Garrett Vickrey Sunday Woodland Baptist Church 3.27.16 San Antonio, TX “Remembering the Tomb” :1-12

Easter is a day of flourish and them. 2 men suddenly appearing color. We celebrate with great in a graveyard would give most us pageantry. The organ booms, the a good scare. These 2 men trumpet blasts, and preachers like wouldn’t want to do that nowadays me let off a lot of hot air. But, the in Texas, this being an open carry story we celebrate this day state. is a little different than this. Luke’s gospel begins with the Christmas The women were afraid and they story with all it’s ornamentations. fell to the ground, still perplexed at There’s music at the what was happening. And as they to Mary where she learns she is kneeled the men said, “Why do pregnant with the Christ, there’s you look for the living among the the magnificat, shepherds in the dead? He is not here, but has field, there’s animals cooing, and risen. REMEMBER HOW HE in glory proclaiming. But, in TOLD YOU, while he was still in the end, there’s emptiness. , that the Son of man will be Twenty-four chapters later the handed over, crucified, and on the music has stopped at an empty third day rise again.” Something tomb. Not much of a show. like a memory, more like a vision Besides 2 men in dazzling clothes came to them, and they knew what Broadway wouldn’t touch it. Some they did not know a minute before. followers of , women, who And they knew it as if they had had seen him crucified and buried, always known it. A door had been showed up to prepare the body for opened to a new world, that looked burial. They came at first light. It like the old with a new dimension was quiet. And they saw the stone to it. Everything was new that was rolled away. They didn’t know what old. Yet, the newness seemed to make of all this. They stood older still. Light was coming. Day there perplexed staring at an was here. And they knew nothing empty tomb. Suddenly two men would ever be the same again. were standing with them, which would have been alarming even Remember how he told you. had they not had light gleaming off Remember. You have heard this 1 before; but, this is new. And this belief it is about faith. And faith is becomes the message they more than belief. It is a way; a receive that first Easter morning posture of life bent toward God. So (one they already knew deep in perhaps if we are faithful to the their bones, but had forgotten): resurrection than we might bend God is the Lord of life and death. our life toward it… toward the new The son of man, the Human One day it brings. But, to do that we (the One who is always for us), he must be open to God… like the holds the keys to the tomb. And if tomb that day. Remember, the Jesus holds those keys, what do tomb was not just empty it was you think he will do with them? open. God isn’t looking for us to be perfect; he’s looking for us to be At the empty tomb that morning open. the women remembered what they had forgotten. Now, they had to A friend of mine told me yesterday help everyone else remember. And she asked her 4 year-old daughter that’s where things get tricky. how Jesus’ friends must have felt on Saturday with him gone, their What will we remember today? Will hopes dashed. And the daughter we remember resurrection as an responds, “Yeah, but the Easter idle tale overly optimistic Christians Bunny was coming the next day.” tell each other to make it through the day? Or could we too The first witnesses to the remember Jesus’ words to us and resurrection weren’t even deemed find strength today in the worthy to be real witnesses. In that faithfulness of God. A faithfulness day, these women could not even shown throughout scripture. And claim the body. They had to watch then maybe resurrection could from a distance as Joseph of become for us a mystery to pattern Arimathea took it and laid it in a our life around. So that we no tomb. Their word was worth longer think of it as some idle nothing; and it meant nothing to story, but the foundation of our the apostles, who thought their tale own story. was idle. Yet, these women are not just treated as messengers or The question this day is not simply, secretaries for the apostles by the ‘Do we believe in the resurrection?’ two men at the tomb. They remind The way of Jesus was never about the women of what Christ had 2 taught them. The women here are course, ‘We can get a great treated as disciples in and of minister at a discount and we can themselves and are not told to go sell the church on a woman as tell the disciples. pastor with the bonus of paying her less’). 2000 years later women are still undervalued by followers of Jesus. The women were not the only less Most churches don’t ordain than ideal characters God uses as women. Most will not elect them as the first witnesses of resurrection. deacons. Most are content to let An even earlier report we have of them be directors and volunteers the resurrection coming from the who essentially run the church (in 1 Corinthians 15) comes while men in positions of so-called to us from St. Paul, the murderer. power take the credit for building Before his conversion to churches. The resurrection of Christianity Paul was the man who Jesus turns these power dynamics held the coats of the men who on its head. It is the women who stoned the first Christian martyr, preach the first Easter sermon. It is Stephen. He terrorized Christian the women who become the first communities by hunting them witnesses of the resurrection. It is down. Can you imagine the early the women who lead us from the church’s surprise when Paul empty tomb and begin to put the showed up for bible study claiming pieces of Christ’s church together. to have had an experience of It’s 2016 this shouldn’t need to be meeting the risen Christ? Bill said, gender equality is critical to Leonard, compared this to a jihadi the future of God’s church. Women terrorist coming to Wednesday are held in equal esteem in other night dinner and saying he wants institutions; it’s embarrassing that to be your pastor. the church is falling behind instead of leading the way. Christ calls us The tomb is empty; what is all disciples— men and women. impossible for mortals is possible Does the San Antonio Baptist for God. Women are preaching. Association practice this? Does the And terrorists like Paul get a BGCT? Do we? Do CBF search second chance. The great baptist committees and churches who hire preacher Carlyle Marney once said women as ministers and pay them of Judas: “The biggest sin of Judas less than men? (Thinking of was not that he betrayed Jesus. 3 Who hasn’t betrayed Jesus? The live on in us long after they are biggest sin of Judas was that he gone.” didn’t stay around long enough to see what God can do with When we say that we are sisters betrayers.” Paul is proof of that. and brothers in Christ. It is this And by the way, so are we. kind of living memory that enlivens us in the midst of all the death and Downton Abbey ended earlier this amnesia that surrounds us. We month. This show that centered remember what happened: that around a noble family in England Christ died an innocent man; and at the beginning of the twentieth was raised to newness of life. That century aired it’s finale. For six memory lives in us now. It is a seasons we watched two sisters in memory that fades on days when it the family Mary and Edith snipping seems too good to have been true. at each other, backbiting, But, nonetheless this memory, this betraying, and plotting. Their resurrection is the power behind youngest sister Sybil died early on life now. in the series. Mostly, their fights were Mary saying and doing The Harvard preacher Peter terrible things to Edith. Towards Gomes says it like this, “The the end, in the last few episodes, evidence of Easter is a they began to change towards reconfigured Easter people, people each other. Mary was contrite who are no longer afraid of the about how she had treated Edith. dark, people who dare to live by And she was surprised when Edith their affections and not by their forgave her. Mary even asked how fears, people who know that they is it possible that she could forgive need not die in order to truly her for being so terrible to her for experience resurrection living, . . . years. Edith said, “You are my people who fear neither death nor sister. And one day only we will life. . . . In short, people such as remember Sybil... or Mama or you and me who aspire to be Papa or Matthew or Michael or people like that. We are the Easter Granny or Carson or any of the people, for death, in all of its others... until, at last, our shared cynical, calculating, greedy ways, memories will mean more than our no longer has control over us. We mutual dislike. Their memory will have a better idea, we claim a greater truth, we live because we 4 are loved; and because we are found out about our free english loved, we can live.” classes which opened up to her a whole new world. This is how Resurrection life begins now. resurrection life is shared now, this Remember, it isn’t just something is how we remember and live in for later. It is the gift of Christ to the the power of Christ’s resurrection church which treasures it and by inviting people out of isolation shares it with the world. It’s the gift into hope. It’s about people coming shared at Larkspur elementary to what they think is the end… and school by many of you who mentor finding more. Resurrection isn’t kids there. Resurrection life is just something we remember on shared in Laredo by our partner Easter, it is the power behind life church— Immanuel Bautista. now. Christ is risen and now Pastor Lorenzo was once a victim everything is different. Remember of labor trafficking himself… how he told you. Remember how chained to a job for fear of losing he has been speaking to you. everything he had. He’s told us What you thought was the end has before that once a week he goes become a new beginning. to a drive-through brothel in Laredo and asks the people there In one of his books my mentor how he can pray for them. Steve Shoemaker tells the story of Resurrection life is shared through Coventry Cathedral. Coventry was the week here in ESL classes. A one of England’s grandest woman recently told me she came cathedrals which dates back to the to San Antonio from Mexico over 1300’s. It’s 295 foot spire was one fifteen years ago, but she never of the tallest in England. Coventry learned english. She didn’t work was a famous industrial town, outside the home, and she and her known in modern times for building husband wanted to speak Spanish cars and planes. During WWII it in their home. He, of course, produced these for the war effort, worked and spoke english all day. and so it became a prime target for When he died three years ago she the Germans. was completely cut off from the world. She had spent most of the On November 14, 1940, the city last decade and a half in their and the cathedral of Coventry were home. She couldn’t communicate both completely destroyed in an air with the world outside. Then she raid. It was the first attempt ever 5 made in warfare to destroy a city in had stood. There in the ruins the one single operation from the air. words, “Father, forgive” were It’s a technique used many times inscribed. The charred cross was since. Coventry was first, and a placed behind the altar. The place new word came into the language, was going to become a place of conventrate, which means to reconciliation. Vengeance was destroy utterly. forgotten. Forgiveness and healing remembered. The city had the choice of how to respond to the devastation: The words of the prophet Haggai vengeance and hatred or the road resonated with the people of of forgiveness and renewal. Coventry, “The latter glory of this house will be greater than the The morning after the destruction former, saith the Lord of hosts.”. of the town a small group from the Haggai’s people believed their church walked through the ruins of great temple indestructible, the cathedral. Jock Forbes was perfectly protected by God, but war one of them. Forbes was a had destroyed both and stonemason and caretaker of the the Temple. I can’t help but think cathedral grounds. He wasn’t a these words could speak for the trained theologian or ordained women at the tomb that first minister. But out of the instinct of Easter: When Jesus died the faith learned in his lifetime of being hopes and dreams of his followers a Christian, he did a simple thing died with him. He was supposed to that will never be forgotten. be the one, the Messiah. How Stumbling through the rubble of could this happen? But from the the old church he found two ruins of death God brought forth charred beams from the 14th the Lord of life. Now, all who stand century roof, fastened them into in ruins stand with him. the shape of a cross and planted that cross in a mound of rubble, In Coventry, a new cathedral rose thus transforming it into a Calvary. from the ashes of the old one— Their choice was made. The words built by English builders and even of Christ spilled into the air, a team of German builders who “Father, forgive.” Two months later, came to help out. As you approach Forbes built a rough stone altar that old stone altar you see the two and placed it where the old altar charred beams fashioned into a 6 cross. You see, “Father, forgive”. And then you turn from the altar and see the entrance to the new cathedral. The whole front wall of which is fashioned with clear glass so that you can see from the ruins into the new cathedral and so that from the new cathedral you can always see the ruins.1 From the ruins God invites us to remember the words of Jesus, “What is impossible for mortals is possible for God.” That space between the old and new coventry is a dramatic example of where we stand this side of of Christ’s resurrection. We stand at that old stone altar, but through Christ we see into the world God is making. He is calling us there. Remember?

7 1 H. Stephen Shoemaker, Strength in Weakness: A Lyrical Re-Presentation of 2 Corinthians, (Nashville, TN, Broadman Press: 1989) 184-188.

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