Sermon 04/08/2007

THE KIRK OF KILDAIRE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

CARY, NC

www.kirkofkildaire.org

A sermon preached by Warren Bock

Christus Victor

Somehow, in my growing up years, I thought the first disciples
had absolute clarity and insight.
I believed that the witnesses to the Resurrection
were very sure of a very sure thing.

But all gospels accounts of the Resurrection
record ambiguous, confusing, perplexing
even contradictory events.

Just an example: Mark has three Marys show up at the tomb;
Matthew, two,
and John, one.

Clarence Jordan, in his droll Georgia voice, describes Easter Morning as "[one] big Commotion."

Somehow, we think the followers of Jesus more credulous than we.
Somehow, we believe that they just believed; that they had no questions.

Yet, these folk are no fools.
"Facts is facts," as my friend's father says.
Dead is dead.

The stories of the Resurrection are confusing, confounding, bewildering, unclear.

The truth is that nobody witnessed the Resurrection itself.
Some may have seen an empty tomb.
But an empty tomb does not mean resurrection.

A living One, who his followers had seen executed,
began to appear to those same followers.

And as soon as that begins to happen,
the witnesses began to wonder what those appearances mean.

They sense a change in the wind.
For, if indeed, Jesus is risen, nothing is the same as it once was.

If, indeed, this Risen One is coming to them-
then what they name reality has been shattered.
Their carefully designed constructs of what can or cannot be have been challenged,
The life-giving compassion and love seen in Jesus before he died and when he died
has been shown to be stronger than the worst that evil and hatred can throw at us.

In a play about the Resurrection, based on the writings of Clarence Jordan,
Tom Keith plays the person of Jesus.

The risen Jesus bursts through the door to the upper room
where the frightened, confused disciples are gathered.

This risen Jesus jumps up on a table, spread his arms wide and shouts,
"It worrrrrrrrrrrrked.....! I am here!

"It worked"-the powers of death and destruction did their worst!
And what they did, did not work!
It did not work then! It will not work now!

It is almost as though God's raising Jesus from the dead is a joke played on death and destruction!
Nanny, nanny, boo, boo!

What those powers did-and they did their damnest-did not work then.
And it will not work now!

That the Crucified One is alive and here is not an insight that the disciples gained instantly.
They had to wrestle with the uncommon and unexpected;
with-if you will-The Glorious Mystery.

The disciples leave the opened tomb more than stunned,
greatly startled, caught up in a thousand questions.
I understand that!

Insight comes only when their "eyes are opened" and they recognize him.
Only when they stay still and let the Risen One come to and into them in His own way.

What I think they finally "got" is that because the Risen One is the Risen One,
raised to new life by the act of God,
a new time comes into being-and new graces become possible for us.

Mercy and forgiveness and compassion and justice-
always the signs of God's reign--can now be indelibly drawn
on the hearts and minds of people of God and through them
on the canvas of this world.

Nothing will ever be again as it was because the wind of God's grace
crosses the currents of history,
and transforms the arid fields of human life
in hope and in a vital way that leads to a joyful joining with the Risen One.

I would hope that this Easter morning this is where we are:
with our eyes opened;
with our lives confessing that "Christ is risen," "Jesus is Lord."
Looking for the uncommon and the unexpected from God.

Believing, indeed, "It--the power of God's love--works"-and the "Risen One is here,"
victorious over sin and death and destruction.