Risen
Text: John 20:1-18
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
Easter, 2006

Life is filled with apparent contradictions.

Sometimes in hospitals things get busy and crazy and highly-trained medical professionals sometimes get in a hurry when filing their reports. The results are sometimes quite interesting and contradictory.

The baby was delivered, the cord clamped and cut, and handed to the pediatrician, who breathed and cried immediately.

The skin was moist and dry.

The patient had waffles for breakfast and anorexia for lunch.

The patient was in his usual state of good health until his airplane ran out of gas and crashed.

I saw your patient today, who is still under our car for physical therapy.

Patient was alert and unresponsive.

When she fainted, her eyes rolled around the room.

The patient lives at home with his mother, father, and pet turtle, who is presently enrolled in day care three times a week.

She is numb from her toes down.

The story of Easter is, on so many levels, a contradictory story. Jesus had been put to death and was buried.

The story of Jesus’ ministry, his teachings, his miracles, the hope he had inspired in so many ended at the cross. It was over. Done.

Yet, on Easter the story doesn’t so much take a turn or a twist, but it begins all over again as a new story. Jesus was alive. Jesus had been raised from the dead.

Risen.

It was a totally foreign concept. It was impossible to be dead and raised again.

Most of the people didn’t believe it.

In our day and age a lot of people don’t either.

One author, Michael Baigent, recently wrote a book where he said that Jesus’ ‘comeback’ wasn’t a resurrection, but his death had been a hoax. It has to be this way, according to Michael Baigent, because people can’t be raised from the dead.

The author and theologian John Dominic Crossan has written extensively on the life of Jesus and probably is one of the most articulate and best writers about Jesus life in the culture. He writes brilliantly on that. But he doesn’t believe in the resurrection; he believes that Jesus’s spirit, a good inspired feeling, lived on in the disciples. Nothing more, nothing less.

The resurrection so often eludes our comprehension, it seems like such a paradox to us.

The story of Easter, however, remains potent for two reasons.

The first reason is that we are reminded of the incredibly loving sacrifice Jesus made for each and every one of us.

Behind a church in the small town of Flint Hill, Virginia, you will find the grave of a young seminary student named Albert Gallatin Willis who died on October 14, 1864. Albert Willis' story is unusual. Albert Willis served with the famed command of Mosby's Raiders during the Civil War. Because of Mosby's harassment of Federal supply trains, wagons, and stores, General Phil Sheridan ordered that Mosby and any of his men be hung on capture.

In October 1864, Willis and an unnamed comrade were captured by the 2nd U. S. Cavalry and sentenced to die by hanging. However, Willis was offered a Chaplain's exemption as a ministerial student. But because his companion was married, young Willis offered himself as a substitute for the comrade and died in his place so that the other might go free. Willis was hanged so that another might live.

The story of Jesus on the cross is like this. Jesus died so that we might live. It is a story, a monument to the loving sacrifice of Jesus.

But, secondly, what makes this story so distinct is that the pages are turned and a new story is written because of Easter. Jesus was raised from the dead. He died so that we might live and be freed from the bonds of sin and death; but he was raised to remind us of the great hope God gives to each of us.

It may seem to contradict everything we know, it may be, in fact, the ultimate paradox. But Jesus came back to life on Easter.

And what makes the story continue is that he came back to life and lives on in each of us. As we move forward and share Jesus, the teachings of Jesus, the miracles of Jesus, the life of Jesus, and the hope that Jesus instilled in each of us, Jesus lives on in new and vibrant ways.

Within the church we gather for Worship each Sunday. Across the world Christians meet each week, on Sunday, the day of the resurrection to Worship God. And each time we meet each Sunday, the day of resurrection, we relive and remember that we are here because of one day. The one day is Easter. For we gather and remember that Christ the Lord was risen this day. Amen.

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