Solve the Problem

Solve the Problem

Mark 16:1-8

Happy Easter! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Today is a happy day, with families gathering, and food prepared, and new clothes on display. Churches are filled with the sounds of triumphal hymns. The good news is proclaimed and gladly received – and for a day at least, all is right with the world.

But I am here to tell you that Easter is more than a remembrance of a day so many years ago. I am here to tell you that Easter is more than a celebration that lasts today and ends tomorrow. I am here to tell you that Easter is our ongoing reality, and it is time for us to claim that we are the Easter People, as disciples of Jesus Christ.

Easter is the gracious gift of God through Jesus Christ, and throughout Lent we prepared ourselves to receive this gift. We have been on a journey of faith to become disciples of Jesus Christ. In ways that are often contrary to the ways of the world, we have been asked to subtract from who we are, to subtract from how we think, and to subtract from what we want. We have beenasked to do what Jesus himself did, so that we might create in our hearts a place that only Jesus can fill.

So what did Jesus do? What Jesus did was reveal to us the image of God. He did it by thinking about heavenly things. He did it by serving those in need, both physically and spiritually. He did it by listening to the voice of God as the final and only true authority. He did it by being vulnerable enough to love all, even when it required all. Throughout his ministry, we have seen Jesus give away what the world values most so that we might gain what God values most.

Of course, not everyone heard what Jesus said about grace and forgiveness. Not everyone followed Jesus in seeking to save the least and the lost. Not everyone wanted Jesus to be right about the will of God. And it was people who didn’t listen, or at least didn’t like what they heard, who took the life of Jesus with a humiliating crucifixion.

The world believed that the death of Jesus disprovedlove and grace as the way forward in life. The world believed that the crucifixion deniedJesus any measure of respect or dignity. The world believed that the burial of Jesus had sealed his defeat. And the world declared on a Good Friday that sin and death are always the final victors.

The world saw the cross as the victory of the world over God. And that is where the world thought the story of Jesus would end. Jesus had been disgraced, humiliated, and defeated. Jesus would surely soon be forgotten. The kingdoms of the world would continue to take precedence over the kingdom of God.

Because of how the world saw the cross, forgiveness and mercy would continue to be seen as weakness. Love and grace, as it was usually practiced, would continue to be limited only to those near to us. Hope and joy would be considered fantasies, replaced instead by selfish desire and momentary pleasures.

The world saw the cross as their light shining in the darkness of rebellion. It was a sign to allthat life is the way it is for a reason. It was a sign to all that any change to that order would be hard to come by. It was a sign that this order would be maintained by those in power, so that they could keep that power.

All day Saturday, the world lived under the darkness of the cross, thinking it was light. For most people, life went on as usual. Jesus was dead, his followers scattered, and the voice of God was not heard in the world.

But on Easter morning, three mournful women went to the tomb to pay their final respects to a man they had loved. They went to honor a man who had loved them completely. They went to finish the burial rituals by washing his body of the streaked blood, to do all that they could to bring his life to a dignified and honored end.

These women went on that Sunday morning, certain that Jesus was dead. They were certain that life was unfair. And they were certain that God could not help them anymore. But they learned the truth of what we discovered during our Lenten journey, that certainty is not the same thing as assurance.

These three womenwent to the tomb and found the stone covering the entrance had been rolled away. Inside the tomb, they discoveredthe body of Jesus was missing. Instead, what they foundwas a young man saying impossible things that directly contradicted what they knew for certain. They were certain that Jesus had suffered, that Jesus had died, and that Jesus was buried. Yet the young man declared that Jesus was not there because he had been raised from the dead.

Most of us know the Easter story so well that we miss something in Mark’s gospel. In the original ending, at verse 8, the women do not know for certain that Jesus is raised from the dead. They do not hear Jesus speak to them. They do not see him with their own eyes. They do not touch his wounded feet. These women only have the report of the young man in the tomb. The only thing the women now know for certain is that the body of Jesus is missing from the tomb.

Marks’ gospel, instead of reporting these women seeing Jesus, has the three women run from the tomb in fear and amazement. There are two ways we can interpret this, but only one of them can be considered good news.

The first is that the women run and don’t say anything to anyone because they are terrified, and understandably so. There are several possibilities they could think of for why the body of Jesus is missing, and most of them are horrifying and inhuman. The only hopeful possibility is the impossible one offered by the young man – that Jesus has been raised from the dead.

If we were faced with that choice, with the only evidence being an empty tomb, and without having received the assurance of the resurrection, we likely would be terrified. We likely would run away. We likely would not say anything to anyone, either.

I don’t think this is why the women ran away. The opposite of this kind of fear would be feeling relief – and relief from this kind of fear is not a possibility, even if Jesus is alive. This is not a case of the friend they thought was dead is still alive, so yeah, we’re glad he’s OK. The women know that those who wanted Jesus dead before would certainly still want him dead now.

It would be terrifying to think that there could be more floggings, more humiliation, and even another crucifixion for their friend. It would be terrifying to lose their friend all over again.This is one possibility for the women running away in fear and amazement.

The other possibility, the possibility that offers good news, is that the fear that overtakes the women is the fear of the Lord. This is an expression that runs throughout the Old Testament. Whenever we read about the fear of the Lord, it is lifted up as something good and faithful. This type of fear is not about being afraid of God. It is not about being afraid of what God might do. It is not about being afraid of what God has done.

Instead, the fear of the Lord is the reverential awe of God. It is the experience of being humbled by a reverence for God. It is the experience of being in the presence of God Almighty. Mark’s gospel may not tell of the women seeing Jesus raised from the dead, but they have been assured that it is true because they are filled with the fear of the Lord. People who fear the Lord know the truth that there simply are no words that would be adequate to describe what we are experiencing.

In this possibility, it is good news that these women run from the tomb in fear and amazement. The amazement is a further sign that we are looking at the fear of the Lord in this passage. They may not be able to describe it, or to explain it, but they know that the amazing grace and power of God has solved the problem of sin and death. They know the problem has been solved through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This, I believe, is why the women ran away in fear and amazement – it is because they have received the assurance of Christ’s victory over sin and death.

We are not disciples if we believe that Easter was confined to a tomb in a cemetery outside of Jerusalem one Sunday morning long ago. Jesus’ victory over sin and death was not just the solution to a problem then, but the way to solve the problems of today and tomorrow.

And let’s be clear about it – there are a lot of problems in the world today. The problems exist, in part, because of how the world still sees the cross. The world still sees the cross as its victory, that sin and death will always be the final word in life. The problems exist because we are still filled with the fear of sin and death, instead of the fear of the Lord. The problems still exist because we still choose certainty over assurance.

The problems will continue to exist until our hearts are strangely warmed, until we have received that assurance that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior, risen from the dead as the victor over sin and death. The problems will continue to exist until we go into the world in fear and amazement at what God has done for us on Easter morning.

By his resurrection, the grace and love of Jesus Christ has triumphed over the fear and hate of the world. By his resurrection, the peace of Jesus Christ is shared and confirmed, and the assurance of our salvation is received. By his resurrection, the power of Jesus Christ to heal and bring new life into the darkest corners of our world is victorious over sin and death.

The good news of Easter is that the cross is not a sign of the victory of the world, but the sign of the victory of Jesus Christ. The good news of Easter is that death is not the final word in this life, but that eternal life has been opened to us by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. The good news of Easter is that sin does not win, for the grace of Jesus Christ covers us all.

Because of Easter, forgiveness is our strength, and mercy is our power. Because of Easter, the kingdom of God comes on earth as it is in heaven, whenever we share love and grace. Because of Easter, hope and joy fills our hearts, and we live into a new, reborn, and eternal life.

The children’s sermons have been right all along. The answer to every problem is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Resurrected Lord, the Victor over Sin and Death. And as disciples of Jesus Christ, Easter is the clarion call that it is time for us to live as those who have received the assurance that Jesus is alive. It is time for us to walk with Jesus through the valleys of the shadows of death, sharing the light of Christ, fearing only the Lord who goes with us. It is time for us to solve the problems of the world as the Body of Christ. It is time for us to serve our Risen Savior, who’s in the world today!

Hymn 310 “He Lives”