April 12, 2009
Feast Day of Easter
Pastor Brad Davick
Mark 16:1-8

He Came Back

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed,Alleluia!

Really? Are you sure? Would you wager your 401-K and Abbott stock options on those two statements?

I confess to you this morning; casting doubt and questioning the inherent joy of our Easter Greeting probably isn’t the most appropriate way to begin.

I just couldn’t help myself having read today’s Easter Gospel over and over and over. How many of you were expecting the resurrection story written in John’s gospel? Any one wondering who the knuckle-head is who suggested this change? Yeah! It was me.

Sorry about that, however, if listening to the Easter story written in Mark’s gospel is uncomfortable for you...imagine how uncomfortable it’s been for me to craft a message for today!

It really has been, too; seemed like a great idea two months ago when Pastor Caroline and I did the season of Easter worship and sermon planning. Even two weeks ago it made sense in my mind. To say that my study and writing for today has been a bit of a train wreck would be an understatement.

So, let’s buckle up and see if we can’t get back on track.

Here are a couple of things that surprised me about today’s reading; maybe they surprised you, too. Unlike the Easter stories in Matthew, Luke, and John, in Mark’s gospel there are no resurrection appearances by Jesus.

Mark wrote that on that first Easter, Mary, Mary Magdalene and Salome went to the tomb with spices to anoint the one whom they loved. To their alarm, the body of Jesus was not there. A "young man, dressed in a white robe" told them, "You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified? Well, he isn't here. He is raised. He is going ahead of you to Galilee."

Here's my Easter question for you: Why Galilee?

Galilee? Galilee is an out of the way sort of place. It's where Jesus came from. Jesus is Galilee's only claim to fame in spite of someone's musing "Can anything good come out of Galilee?”. Jesus spent most of his ministry out in Galilee, the rural out back of Judea. He did most of his teaching in Galilee, trying to prepare the disciples for their trip up to Jerusalem. All of Jesus' disciples seem to have hailed from out in Galilee. Jesus' ultimate goal seems not to focus on

Galilee but rather on the Capital City, Jerusalem. In Jerusalem he was crucified and in Jerusalem he rose. Devote believers in Jesus' day expected a restoration of Jerusalem in which Messiah would again make the Holy City the power-center that it deserved to be, the capital city of the world. Which makes all the more odd that the moment he rose from the dead, says today's gospel, Jesus left the big city and headed back to Galilee. Why?

One might have thought that the first day of his resurrected life, the risen Christ might have made straight for the palace, the seat of Roman power, appear there and say, "Hello boys, I am back!”

But Jesus? He didn't go up to the palace, Jesus went outback, back to Galilee. Why Galilee? Nobody special lived in Galilee, nobody except the followers of Jesus. Us.

The resurrected Jesus comes back to, appears before the very same misfit group of failures who so disappointed him, misunderstood him, forsook him and fled into the darkness on the night Jesus needed them the most. He returns to the 2000 plus year long procession of betrayers. He returns to us.

It would have been news enough that Jesus had died, but the good news was that he died for us. As St. Paul said elsewhere, one of us might be willing to die for a children, a spouse, or good friend but Jesus shows that he is not one of us by his willingness to die for sinners like us. His response to our sinful antics was not to punish or judge us. Rather, he came back to us, flooding our flat world not with the wrath that we deserved but with his vivid presence that we did not deserve.

It would have been news enough that Christ rose from the dead, but the good news was that he rose for us.

That first Easter, nobody actually saw Jesus rise from the dead. They saw him afterwards. They didn't appear to him; he appeared to them. (us) In the Bible, the "proof" of the resurrection is not the absence of Jesus' body from the tomb; it's the presence of Jesus to his followers. The gospel message of the resurrection is not first, "Though we die, we shall one day return to life," it is, "Though we were dead, Jesus returned to us."

If it was difficult to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead, it must have been almost impossible to believe that he was raised and returned to us. The result of Easter, the product of the Resurrection of Christ is the church -- a community of people with nothing more to convene us than that the risen Christ came back to us. That's our only claim, our only hope. He came back to Galilee. He came back to us. In life, in death, in any life beyond death, this is our great hope and our great commission. Hallelujah! Go! Tell! The risen Christ came back to Waukegan, uh I mean Galilee.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

St. Paul's Lutheran Church § 824 N. Lewis § Waukegan IL