Easter: The Third Question
On Friday evening, when we were gathered in this great tomb of a church, a single candle sent a spooky shadow up the walls. We sang "Were you there when they laid him in the tomb," and in the gloom of Good Friday we felt that we were. There.
But there is a final, unfamiliar stanza to the Negro spiritual. It goes like this: Were you there when he rose up from the dead? Were you there when he rose up from the dead. Despite our best efforts to recreate that scene historically or liturgically, we have to admit, No, we were not there. Nobody was.
The most important event in the history of the world was transacted not between armies or diplomats but between God the Father and God the Son by the power of God the Holy Spirit. It happened in the peculiar light described by Matthew as “toward dawn,” the in-between-light when we often meet the risen Christ.
We don't know if it was a typically warm Palestinian morning or if it was unseasonably cool. We don't know if the wind was blowing or it was preternaturally still.
We don't know what he looked like when he was no longer dead—whether he burst from the tomb in heavenly light or came out the way Lazarus had, slowly unwrapping his bandages and squinting with wonder at the dawn. All these things and more—we do not know.
A great philosopher once said, There are only three questions worth asking: What can I know? What ought I to do? and, What may I hope? With all due respect to the first two, it's the Third Question that's on our minds this morning. It's the Third Question that keeps you awake at night. It's the third question that gets you up in the morning.
When we read the story of the Resurrection and ask the first question, What can I know?, we find we have overestimated our abilities to know. Wouldn’t you know it, the surveillance cameras were down that morning. We don’t have even a grainy image on a monitor that, like Doubting Thomas, we can reach out and touch.
Paul Simon sings,
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call,
The way the camera follows us in slow-mo
The way we look to us all.
But is this the only kind of knowledge there is? No place does the New Testament give a photo of the resurrection; it is received by faith. And yet, for the last 200 years we have focused more on proving the resurrection [point to head] than on being the proof of the resurrection. It was Jesus who said, “You shall be my witnesses.”
The second question, What ought I to do? moves us closer to the world of religion. For religion tells us what to do. At least, that's the way many of us first experienced church—as something I must do. Talk to anyone who is alienated from the church. Often they say, “All I heard when I was growing up was, ‘You must go to confession, you must go to Sunday School, you must be good. But no one ever told me why.” “Would Jesus keep a messy room?” “Would Jesus torment his little sister?”
The imitation of Christ has a long and rich history. In the world of popular religion, however, it is often reduced to the simplistic formula, “What would Jesus do?” What would Jesus drive? (a hybrid) What kind of music would Jesus listen to? (soul music, what else?) What position would he take on the issues of minimum wage, collective bargaining, and free trade? We need another approach to ethics besides speculative imitation. If only we could “be like Jesus.”
Do you remember in grade school when you were learning how to write in cursive? On the ruled line at the top of the page, the teacher would write a sentence with heavenly penmanship, "The great ship sailed to America" and the m was like a beautiful wave. Oh, to make such an m. And then on the next line you, age 8, would write the very same sentence. Then you would look at the two lines and compare them, and it would make you feel like a worm. Then, to add to the humiliation, the papers would be scotch taped to the blackboard so that everyone could see the glaring discrepancy between penmanship as it ought to be done and your miserable attempt.
The question is not 'What would Jesus do?' but, What sort of persons does our baptism into his death and resurrection empower us to be? What kind of a church came out of the tomb with Jesus on Easter morning?
The Third Question—What may I hope—holds the key to an answer. It was the Third Question that was on the mind of the psalmist when he wrote, “I wait for the Lord and in his word do I hope.” It was the Third Question that must have been on the mind of Mary Magdeline and the other Mary in that liminal light when night is not yet morning. Hope has to start somewhere. It begins in despair. And from there, it moves on to waiting, which most of us have confused with hesitating. Our mantra is I've got to run. I have no choice but to run because my life is up to me. I am compelled to run because I am on a treadmill of obligations with eternity to pay. A treadmill of worries about security, career, relationships, health, love, money—have I left anything out?—and I am afraid if I stop running the machine will continue and grind me into its gears. I am afraid to stop; I am afraid to wait. I am afraid to hope.
When Jesus died something in the universe ground to a halt. His friends laid him in a tomb and then in honor of the Sabbath, left him to God and walked away. And Jesus, dead, waited, as it were, for something to happen. When we commit a person who has died to the elements we commend them to God. The word "commend" means literally to place into someone else's hands. At the cemetery we say,
May God the Father who created this body,
May God the Son who by his blood redeemed this body
May God the Holy Spirit who through baptism sanctified this body—keep these remains until the day of the resurrection of all flesh,
and then we walk away. But secretly we are humming the Psalmist's tune and waiting for the dawn, when the great promise of God, realized in the resurrection of Jesus, will come true for us all.
What may I hope? You may hope in the God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead. You see, the Third Question is really the First Question. If you have a ground of hope on which you stand, you know more than you thought you did and know in a different way and in a different spirit. And with hope you live in a different way. For hope is a way of living openly and generously toward others. You live toward others, even people you don’t like or with whom you have differences, as if Jesus is risen from the dead—which he is!
Jesus meets the women fleeing the tomb and greets them on the road. The Greek word (look out I’m going to spray it), is Kairete; it’s hard to translate. We don’t say, “Hail” anymore. We prefer “Hi! or “Hey.” One Bible translates it “Good morning!” by which he must have meant, “New Morning!” Then he says to the women, “Tell the menfolk (who couldn’t get out of bed this morning) that I’ll meet them up north in Galilee where we began our ministry together.” Galilee! Galilee of the Gentiles, as it is known. Galilee—of the nations! That ministry has just caught a second wind. And we are still sailing in it.
The resurrection of Jesus is a pillar of fire that travels ahead of the whole human race. It is testimony; not merely to God’s love, but to God’s justice. If you want to know where God stands on the issue of suffering or oppression, if you want to know what God thinks when he sees his children slaughtering one another, if you want to know what God thinks when he sees you walking away from a cemetery, then go to the tomb of God's son, early, and you will meet him there.
Our family knows a Duke doctor who specializes in some of the worst diseases. He is a world class physician with a string of degrees after his name. Like all professionals, he has a card. His name is on it, but where you would expect a list of his degrees and even “I’ve been on 60 Minutes,” it has only this in boldface type: “THERE IS HOPE.” I have a feeling it’s the card that keeps his patients going. It’s the card they tuck into their breast pocket as they leave his clinic and return again and again. It’s the card that lifts their spirits when nothing else can. If I had the resources I would have had hundreds of them printed for each of you to take into your homes, workplaces, and daily lives. Only I wouldn’t mention your accomplishments—but only the name of the risen Jesus, and THERE IS HOPE.
That’s all.