Groundbreaking!

As we celebrate Easter this morning, we're kicking off a brand new message series. We're calling it Groundbreaking. 
A groundbreaking event is something that's never been done or seen before, or maybe it is something you never considered. It's new, it's innovative, and it’s pioneering.  It might be something that changes history or shapes culture. It might be something that redefines the way people live and act and work, or relate to one another. From Julius Caesar's expansion of the Roman Empire to the Protestant Reformation, to the American Revolution, to a man on the Moon; these are all groundbreaking. Gutenberg's printing press, the Wright brothers plane, Thomas Edison's light bulb, Steve Jobs' iPhone, Groundbreaking. You get the picture.

Well, Easter celebrates the most groundbreaking event in history.  And it’s impact is still being felt. Over a billion people all around the world this morning are gathering to celebrate a Jewish carpenter from an obscure village who lived 2,000 years ago. Think about that. Think about the life of Jesus of Nazareth. He never wrote a book. He never held political office.  He never starred in a movie. He never invented anything. He didn't own anything. He never made any money. He never traveled more than 30 miles from his hometown, and yet, here we are celebrating his life. How is that possible? How do we even know the name Jesus of Nazareth? By all logic and by any reasonable standard, Jesus should have receded into the obscurity from which he briefly emerged.

A historian's test of an individual’s greatness is the legacy that person left behind.  Did he start people thinking along fresh lines with a vigor that persisted after him? By that standard, regardless of what you might believe or think about him, Jesus of Nazareth certainly stands first.  He's had more influence on history than any person, and has been the dominant figure for 20 centuries. And it all comes down to the event we celebrate today, the groundbreaking event that is Easter. It all began one Sunday morning like today with a very amazing discovery by a very unlikely little circle of people, two fishermen and a woman who had a sordid past. 

We're going to look at their discovery as it is told to us in the gospel of John, but before we get to Sunday, we're going to take a few steps back to take a look at last Friday, the day that Jesus was beaten and bloodied and then nailed to a cross as punishment for trumped up charges by people who were jealous of his success.  He died an agonizing death for sure, but after a few hours, it was all over. Two wealthy, well-connected friends requested permission to secure his body. They cleaned and anointed it and then wrapped it with burial cloths as was the custom of the day. And then, they placed Jesus' body in a tomb, a cave really, carved out of a rock secured with a giant stone at its entrance.

The following day, Saturday, was the Sabbath Day in which pious Jews would not have traveled or done other work.  So for that reason, and perhaps partly out of fear, Jesus' friends and family stayed away from the tomb and out of sight.  They were privately mourning his death and the end of their lofty hopes and dreams in him, which brings us to Sunday morning. And one of the story’s most unlikely protagonists, Mary Magdalene. She came to the tomb very early while it was still dark.  She saw that the large stone blocking the entrance had been removed from the tomb. So Mary, the woman with a troubled past, now a friend and follower of Jesus, is the first of his disciples to witness the events of the first Easter Sunday as all four gospels tell us. But things are not as expected.

It’s the gospel of John that tells us that Jesus appeared to Mary first, but she did not recognize him.  It's the gospel of Mark that tells us that she assumed someone had rolled the stone away, the obvious assumption doubtlessly suggesting foul play.  So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus loved, that's John, and told them they have taken the Lord from the tomb and we don't know where they have put him.

So Mary turns to Jesus' closest friends, those fishermen, Peter and John.  Mary tells them what she saw and she tells them what she thinks. Somebody stole the body!  Given the controversy surrounding Jesus' life and death, one final indignity at the hands of his enemies was not at all unlikely. So the story continues. Peter and John didn't know what to make of this news either.

So they ran to the tomb to see for themselves.  John ran faster than Peter and arrived first. He bent down and saw the burial cloth there, but he did not go in.

He didn't go in out of respect for Peter, who was the leader of the apostles. When Peter arrived, he went in and saw the burial cloth there and the cloth that covered Jesus' head, not with the burial cloth but rolled up and placed separately in a separate place.

So John describes the scene in this tomb and he goes into some detail because the picture didn't make any sense. It's a puzzle. The clothes were there but the body was gone. Something was off. Very off.

If someone had moved the body, the cloths wrapping the body would have gone as well. But there they were, neatly arranged, deliberately placed and folded.

A grave robber would hardly have taken time to unwrap the body much less neatly and deliberately arrange the clothes.  All practicing Jews, like Mary Magdalene and the apostles, understood that Jesus’ rolled up facial cloth was a clear sign that Jesus was coming back.  That rolled up facial cloth told them Jesus had simply gotten up and was coming back. All practicing Jews would recognize this sign from Jesus. The scene just didn't make any sense because they witnessed Jesus’ death.

And then, we learn this. John went in, John saw, John believed. He sees the same scene that Mary Magdalene and Peter saw, but John comes to a conclusion about this confusing scene and he does so very quickly. He concludes, Jesus is risen from the dead.

As a conclusion, that's inconceivable.  It's absurd. People don't do that. People don't rise from the dead.  The idea defies logic, and reason, and sense, and science, but it didn't defy John’s experience because John had an experience.  He had a relationship with the living, loving Lord Jesus, and on the basis of that relationship, John was able to believe.

You know, besides the baffling fact of that empty tomb, there's another nagging fact that hangs on out there that cannot be explained - in fact, that no historian or theologian has ever been able to explain, nor any critic of Christianity explain away.  The nagging fact is that the apostles went on to testify not only did they see an empty tomb, but they saw the risen Jesus. They had absolutely no reason to up make such a fact. They didn't profit by it.

They didn't make any money or gain power by it.  In fact, just the opposite. Their lives were threatened. They were bullied and beaten. They were persecuted and imprisoned. Eventually, most all of them would die for it, but they refused to change their story.  Far from it, they insisted on telling others, and it was their intention to tell everyone.
The followers of Jesus didn't rally around his death; they rallied around his resurrection. They began to spread that message, the message that he was risen from the dead, and that was their core message.

And only as people rallied around that core message, did they begin to embrace the rest of the Christian message, a message that's filled with groundbreaking concepts and ideas, groundbreaking concepts like the idea that that women and children have value.

In the ancient world, women and children were treated like property.  Men could do with them as they liked. But Christians shared the groundbreaking teaching of a risen savior who valued and welcomed children, who invited women like Mary Magdalene to follow him and learn from him and serve on his team.  Other rabbis didn't do that. Nobody did that. It was groundbreaking. Groundbreaking ideas like caring for the sick and lifting up the poor. In the ancient world, if you were sick and poor, you were out of luck.

But Jesus’ followers share the groundbreaking message that caring for the sick and lifting up the poor are high values that we should all hold.  Groundbreaking ideas like the idea that individuals have dignity and value apart from their power or position, or property, independent of tyrants, free from everybody, whoever you are, has dignity and worth.

On the day after Jesus' death, it looked as if whatever small mark he might have made on the world would rapidly disappear on that Friday and Saturday.  His closest friends and followers walked away, frightened and alone and convinced that he was finished, that he had failed and that his message would fade because that's what happens, doesn't it?  Normally, when someone dies, anyone, their impact on the world begins to recede.

Even the greatest, the most beloved leaders lose their influence over time.  Jesus inverted that. His impact grew after his death, and it grew more or less exponentially, an impact rooted in the resurrection,  an impact that lasts to this day. The resurrection proves that Jesus was who he said he was, and that he could do what he said he could do. Jesus was who he said --He was God, and Jesus could do what he said he could do, anything. Because if you can predict your own death and engineer your own resurrection, I suppose you can pretty much do anything.

Here's another thing he said he could do. He said that because he could rise from the dead, we could too. His friends and followers can follow that same pattern from death to life.  And that's why Easter is groundbreaking for everybody.

You know, the mortality rate in this country still hovers at 100%. Death is inevitable, and that's the bad news for sure. But the good news is this, you and I have nothing to fear. We have no need to fear death when our life is linked to Christ in a living, loving relationship that is simply characterized by daily conversation with him.

Your role and my role is to simply believe and receive, to believe in the truth of the resurrection and to receive the gift of life that Jesus gives to us. The gift of life is given in baptism.

In a moment, I am going to invite you, wherever you are joining us from this morning. I'm going to invite you to stand and do something that we do every Easter Sunday. It's an Easter tradition. We are going to renew our baptism promises.
We will testify that we believe in the truth, and the power of the resurrection, and the gift of life that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, gives to us.

Then we're going to sprinkle you with the water of baptism, the Easter water, the water that was blessed last evening during the Easter vigil.  When I ask you to stand and repeat your baptismal promises, how about this Easter, you repeat those promises like you really mean it? In doing so, you let Jesus’ story truly be part of your life. 

The Resurrection was the most groundbreaking event in the entirety of the human story, but it is entirely up to you to receive it into your story (Repeat).