In the End, God

Matthew 27:57 -— 28:8

April 11, 1971 WBaster Sunday
John M. Buchanan

G. K. Chesterton once said: "A real Christian who bolicves should do two
things: dance out of the sheor sense of joy, and fight out of the sheer sense
of victory." ind yet, on this Easter Sunday, 1971, as wo look out on our war~
torn world, and strife-ridden and divided nation, the only dancing we see is
out of a sense of boredom and loncliness, and the only fighting out of a lack
of knowing how to live in peace. To celebrate Easter, today, is to rediscover
what wo have to dance about, and the rational for continuing the fight.

It is a day for loud proclaimation, not scholarly explanation. In my
own ministry I have changed at this point. As is the case with every fresh
theological graduate, I used to feel that Taster was ill-spent unless some
scholarly exposition of the doctrine of the Resurrection was dcolivered. I'm
‘not so sure of that any more. I'm not so sure something so incredible as God's
dead son gotting up from his grave can be explained. Explanations defuse the
Resurrection: when it is understandable it is no ‘chues amiracle. fnd if it
is not a miracle, it is, needless to say, no longer a resurrection, On Laster
Sunday, of all days, we're not talking about some safe, secure theoretical
proposition. We are talking about a dead Lord who didn't stay dead: a
crucified Lord who lives among us, And that cannot be explained: only pro-
claimed and shared and celebrated.

Let's try, again, to get a feel for what happened. We have two historic
realities to deal with, both of which — by the way - are at the perimeters
of the Resurrection event rather than at its center, The first fact is that
one Jesus of Nazareth, known by some as the Christ, was crucified. The Gospel
accounts are clear that he was dead, and even the most suspicious historian
has real difficulty arguing otherwise. That is the first historic reality:
he was doad.

The second is that his friends, then a whole community of people, became

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convinced that he did not stay dead. That is a reality. The early Christians
expericnced something which they idontificd as the presence of Jesus Christ.

Somewhere between these two identifiable realities something fantastic
happened. No one was there to sce it. Each of the four Gospels tells it -
each a little differently; and cach studiously avoids the kind of play-by-play
aceount that wo might find satisfying. In fact, there is a considerable
discrepancy between the accounts regarding the oxact sequence of events. nd
that alone ought to mean that the Gospel chroniclers did not consult cach
other in order to present a water-tight case; but instead tried simply to
proclaim an event and describe an experience that would challenge the literary
skill of the most lucid of writors.

As we altompt to get the feel of the event, it is apparent that nobody
really expected it to happen, unless it was that pathetic group of frightened
old men who asked Pilate to beef-up the guard at the tomb. They were afraid
that his friends might steal the body and then claim a resurrection: at least
that's what they told Pilate. But they were wise men, and they knew that
religious hoaxes are notoriously short~lived, and one wonders if they weren't
really afraid that he would rise up and walk again.

In any case, they were the only ones whose behavior even hints at antici-
pation. The disciples certainly didn't expect it. Thoy had withdrawn with
all due haste, hope shattered, ambitions quashed. I+t had only been a dream:
there was nothing to do now but lie low for a few days and then quietly make
their way back to Galilie.

Joseph of Arimethea didn't aexpect it: he gave the body a proper burial:
the women didn't expect it; thoy came on the first day of the weck to annoint
the body and to mourn,

We aren't ever going to know what happened. But I think it is so impor-
tant to fecl that pall of despondency that had fallen ovor all the principle

characters. It igs not the stuff out of which an elaborate myth is born. If

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If there is anything more incomprehensible to me than the Resurrection of
Jesus Christ, it is the suggestion that this pathetic little group of defeated
men assembled in a room and concocted the story and then went out and died for
it. We aren't ever going to lniow: but it is important to feel tho way the
Resurrection forced its way into their lives: the way they found themselves
believing it in spite of themselves. That's important on Easter Sunday, for
admittedly wo have difficulty believing it; and any man who docs not has yet
to confront it in all honesty. But they experienced it, and so tae eoutthous
millions of men and women down through the centuries, and so have we - at
times ~ in fleeting moments of truth when we know it is true. He is alive
and in our midst.

To believe that: or better said - to acknowledge the truth of the Paster
claim, because I don't think you can will to believe the Resurrection, is to
rediscover what we have to dance about and the rationale for continuing tho-
fight.

Let's begin with the seceond of those propositions Chesterton suggested
that a Christian who bolicves will fight out of the sheer sense of victory.
What victory? What fight? To what is he pointing us?

The cross on whieh Jesus Christ dicd is, in one sense, a symbol of the
power of cvil, It is, in one sense, a reminder that things happen in life
that are uncategorically bad. Jesus was put to death as a result of a coali-
tion of sclfish intcrests, the desire for political power, and misguided
religious orthodoxy. And that kind of thing has continued to happen in the
history of humanity and even in our own day. Im the crucifixion of Jesus
Christ the power of evil was documented and held up for all men to sec, and
it is foolish, in the shadow of that cross, to hide behind some naive propo-
sition that men arc really good at heart and that evil is just the absence
of good, and that if we all try harder and get more education and pass better

laws, all. the evils of our common life will disappear.

—

The cross says clearly that evil is a force to be reckoned with, and that
man must take scriously the power of evil in every day of the common life.

The cross, becomes for us, the symbol of the struggle between the force of
good and the forces of evil. ind if the cross is the end of the story that
is bad news indced.

It would mean, for instance, that the forces of good are really no match
for the forces of evil. I+ would mean, for instance, that love is no match
for hatred: that the ultimate realitics to which we are bound as human beings
are injustice and war and dishonesty and cruelty. I+t would mean that Jesus
is a dead hero, one more noble martyr who tried, but was humiliated in his
trying. It would mean that the cross is the symbol of the futility of hope;
that the best and noblest efforts of mon are ultimately seen to be wasted.

For many today, that is precisely how the world looks. Things are so
bad there seems to be no sense in continuing the struggle. That's one of
the messages eminating from youth culture. It no longer makes sense to give
oneself to noble ideals: it no longer makes sense to try to change the systcm
from the inside ~- the forees of cvil and injustice are simply too strong.
ind the result is a dangerous cynicism: a philosophy of life that sounds like
Mephistopheles' observation to Faust: "The ultimate value of everything is
nothing"; and finally the great cop-out: the total withdrawal from the struggle
to pursue one's own pleasures, which is disguised as "doing one's own thing."

I could agree with all of that except for one thing. The cross is not
the end of the story. Evil and death did not win the struggle. The Resurreo-
tion is a stamp approved on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. It says
that love ~ not hatc, is powerful; that compassion, not cruelty, is real;
that sacrifice and self-giving, not self-gratification, is ultimate.

That needs saying today. Prederick Bucchner has observed that: "/inxicty
and fear are what we know best in this fantastic century of ours. Wars and

rumors of wars. From civilization itself to what seemed the most unalterablo

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values of the past, everything is threatened or already in ruins. We have
heard so much tragic news that when the news is good we cannot hear it."
[p- 81 The Magnificent Defeat]

At some point every one of us, young and old, mst ask a very important
question. Docs good have a gambler's chance? Are ideas like poace and
brotherhood and justice and freedom utopian illusions - bound to be smothered
by the harsh realities of life? Or are these real? Upon the answer to that
question depends your willingness to join the fight, or your surrender, your
giving up.

Well, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ means that the fight is worth it;
that the decisive victory has been won: that good will prevail. To be a
Christian; to live out of the glad proclaimation of Easter morning is to fight
out of the sheer sense of victory.

It is also, you will remember, to dance out of the sheer sense of joy.

But joy is a very illusive and rare feeling. To be sure every man expericneces
a degree of happiness: good things do occur which call forth good feelings.
But joy means something deeper; joy indicates a state of being that fills us
and overflows into all our relationships: joy means a basic life style that
can be characterized by the word ndancing". It is a phenomenon which the
claim of Baster can bring to your life and mine.

ind yet, for many of us, it docsn't work out that way. We are filled -
deep down inside — with what the philosopher Kirkegaard called “fear and
trembling"; and the theologians call "the sense of non—being"; and the psychol-
ogists call "basic anxiety" and Iucy, everyone's favorite five cent psychiatrist
calls "ahgst''. Howover you want to embellish it academically what ib is -
is fear of death; the knowledge that someday I will dic, and shortly thereafter
any memory of me will die. That haunting, relentless fear has plagued man
since he thought his first rational thought.

Listen to the words of the late Paul Tillich: "The face of everyman

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shows the trace of the presence of death in his life, of his fear of death,
of his resignation to death. This frightful presence of death subjects man
to bondage and servitude all of his life." [The Shaking of the Foundations]

Listen to the words of John Donne, writing about the old English custom
of ringing the church bell when someone dies: "No man is an island entire of
istelf; everyman is a piece of a continent, a part of the main. .. iny man's
death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never
seem tc know for whom the boll tolls; it tolls for thee!"

And the poetry of Gerald Manley Hopkins:

"Margaret, are you grieving

Over golden grave unlearning? ...
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for."

That's very real and very personal, and as long as we are caught in that
obsessive fear, and that relentless mourning over our own eventual death, our
lives will be pretty grim. Thore will be no deep joy. Even our efforts to
overcome our own fears will be tainted, and nothing, no poetry, no soft images,
nothing will banish it. Edna St. Vincent Milay said it well, writing about
death; "I dc not approve"; and she was cleoquently echoed by Dylan Thomas:

"Do not go gently into the night,
Rage, rage against the dimming of the light."

Well, against that strong, dark theme of dread, there is playing today
a beautiful counterpuntal melody. St. Paul said it well, in fact almost
playfully, "O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory" and
in his letter to the Romans: "Now I am sure that neither life nor death -
nothing in all of creation can separate me from the love of God in Christ
Jesus our Lord."

In counterpoint to our fear the Easter message is this: in the Resurrection

' of Jesus Christ death was stripped of its powor: there is no need to be afraid:

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we are free in life to be joyful, to give ourselves wholeheartedly to tho tasks eS

of living, holding nothing back. For in the end it is not death, but God.
Who doesr't need to know that? It is risky business to deal sermonically
with eternal lifc. But we are compelled on this day, as the reality of the
Resurrection bursts in upon us, to affirm it: to rejoice in it: to oclebrate
it. Because Jesus Christ is not dead but alive = we are safe.
A real Christian who believes will do two things: dance out of the sheer
sense of joy and fight out of the sheer sense of victory. May I simply extend ys
my wish that it be so for you. May this unexplainable miracle: this news so
good our minds don't want to believe it, lift you up this day, give you courage

tomorrow, opon you to the goodness of the life God gives, and grant your peace. A

Amon.

Eternal God our father, we are grateful for this day, and for the frecdom
to live without fear that it brings. We give thanks for Jesus Christ our
Lord, who held back nothing in life, and who in his resurrection, shares with
us his victory over death. Grant us to hear, afresh, the’ good news: and
grant us to live out of our faith in a Lord who was dead but is alive, now and
forever.

imen.