PROPERS: EASTER DAY, YEAR B (Principal Service)
TEXT: 1 CORINTHIANS 15:1-11; JOHN 20:1-18
PREACHED AT RESURRECTION, STARKVILLE, ON SUNDAY, MARCH 31, 2024
ONE SENTENCE: Revelation to the unexpected.
My homiletics professor at Sewanee had simple advice on how to preach: Tell the people what you are going to say, say it, then tell them what you said. Simple enough.
But today I am going to tell you what I am not going to say. This.
A friend at a large Jackson Church was preaching at the principal Easter Day service. Hundreds of people were present.
After the Easter gospel was read, he stepped to the center of the transept. He preached a three-word sermon: “It’s all true.” That was it.
You can probably get away with that once per decade. But not on Easter Day.
So, that will not be my sermon today.
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There is a curious inconsistency in our second lesson and the gospel today. It could be just a matter of our translation, but still…
The second lesson is from Paul’s First Letter to the Church in Corinth, the 15th Chapter. Our translation, the New Revised Standard Version, begins this way: “Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters…”
The odd thing is that the biblical text, in Greek, says simply, “Now I would remind you, brothers…” No mention of sisters.
Compare that original textual exclusion by Paul to the accounts of the resurrection, on that first Easter Day, in all four gospels.
The first witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus were women. In each of the gospels. They discovered the empty tomb. Especially Mary Magdalene – she conversed with the Risen Christ.
And go back further – to the crucifixion on the rugged hillside outside the city of Jerusalem, the place known as Golgotha. The disciples had scattered to the four winds. They were afraid. The women stayed… and watched the unfolding horror.
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The question occurs to me: To whom is the gospel revealed?
I flash back to the Sermon on the Mount. It was on a grassy hillside, descending into the Sea of Galilee. It was, of course, in Galilee, a rural area we might consider the biblical equivalent of Kemper County. The thousands gathered on that hillside listening to the Beatitudes were known in the Hebrew as the am ha’aretz – the common, ordinary people, unknowledgeable and unobservant of the religious law.
I think, too, of the early Christians – mostly slaves and people without power. There were exceptions, but they were few.
The early Christians hid to observe their Christian rites. They largely moved furtively and stayed in the shadows until the Roman Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in A. D. 312 – nearly 300 years after the resurrection.
If you read the accounts of Jesus’ meandering ministry across Galilee, Samaria, and into Judea, you will see that the Christ had his mission aimed at the least powerful – tax collectors, fishermen, common folks, prostitutes, and the like. He mainly butted heads with the rich and influential – the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the High Priests, and others.
It was his challenges to the existing power structure and the religious hierarchy that led to a common criminal’s execution on that Friday outside the walls of Jerusalem. A thief on each side. They could do no worse to him.
So, to whom did the resurrected Christ first appear?
It was not to the wealthy, the powerful. It was not the people who hear sermons about prosperity gospel. It was not to people who gather in massive auditoriums to hear flashy preachers. And, honestly, it was not people like you and me.
The gospel of hope – of sick being visited, prisoners being released, the grieving being consoled – is given to you and me. And the gift of eternal life is ours, too.
But, first, it was given to the streets… to the back alleys… and to the ghettos of the cities.
And, ultimately, it is given to us. Given to us to share return – to the poor in spirit, the grieving, the lost, the hopeless, the hungry, the sick, and the prisoners.
When we see them, we will encounter the risen Christ.
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