What Story Does Your Life Tell?
Fear Not - Part 7
Sunday, April 4, 2021 - Easter Sunday
Matthew 28:1-15; Matthew 5:13-16
“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid.
Matthew 5:13-14
After the priests had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to give a large sum of money to the soldiers, telling them, “You must say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’
Matthew 28:12-13
Many people are afraid of death for a lot of reasons. Some fear what will happen after death, whether their eternity will be better or worse than this life, or even if there is any existence at all beyond the grave. Others are not as concerned with the afterlife as they are with the pain or suffering they may experience around their death and the pain and grief their families and loved ones will go through. Will those we leave behind be OK? What will our legacy be?
All of these are valid fears, but I wonder if there is sometimes actually something we fear even more than death… that is life, or more specifically, resurrection.
You see, for as disconcerting as death can be, we at least understand it as a natural process within the lifecycle. Everything and everyone dies. In the famous words of the Mandalorian, “This is the Way.”
But what happens when it’s not the way. What happens when the stone is rolled away from the tomb and someone walks out? What happens when that person starts appearing in locked rooms or walking with people on the road who don’t even recognize him? These things are not the way. They are not natural.
We shouldn’t be surprised at the fear the women and the disciples felt at the empty tomb. We should be even less surprised at the fear the guards felt when the realized the body was missing and they didn’t even have the benefit of faith or the theological framework to actually believe the impossible, that Jesus might have actually risen from the dead.
The religious leaders knew they had broken their own commandments in order to have Jesus murdered, but now they are more afraid of the possibility that he might actually be alive than they are of the consequences for their own sin. In short, they are more afraid of life than death.
This all raises an important question for us. Are we afraid of life? Are we afraid of resurrection? Are we afraid that the things we have tried to bury and put behind us may actually come back to haunt us? Are we afraid that if we embrace this resurrection life that our lives will never be the same again.
In her Sunday Prayers posted on March 14th, 2021, Nadia Bolz-Weber writes, “I am so afraid that I will never be who I once was. And I am also afraid that I will be.” This sums up my feelings about myself and about my church in this season. There is a tension between the desire to get back to a sense of normalcy and the desire to leave behind our pre-COVID baggage and move forward into with a renewed sense of purpose and innovation.
Weber goes on to pray, “When I quiet my anxious thoughts, I start to suspect that I am now closer to the me you have always known and always loved. So help me trust that, Lord. As things change, help us be gentle with ourselves and with each other. We are all wearing newborn skin right now. Amen.”
“Newborn skin” is what we have when we experience new birth, or resurrection. It is vulnerable and easily wounded. It makes us uncomfortable and uncertain. We must learn to walk… even crawl… all over again.
If we are truly in Christ, we do not have the option to crawl back into the womb of our pre-resurrections life, where everything was routine and comfortable and familiar. We must learn to live with an eternal perspective. Our very lives must proclaim the hope of resurrection and the power of Christ over death and the grave.
There are two versions of the resurrection story. One is the story of the disciples, who struggled for weeks and even months with fear and uncertainty as they embraced hope and waited upon the Holy Spirit while trying to figure out the implications of Jesus’ resurrection for their lives. The other is the story of fear and hiding, the story in which we go on with our lives as normal, as if the body was stolen and we just have to move on.
Which story does your life tell?
Listen to this week’s sermon here:
Video of the complete worship service available at http://asburyumc-huntersville.com/live