Pastor's blog

Outside our house there is a lamppost. My son Wil remembers it as "that thing that the bug came out of and bit my ear." It was a hornet and there was a whole nest of them in there. When he whacked it with his foam baseball bat, I saw the bee come out swirl around his head. It made a quick darting motion and, a few seconds later, the tears started. Hornets, wasps, especially bees. They are really amazing creatures. They make honey, they pollinate plants, and they do all of it in a very precise and orderly way. There is a lot that is good about bees. Despite that, there are people who are terrified of them; people who bob and weave when one flies too close. Of course, it's not the bee that they're afraid of, it's the sting. It's not even the sting so much as the venom that is released. It's the venom that causes the itching and the swelling and, if you're allergic, much more serious problems.

Snakes are a lot like bees. They are fascinating creatures. They're very mysterious in their movement and very powerful for their size. They play their role in the food chain by eating insects and mice and other rodents. Medical and biological research has found uses for snakes in making pain killers and other drugs that help us. Still, like bees, there are people who are terrified of them. It's about their bite. No doubt, it's less about the bite than it is about the venom. Those two little teeth couldn't do much damage on their own, but the venom that is released can be anything from irritating to deadly. Of course, the passages from the Bible that we heard this morning are about much more than bee stings and snakes bites. They are literally about life and death.

One of the only things that soothes Wil when we gets hurt, bee sting or otherwise, is TV, I'm sad to say. He has a number of favorite shows. One of them used to be a cartoon called Super Why. In each episode the characters would face a big problem, a super big problem that needs solving. In each episode, they look in a book to find a solution, but they always run into problems. Inevitably, the main character uses his super powers to change the story and save the day. Of course, the passages we heard from the books of Scripture are about much more than changing a story. They're about changing history. This Sunday, Easter Sunday, is about Jesus being raised. It's on this Easter Sunday that we celebrate the beginning of the new life that we found in Jesus Christ. Our goal today, is to stand with the women at the opening of the empty tomb to see if we can relate to their feelings of amazement and terror.

The fascinating part about this story is that the women have no idea. No one has any idea that Jesus has been raised. The disciples seem to have given up and the women fully expect to find Jesus laying in the tomb. They might have at least considered it. After all, they heard him talk about being beaten and killed and three days later rising from the dead, but the women's main concern is whether or not there will be someone who can role the stone away. Much to their surprise, when they arrive, that has already been taken care of; not by the disciples, nor by sympathetic soldiers, but by a young man dressed in a white robe. The women were alarmed. It was probably the, "what have you done with Jesus' body" kind of alarm. The young man senses it.

"Do not be alarmed," he says, "you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you." With his words, the young man confirms what Jesus has said all along. All along Jesus said that he would be raised from the dead. It could have been a prank or one final ploy to finally put down the movement that Jesus began, but the women don't really stick around to find out. They didn't just leave the empty tomb, they fled the empty tomb. They were gripped by amazement and didn't say a word to anyone because they had a phobia. They reacted to what they had seen and heard like many people react to bees and snakes. It seems like such a strange reaction to what has become such a joyful event for us.

It all starts with this curious phrase that we heard from Paul's letter to the Corinthians this morning: the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. On the surface of things, it's easy enough to understand. Jesus is raised from the dead. In his resurrection, God has shown us that he is more powerful than death. The door has been opened to life after death and we can walk through it with out sin or the consequences of sin. Its good enough news as it is, but unpacking the whole statement a little shows us how deep sin can go, but also just how high the resurrection can take us. It is certainly a joyous event, but along the way we may find some moments that are terrifying, some that are amazing, and some that are both.

We start with something pretty amazing and that is God's law. The Bible considers God's law, those 10 Commandments and all the others that follow, to be a rather amazing thing. God's law is holy. God's law is good. God's law is just. In fact, the Bible says that God's law promised life to all those who would follow it and that its goal is love. That makes sense to us. We all know that life would be better if we took some time to rest. We know that life would be better without adultery and murder. Deep down we know that we would be better without lying or cheating or stealing. So, it makes sense to us that God's Word should speak so highly of God's law. What doesn't make sense to us is to hear God's Word refer to God's law as the power of sin, as the strength of sin; as if sin would have no power if there were not a law.

Well, recall those bees and snakes; those amazing and fascinating creatures that are good in and of themselves. This is how Paul has come to think of God's law. In Paul's view, God's law is holy and God's law is good and God's law is just all by itself. It is amazing and fascinating and life-giving. But, when you add sin to the mix, like those nasty fangs on a snake or the stinger of a bee, the whole thing becomes a little uncertain. It turns out that sin uses the law for things that aren't at all holy or good or just. Sin reminds us of God's law constantly, like forbidden fruit. Sin tells us that it's out there and that we don't have it. Sin reminds us constantly of our failure to keep it. If there was no law, sin would have nothing to poke us and prod us with. But because sin is always buzzing around our heads or snapping at our heels we get nervous and anxious when it comes to the law.

Does that mean that the law is bad? No, the law is good. We've just found that we can't keep it. We know that God's law is good. Everyone knows that it is right. Everyone from the Wall Street trader who steals, to the person at the church door who lies when asking for a handout, everyone knows what is right. Because of sin, we just can't seem to follow through. These are Paul's famous words: I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good that I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. So, sin has taken God's law and used it to create this great conflict within our bodies between what we know is right and what our bodies refuse to do. This conflict weighs on us to the point that we resent God's law and begin hating ourselves.

To make matters worse this same sin uses this same law to cause conflict, not only within us, but between us. Since we get tired of having to realize that we rarely keep God's law, we find it a relief to point out that others fail to keep it as well. In fact, it proves to be a nice distraction from our own inner turmoil to point out all the ways that other people are failures. If we focus on other people's problems, then we don't have to worry about our own. So, the punishment we know we should be putting on ourselves we put on other people and lash out at them and they at us and it all results in separation and segregation, inequality and impurity. We see throughout the Bible how God's law is used to separate one group of people from another and that those who did not possess the law were considered unclean and unworthy of God. In fact, Jesus did things that were considered unclean and unworthy of God and he was put on the cross for it and died. That's the worst part.

If there was just God's law, things would be very good. Perhaps we might say, if it was God's law and sin, things would still be o.k. The problem is that there is venom in those teeth. In other words, it's not just a sting here or a bite there, it's not just sin. Sin spreads death through our bodies and through our world. Often sin holds death over our heads so we fear it and do our best to avoid it. And, when we feel that this is the only life we're going to get, we take for ourselves what we want, when we want it, and how we want it, because there might not be another chance. So, when Paul writes that the sting of death is sin, he means that sin is the way that death seeps into the world. Like venom, death spreads through the world causing decay and fear and it is awful to see; as awful as it is to see Jesus beaten and bloodied and hanging on a cross. The crucified Jesus is the face of what sin is here to do in the world; to destroy all that is holy and just and good. So, the whole creation cries out in pain. This is a problem. In the words, of Wil's favorite cartoon, this is a super big problem. Or, is it?

Anytime the Bible gets to this point in the story, we never hear that this is a super big problem. Instead, we find things like, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Or, as we heard this morning, "Thanks be to God, who gives victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." I imagine you've been wondering when this sermon would start sounding like Easter. Well, here we go. While the religious and political authorities of Jesus' day meant his crucifixion for evil, God meant it for good. While the religious authorities meant to condemn Jesus on the cross for what they called blasphemy and profanity, God was condemning sin. On the cross, God was exposing sin for what it really was, a purveyor of death. And, three days later, when God raised Jesus from the dead, God had destroyed death itself. In those three days, God took care of the super big problem we just spent the last ten minutes going over.

The first thing that God did was take away the power of sin by freeing us from the law. Sin can no longer hold the law over our heads because, in Christ, we are no longer under the law but under grace. It is by grace that we have been saved, through faith. So, it is no longer the law that keeps us in good standing with God, it is faith in Jesus Christ. It is no longer those who keep a check list of commandments who find life, but those who confess with their mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in their hearts that God raised him from the dead who will be saved. IF God is for us in such a way then no one can condemn us. We know longer have to be afraid, like slaves are of their master always looking over their shoulder and watching their back, rather in Christ, we can trust in God, like children of a gracious parent waiting to be embraced. The only thing that matters is faith working itself out through love.

The second thing that God does is remove the stain of sin from our lives. God's love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. If the Spirit of God has been poured into our hearts, we understand that we are children of God. In other words, if sin worked to create a conflict between our minds and our hearts, God's Spirit has poured into our lives to renew them both. Sin can no longer shame us with our failures or unnerve us with our past rather, the Holy Spirit point us to a new tomorrow. If sin can no longer shame us, then we don't have to be concerned with shaming others. If we no longer have to worry about our own failures, then there is no need to distract ourselves by focusing on others' failures. All we have to do is open our hearts to God's Spirit and let seeds be planted that bear the fruit of joy and peace and patience and kindness and gentleness and faithfulness and generosity and self-control and, greatest of all, love. Through love, God's Spirit is spreading what sin could never offer: life, even eternal life.

Finally, we know that in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, God defeated our fear of death by defeating death itself. This life is not the only one we get. And, the glories of this present life are nothing compared to the glory of the life that is to come. Because death has been defeated we no longer have to race to get whatever we want, whenever we want it, because more than we could ever dream of or imagine is being prepared for us. Therefore, we can be always excelling in the work of the Lord, in reconciling races, in lifting people out of poverty, in transforming weapons of destruction into tools for creation, because in the Lord our labor is not in vain. Fear has been cast aside and we have been filled with hope. The taste of love that we get from God's Spirit is just a foretaste of what is being prepared for us in the future. Over and over again, the Bible says that the peace we experience today is just a glimmer of the harmony we will discover tomorrow. This body of ours which can still cause so much inner and outer conflict, will be fully renewed and made imperishable. We will all be changed and these mortal bodies of ours will take on immortality. Death has been swallowed up in victory and new life has sprung upon us.

New life has sprung upon the women who fled from the tomb as well. They left in fear, I think, because their life as they knew it was no longer. That can be a terrifying. If Jesus was raised from the dead as the angel said he was, then everything Jesus said was true and everything old was passing away and everything was going to be made new. In a very real sense those two women realized they were going to die; die to everything they had known. That made them afraid. But they were also amazed because they had begun to realize that this death was not an end but a new beginning. They realized that a new life awaited them. That amazement would unfold into joy as they realized that life was no longer about the law. They would no longer be right with God because of the law, but because of grace and a simple trust in God as Father; because of faith like a child.

That amazement would unfold into joy as they realized that the power that controlled their life was no longer sin, but God's very Spirit would now be within them and go with them in love to guide them into life. That amazement would unfold into joy as they realized that they were no longer dominated by the fear of death, but by hope in eternal life. Our amazement unfolds into joy every Easter Sunday when we are reminded of what began to unfold when Jesus was raised from the dead; how sin was weakened and death was defeated, how we have been made right with God by grace through faith, how we are being made holy like God through love and in love, how we will share in the glory of eternal life with God and how that is our hope and our hope does not disappoint us because it has already begun. All the promises of the future have taken place in the past. Everything that God has given to Jesus Christ has been given to us as well. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.