cabinet. She had been told the combination, but couldn't quite remember. Finally, she went to the pastor's study and asked for help.
The pastor went into the room and began to turn the dial. After the first two numbers he paused and stared blankly for a moment, and then he looked serenely heavenward while his lips moved silently. Suddenly he looked back at the lock and quickly turned to the final number, opening the lock.
The teacher was amazed. "I'm in awe at your faith, pastor," she said.
"It's really nothing," the pastor answered. "The number is on a piece of tape on the ceiling."
What faith! For it is only with God’s help that we can say at all:
Alleluia! He is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!
Amen and amen!
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