God of the Dead End Matthew 28:1-10

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1 God of the Dead End Matthew 28:1-10 Rev. Jeff Chapman ~ April 4, 2010 ~ Easter Sunday ~ Faith Presbyterian Church 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 worshipped 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, NRSV) Sometimes in life you come to a dead end. That place where you ve run out of options. There is no way forward. Hope has left the building. It s a lost cause. A dead end. It s happening this weekend to three more college basketball teams. In the Final Four tournament, the clock will run out on three of the four remaining teams. Until it does, hope remains. But the moment that final buzzer sounds and the scoreboard shows the other team ahead, your season is done. There is simply no way around it. Maybe next year. Now, dead ends, of course, stop us short in other arenas of life more important than athleltics. When the final vote is counted in an election, the once-hopeful candidate with the least votes is not moving forward. Period. When the divorce papers are signed and official, the marriage which years ago was so full of promise is dead. It s over and done with. The ultimate dead end, of course, is death itself. When a human heart stops beating, that is a definitive dead end. There is no next season. There is no chance to run for office next election. There is no possibility of a second marriage. I will never forget the first time I saw a dead body. Mrs. Barghorne lived next door to our family when I was a kid. She was a very kind lady who had a very funny smelling house. To be fair, when I was a kid I thought all old people had funny smelling houses. Maybe when I m old my house will smell funny. Anyway, one day Mrs. Barghorne died. And my parents took me and my brother to the funeral. I think it was our first funeral. And so, wisely, they prepared us for what to expect. What they forgot to prepare us for was the open casket. Perhaps they didn t expect to see one. 35 years later I still have a vivid picture of my mind of that scene. When it was my turn to file past, there was this body laid out in this box which looked vaguely like the lady next door who used to invite us in and give us candy. I knew it was Mrs. Barghorne. But somehow, I also knew that she wasn t there any more. What remained was just an empty shell. And even as a kid I remember being struck by the permanence of it all. I wouldn t have used those words then, of course. Still, somehow I knew this was the end of Mrs. Barghorne. Her life on this earth was over. For good.

2 2 Since then I have been to many funerals and seen, in my work as a pastor, many open caskets. The emotions have, of course, often been quite different from that first time. When it s the body a neighbor you didn t really know all that well to begin with, it s one thing. When it s the body of your grandmother, or of beloved member of your church, it s a whole different thing. What is the same, however, is the finality of it all. There is just something about what death does to a human body which makes it clear that this person is not coming back. Ever. It s over. Now, I don t mean to depress you on Easter Sunday morning. I really don t. But to understand the story we just read, we have to think about these things, at least for a moment. The story of Easter, at least in part, is about a dead body. You see, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, two of Jesus devoted friends, were at the cross Friday morning. They watched Jesus suffer. They watched Jesus die. Then they watched later that day when a disciple named Joseph took Jesus shredded body down from the cross, carried it to the tomb, wrapped it in cloth, laid it in the cave, and then sealed the entrance with a massive rock. I have no doubt that when these women looked on the cold and lifeless body of their leader, that they were overwhelmed with that same finality and despair of which I only tasted as a child. This was the end. Jesus was gone. Forever. And not only was he gone, but all that he stood for, all their hopes and dreams, they were dead and gone as well. Only one week before, there was such promise. Such potential. Now, there was no way forward. Now, all that stood before them was a dead end. It was over. Still, we re told that two days later, just as the sun is coming up Sunday morning, these women go back to see the tomb. Why? Why do they go? Well, when people lose somebody they love, why do they often return to the cemetery plot or the crash site? Why do widows walk around all day in their husband s favorite sweater or sit alone for hours in his favorite chair? Maybe these women just couldn t believe it was over. Maybe they just wanted to pay their final respects. 1 What is clear is that they did not go to the tomb expecting to find what it was they found. Nobody, after all, was looking for resurrection in those days. The Greeks and the Romans didn t believe in it at all. From their perspective, the soul was good and the body was evil. So once a soul finally got free of its corrupt body, there was no way it was going back. Like John Fogerty sang years ago, if you ever get out of Lodi, you re not going back. The ancient Jews also didn t believe in resurrection, at least this kind of resurrection. While Jews did have hope for a final resurrection some day, they were convinced that when that happened it would happen all at once at the end of time. For them, the idea that one person would be resurrected before that day and before everyone else, well that was inconceivable. Nobody graduates in the middle of their sophomore year. That s not how it works. 2 Even today, when you go to visit the graveside of a loved one, do you go holding out hope, even slim hope, that maybe the person buried there will be walking around above ground when you get there? Of course you don t. And neither did these women. What was about to happen to them was completely off their radar screen. As far as they were concerned, they had reached a dead end. There was no way forward. The thing is, we serve a God who just happens to see the world from a whole other point of view. You see, from God s perspective, scoreboards, and vote counts, and divorce papers, and sealed tombs are never the dead ends we too often think they are. Because God knows something we don t know about dead ends. And that Sunday morning, at that particular dead end, I think God was just dying to let us in on the secret. 3 1 In other gospel accounts we re told that the women came to anoint Jesus body with spices. See Luke 24:1. Either way, they didn t come expecting to find what they found. 2 For help on these ancient perspectives of resurrection, I was helped by Timothy Keller, The Reason for God, (New York: Dutton, c. 2008), p Pun intended. God had, actually, just died to let us in on the secret.

3 Have you ever had some extraordinary good news to share with somebody you love and you just cannot wait to share it? And you re thinking, When I break this news, I can t just blurt it out. I ve got to have some fun with this. This news is just too good to deliver straight. When my wife, Esther, found out that she was pregnant with our first child, she waited the whole day to tell me. When I finally came home from work that evening, she didn t say a thing. But there was this big, beautifully-wrapped present waiting for me on the bed. Honestly, my first thought was, O crud, is this our anniversary? But it was the middle of April. We were married in July. My birthday was also in July. And Christmas was eight months away. I had absolutely no idea what occasion we possibly could have been celebrating. Even when I tore off the wrapping paper to discover a package of diapers inside, it still took me a minute. I was, after all, a 30 year old man who d never before held in his hands a package of Pampers! This was very unfamiliar territory. And my wife loved it. As Mary and Mary approach the tomb, God, in a similar way, gets a little playful with his good news. How about a little earthquake, God thinks. That ll get their attention. And then, how about I send an angel, one all dressed up in dazzling white clothes. They won t be expecting that. And I know, I ll have the angel roll back the tombstone and sit right on top of it. Nice touch. And to top things off, since I m about to tell them that the dead man inside is actually alive, why don t I make the alive men outside the tomb look like they re the ones who are dead. Perfect. You can t blame God for being a little giddy. After all, he d been waiting since the beginning of time for this moment. The news he has to share is literally as good as it gets. The words he has given to the angel to speak to these desperate women are the most weighty and glorious words spoken in all the Gospel, maybe in all of human history! Before they flee in terror, the angel says to the women, Do not be afraid; I know that you came here this morning expecting to find the dead body of Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, just as he said. He is not here. He is risen!. Earlier this month I visited the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. and I stood on the very steps where Martin Luther King Jr., long ago, told the world about a dream he had for our nation. As I stood there I had a sense, even 50 years later, that in some way Dr. King lives on in that place. If you listen closely enough, you can almost hear his words echoing across the mall. Many great leaders live on in spirit. Long after they re gone, their words, their influence, their writing, their music lives on among us. 4 Understand, however, that is not what the angel is talking about. Jesus, he says, is not simply alive in spirit. He is not here, the angel says. His body is not here. His body has left the grave. His body has risen from the dead. His body is alive! Come and see for yourselves, says the angel. Come inside and see the place where his body once lay and you ll see that it is not here any longer. Listen to me. If what the angel spoke that day is true, it changes absolutely everything. If Jesus really did rise from the dead, that means that we have to accept everything that he taught, his whole message. If he didn t, we don t have to listen to any of it. The issue is not whether or not you like his teaching, or whether or not you like his followers, or whether or not you like his book. The issue, ultimately, is whether or not he rose from the dead. And if he did, it changes everything. 5 We, like those women that morning, are invited to come and see for ourselves. Christians are not people, as some have suggested, who have to check their brains at the front door of the church. God never asks us to set aside intellectualism, or reason, or evidence, or even science, in favor of faith. Critical thinking, of course, will never get you all the way to 3 4 Some people do believe that Elvis Presley still walks among us. I m not one of those people. 5 Keller was helpful here, p. 202.

4 belief. The resurrection can t be proved, any more than it can disproved. And faith, at some point, will be required no matter what you decide. It requires just as much faith to be an atheist as it does to be a believer. Maybe even more. 4 Still, there is tremendous evidence which lends remarkable support to the claim that Jesus really did rise. And we are invited to explore this evidence fully. I have done so myself. And I ve come out the other side staking my life on the fact that Jesus really did rise. And so for me, and for many others of you I know, this really has changed everything. If you are someone who has not yet gone to see for yourself to carefully consider the evidence, I pray that you will. Even if you can t today believe in the resurrection, you should at least want it to be true! 6 Because if it s true, then perhaps all the dead ends we imagine exist in this world aren t really dead ends at all. Perhaps there is a future, a glorious future! Perhaps there is hope. Perhaps there is healing. Perhaps there is forgiveness. Perhaps there is life. At the very least, it s worth investigating. When the women investigate and see that the good news is true, the angel tells them, Go quickly now. Go and tell the disciples that Jesus has been raised from the dead and that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him. 7 This is so typical. For God intends that whenever we receive this message that changes everything, it is always meant to be shared. It is never just meant for us. There are people out there all over our world who are stuck in all sorts of dead ends and they desperately need to hear that all hope is not lost. And it is our job, church, to tell them. As the women then run to find their friends, their hearts, we re told, are full of fear and joy, which seems like an odd mixture of emotions. 8 The joy is easy for us to understand. All we need to do is imagine ourselves discovering that a place we were convinced was a tragic dead end has actually turned out to be no such thing at all. For instance, imagine going to the funeral of a dearly loved one you thought was dead and gone forever. And then, imagine the scene when you show up at the church and find out that the person you came to grieve for is not dead after all. Your husband is alive. Your wife is still with us. Your child is not dead. Your mom was just here. Your dad just left. You just missed him. Can you imagine the joy? Now multiply that joy many times over in these women. Not only was Jesus apparently alive again, but so were their hopes and dreams, everything on which they had staked their lives. No wonder there was fear mixed in with the joy. They must have been afraid that it was all simply too good to be true! 9 And then it happens. As they run back towards town, Jesus, all of a sudden, is there. In the flesh, he meets them. As real, as alive, as present as he had ever been to them. And when he does, all they can do is worship. All they can do is fall to the ground, embrace his feet, and worship him. It s interesting, by the way, that Matthew tells us that they clung to Jesus feet. Strange, right? Well, did you know that it is a part of ancient and universal folk-lore that ghosts don t have feet? 10 Think about it. Other than Casper who s a bit of an oddball anyway because he s a friendly ghost other than Caspar, have you ever seen a picture of a ghost with feet? I bet not. Maybe these women wanted to make sure this was no ghost standing before them. And so they grab his feet to make sure it s all not too good to be true. And when they do, when they see that Jesus is real flesh and blood, and real feet, they worship him. 6 This also is Keller s phrase, p Pay attention to the fact that the first witnesses to the resurrection were women. If the Gospel accounts had been manufactured stories, this detail, among others, would not have been included. The testimony of women was so disregarded in those days that it wasn t even received in 1 st century Jewish law courts. Yet this is how it happened so this is what was recorded. God, once again, chooses what is weak in the world s eyes to shame the strong and proud. (See I Cor. 1:27) 8 However, most every bride or groom knows that it is indeed possible for fear and joy to fill a heart at the same time! 9 Albert Einstein once said about his theory of relativity, It s too good not to be true! 10 Dale Bruner, Matthew: A Commentary, Volume 2, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, c. 2004), p. 797.

5 By the way, what a beautiful picture of the nature of Christ! He really is human, a man who can be embraced. But he also really is divine, a God who must be worshiped! Mysteriously, he s both. 5 Jesus then says to these women at his feet and I would have loved to have been there to hear the tenderness in his voice he says, Do not be afraid. Stand up. Go and hurry and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me. It s almost as if he s saying, Don t worry. You don t have to cling to me for dear life like this any longer. I m not going to leave you again. Go and tell the others that I am alive for good. They need to hear and see what you have just heard and seen. Let s not forget, there is a group of men back in the city who are hiding away behind locked doors, fearing for their lives. They bet it all on a horse which did not come in. They left everything, risked everything, to follow this man who now, they believe, is a lost cause. He s dead. And what s worse, they didn t even lift a finger to try and save him. Now they re stuck, stuck at a dead end with nothing to show for it but guilt and despair. So Jesus says to the women, Go quickly! Go and bring them this good news. But notice something. Jesus does not say to the women, Go tell the deserters. Or, Go tell those so-called friends of mine. Or, Go tell those cowards. He does not even say, Go tell my disciples. Instead, what does he say? He says, Go tell my brothers. Brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ. Listen to me carefully. This morning I am simply following Jesus instructions, given first to the women and then to everybody else who would later hear and believe this message is true. Listen! Jesus is not here. He has risen, just as he said he would. And he is going on ahead of us where he will, one day, meet us. So do not be afraid. For if you go in faith to meet Jesus there, you will see him. In flesh and blood, you will see him! When I say, He is not here, I want you to respond, He is risen! He is not here. He is risen! He is not here. He is risen! Maybe very little of what you thought was possible in this life has, to this point, come to pass. Maybe this morning your dreams, your plans, your hopes in life all appear to be dead and gone. Maybe you have assumed that the way you have lived your life the mistakes you have made, the addictions you have embraced, the dirt you see in your mind and in your heart maybe you have assumed all this has left you on the outs with God. Maybe you have concluded that total forgiveness, at least in your case, is simply not possible, that your chance to ever be called a beloved son or daughter of God is dead and gone. Maybe you believe the world you see around you is terminally ill. The violence just gets worse. The evil just grows stronger. The environment just gets sicker. The poor just get poorer. Any realistic chance for a world full of beauty, and justice and peace, and abundance is dead and gone.

6 6 Maybe you think some of your relationships are so messed up they are beyond repair. Maybe you have accepted that your body is never going to be young and strong again. Maybe you believe the hole in your heart is too deep to ever heal. Maybe you are resigned to the fact that the ones you deeply love are gone forever. What tombstone are you staring at today? What cause do you believe is forever lost? What hope for you has been absolutely crushed? What possibility seems to have been taken off the table for good? What road in life has come, tragically, to a dead end. Brothers and sisters, think again! He is not here. He is risen! He is risen indeed! Amen. The Next Step A resource for Life Groups and/or personal application ~ Read again Matthew s account of Jesus resurrection in Matthew 28:1-10. From your perspective, what is the most noteworthy part of Matthew s description of the events of that morning? ~ When these women are presented with the announcement that Jesus has risen from the dead, they are invited to come and see for themselves. Have you ever personally examined the evidence for Jesus resurrection? If so, what did you discover? If not, why not? ~ If it s true that when Jesus died on the cross that our sins were forgiven, why did he need then to rise from the dead? What would be different today if Jesus had been crucified but had never risen? ~ It was stated that if Jesus really did rise from the dead it changes everything? Do you agree? Why? And if you accept that Jesus did, in fact, physically rise from the dead, do you then have to accept all of his teaching as well? ~ What apparent dead end are you facing now in your life? How might God be trying to meet you there at that dead end to show you a way forward? ~ Challenge Question: Who is one person you know in your life today who desperately needs to hear that hope is not dead because Christ has risen? How might you hurry to tell them? ~ Bonus Life Group Scripture: Read I Peter 1:3-9. What is the best news you hear in this passage? Further Scripture Readings for the Week: Monday: Tuesday: Matthew 28: And then this happened next... Luke 24: Surprise on the road

7 Wednesday: John 20: Stop doubting! Thursday: John 21: Jesus cooks breakfast Friday: Psalm God s love endures forever! Saturday: In preparation for tomorrow s message, read through Matthew 12: