Creekside Church Sermon of April 12, 1998 "An Incredible Claim " John 20:1-18	Rev. David Bibbee
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Thanks to the wonders of the World Wide Web, my sermons go out over the Internet to who knows where. But at times I feel anxious knowing that somewhere, someone has gotten hold of a message I intended for you. Lots of people eavesdrop on what is said here every Sunday, and I am sure that they interpret what they read in ways I do not intend.

Clinton Tidwell is a pastor in a small Southern town who knows this feeling well. In his church is an 80 year-old man who is the active editor of the local newspaper. He is both a blessing and a curse. He is a blessing because he thinks Tidwell is one of the best preachers around. Wanting the whole town to benefit from his pastor's wisdom, this old journalist prints a summary of Tidwell's sermon in the Monday morning paper. The curse is that he isn't as sharp as he used to be, and often Tidwell is absolutely astonished by what the editor says he said. No one could edit his summaries. He owned the paper, after all. What Tidwell said and what the editor heard was often a source of amazement and embarrassment.

The greatest embarrassment, however, came not when he misunderstood a sermon, but when he understood it very clearly. The day after Easter Tidwell walked to the end of the driveway in his bathrobe and slippers. Several feet away he could see the huge, black letters of a headline. He wondered what happened. Had war broken out somewhere? Had the local bank collapsed? Had they found a cure for cancer? As the headline came into focus, his jaw dropped. The headline read, "Tidwell Claims Jesus Christ Rose From the Dead."

Sure, he had said that, but my word, it was Easter. He was supposed to say that. What would the neighbors think? Then suddenly as he stared at the screaming headline, what had been a routine Easter sermon had him feeling foolish. It was what Paul described as, "the foolishness of the Gospel."

Just look at yourselves. You've come all gussied up in hats and spring colors. The pastor and choir are robed. We've put up a beautiful Easter banner. We've got chimes, anthems, and a worship center that looks like a botanical garden, and we tie it all together by singing the "Hallelujah Chorus". It's longhand for saying, "Jesus Christ rose from the dead." But do we have the foggiest notion of what it means to make this incredible claim? Usually not. We have been numbed by repetition. "Christ is risen," sounds sort of dog-eared and routine...hardly a headline we would expect to see in The Elkhart Truth. "Christ is risen!" Let's hear ourselves say it out loud. It is as easy to say as "Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player ever." Both statements are true, but one requires the passion of conviction, and factors greatly into how we live life and ultimately how we face death.

When you think about it, it is a wonderful claim, but not an easy one to utter in the open because no one witnessed the resurrection. It doesn't mesh with anything in nature. There are recoveries and resuscitations, but not resurrections. When comparing the Gospel accounts of Easter morning, there are significant differences. What they all agree on is that Jesus was dead, no one expected the resurrection, and no one saw it. It was something God worked out between himself and Jesus and no one got to watch.

Claim that Christ is risen, and it won't take long for a question to arise-"What proofs do you have to substantiate your claim? Any forensics evidence? Were the guards available for questioning? Were the disciples given a polygraph?" None of the above. What we have is a story. Early on Sunday, while it was yet dark, Mary arrived at the tomb and found the stone rolled away. She ran back to Peter and the other unnamed disciple, who ran back and found the tomb empty. If his body was stolen, why were the linen wrappings left? Why bother neatly folding the cloth that was on his head? It doesn't say. The other disciple followed Peter into the tomb and he believed. What did he believe? It doesn't say. One disciple believed, Peter scratched his head, and they both went back home. The rest of the story is Mary's. She talked to two angels, although she didn't know they were angels. She talked to Jesus, but she didn't know it was Jesus, not at first, anyway.

Folks still flock to church on Easter Sunday, anxious to hear something of substance to hang their hopes on. On Easter Sunday, it is not so much Jesus' example we are interested in, or his teaching even. On Easter Sunday, everything he said and did gets interpreted in light of the resurrection. If he died and that was it, then all he said and did went with him. Like Paul said, "If he was not raised, then pity us."

We come to worship today hoping for something to substantiate the claim, not so much for some wag who says, "Prove it!", but for ourselves. What supports the claim? Dan Petry, the pastor of the Middlebury Church of the Brethren, took his youth group to a workcamp in Kentucky. To get to the mission where they would work, they had to cross a very crude bridge high over a creek. They got out of the van and looked long and hard before driving across. It was crudely constructed with steel posts and wood planks with 3-inch wooden guide rails on the edge. With a prayer on their lips, and hearts in their throats and planks heaving up and down, they made it.

The church has been around almost two thousand years now. This in itself is nothing short of a miracle, given its fragile start on Easter, the weight of its claims held up on the belief something no one saw or has ever seen, two pieces of cloth, and a conversation with angels. The story would be a lot more satisfying if Jesus had waited in the tomb a little while and hollered, "Surprise!" when the visitors peeked inside. It would have been easier if he had walked into Pilate's and Caiaphas' bedrooms and said, "I know you like to sleep in on Sundays, but I just wanted to let you know, 'I'm back!'" But this is not what we have. No one saw the resurrection. We will not find the evidence we are looking for and want deeply to believe in at an empty tomb because the evidence is elsewhere.

The gospels are not interested with the details of how it happened. The point is that after it happened, Jesus had appointments to keep and people to see. Mary was first. Then he appeared several times to his lost, grief stricken disciples, and every time he did, they became braver, stronger, kinder, and more like him. Don't look for evidence where none will be found. If you want proof that Jesus was raised, listen to your life and pay attention to what the risen Christ is doing in the lives of those around you. Let me tell you where I have seen him lately.

On March 11 I saw him at 350 Hiawatha Drive as Sarah Pletcher's family sang hymns to her and tried every way possible to say, "I love you." Their sorrow was great as Sarah let go of life, but the trust in Christ's promise, "I am with you always and in all ways," was greater. The power of Christ's presence was there.

On Thursday evening after Love Feast, a little red-haired girl who is a granddaughter of two of our members, tugged on my coat and asked, "May I have a word with you in private?" I am not accustomed to such a classy request, especially from an 8 year-old. We went into the Onward classroom. I had to get down on one knee to be at eye level. She has had a hard time thus far in her young life. She has experienced things with which many adults would find it tough to cope. Outside a very occasional visit to church, she has had no formal religious instruction. "What would you like to talk about?" I asked. Then with poise, maturity, and sincerity she looked me in the eye and said with no hesitation, "I want someone to talk with me about becoming a Christian, being baptized, and joining the church. I've been thinking about it quite a while." "How long?" I asked. "Since I was six." I froze in amazement. No one had been prompting or pressuring her. So what is this desire she is responding to? Had I just seen another evidence of the living Christ at work in a child's life?

Don't scour the tomb for some kernel of conclusive, empirical evidence. The support for Easter's wild, incredible claim is found elsewhere...among the living. I read a little book I would recommend to you. It's called The Gift of Peace. It was written by Joseph Cardinal Bernardin during the last two months of his life as he was dying from cancer. You may recall that Bernardin was accused in a nationally televised press conference of having sexually abused a young man named Steven Cook. For months the Cardinal lived under constant scrutiny and media attention. Finally, Steven Cook admitted the charges were false. Nothing had happened, and the charges were dropped. But the story doesn't end here.

Steven was living alone and was critically ill with AIDS. Bernardin wanted to meet him, to assure him he harbored no feelings, and if possible, have a reconciliation. Steven agreed to the meeting, and when they sat face to face, he apologized to Bernardin for the pain and public embarrassment he had caused. Steven then revealed his own pain and the alienation he had felt from the Church and God. "Steven, I brought you something; a Bible I have inscribed to you." He took the Bible in quivering hands, held it to his chest and began to cry. Then Bernardin took a one-hundred year-old chalice out of his case. "Steven, this is from a man I don't even know. He asked me to use it to say mass for you some day." "Let's have it now," Steven said.

After the mass, Bernardin anointed Steven for healing, and then Steven said, "A big burden has been lifted from my life today. I feel healed and very much at peace." And on the flight back to Chicago, Bernardin wrote, "I feel the lightness of spirit that an afternoon of grace brings to one's life."

When Jesus was twelve, his parents lost him. They finally found him in the Temple and asked, "Where have you been?" "Didn't you know I must be about my Father's business?" he replied. Today we ask, "Where is he?" He is taking care of business, still. You'll see him where people grieve and hold fast to him in faith. You will see him and feel him at the very point you long for him. You will see him whenever reconciliation takes place. You'll see him wherever the powers of darkness tell us that what we yearn for and believe in, isn't so.

A Communist party lecturer was summing up his thoughts. The large audience listened pensively as he concluded, "There is no God. Jesus Christ never existed. The Holy Spirit isn't real. The Church is a repressive, outdated institution. The future belongs to the State, and the State is in the hands of the Party." Just as he sat down, an old priest in the front row stood and asked, "May I say three words?" With a disdainful look, the lecturer gazed over the audience and agreed. The priest then turned to the great crowd and shouted, "Christ is risen!" And the crowd roared back, "He is risen indeed!"

Two piles of clothes. An empty tomb. Conversations with angels. It doesn't seem very convincing. It apparently didn't mean much to the disciples either. It took a gardener calling Mary by name. It took the appearances of the living Lord to put the disciples on the road to living again. He had places to go and people to see. Pay attention...you could be next.

Thank you to Barbara Brown Taylor whose meditation, "Escape from the Tomb" (The Christian Century, April 1, 1998) inspired the form of this sermon.

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