Fake News vs. Real Resurrection
Pastor Mathew Magera – 4/16/17 – Sermon 225
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace and peace to you from
God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
It was just an ordinary
Sunday morning. The first day of the week. Mary was on her way to the tomb as
early as she could because according to the law she could not have accomplished
her task the day before. Her purpose for being there was none other than to
prevent the body of Jesus from smelling any worse that it already would have
been at this point. She loves Jesus and she could not bear to leave him, even
in death, to smell so bad. But, he's gone. The tomb is empty. Before we get
excited about that, the empty tomb is just empty. There is no proclamation. No
preached word. There is no hope in the empty tomb. For all Mary knows, someone
stole the body. That's exactly what she thinks and she says it to the other
disciples too. But, Mary and the disciples, maybe other than John, who
Scripture says saw and believed, didn't understand. They went to see the empty
tomb and then just went home. They just believed what Mary said. They believed
he had been stolen. They saw evidence of the resurrection itself and then they
just went home. For them, the story of the resurrection was just fake news.
It’s a hoax. It’s misinformation. The thoughts going around in their mind would
likely be that the body was stolen, resurrection isn't true. That's the only
explanation.
We’re quite skeptical about
our news today. If we are to be convinced of something, it would take a lot of
work to do so. Just think about what’s in the news this week. The mother of all
bombs. United Airlines. April the Giraffe. Think about these serious and
light-hearted stories and the different viewpoints people take on them. What do
we believe? What's real? What’s false information? What's fake news? The point
of the Easter story is to share that the resurrection is real! But, it begins
with disbelief. It begins as a hoax, where the reality of the event is doubted.
How do we know it's not real? Where's the proof? Why does it even matter?
Things have changed so much in our world that there are Christians who have
come to believe that the resurrection is not a real resurrection anymore. They
believe it is some kind of symbol or metaphor for something else. They don't
believe in it. They say it's not real. They believe the resurrection itself is
fake news.
So, then, I ask you, what's
real? What's not? How would you define 'real'? In the movie, "The
Matrix" Lawrence Fishburne's character, talks about reality saying,
"If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you
can taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your
brain." Speaking of movies, if you go see a movie today, how much of it is
real and how much of it is computer graphics? How much of it is stunt doubles? Can
your eyes tell the difference between what is real and what is not? What about
everyday acting? We walk around and talk to people every day. How do we know
what they say to us is the truth? How much can media influence what we think is
real? Can movies show us that something bad can actually be something good? Can
the bad guy in a movie actually be a good guy? Yes and yes. What is real
anymore? What is certain anymore? Besides death and taxes.
Take a look at a picture on
the Internet. Is it real? Or has it been photo-shopped to look real? Technology
has given us the ability to be anywhere in the world or even out of this world.
Suppose you were handed a photograph of you standing on the very surface of the
moon. Is it real? Does the reality of that photo depend on whether you can
touch the photo with your own hands or whether you can say you have actually
been to the moon and you had someone take your picture? The photograph itself
is real. You can feel it and see it, smell it, taste it if you really feel
adventurous but something is wrong with the message. The message is assumed to
be changed or altered to tell something that your mind argues didn't happen.
You say, no, this is wrong, I didn't do this, I can't get to the moon, it never
happened. I may be holding this photograph but it is definitely not real. But,
just because you haven't been there, does it make the photograph itself any
less real? A photo-shopper took you and placed you in a location you could not
otherwise go on your own.
That's what Jesus does.
Christ Jesus takes us and places us somewhere we could not otherwise go on our
own. He takes us and places us in the resurrected life, a place we cannot take
ourselves, a place we lack the power to reach. Just because we can't put
ourselves there doesn't mean that it isn't real. This is a way that we
understand resurrection. We don't want to believe it because it shows us
something that because of our experience we must say is false, impossible. Resurrection
is real. What lures us to believe otherwise is that when we look at
resurrection it is like looking at a picture of us on the surface of the moon.
We know it hasn't happened. We have never experienced that. And we doubt it.
But, just because we have never experienced resurrection does not make it any
less real.
What is going on today,
Easter Sunday, is that we are being handed a photograph of ourselves in the
resurrected life but we are naturally going to deny it because it is as if we
have been photo shopped in. We may have the story of resurrection but how many
of us really deep down will walk out of here as if it was not real and could never
happen?
Our experience tells us a
story but it is not the whole story. All we see in the story of our world is
sickness, dying, death, sickness, dying, death, sickness, dying, death. We see
these as truths in our existence because we have experienced sickness. We have
witnessed a loved one in their final days and we have grieved after somebody
dies. Beyond that, our eyes see nothing more. Our minds just cannot comprehend
and trust in that picture of resurrection because it is something we have not
and cannot experience on our own. What we can't see is what is more important.
What we are holding onto is a promise that was given to us. The photo we are
holding is us living in the resurrection but we say we've not been there, we've
never done that so it must not be real. But it is. Real goes beyond what we can
see, taste, touch, etc. and becomes something outside of us that without faith
we would always deny.
The resurrected life is real
for everyone. It is as real for the believer as the unbeliever too. Jesus,
through his resurrection defeated death for every single person who has lived,
who is living and who has yet to be born. He is the one that leads us into a
life where we are not left alone. The resurrection for the believer is pure
grace. But we must also remember that with the resurrection comes judgment. We
confess in our faith that Christ will come again to judge the living and the
dead. One of my seminary professors, Dr. Walter Sunberg says in response to
this confession, "This world is not all there is. We cannot escape. If it
takes hell to teach the rich man that he can't treat poor Lazarus by the gate
like a dog, then hell it will be. Kurt Cobain, the grunge rock star, wanted
oblivion. If the Bible is true, he didn't get his wish. Instead he awoke to his
worst nightmare: a truly drug-free environment."
The apostle Paul says that
if the resurrection did not happen then our faith is in vain. If the
resurrection is not real then I am wasting your Sunday morning and mine. I
could have slept in until ten o’clock but because I believe in the real
resurrection I am here. If the resurrection is just a ploy to help us to feel
better when we are near death or thinking about it, then our faith is off
course and unnecessary. Resurrection is not a metaphor. It is not just a symbol
for something. It defies the natural world altogether and is in and of itself
something completely contrary to our interpretation of the world. The Easter
greeting Christ is Risen he is risen indeed is an out of this world greeting. It's
a supernatural proclamation and a personal promise that you too are given this
resurrected life. You can either believe it or reject it.
But, if you deny the
resurrected life because it is something that you cannot feel, or smell, or
taste or see, then your brain is taking over. Your brain cannot have faith.
Only your soul can have faith. Your brain works on laws, your soul survives on
faith. By the help of God Himself, we believe his promise to us of the
resurrection is true, that it is as real as death itself. For when we
experience death, we must be comforted by the two promises of the resurrection.
The first being the promise offered by Christ to the thief on his side that
today he would be with Jesus in paradise.
The second being Paul's words that we will be raised on the last day. The
Easter story makes those promises true for us. The Easter story is us being
handed a photograph with our picture in the resurrected life. We can let our
brains tell us that it isn't true or we can let faith guide us to believe that
though we ourselves cannot have traveled there on our own, Christ Jesus,
through his resurrection, can pick us up and bring us there.
And so that is exactly what
Jesus does. He has given us the gift of resurrection. He has been raised from
the dead by God the Father and has appeared to Mary outside the tomb. Mary, who
had lost hope, was restored when he calls her by name. Mary. Mary, who had no
belief in the resurrection could not believe on her own but had to be called by
God to that very truth. Mary. So it is with us too. We must rely on God to call
out to us, to restore us, to reassure us through this Easter story that the
empty tomb is not empty because someone stole the body but because he raised
Jesus from the dead. While we can see the stone rolled away, while we can touch
the grave clothes lying there, while we can smell nothing rotten, the only
stealing going on here is God stealing Jesus from the hands of death itself.
The resurrection is not fake news. Through it, Jesus promises that we will
never taste death at all and that even in our most doubtful of circumstances,
Jesus will be there and he will call out to us for the purpose of showing us
that he is alive and that resurrection is real. He'll call out to us and he’ll
make it personal. He won't just say, "hey you." he won't say,
"aren't you the person from such and such?" He will call us by name,
and we'll know. And we'll believe. Resurrection is not just some fake news
spreading around. It's real. It's beyond our senses. It's beyond our thoughts. It
cannot be relied on by the electrical signals interpreted by our brain, but
it's real. And thanks be to God, it's yours today. He is risen. He is risen
indeed. Alleluia! To God be the glory, now and always. Amen.