St, Andrew's April 16, 2006 EASTER SUNDAY

Each Arrives in His or Her own Way

Acts 10:34-43

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

John 20:1-18

 Maybe you have witnessed another person say that they understood themselves when they heard another person tell their story.

You hear people say things like, "It takes an alcoholic to help an alcoholic, because they understand what the other person is going through."

 Well all of this sounds good, but it isn't always true:

 -reformed addicts can't necessarily get through to another addict.

(Some are good at reforming others, but it is a tough job. Sometimes they just get high together.)

-take the issue of doctors: do we expect every physician to have had our disease when we go to see them?

No. We don't want them to be sick at all. In fact, we want them to be healthy. We think what they learned as a physician is what is going to help us, not that they had the problem themselves. We don't expect every cancer doctor to have had cancer.

This illustration shows us the confusing problem that we have in the passing on of vital information:

-there is no hard and fast rule on how we each assimilate the wisdom that we need to know to lives our lives.

If we could encode the secret, we would only need one self-help book:

anyone could read the Bible and would hear its message and have a great life, problem free.

But it doesn't work that simply does it?

Some say that "education is the answer" but thirty-five years of sex education hasn't changed the rate of unwanted pregnancies.

The stunning reality is that every single person is different; while we all are travelling in the same direction, we are each arriving at our moment of death each in our own individual way:

-you can have an older person living out their final years in a nursing home,

-you can have a young person die of an overdose, a birth defect or a car accident.

When a young person dies, everyone always says that it isn't supposed to happen this way, but there is no evidence to back up that presumption.

 The truth is and the reality is that any person can die at any time at any age for any reason under the sun. That is the hard and fast rule.

Part of the confusion is that in spite of how hard it is to figure out parts of life, some things seem to be eternal:

-the concept of trust does not change,

 -our need for love and friendship is eternal,

-every boy and girl needs to grow up to become a man or a woman,

 -we can all feel both joy and sadness.

While these realities are true, it is just as true that:

 -teaching a person trust is fraught with pain and suffering,

-finding the love and friendship can be a dangerous thing,

-nobody seems to know how a sure fire way that everyone will accept in order to bring children into adulthood,

-and we cannot seem to get rid of the sadness in our lives to experience the joy we long to feel.

Maybe, just maybe, we can access the hard to define answers by refocusing ourselves on the things that are eternal.

It seems that Almighty God has encoded the concept of resurrection in  creation: resurrection is finding life where we, by using our intelligence and experience perceive that there is nothing but death.

Where we see death, the power and spirit of God can resurrect life.

We call this experience of resurrection: Easter.

One of my mentors, Dr. Robert Schuller has said that "Easter is God's loudest 'AMEN!'"

The reality of Easter, that over 2,000 years ago, a man of God, the Son of God, went about doing miraculous things: healing sick people, teaching people how to get along with a message of love, forgiveness, and service to each other.

The religious community as well as the local secular Roman authority conspired that he was breaking the rules, had him tried, convicted, and brutally murdered by nailing him to a cross: crucifixion.

He was pronounced dead, they put him in a tomb, and three days later his friends go to the grave, and find the body gone.

One woman, Mary Magdelaine overcome with grief stays at the grave and actually has a real life encounter with the risen Lord that put the world upside down:

Jesus Christ had conquered death.

This is what is called "Good News!"

As a church it is our job to spread the Good News to everyone, but how do we do it?

Our answer comes from the story:

 -three people went to the tomb that day, two men and a woman,

-three people found out that a body was missing,

-the three of them had completely different responses to the encounter with the empty tomb.

It appears from the text that John, Peter, and Marry each arrived in his or her own way.

Mary was the first one to appear. She went early when it was still dark. It doesn't say whether she looked in but she ran for Peter and John to tell them that the body was missing.

Peter and John run to the tomb, but John runs faster than Peter. He bends down and looks in and sees the linen cloth but does not go in.

Peter, on the other hand was later getting there but goes right into the tomb.

John goes in after Peter has gone in, but the text says that John saw and believed. Peter went in and saw, but John saw and believed:

different response.

Then the two men returned to their homes.  But Mary didn't.

The men observed the evidence with their eyes, but Mary was struck in the heart by the fact that the body was missing.

Mary cried. It is not recorded that the men cried over the loss.

Mary looked in a saw two angels dressed in white: one at the head of where Jesus had been and one at the foot; the men hadn't waited long enough to see the angels.

The angels spoke to Mary, "Woman why are you weeping?" and she responded that she was upset that someone had taken away the body of her Lord.

Then Mary sees Jesus who asks the same thing as the angels, "Woman whyare you weeping? Whom are you looking for?"

She mistook Jesus for the gardener, but when he said her name, "Mary" she recognized that it was Jesus and called out "Rabbouni!"

Mary knew that Jesus Christ has been risen from the dead when she heard him say her name.

The Good News for the day is that Jesus Christ conquered death in his resurrection from the dead, observed and witnesses by hundreds of witnesses, but how do we convey that to those who need it in ways that give them life and healing.

The answer is in the text: like John Peter, and Mary, we will each arrive as to the significance of Jesus Christ in our lies in much the same way that each of them arrived at the resurrection event.

They each did it in their own way and in their own time as each of us will do it in our own way in our own time.

Maybe you are like John and can run faster than someone else.

Maybe you are like Peter and you need more time to digest what is going on.

Maybe you are like Mary and are more present to the reality.

Maybe you need to hear someone else's story to get the message.

Like Mary, maybe you need to cry and release your pain to see Jesus through your tears.

Maybe you need someone to roll away the stone from what keeps you from life.

Maybe you need to hear from the angels; could be one sitting right beside you right now!

Each one of us arrives at the reality of the resurrection in our own way.

Don't worry that your path to Jesus is not as fast or as good as the next person.

Be kind, gentle, and forgiving of yourself. If you don't who will?

It is only important for you to realize that God in Christ awaits, patiently, with open arms when you are ready to be lovingly received with the Good News that is offered for you to have life, eternal life.

AMEN Rev. Alan Stewart