March 20, 2016 CROSS WORDS – 6. Futile

Matthew 27:62-66

Preface to the Word

‘Tis finished! the Messiah dies, cut off for sins, but not his own.

Accomplished is the sacrifice, the great redeeming work is done.

These poetic words penned by the great hymn-writer of our tradition, Charles Wesley, ushers our attention and mood to the second emphasis of our Palm/Passion worship today. Jesus’ entire ministry has led to this. His preaching, his teaching, his healing, his confronting, his comforting, his risk-taking, his grace – it is heavy upon his shoulders as he drags his cross to the Place of the Skull.

The nails pierce his hands and feet, fastening him to beams of wood reddened with his blood. He is elevated into the air, lifted not only by the impulse of God’s heart to save, but also by the human impulse of fear, resentment and spite.

During the six weeks of this Lenten season, we’ve taken a closer look at the people who played parts in this story – not necessarily the well-known characters, but the bit players cast upon the stage of Salvation’s drama. On that Friday long ago when Jesus was crucified, the people who came to Calvary spoke such a variety of words to the cross. Some muttered scorn and contempt. Words of bravery and conviction from the governor were uttered too late. A dying thief spoke a word of saving faith and an army officer spoke a testimony that in this figure he perceived the Son of God. Just last week, a prominent member of the Sanhedrin, Joseph of Arimathea, too courage, when he showed himself publicly to be a disciple of Jesus by going to Pilate to ask for Jesus’ dead body to place it in his own tomb.

Today, one more group of players comes into view – rather powerful men who also addressed the Cross… and theirs was a futile word. To hear that story, we turn to Matthew’s Gospel...

Scripture Reading: Matthew 27:62-66

Sermon I.

A.  It was the day after the crucifixion, the day following Jesus’ burial. As the day wore on, some of those most wanting to see Jesus dead started having some real concerns. They had learned of a rumor going around about Jesus’ prediction that after his death he would rise again on the third day.

  1. So there they were, this strangely allied cadre of leaders. Most of them couldn’t even get along with each other. But all of them shared a misapprehension about this Jesus. Together they went to see Pontius Pilate.

“Sir,” they began, “we remember that while the deceiver was still alive he said, ‘After three days I will arise.’ Therefore, order the grave to be sealed until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people, ‘He’s been raised from the dead.’ This last deception will be worst than the first.”

  1. Pilate’s answer can actually be interpreted in a couple of ways, depending on where you want to place the emphasis. One way to interpret it is: “You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can.” In other words, you have your own Temple police. They can go and secure the tomb. You have my permission.” Or his response could mean, “Okay, you take a guard of my soldiers. Go make the tomb as secure as you can with them.”

Either way, Matthew’s point is that these leaders were concerned that something fishy was going to happen and because of that, Pilate allowed either Temple or Roman guards to be posted outside the tomb. Not only was a massive stone placed in front of the entrance. Now they had guards to frighten away any possible intruders or mischief- makers.

D.  I’m not a big fan of Hollywood making movies of Bible stories. They simply can’t help “Hollywood-izing” the story! But the movie “Risen” intrigued me enough to go see it. It’s not too bad. The reason I mention it here is because the movie takes the perspective of a Roman Tribute who not only was present when Jesus died on the cross, but was ordered by Pilate to produce Jesus’ body once it was reported missing from its tomb. The Tribute encounters a risen Christ along the way and his world is turned upside down.

I’m going to show the trailer for the movie as a way for us to enter into the scene as told by Matthew and to grasp the concern of the authorities that the tomb is made secure…

[Show the trailer to the movie “Risen”... which can be viewed on YouTube]

II.

A.  “Order the grave to be sealed.” It was a word of futility.

Let’s pull those words out from the details of this story and consider them in a larger context. “Order the grave to be sealed.” “Command the tomb to be made secure.” How do you make the grave secure against God? How can Death and all its threats be strong enough to restrain the new life that is in Jesus Christ?

B.  This is the conclusion Wesley had us sing in our last hymn.

The reign of sin and death is o’er, and all may live from sin set free;

Satan hath lost his mortal power; ‘tis swallowed up in victory.

C.  Ellsworth Kalas, the one who has guided our shared Lenten journey with his book, Seven Words to the Cross, considers the enduring consequence of that futile attempt to secure the tomb. He wrote:

It is now nearly twenty centuries that a variety of persons and powers have tried to frustrate that first Easter, but always with the same results. Only a few months after the Crucifixion and Resurrection, a ruling body in Jerusalem ordered Peter and John never to speak or teach in the name of Jesus. But the two disciples answered, ‘We cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.’ (Acts 4:20) ‘Seal the tomb!’ ‘Stop the message!’ What a futile word.

D.  Kalas recounts for us a brutal legacy within Christianity of attempts to bury the faith and secure its tomb.

Christians were cast to lions he recalls and were used as torches to light Caesar’s garden. But the most terrible sentence of all… was the damnatus ad metalla – being condemned to the mines. Under the whip, Christians rowed galleys to North Africa, then were marched through the mountains to the Numidian mines. In the mines, their chains were shortened so they would never again be able to stand upright. Then, with a lamp and a mallet in hand they would be driven underground, never to return.

He says they wrote messages on the mine walls in charcoal. They wrote prayers and named loved ones. But one word was prevalent; written again and again – vita, vita, vita. LIFE!

E.  Death did its best to seal the tomb of their existence, their hope, their faith. All that we consider essential to life had been taken from them. Yet they would write their faith on the wall, declare it to the universe. LIFE! No one could take it from them. Life broke out. Christ gave them life, and the tomb could not be sealed.

III.

A.  See what Kalas is saying? How can we order the grave sealed – command the tomb to be made secure – against God? He reminds us of the efforts of the Soviet State to abolish faith in Christ, replacing it with a faith in the State. In the 1970’s, Alexander Solzhenitsyn became an irrepressible voice of our life-giving God. Having spent eight years in prisons and labor camps for his opposition to Joseph Stalin, Solzhenitsyn reminded the world that when the poet Tanya Kodkevich dared to write: “You can pray freely/But just so God alone can hear,” she was sentenced to ten years of imprisonment. He pointed out to any who would listen that in his country a person convinced of spiritual truth had to conceal it from his own children. Nevertheless... the life of faith insisted on expressing itself and refused to die.

B.  There are too many stories of past and present to tell about futile efforts to seal the tomb on God and about robbing Death of its ultimate victory. But there is one more I’d like to share.

A number of years ago, Bishop Emilio Curvahalho visited Duke Divinity School to talk about the Methodist Church in his country, Angola. The audience was interested in how the church was surviving in a country that was ruled by a Marxist government.

“We are doing fine,” he said. “Our church is growing at the rate of about 10 percent per year, though some other denominations are growing even faster.”

“Had there been trouble with the government?” someone asked.

“Yes, from time to time they pass laws that say we can’t have this or that group meet. But we go ahead and keep meeting. The government is not yet strong enough to stop us.”

“But what will you do if the government becomes stronger?” inquired another.

“We will keep meeting. It is their job to be the government, our job to be the church. Our church had its most rapid growth during the revolution when so many of our members were in jail. Jail is a wonderful opportunity for evangelism.”

Then, realizing what was behind all the questions, the bishop added: “Don’t worry about us, brothers and sisters. We are doing fine in Angola. Frankly, I would find it much more difficult to be a pastor in Evanston, Illinois, (home of the General Board of Pensions and Health Benefits)!”

I wonder if he would have said the same about Roseburg, Oregon!

C.  What Kalas wrote about this is worthy of our prayer and consideration.

I must acknowledge that persecution is not necessarily the most effective strategy for the quieting of Christianity. The faith seems often to be in a more confining tomb when its followers are half-hearted, or when its clergy are time-servers or seekers of prestige and security. If people can come to church and be pleased that the music is pretty, the worship entertaining, and the sermon not too disturbing; if they can listen to the choir at the same level as their involvement at the symphony, and to the sermon as they do at a civic lecture – if this be so, there is indeed a heavy stone across the door of the tomb. If church members see their church as no more than any of the other organizations to which they belong, and if the sermon finds more hope for the future in economic and political [salvation] than in Jesus Christ, then the barrier is more threatening than any persecution mounted by Nero, Stalin, or Mao Tse-tung.

But even in such instances the risen Christ has managed to break through in new life. Time and again, when world Christendom has looked as if it might collapse of its own weight, resurrection strength has appeared. And again and again, in untold thousands of instances when local congregations have become little clubs, revival has stirred and resurrected the people. No sepulcher is strong enough to fence in the living Christ.

D.  Order the grave to be sealed! Command the tomb to be made secure! This is the final futile word that Death and its powers try to speak. When we cast our lot with Jesus Christ, we have aligned our hope with the source and the power of Life itself.

Circumstances and schemes may shut us in on all sides and then seal the stone against the door. But nothing, dear friends, nothing can hold back Easter!