God's Yellow Box

My first journey by train in Italy was from Milan to Genoa. I bought my ticket, got on the train, and settled in for the ride. Soon the conductor came along, took one look at my ticket, and pronounced it invalid, no good – "Non è valido." He demanded money. His English was no better than my Italian, and we were soon at an impasse – he saying the ticket was no good and I pointing out that it clearly said on the ticket that it was for a trip from Milan to Genoa.

At length the conductor gave up the cause by throwing his arms up in the air and sputtering some invective about "Americano stupido." (Italian conductors will do that if you hold out long enough.)

As soon as he went on his way, a kindly English lady informed me that it is necessary to insert your train ticket into a yellow box at the platform, which stamps the ticket with the date and time. This authenticates the ticket and makes it valid, and this I had not done in Milan.

The raising of Jesus from the dead is God's yellow box. By raising Jesus to life after his torture and execution, God is authenticating the teachings of Jesus and his identity. God is validating who Jesus is in a way that cannot be mistaken or misunderstood. This is no ordinary person. This truly is the Son of God. He is who he said he is, and he did what he said he would do. It is all authenticated, stamped with a date and a time, by this astounding event.

The operative word here is "astounding." Did you catch how many times the word "but" cropped up in Luke's gospel account of the empty tomb?

"But... they did not find the body."

"But the men said to them, 'Why do you seek the living among the dead?'"

"He is not here, but has risen."

"But these words seemed to be an idle tale."

"But Peter got up and ran to the tomb."

But, but, but! Luke is fairly sputtering in astonishment and incredulity.

Although we focus most of our attention on the Easter story in the gospels, which leaves us sputtering too, the earliest accounts of the resurrection of Jesus are in the letters of Paul written about 20 years after the event, and within memory of many still living in Paul's time. There was a strong existing tradition that we find in several sources that following his death, Jesus had risen and had been seen by his friends. Paul tells us emphatically that this tradition had been related to him and that everything we believe rests on the resurrection. He says, "if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain... we are of all people most to be pitied." (1 Corinthians 15:14, 19)

For Paul and the gospel writers later on, the resurrection is the vindication of Jesus' death. It is God's response to Jesus' death and the validation by God of everything in Jesus' life that came before it. It is God's confirmation of Jesus' preaching of the Kingdom of God to the poor, the outcasts, the powerless, and those who turned away from their broken and wayward lives. In the gospel of Luke that we just heard read, the matter is summarized in just five Greek words that translate: "He is not here, but was raised."

And the very next word is "Remember..." Remember!

The key to understanding the resurrection story in Jerusalem in Luke's gospel is to go back to the early part of the gospel when Jesus was in Galillee. Luke has the angel in this morning's gospel saying, "Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again."

Whenever we lay a loved one in the grave, the pain and shock of the loss can separate us from all our moorings and we can become disoriented. And so it was for Jesus' disciples. But by remembering when Jesus was in Galilee we have the emotional resources to deal with the present. So, we remember Jesus' healings, and his meals with sinners and outcasts, and the ten lepers. We remember who he said he was, and then we can begin to understand what is happening now.

In the 14th chapter of Job, we have the ultimate question concerning the human condition. Job asks, "If mortals die, will they live again?" In the resurrection, we have the answer, and the answer is a resounding, "Yes!" This is the defining certainty of Christian hope based on the resurrection of Jesus. We shall live forever. No matter whatever else happens to us, we shall never die.

The problem, of course, is what really, exactly happened on the third day after Jesus' death. And the answer is that we don't really know.

I want to suggest to you that it doesn't matter how it happened, just that it did happen. All the gospels affirm that the tomb was empty, and earlier traditions and writings support this claim. These early claims and traditions were strong and persistent, which suggests forcefully that something must have happened. But the real emphasis in the gospels concerning the resurrection is the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus. And so it is with us today. Our faith lies not on folded linens, a stone door out of place, and the ambiguity of an empty tomb, but in our ongoing experience of the risen Lord in our lives.

Stories about an empty tomb typically do not lead us to faith. In fact, for some, I suspect that such a story could be an obstacle to faith. Instead, it is the risen Lord alive now, in this community, in our everyday experience, that leads people like Laura Winslow and Emily Garcia and others to faith – and confirms and strengthens our own. It was true for the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and for Peter, and for Thomas, and later for Paul, and it is true for us in our own day. But we want evidence. We want proof.

I want to put it to you that it is false to say that we have no empirical evidence for the risen Christ. The evidence is sitting right next to you here this morning.

A scientist would tell you that empirical evidence for some truths about the universe or the biological world can often be quite subtle, only to be seen in small differences and minute shapes and patterns. They are often not noticed and even when seen can seem to be obscure.

But – there's that word again – but there is a paradox about subtle evidence. A scientist would also tell you that once the evidence has been noticed, it ceases to be subtle. Indeed, scientists often tell of the exhilaration that they experience at that moment when the obscure becomes glaringly obvious. And like a Christian telling someone about their experience of the risen Christ, scientists often feel frustrated by their inability to get across to the non-scientist what they see and experience in the wonder of what they have suddenly noticed.

There is no mystery about what makes us different from those scientists who notice subtle truths in the laboratory. Unlike us, they have given their lives to finding ways to notice subtle things and thus have the ability to rejoice at how subtle things now seem to loom so large in their consciousness. In short, they work at it day in and day out, and then the obscure becomes obvious and the subtle begins shouting at us.

It is not just scientists who do this. The English and Classics departments are populated by people who see things on the printed page that appear to others as just words and punctuation. Whereas I might read a bit of Virgil or Chaucer or one of Paul Muldoon's poems and have a surface appreciation of the author's meaning and the kind of music the words make when they are said aloud, those who devote time and study to the same words see and hear things that I cannot see. They work at trying to notice things, and they are rewarded abundantly.

The point I'm trying to make is that Easter is not a single event in history or a moment in time or a single day of the church year. It is a way of life – a dedicated life of doing the work it takes to center our lives on God and his son Jesus Christ so that for us the obscure becomes obvious. And what becomes obvious is that Christ is alive and active in the world around us.

Remembering the life and ministry of Jesus leads me to the certainty that my redeemer lives because I have felt his presence and I have seen him - often in the faces of some of you here present this morning. The risen Lord, the post-resurrection Jesus, is truly alive. And this experience of the risen Christ alive and active in the world is for me the yellow box at the train station. It validates and authenticates everything.

So open your hearts and look around you, and you'll see the risen Christ for yourself.

As we reflect on the meaning of the empty tomb, we can hardly do better than to inquire into the meaning of the Easter proclamation of Luke's angels: "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but he is risen. Remember... Remember..."

And one more thing. Let's not keep this good news to ourselves.

Amen.