“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition”

Dead or alive?  033113    Luke 24:1-12

“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition”

Nobody expects resurrection either….2000 years ago or now.

Those women came looking for the dead, they assumed, expected, that’s what they’d find.  And when the unexpected happened they were told

He is not here.  He is risen.

Not here?  We weren’t expecting that.   Of course Jesus should be here—this is where we left him….. last time we were in church.  What do you mean he’s not here?

Those first disciples of Jesus came looking for the dead…..and sometimes I think we do too!   We enshrine the dead Jesus in the tomb of history.   But history isn’t the faith story….the faith story is Christ is risen! (Christ is risen indeed)

Not relegated to  a church either, where we can visit occasionally when we feel the need to check in, then leave him behind there…

No!  Risen means  alive, right?   A life force that we take with us, a force that fills us with  meaning and purpose, and well, Life!

These women in Luke’s version didn’t see Jesus, any more than we do.  They had to take someone else’s word for it until they could experience it for themselves

They had to be reminded of Jesus’ words and God’s promises, but then they caught on and remembered for themselves.  

So we too come again and again to be reminded, and again and again we begin to remember for ourselves what much of the time we’ve forgotten – that our faith is based on Life, on movement.  Forget thinking that the church is an institution—it’s meant to be a movement!    He is not here.  He is risen!  Alive.

they got a message that flies in the face of everything they know about life and death.   And so do we, every time we come to church, for this is a counter-cultural message, a spirituality that defies death-thinking and fear-mongering.

Even Peter wondered enough to check it out for himself, and when he saw the signs of resurrection he began to think and wonder, could there possibly be something to this resurrection stuff?  What signs of resurrection life do we see?   What kind of resurrection signs are we?

Ah that’s the question.   I don’t think we can ever explain or understand resurrection, because head understanding isn’t the point.   Resurrection is to be experienced, not explained.  And we can only experience the risen Christ’s life force if we see the signs of it for ourselves.

We live in a world that runs on fear and death, where people look for life and meaning in all the wrong places, places that cannot possibly provide it.

So how can the exploding life force be seen, if not through us? This cosmic energy is all around us, in us and beyond us, yet we barely tap into it, because we’re mostly observers.

Many of us say we’re Christian, only if we’re asked of course, or we describe ourselves as spiritual but not religious.  But we’re really just observers.

What the world needs is not observers but participants in the Life movement of Jesus, exploding with force into lives of purpose, missions of justice, communities of compassion, living places, like this congregation where the living Jesus transforms us, gives us meaning and purpose, and empowers us to take life into the world and transform it into the creation God intended it to be.

Christ is risen! (Christ is risen indeed)

Say it like you mean it

Now live it like you mean it.

Amen?  Amen