The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to Matthew.

After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.

For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.”

So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” (Matthew 28:1-10)

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Holy Week is a busy time, isn’t it? It begins with Palm Sunday, followed by  Maundy Thursday, and the stripping of the altar. That is followed by Good Friday, where we come together in quietness, ponder the journey our Lord took, staggering under that  cross through the streets of Jerusalem, as portrayed by the Stations of the Cross, and all this after six weeks of Lent, wherein we have pondered on Jesus’s journey, and our own life’s journey.

But now, now…we have the triumph of the empty tomb, the resurrection.

Traditionally, we in the Western Church have focused more on the crucifixion of Christ, as evidenced by the many crucifixes you may have seen, especially in the Roman church,  with the figure of Christ on them.

The Eastern church always focused on the resurrection, and that focus can be seen in the empty crosses that adorn their churches.  

One focuses on the crucifixion, and the terrible sacrifice Jesus made for us; the other on the triumph of his resurrection.

And you see it in our liturgies, which point to the sacrifice  that Jesus made, the price he paid for our sin, and of course, that sacrifice, is the central part of the Eucharist.

I don’t think we place as much importance on the resurrection as we do on the crucifixion.

Admittedly, without the crucifixion, there could be no resurrection. But the crucifixion alone would be just that – the magnificent act of self-sacrifice of an innocent  person. 

The crucifixion is made a whole event by the rising again, of Jesus.

Because we are not about death, we are about life, aren’t we?

A faith that promised death, that focused on death, that sanctified death, wouldn’t attract too many people. 

True we are redeemed by the death of Jesus.  True, he took the punishment for our sins upon himself, so that we might approach our God without fear and trembling. True, we are made clean by his death. Paul says that in our baptism, we were buried with him, but he also tells us that if we have died with Christ – that is if our old life has died – then we will be raised to new life with Christ.

Jesus died so that we may live for ever.

The proof of the fact of our own everlasting life in Christ is in his everlasting life, and in his rising again from the dead.

By our baptism, by the sacrifice that Jesus made on the  cross, by his resurrection, we are not only promised life everlasting,  but new life here on earth.

New life.  Here and now.

New men and women,  made new by what Jesus did on the cross.

Redeemed!

We call Jesus, our Redeemer, don’t we?

Apart from hearing the word in church, I had never heard the word redeemer in any other context.  Then one day, I was reading a novel that had a short passage that had to do with someone taking a precious item to a pawnbroker, to raise money.

They were given a ticket with which to redeem the item within a certain number of days.

The person going to get the item, and paying the price, was called the redeemer.

Sometimes we get in hock, don’t we?  In debt to God, sort of.

What would you call a person that is dependent on drugs, or sex, or booze, or has some other addiction? 

What would you call a person whose life has been such that they have used up all the goodwill they had, and had fallen into such a pit of despair, or loneliness, that they have no freedom of choice. They are trapped in the web that their life has woven around them? 

You could say they were ’in hock ‘, couldn’t you? 

They need to be redeemed.

They need to be given new life.

They need someone to take that ticket, and buy them out.

That is what Jesus did, isn’t it?

But is that the end of it?

There has got to be more than that.

What are we going to do with our new life?

I remember reading a news story about a pop star – it’s a long time ago and my memory is getting a little hazy – but he was getting a transplanted liver for the second time.

His own liver had been destroyed by the life he had led, and he had already received one new liver.  But  once he got that new liver,  he went out and did the same things again, until that new liver was destroyed, and now he was ready for a  second one.

So he was going to be on his third liver. His own, and two more.

There are many people in line for liver transplants who can’t get them. He got his because of his wealth.  

What is he doing with the new life he has been given?  Again? I will let you guess. 

What are we to do with our new life?  It’s a hard question, isn’t it? But we are not alone. We have help.

A London businessman was selling a warehouse.  The building had been empty for months and needed repairs. Vandals had smashed the doors, smashed the windows, and strewn trash all over the place.

As he showed a prospective buyer over the property, he took pains to say that he would replace the broken windows, bring in a crew to correct any structural damage and clean out the garbage.

The buyer said, ‘Forget about the repairs. When I buy this place I’m going to build something completely different. I don’t want the building; I want the site.’

That’s how God works with us.   Compared with what God has in mind for us, our own efforts are as trivial as sweeping the floor of a warehouse slated for the wrecking ball. When we become God’s, the old life is over. 

He makes all things new. All he wants is the site and the permission to build.

All we have to do is give him the property and he will do the necessary building.

So, it’s life, and new life that we are talking about tonight, on the eve of the resurrection of Jesus.

Death has had its chance, now it is time for life.

The women were told, at the tomb,  “He has been raised from the dead and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee.”

Then Jesus himself told them, “Do not be afraid, go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me. “

It’s never been about death. It never has been. It’s about Jesus triumphing over death. It’s about our triumphing over death, with him.

Maybe it’s time we started focusing on life.

I’ll leave you with my favorite story, a true account, from the Soviet era.

It was about 1930 when the Communist leader, Bukharin journeyed from Moscow to Kiev. His mission was to address a huge assembly. His subject: atheism.

For a solid hour he aimed his heavy artillery at Christianity, hurling argument and ridicule.

At last he was finished and viewed what he thought,  to be the smoldering ashes of our faith. “Are there any questions?” he demanded.

After a few moments, a solitary man arose and asked permission to speak. He mounted the platform and moved close to the Communist. The audience was breathlessly silent as the man surveyed them, looking first to the right, and then to the left.

At last, he shouted the ancient Orthodox greeting, ‘CHRIST IS RISEN!”.

The vast assembly rose as one man and the response came crashing like the sound of an avalanche, “HE IS RISEN INDEED!”

It’s all about life.  Isn’t it?