"Reminded of the Gospel"

  

"For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance; that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the twelve."

 

            Oscar Wilde wrote a play called "Salome," taken from the biblical story of the death of John the Baptist. In it, Herod hears that Jesus has been raising the dead. Herod says, "I forbid him to do that. I allow no man to raise the dead. This man must be found and told that I forbid him to raise the dead. Where is this man?"

            The answer comes to Herod: "He is in every place, but it is hard to find him."

            Paul writes to the church in Corinth. Some there had decided they no longer believed in the resurrection. Such a belief did not fit well with the other things they were deciding to believe, so the resurrection became isolated in their thinking, pushed out, and finally no longer included in their faith. Paul realizes that this change in their faith will make it difficult for them to find Jesus. He writes to remind them of the Gospel. He says "this is the Gospel I preached to you and the one you received and you took your stand on it and were saved." It is good to be reminded of that which saves, and that which we can stand on. Paul writes so that we to can find the Risen Jesus and live by faith in him.

            What is the Gospel that Paul proclaims? The Gospel is a narrative about Jesus that ends in resurrection. The Gospel is the story of Jesus: how he was born of a virgin, how he lived as a healer and teacher and one who forgave sin, how he died for our sins and how he was raised from the dead.

            What we notice is that the Gospel that leads us to resurrection exposes our fears, and even our opposition to God's will. There is something of Herod in all of us. First, we see that in Matthew 28, the initial reaction of the Chief Priests and Pharisees to the idea of resurrection was to place guards at the tomb and to place a seal on the stone that blocked the entrance. Their argument before Pilate was that a sealed and guarded tomb would keep the disciples from stealing the body of Jesus and hatching a story about resurrection. But the disciples' stealing the body of Jesus was hardly a possibility. The disciples fled after the arrest of Jesus; they were huddled together in fear, so much fear that only two women dared approach the tomb. Armed guards and large stones and seals were not needed to stop them.

            I do not think the Pharisees were guarding the tomb against the intrusion of the disciples. I think they were trying to guard the tomb against resurrection. They did not want it to happen. They forbid it from happening. If Jesus rose from the dead, that would not fit at all with their plot which put him on the cross.

            But, just a bit later, we meet a Pharisee named Paul, one who tried to forbid belief in resurrection by persecuting the followers of Jesus with great zeal. It was as if he was trying to keep the tomb closed. The risen Lord did not fit into his thinking, his convictions and beliefs. But one day, on the road to Damascus, he met the Risen Lord, and he could not deny who it was that he met. So he changed his life. Resurrection is not convenient, does not always fit our ideas or perspective, but it is true. The tomb is empty.

            You may still be guarding the tomb against the resurrection. You may carry with you a set of arguments, theories and doubts. Or perhaps you believe, but your life direction does not fit well with a Risen Savior. The reality of the resurrection of Jesus comes as a challenge to your life today. You may be guarding an empty tomb.

            Perhaps you identify more with the women, who came courageously to care for Jesus in his burial. Paul writes in his summary of the Gospel that Jesus died for our sins, and then he was buried. I don't know to what extent the women understood that day that Jesus had died on the cross for their sins. But they knew he died. He had been buried. Burial was important in that culture, and indeed ours as well. Burial says that the community acknowledges the death of a person, and so can proceed to memorialize his life. So the women come to the tomb as a sign of acknowledgment of the death of Jesus, caring for the body. Then they will begin to express their memories of him. What will they remember? That he was a good man, that he was a healer of man, that he spoke for God. Would they also have faith to say that morning "He died for our sins?"

            The women do not seem to have been afraid of the guards. Nor are they afraid to be in a place of death. But they were afraid of the angel, and not just of the angel, but of resurrection, of Jesus who is not in the tomb but is very much on the loose. They fear life which no longer corresponds to the community traditions. You cannot perform burial rites on the Risen Lord, nor can you make use of spices in an empty tomb.

            The women came to memorialize one they loved. But God does not simply memorialize. God raises the dead. The women are afraid of what this reality might mean. They go and tell the disciples. The Gospel of Matthew concludes in Galilee, where Jesus meets his disciples, and gives them a commission. "Go into all the world and make disciples…" They receive the commission, and act on it.

            N.T. Wright reminds us that we do not find the followers of Christ saying "Jesus is raised; therefore there is life after death." What they say is, "Jesus is raised, and therefore he is the Messiah, the true Lord. We will follow him."

            Many today are like the women at the tomb. They are courageous to face death, because they know that in Christ their sins are forgiven. They are willing to memorialize Jesus. They come to church. But they are hesitant about the commission, about obedience to the Messiah, the true Lord. The witness of the women and the apostles is that they found new life in living out the commission. By the power of the Holy Spirit, they overcame their fear and their resistance and went on to live for the Risen Lord. Easter calls us first to recognize and confess who it is that is Lord of our lives, and then to embrace the hope of eternal life.

            Finally, Paul saw Jesus and received his commission to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles. He says that Jesus appeared last to him, as to one abnormally born. He was not at the tomb, nor in Galilee with the others. But by the grace of God, he became an apostle.

            It is Paul who grasps that the resurrection of Jesus was an event that took place in the present world, but it belongs primarily to the new creation. He says in verse 20, "But Christ has indeed been raised from the dad, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep." Wright says that the image of first fruits comes from two Old Testament Festivals: Passover and Pentecost. At Passover, the first cutting of the barley crop was presented to God, in anticipation of the great harvest yet to come. This happened at the same time that the story of Israel coming out of Egypt was told, anticipating the arrival in the Promised Land.

In the same way, at Pentecost, the first fruits of the wheat harvest were given to the Lord, at the same time as the giving of the Ten Commandments at Sinai was remembered. So Paul is saying that Jesus is the first fruits of the resurrection. He is the first to rise from the dead, but there is more to come, a great salvation. So, in the cross and resurrection of Jesus we remember that the great oppressive power of sin and death are defeated, just as Pharaoh was defeated in the Passover. Jesus went through the Red Sea of death and emerged with a new body, the beginning of God's new creation.

            So Paul calls the Corinthians to remember the Gospel they first received and believed. The resurrection of Jesus is the center of it. There we truly discover the forgiveness of sin, the recognition of Jesus as Messiah and true Lord, and the beginning of new creation, our hope in God. The one who raises the dead is everywhere. He is not bound by grave or tomb. But he is hard to find, until by faith we open our hearts to him as Risen Lord. Remember the Gospel. Commit your life to the living Lord Jesus Christ today.

            Amen.