UP FROM THE GRAVE
A sermon preached by
Rev. Dr. Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Texts: Job 19:23-27; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; John 20:1-18; 1 Corinthians 15:19–26, 50-57
“Low in the grave he lay, Jesus my Savior.” So sings the song with which we will close our service today. If this was the end of the story, none of us would be here today. But it is an important part of the story. “Low in the grave he lay…waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord.” We Baptists don’t do much with the hours between the crucifixion and the resurrection. And the truth is, no one really knows what went on from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning, after that rock sealed cave.
Multiple accounts confirm Jesus’ execution on a Roman cross. The writer of John records that Joseph of Arimathea retrieved the body from the Romans and placed it in a tomb belonging to him. John also says that Nicodemus purchased 100 pounds of spice to anoint the body for burial. So, it is not a group of women who show up at the tomb on Easter morning, expecting to prepare the body properly, since they had not had time on Friday before the Sabbath began. It is just Mary Magadalene who wanders onto the stage, lost in her grief, come to the tomb to be near the body in her mourning.
As people who have had 2000 years to familiarize ourselves with this story, we can’t begin to imagine the shock that Mary experienced when she found the tomb empty. Something beyond her comprehension – and perhaps ours – had occurred between late Friday afternoon and early Sunday morning. Where was the body? Who had taken it and why? Had the Romans or religious authorities removed it in effort to disperse his followers more quickly? Had some of them remembered his prophecy that he would rise on the third day and carried the body away in order to keep his followers from removing it themselves and then claiming he had risen? All Mary, and we, know at this point is that the tomb is empty. But the story doesn’t end here either. This is an interim moment along the way. If all we had was the empty tomb, I also doubt we would be here today. We have not come to celebrate death or emptiness.
As I said, we don’t know what happened during the time Jesus supposedly lay low in that grave, but one tradition that is important to some churches, especially the more liturgical ones, treats Jesus’ descent into hell or sheol, the place where the dead were suspended for all time. In that tradition, part of Jesus’ victory over death is the liberation of those who have died before him. The work of his resurrection is not a miracle reserved for him only. It is a victory over death itself and a fulfillment of the promise of redemption. “O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory?”
This ultimate victory of Christ over death is the reason we are here celebrating today. It is the reason we release our alleluias and sing God’s praises. In a recent issue of Christian Century there were three articles that referred to victims of earthquakes. In each, there was a story that seems to affirm Christ’s victory over death. William Willimon writes of two mission trips to Haiti with college students who were universally amazed by the laughter of the children and the “raucous singing.” How could these people laugh and sing in the face of so much suffering, pain and death? Though this may be our question, it apparently is not theirs. They seem to say, “How can we not laugh and sing? We are alive. What else do we have but our faith and the capacity to laugh and sing in the face of death?” “O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory?” “We will not give in to death’s lure. We will not respect its power, for we have known something greater. We know life and we celebrate it.” Willimon writes, “The world is full of death. Open your eyes and you will see the weeping all around.” Still, he goes on, “…there’s only one thing we know that the world doesn’t: we know another story. In the gloom, on the margins, there are women singing…without earthly justification…They have learned the secret about God and can’t help singing. The God who could have been sovereign chose rather to be love. Dare we risk defiant delight? Listen, in Port-au-Prince they are singing: ‘Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia’” (William H. Willimon, “Now Can We Sing?” The Christian Century, March 23, 2010, p. 12.)
A more specific story is told by Paul Jeffrey of a 70 year old Haitian woman named Ena Zizi who lay buried in the rubble of her apartment building for a week after the earthquake. In the beginning, she yelled for help. For a couple of days she talked with a priest buried near her until there was silence; then she says she “talked only to God.” But when search dogs brought rescuers near, she started singing until they found her. The group that rescued her are a crack Mexican team known as Los Topos de Tlaltelolco or the Gophers of Tlaltlelolco. They came into being when a group of neighbors grew impatient with the Mexican government’s slow response to the collapse of the Tlaltelolco apartment complex in a 1985 earthquake. They formed their own rescue brigade then and there and learned their skills on the job. Now they work all over the world. They are particularly admired for their willingness to build tunnels amidst the debris and enter those tunnels to bring victims out, a practice that most rescue teams will not do. That is how they brought Ena Zizi up from the grave, through a tunnel of their own construction, propped up with the rubble of the building, lying on a broken piece of salvaged cardboard. Though severely dehydrated, with a broken leg and dislocated hip, Ena continued to sing as her rescuers brought her out. They themselves were weeping as surrounding teams cheered (Paul Jeffrey, “Out of the Rubble” The Christian Century, March 23, 2010, p. 13.) These brave workers, risking their own lives, went down into hell and brought Ena out. “O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory?”
Of course every story doesn’t have a happy ending. Both of Kevork’s children were buried in the collapse of their apartment building in a 1988 earthquake in Armenia. Only one of them survived. The grieving father could only shake his fist at God. He tells his friend Vigen, “I have argued with God day and night! But God has not answered! Armen is gone! I will go on living my life in this sorrow, but I no longer worry about God’s purposes or what he can do.” His friend is incredulous at the father’s loss of faith, but Kevork responds, “Vigen, my friend, what else is left for me?” After a long, thick silence, Kevork asks his friend to help him understand just what it is that Christians mean by resurrection. Together they look at the Bible. Vigen encourages Kevork to read from Job and First Corinthians.
The grieving father reads the ancient words of another grieving father. In the midst of all his pain and suffering, his debate with his friends and his struggle with God, Job sings out from his own living hell, “…I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God…” From the edge of the grave, Job cries out his faith that God will redeem him. Then the two friends turn to Paul’s great affirmation of resurrection in the 15th chapter of First Corinthians, “Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’”
As Vigen recounts the tale, “Kevork read and reread the whole of chapter 15. His eyes grew wide and his lips moved rhythmically as he read to himself, half aloud. Then his face came aglow. He looked up…and with a shout he exclaimed, ‘Vigen, Christianity is materialist! It says we will have bodies! I will see Armen’s face again, just as I see yours now in the candlelight!’” “O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory?”
What happens between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning? Vigen says that the Orthodox tradition believes “…Christ’s victory over death was accomplished not only on the cross and by his resurrection, but also on Holy Saturday. Indeed, Holy Saturday may be most significant of the three days of Easter. On Friday, Christ is lifted up on the cross. On Saturday, Christ descends into Hades, knocks down its gates and liberates its captives…On Easter Sunday, Christ rises again into the living world with his resurrected body. The victory over death that commenced on Friday is completed” (Vigen Guroian, “Descended into Hell” The Christian Century, March 23, 2010, p. 27.) “O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory?”
And weeping Mary, standing outside the empty tomb, her heart heavy, her mind swirling, turns to the gardener, “Where is he? What have you done with body? What has happened between Friday afternoon and this morning?” “Mary,” he says. “Don’t you know I’ve been to hell and back? But I’m here now, at your side. You can count on me.” Her eyes are opened. Her heart nearly bursts with alleluias. She wants to grab onto him and hold him forever. But he sends her off. She has a task to do, a tale to tell, a joy to share. The others need to hear the good news, the life-transforming news. Death is no more. “I have seen the Lord.”
Now, the meaning of Easter is fulfilled. It’s neither Jesus’ sacrifice or an empty tomb that we have come to celebrate this morning. It is a personal encounter with the risen Christ. This is what makes all the difference. It is a living testimony to Christ’s victory over death that we celebrate. It is the promise that that victory is not just for Christ but it’s for you and me and all the world. The fulfillment of that promise moves us to sing, “Alleluia!” this morning.
Mary had a personal encounter with her Lord. His other followers would as well. Paul met Christ on the Damascus Road. Job knew the reality of his Redeemer in the midst of suffering, pain and death. Haitian survivors sing of the living Lord in their lives, fragile as they may be. Ena sings in the grave and she sings her way out, through her faith in Jesus. Vigen shows Kevork Christ in the flesh with the promise that he will also see his son again. I don’t have the definitive word on how these encounters happen. They vary with time and the people involved. In the flesh, in the spirit, in the thin places, in the grave, in the light of Easter morning – over and over and over again, Christ comes to us and calls us by name, inviting us to life abundant and eternal. How can we keep from singing? “O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory?”