Our Easter Hope: It’s Not About Dying and Going to Heaven

Sermon preached on Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012, at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church. I am indebted to the brilliant and faithful work of bishop Tom Wright in preparing this sermon.

Lectionary texts: Isaiah 25.6-9; Psalm 118.1-2, 14-24; Acts 10.34-43; John 20.1-18.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Good morning, St. Augustine’s, and happy Easter! On Friday we looked at what was so “good” about Good Friday and saw that the cross of Jesus was the means by which God became king and reestablished his kingdom on earth as in heaven. As Israel’s Messiah, Jesus fulfilled God’s call to his people Israel to bring God’s healing love and redemption to a world and its people created good but gone terribly wrong because of human folly and rebellion against God. We also saw that the cross is a tangible sign of God’s great love for us and his desire to offer us forgiveness, irrespective of who we are or what we have done or failed to do, thereby establishing the necessary conditions for our reconciliation with God, a message echoed in today’s reading from Acts. This is quite necessary if we ever hope to be a faithful disciple of Jesus so that we can love and serve him in joyful obedience, even in the face of the suffering we must inevitably endure for his sake. Simply put, we cannot love and serve Christ and others if we are distracted by our guilt, failure, and fears. And so forgiveness is absolutely essential for anyone who wants to be a citizen of God’s kingdom and the cross is God’s everlasting promise to us that we have it.

But none of this would be true or even feasible without the resurrection. The first followers of Jesus didn’t see the cross like this before the resurrection. They were so devastated precisely because they knew the cross meant both that Jesus was dead and he wasn’t their hoped-for Messiah. Any good Jew of Jesus’ day knew that the real Messiah wouldn’t end up being crucified. We see this hopelessness and grief poignantly illustrated in our gospel story this morning. Mary didn’t come to the tomb expecting Jesus to be raised from the dead. That was the farthest thing from her mind. She came to the tomb to finish anointing Jesus’ body (cf. Mark 16.1; Luke 24.1) that had been hastily buried on Friday and grieve over her loss. And we all get that because like Mary, if we are old enough, we too have stood over the graves of our loved ones and wept. Death is a universal experience and barring Jesus’ appearance in our lifetime, the grave is our destiny. So this morning, I want us to look briefly at exactly what the hope and promise of Jesus’ resurrection is all about. As we will see, it really isn’t about going to heaven to live for eternity as a disembodied spirit. No, the resurrection of Jesus is a preview of God’s promised new creation—God’s ultimate answer to the problems of evil and death.

The first hint we have that Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of God’s promised new creation that we read about, in part, in today’s OT lesson is the way John begins his resurrection narrative. He tells us that Mary came to the tomb on the first day of the week. John, ever the brilliant theologian and storyteller that he is, is taking us back to the opening of his gospel with its echoes of the creation narratives from Genesis 1-2. As we saw on Friday, John has Jesus saying on the cross, “It is finished!” The “it,” of course, was Jesus’ redemptive work on the cross in which God defeated the forces of darkness and evil (cf. John 1.5; Colossians 2.15) and bore the entire weight of his awful wrath against human sin and evil, thereby making it possible for humans to receive forgiveness and be reconciled to God once again, thus ending our exile from God and giving us the hope and promise to really live as God intends for us to live. Of course, in telling us that Jesus’ work on the cross was finished on a Friday, John is reminding us that Jesus’ work was finished on the sixth day of the week, the exact day God finished his creative work in the beginning, the day he made human beings in his image to be his wise stewards and image-bearers to his good creation. Now, in the wake of human sin and folly that had perverted and distorted God’s good intentions for his human creatures, here is Jesus on the sixth day doing what was necessary for humans to once again be God’s faithful image-bearers and good stewards by offering forgiveness to us and bringing about the needed conditions for our reconciliation. Only when humans are restored can God’s creation be restored (cf. Roman 8.18-25). And then like his Father, Jesus rests on the sabbath, the seventh day of the week.

Now it is Sunday, the first day of the new week, the eighth day, the result of Jesus’ finished work on the cross, and John wants us to pay attention to this because he repeats it twice, once in our gospel lesson and again in the verse immediately following it. John is telling us that in Jesus’ resurrection, God’s creative work has now brought about God’s promised new creation. The chaos and darkness that had disrupted and spoiled God’s good creation and our lives has been defeated and with it death itself had been conquered. The time for weeping and mourning is over. As John reminded us in his prologue, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. Of course, sin, evil, and death have not yet been fully vanquished, even if they have been decisively defeated on the cross. We must wait for Christ to reappear in great power and glory to finish his work of new creation. But John is telling us in no uncertain terms that the forces of darkness and evil have done their best to kill the Lord of life and have failed. And so we are called to live by faith in the “already-not yet.”

The second hint John gives us that we are witnessing the beginning of God’s new creation is the poignant vignette between Mary and Jesus, whom she mistook as the gardener.  Mary is wrong on one level but so profoundly right on another because John apparently wants us to see that the other Garden, the one from which humans were expelled because of their sin and rebellion against God, is being reopened. The thorns and thistles, signs of God’s curse and judgment on our sin, are being swept away and being replaced with juniper and myrtle, signs of new life and new creation (cf. Isaiah 55.1-13). Jesus is the new Gardener who welcomes us back into God’s new creation, a garden that will be so much more spectacular than Eden was because it is being created anew. And since sin and evil have been defeated, they will not be able to despoil it like they did the first garden.

Do you see the focus here? John is not pointing us to some kind of disembodied spiritual existence. He is pointing us to created matter, to new creation. That is why bodily resurrection matters! God did not raise Jesus from the dead to pave the way for us to live in a disembodied spiritual state forever. No! Jesus’ resurrected body points us to God’s intention to bring about new creation. It is a preview of coming attractions of sorts. As our OT lesson (and the rest of Scripture) remind us, God does not intend to destroy his world or his people. Instead, God intends to redeem his people and all creation because God created all things to be good and creation matters to God!

So what does the promised new creation look like? To what do we have to look forward? We get our answer, in part, from today’s gospel lesson as well as 1 Corinthians 15.1-58, 1 Thessalonians 4.13-18, and Revelation 21.1-22.5. What follows is a brief overview, not a full discussion of the new creation. When Christ reappears in great power and glory, the new creation will be fully consummated. The dimensions of heaven and earth, biblical language for God’s space and human space respectively, will be fused together in a spectacular and universal event so that they will no longer be separated as they are now. As Revelation puts it, the New Jerusalem, the new heavens, will come down to earth; we won’t be going to heaven. Pay attention to that dynamic! Our mortal bodies will be raised from the dead and we will be given a new resurrection body, the kind of body Jesus has. Like Jesus’ resurrection body, our new body will be impervious to all the nasty things that can afflict our mortal bodies. There will be no more suffering or sorrow or sickness or disease or evil or death—ever. This is because our resurrection bodies will be powered by the Spirit of God, the very Spirit of life, and not by flesh and blood that is mortal and fallen (that’s what Paul is talking about when he tells us our resurrection bodies will be spiritual bodies). We will be reunited with our loved ones who have died in Christ, never to be separated from them again. There will be new life to live and new work to do, work that will bring God praise and glory, life and work that we will find infinitely fulfilling and meaningful. And best of all we will get to live in God’s direct presence forever. We need to be careful about getting too specific about all this because Scripture is not terribly specific. But whatever the new creation looks like it will surely be more glorious than we can comprehend or imagine because God is its author.

So the Christian hope and promise that Easter heralds is this. As Paul reminds us in numerous places, when we die, we go immediately to be with our Lord to enjoy a season of rest until he returns in great power and glory to raise the dead and usher in fully the new creation that his resurrection previewed for us and about which we have just spoken. Call this intermediate state heaven if you wish. The name doesn’t matter because it’s not our final destination. The new heavens and earth is! I don’t know about you but I find the hope of new creation to be a much fuller and richer hope than the idea of dying and going to heaven to spend the rest of eternity as a disembodied spirit. So does this guy [show cartoon]. If I have failed to excite your hope and imagination, it is certainly because I have done a poor job of trying to describe the indescribable.

So what does this all mean for us living today? Let’s start on the personal level. Everyone of us here has suffered loss and we grieve over those whom we love but see no more. Let the resurrection with its promise of new life and new creation work to bring you real comfort and hope for both you and your loved ones who have died in the Lord. Reread John’s account of the resurrection. Stand at the grave of your loved ones, either figuratively or literally, and as you weep over your loss, dare to hear Jesus’ voice as he calls you by name. Listen to his gentle rebuke and encouragement as he asks you why you are weeping, especially when you know that he has overcome sin and death and ended our exile forever through his death and resurrection. Let that work on you in the power of the Spirit. The grave over which you weep is only a temporary resting place for your beloved and they are now enjoying their rest with the Lord. Because God raised Jesus from the dead, you have a glorious reunion awaiting you!

Then get to work. The promise of new creation reminds us that this world and its people matter to God and if that’s true, the world and its people had better matter to you. As Jesus alludes to in this morning’s gospel lesson, he is now both risen and ascended. In other words, Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not. This means we are called to help Jesus continue to bring in his new creation by imitating him in his humility, service, and suffering. This means there is forgiveness and mercy to be extended, especially to those whom we really dislike. There is massive human need that must be addressed: people to feed and clothe, injustice to be fought, and folks to whom God’s love must be offered so that they too can know what it is like to be really forgiven, thereby finding real healing and hope. We do this work together as Christ’s body, his church, and in the context of our daily lives. God isn’t calling most of us to be overseas missionaries. He is calling us to love on the people around us because the need is enormous and right here under our very noses. We don’t do any of this to save the world. Jesus has already done that. No, what we do is in the power of the Spirit and in grateful response to the immeasurable gift God has given us in Jesus, even if it seems like we are sometimes laboring in vain. As Paul reminded the Corinthians at the end of his massive discussion on new creation and our resurrection bodies, we are to stand firm in our work for the Lord because apparently that work will somehow be carried forward into the new creation so that nothing will be lost (cf. 1 Corinthians 3.11-15; 15.35-58).

All this, of course, requires faith. Not blind faith but an informed faith. That means we must spend a fair amount of time and effort learning the story of how God is bringing about his promised new creation so that we can be thoroughly familiar with its promises. We need to do this because we are greeted everyday with more bad news and evil that seemingly goes unchecked. We don’t have to look any further than our weekly intercessory list to see how great is the amount of pain and human suffering going on and it is pretty easy for us to fall into hopelessness and despair and wonder if God really does love us. You can be certain that Satan and his minions will use all this to try and persuade us that God really doesn’t exist or has abandoned us, and that Jesus’ resurrection and the new creation it launched is a lie. That’s where an informed faith comes in. A careful study of the Scriptures, especially the NT, with its God-breathed story of how God became king and reestablished his kingdom on earth with its promised fulfillment in the new creation can serve as a powerful antidote, along with the Spirit’s presence living in us, to our doubts and fears that naturally arise when we are afflicted with evil.

We also need to come regularly to worship to help and support each other and be reminded of our hope and promise of new creation. Each week when we come to the table to feed on our Lord’s body and blood we are transported sacramentally in time to the day when the new creation will be fully consummated and we need this tangible reminder because we are so easily distracted. And on a more immediate note, I would be remiss in closing if I didn’t remind us that St. Augustine’s itself is a sign of God’s new creation, a new parish born out of the chaos of failure and loss and separation and hurt that is so prevalent in this world but which the love of God and power of new creation have overcome. That is why the hope and promise of new creation is so important, and that’s why we must celebrate it wildly over these next fifty days so that other people take notice. Because if we really believe that new creation has come, we really do have Good News, now and for all eternity. Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Archbishop Robert Duncan’s Easter Sermon

Received via email.

Preached by the Most Reverend Robert Duncan at the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh Vigil, in St. Peter’s Church in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, on Easter Eve, 7th April, A.D.2012.

They were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb? [Mark 16:3]

In the Name of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, One God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Blessed and Praised forever: Amen.

In all four gospels it is women who come first to the tomb. Matthew, Mark and Luke all tell us the purpose: to anoint Jesus’ body. Burial on Friday had been hurried. At least the soldiers had not broken his legs to speed death. He was already dead. The Sabbath was at hand. In the moment, Joseph of Arimathea was moved to give his own freshly hewn tomb, which was, St. John tells us, very near to the Place of the Skull. Nicodemus, John tells us, had given spices, but Jesus’ own inner circle had not been able to care for his body in the customary way. There had been so much hurry. They had loved him so much. Nevertheless, they could still do what was right, what at the very least they owed him, when the Sabbath ended.

They surely recognized their problem. They surely knew that the immense wheel-like stone had been rolled over the entrance to the tomb. St. Mark tells us that they had actually seen this happen. Maybe they had also heard about Pilate’s order that the tomb be sealed and a guard set to keep things that way. It is St. Matthew that records for us this detail.

So the women meet very early on Sunday, sometime after sundown on Saturrday. They must do what it is right to do and what could not be done on Friday. They can now prepare the spices and the ointments. It is still dark. They will arrive near first light.

Everything is, of course, very confused and confusing. Their grief is overwhelming. Have they forgotten about the stone? Do they not think about the stone until they are actually on their way? Do each think about it earlier, but not discuss it? We cannot know. All we can know is that on their way to the tomb they are saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?”

Followers of Jesus often face what seem to them insurmountable problems…challenges for which there seem to be no apparent solutions. They will nevertheless do what is right, what they can do, even if there is a part of the puzzle they do not have or cannot conceive. Trust in their God drives them on. With God, there has always been a way through in the past, so why not trust Him now?

A terribly injured child? An imposssbile situation at work? A marriage in tatters? Some debilitating illness or handicap? An unjust accusation? An adolescent in rebellion? A friendship betrayed? Wars and rumors of wars? Domestic or civil violence? Whatever the present impossibility… We Christians will trust him with this too.

We can wonder what the women spoke of as they went in the darkness toward the tomb of Jesus. Was there more than “Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?” Might they have remembered the Passover story of long ago, the very feast being celebrated in these same days? All the first-born of Israel had been spared. Might they next have recalled the victory at the Red Sea, when all God’s people were saved and all of Pharaoh’s army drowned? Might they have remembered Jericho, where the walls miraculously tumbled down? Could they have encouraged one another with the stories of Ruth or Esther, or Daniel or the Three Young Men? Might they have spoken of Judas Maccabeus or the miracle of Chanukah? Could they have rehearsed some of the miracles they had seen at the hands of their crucified rabbi? The healings, the feedings, the castings out, the raisings from the dead? Might they have even dared to wonder about his teaching concerning what would follow his own death? We cannot say what broke the silence of their preparation of the spices and ointments, or the silence of their walk to the tomb. We are sure of their grief – for that is why they were meeting – and we are sure of the one question: “Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?

In all of our speculation about the run-up to the arrival of the women at the tomb, it is very hard to imagine that the women could have imagined in advance what actually confronted them on arrival. God is so much bigger than our thoughts or imaginings. Even the rehearsal of earlier mighty deeds does not prepare us for the immensity of what he can do in the present moment, in the face of our seemingly insurmountable challenges. Yes, he often appoints brothers and sisters, or sometimes even strangers, to help us – to help us in quite ordinary, quite natural ways. But sometimes there is the supernatural, and the great stories seem to be filled with this. Indeed, at their arrival, they would soon have the greatest story of all time to tell. God would act. God powerfully, God unmistakably. God alone. Without man’s help.

God addresses our human challenges both naturally and supernaturally. He is God, after all. Our chief attitude needs to be to trust him, no matter what we face. His operation, whether natural or supernatural, is his choice, his provision by whatever means. He is Creator, sustainer and end of everything, so why do we doubt?

But tonight’s work – this dawn of the day work – is God’s alone. “Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?” God will. God does. There is earthquake. There is an angel, dazzling light. The guards fall away. The stone is rolled back.

But there is more, much more. The tomb is empty. “He has been raised, as he said.” They are invited to see the place where the body had lain. They are given a message. (Forget the spices and the ointments.) “Go tell his disciples.” It hadn’t been about the stone after all…or about a dead body. The crucifixion wasn’t the last word. Not at all. They had mis-read what God was up to. Yes they were being faithful, but their plan – their challenge – was much too small. Fear – a different kind of fear – and great joy are now theirs. They hadn’t run from their problem, from their grief, but had headed straight into it. Now everything was changed. So now they run with a different purpose. They are bearers of the greatest good news of all time. And suddenly he himself meets them: “Greetings!” They fall and worship, and so do we. And his last words to them are “Go and tell.” We, too, now fall and worship. Our next step is to go and tell.

There is now, with Jesus, no challenge we cannot face, not even death. For now the last challenge has been swallowed up in victory, and – for those who put their faith in him – no stones that cannot be rolled away. There is nothing now that can separate us from the Father’s love or Jesus’ resurrection or the Spirit’s power. Rejoice this Easter Day! Rejoice like never before! Rejoice for the stone on the tomb proved no problem to our God.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen. The Lord is Risen indeed. Alleluia.