“BORN IN THE GRAVE”

Rev. James Singleton

4/4/10
LUKE 24:1-12

In the aftermath of World War II, a series of military tribunals were held in Nuremberg, Germany for the purpose of prosecuting prominent members of Nazi Germany. There was a witness who took the stand to tell about the time he spent hiding in a Jewish graveyard in Wilna, Poland after escaping the Nazi gas chambers.

During this time of his living in the graveyard he told about a woman who had given birth to a boy. The eighty-year old gravedigger assisted in the birth. When the newborn child uttered his first cry, the old man prayed: “Great God, hast Thou finally sent the Messiah to us? For who else than the Messiah Himself can be born in a grave?”

Indeed we come to celebrate the Messiah today and we know he is the Messiah, the Savior of the world, precisely because he was born in a grave. Easter Sunday begins with the reality of a tomb.

The tomb acknowledges that in this world there are forces at work that are evil, that are sinister, that are death inducing, that are powered by sin. The tomb reminds us that we are mortal and not immortal.

St. Augustine said that our lives are like when a man is sick and near death, and his friends look over at him in his sickbed and say, “He is dying, he won’t get over this.” So, it could be said of us on the first day of our lives, someone looking over our crib could shake his head and say, “He is dying; he won’t get over this.” Anything that lives, dies. This is the inescapable, ordinary fact of life.

Christianity does not believe in the immortality of the soul. Christianity does not believe that there is anything within us that is ours, which will live forever. If we live forever it must come as a gift from outside of us.

The tomb of Easter morning symbolizes not only our physical death, but also our spiritual and moral deaths as well. For the physical death of Jesus was brought about by the spiritual and moral deaths of the people.

When the women approached the tomb that early morning they knew what they would find. They would find a filled tomb—evidence of a world gone mad. They would find a filled tomb, proof that things were as they had always been in the world. Doesn’t it always seem like evil defeats good; sin overpowers right; and death is the greatest power in the universe?

As they approached the tomb that Easter morn they knew they would hear the silence of hopelessness. What they were not prepared for was to hear the cries of a new birth coming out of the grave. What they were not prepared for was to find the one place in the world that should have been full—empty.

What they were not prepared for was to encounter the reversal of all they had accepted as reality—sin, evil and death—being overpowered by grace, love and life. Someway, somehow the tomb became a birthing suite and the man they thought the world had brought death to was born in the grave—and their lives could never again be the same.

We are not here today to pretend that the tomb is eliminated. We are here today to celebrate that the tomb is EMPTY—that it is overcome! We are here to celebrate that even though we die, yet shall we live. Even though sin burns us to the ground, yet shall grace raise us from the ashes; even though there is evil, yet will righteousness win out.

Regardless of what tomb you feel yourself sealed-up within; regardless of how cold and dark and hopeless it feels in there or how much it smells of death—Easter proclaims today that right in the place where you expect your demise—you can be born anew by the power of the resurrection.

There is one word that stands out in the twelve verses that were read this morning. Did anyone catch it? It is the little conjunction—“but.” Luke uses the word “but” six times in these twelve verses. The little word “but” is a stubborn conjunction that refuses to accept the way things are as final.

It is a word that grabs us by the collar and shakes us until we relent from the hopelessness that we so easily buy into and accept the empty tomb’s great rebuttal of the way things are and believe in the promise of the way things will yet be.

Yes, there is Good Friday, “but on the first day of the week…” Yes, there are tombs, “but when they went in, they did not find the body.” Yes, there are things that terrorize us and death is real, “but the men said to them, ‘why do you look for the living among the dead?’ Yes, there is sin and death and tragedy and heartache in our lives…but…Christ is risen!

It is why the people of Haiti could sing and dance in the face of their entire world having just been rocked to the ground by an earthquake. CNN’s Anderson Cooper stood at a makeshift camp filled with singing and praising just days after the unimaginable tragedy and he had the look of disbelief on is face and in his voice as he was reporting the makeshift worship services that were going on. How was such a thing possible?

Their world had just been shattered by the forces of this world, but they know something that maybe Anderson doesn’t know—their lives are governed by more than just the forces of this world; their lives are governed by the force of a world beyond this one. Jesus rose from the tomb, “therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea” Psalm 42.

Yes, there is this Good Friday event that entombed them and their loved ones…but on the first day of the week…. So they dance and sing in defiant hope.

Writer James Carroll wrote: “When the times call for resignation, the Word of God calls for boldness. Where the times give us excuses to despair, the Word of God insists on fidelity. Faith and prayer are never more important than when they appear to be foolish and irrelevant.” What do we ever face that is beyond the redeeming power of this Messiah? Despair results from a filled tomb. Defiant hope is born from an empty tomb.

Professor Peter Gomes of Harvard University wrote about his most moving Easter experience. “Some years ago I attended the Easter Vigil in the vast spaces of Winchester Cathedral. It was damp and dark, and there was neither light nor sound; nearly three thousand folk sat huddled in medieval darkness.

“And then, just as one thought one could not bear the cold, the darkness, or the silence any longer, at the far western end of the nave, was heard the greeting from the Bishop: ‘Christ is the light of the world.’ And he lit a candle, and from its thin light were the candles of the clergy and the choir lit.

And then they processed in silence midway down the long isle, lighting the candles of the people as they passed, and repeating the greeting, ‘Christ is the light of the world,’ and slowly, but surely, the light spread and the cathedral began to glow, and move, and come alive with light.

“Finally as the procession passed into the choir and the candles at the high altar were lit, one could see through the choir screen the illuminated image of Christ in glory, gazing down upon His Church.

“Then, in full cry, with the first sound of the organ, we sang the hymn, ‘Christ the Lord is Risen Today!’ Never before have I sensed in my bones that powerful transformation from death to life; I shall never forget that Easter, for I was reminded by the triumph of light over the darkness that Jesus lives, not lived, but lives, and that indeed he goes before us, even as he said.”

The disciples believed the words of the women about the empty tomb to be an idle tale. It was too implausible to believe. No one is born in a grave.

But to be a Christian you have to have room inside of you for the incredible. You have to be open to the unbelievable. You have to expect the unexpected and have faith in the unfathomable.

In a way it’s unfortunate that Easter coincides with the springing of the year. Now is the time when the grass is turning green, dogwoods are sprouting pink and white blooms, birds are singing their morning songs, eggs are cracking open to reveal chicks, butterflies are crawling out of cocoons.

As beautiful and life affirming as spring is, it is all natural and none of it symbolizes resurrection. Resurrection is unnatural. Resurrection is miraculous. Resurrection is not what we expect from nature, but what we receive from the unconquerable love of God when we have no reason to expect anything.

We don’t have to believe in tombs—we know they are real enough. What we are called upon to believe in is the emptiness of the tomb’s power.

• Do you believe Jesus is the earth quaking, earth shattering, death defeating Savior of the world?
• Do you believe His love is greater than our sin and death, hatred and hopelessness?
• Do you believe he was raised from the dead and has the power to raise you into new life from whatever stone cold tomb you find yourself rotting in?   

Or is all of this nothing more than an idle tale to you and you don’t believe it?

“But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.”

Look into the tomb that is within you and see if Christ hasn’t emptied it of its death dealing power. Nothing that has happened to you can defeat you. Yes, you have suffered many a painful Good Friday, but Easter Sunday always follows those who follow the man born in the grave.

AMEN.