Past Sermon

Sermon Title: "Good News for Non-Believers! "
Date: April 8, 2007
Minister: Rev. Charles E. Ensley, Jr.

Lesson:  Luke 24:1-12

I suppose you’ve heard the news by now.  It was heralded on a March 4 television documentary.  Excavating in Jerusalem, they found a first century Jewish burial cave with ten ossuaries, or burial containers for bones, with the names of Jesus, son of Joseph; Maria; Mariamene; Matthew; Judas, son of Jesus; and Jose, a diminutive of Joseph.

From this startling news, we could deduce that Jesus was not really resurrected from the dead after all, but his bones were placed in this tomb which could have belonged to one family.  Mariamene, say some recent Biblical scholars, was the real name of Mary of Magdala, and was, further, a common first century derivative of Miriam.  And—oh my gosh!—if there was a burial box of Judas, son of Jesus, then Dan Brown’s theory in the Da Vinci Code must have been correct!  Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had children, whose blood line continues to this day!

On this Easter morning, this is indeed good news for non-believers in the physical resurrection of Jesus.

But…and I don’t know if you were counting, but there were five “buts” in today’s Gospel lesson.  But is a very important transitional preposition.  It indicates that more is about to be revealed; something that might even change the circumstances of what we’ve heard so far.

But the discovery of this tomb was first made by archeologists in 1980, 27 years ago.  As for the names, they were all common in the first century.  Twenty-five percent of women in Jerusalem, for example, were called Miriam, or a derivative.  A Princeton Theological Seminary scholar has a first-century letter written by someone named Jesus, addressed to someone else named Jesus, and witnessed by a third party named Jesus.  The name of one of our gardeners here at church is spelled Jesus, but pronounced “Hay-sus.”  Sometimes we leave notes which literally say, “Jesus--  Trim the tree out front.”  You should have seen my face the first time I saw a check made payable to Jesus.

It was common in the first century after bodies were laid out on a shelf in a tomb to decompose, to later gather the bones and stack them in ossuaries.  Sometimes as many as six person’s bones were placed in the same container, and often, their names were scratched into the outside of the container.  To do DNA testing seems an impossibility.  Not to mention what kind of DNA Jesus would have.  An earthly mother who conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit?  I don’t know what that DNA would look like.

In a follow-up to the March 4 documentary, produced by James Cameron, who brought us Titanic, and spearheaded by well-known TV director and observant Jew Simcha Jacobovici, one archeologist has discovered the words interpreted to mean Mary Magdalene were actually written by two different styluses at different eras.  And finally, in Israel today, first-century ossuaries are so ubiquitous they are used in gardens and living rooms as planters.

What does this news do to our faith on this Easter morning when we’ve come once again, not to smell the lilies, but to hear the Good News of Christ’s triumph over death?  What do I tell my clergy friend, a retired minister who belongs to another church, but who frequently worships here on Christmas and Easter because, he told me several years ago, “It’s nice to worship where the minister actually believes Jesus was raised from the dead”?

Good sense, and the Bible, still the best existing historical record of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, argue against Jacobovici’s claims.  All four Gospels say that Jesus was crucified on the eve of the Sabbath, what we now call Good Friday.  All four say that the tomb was empty when the women arrived there early on Sunday morning.  All four Gospels are clear that Jesus was put into a borrowed tomb that didn’t belong to him, but rather to Joseph of Arimathea.  For the scenario depicted in the documentary to work, someone would have had to whisk the body away, on the Sabbath (such work being forbidden in Jewish culture on the Sabbath), and secretly inter it in a brand-new, paid-for-family tomb—all before dawn on Sunday.  Why would Jesus’ family have a tomb outside of Jerusalem if they were from Nazareth?  Why would they have a tomb if they were poor?

From the very first Easter morning, there have been non-believers.  “The first Christians were not expecting the resurrection.  They did not believe it when the women first announced it to them.  They had, remember, all scattered and hidden when Jesus was condemned and executed. … [But] this band of cowards was suddenly changed into an energetic body of effective evangels, spreading their faith, firmly offering the claim that Jesus lives.” (What Jesus Meant, by Gary Wills)

That argument for the resurrection, one that has been passed down by the Gospels, is still a compelling one.  Some transformation—dare we even call it a resurrection?—occurred in the lives of Jesus’ followers such that those who were cowering in fear became fearless witnesses and martyrs.  They became convinced that death did not defeat Jesus, that he was alive and present in the world, and that therefore there was nothing for them to fear, not even their own death.

I am firmly convinced that the resurrection happened, even though I was not there and cannot show any physical evidence; whether Peter could get his head around that news that Easter morning or not, because if it had not happened, I have no reason to think the Christian church would exist today.  The dispirited, discouraged, depressed, dejected disciples would have just sat there in their closed-off room and nothing would ever have happened.  What else would have been the impetus for them to get up and go out and spread what Jesus taught?

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?” the angel asks the women in Luke’s Gospel.  “He is not here, but has risen.”  Here is where the Good News of Easter impacts us as 21st century Christians.  There is no reason for us to be afraid or tentative.  We can care passionately and love without reservation.  We can give our lives to justice, to peace, to Christ’s church, to making his kingdom come into being right here on the face of the Earth.  Easter matters, because one life, redeemed from death, can save the world.  As God’s people, we can begin working to make Earth look a bit more like heaven every day.

The good news for believers is this:  Jesus went into death.  But he is not there.  Christ is risen!  Alleluia!