Believing the Inconceivable

As Jesus began his ministry, he returned to the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth, opened the scroll to read and after reading the passage from Isaiah that Ruth read this morning, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” Then he closed it, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes were on him. All ears were eager to hear what he would say, this hometown boy, now growing in reputation as a rabbi. He was Joseph and Mary’s son. There had been a lot of speculation about him before he was born, but he had grown into a fine man, and then he had gone to John in the wilderness and been baptized. He hadn’t come right back home. They had heard glowing reports about his teaching in synagogues all around Galilee. Then he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And they called on him to heal, …and he said no. So, they drove him out to the edge of a cliff, ready to throw him off. Walking right back through the crowd, he went away.

They didn’t understand. If he was fulfilling the Scripture, why did he leave them with poor and enslaved and blind and oppressed? That’s what Isaiah promised, right? A Messiah, anointed by the Spirit of God, to set everything right!

They continued to hear the stories of his healing and teaching, how he drove out demons and calmed storms and performed miracles. They heard that he had called disciples and was followed by crowds. But they didn’t understand why there was still pain and suffering if he was the Messiah!

Finally, they had heard that he was headed to Jerusalem for Passover. Surely, now, he would lead the revolt to overthrow the oppressive Roman rule. Surely, now, he would lead them to victory! He entered Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, as Zechariah prophesied. He was arrested and didn’t resist. He appeared before Pilate and Herod, but he offered no response. They crucified him. As he breathed his last, the crowds who had assembled to see what they hoped would be his glory left for home, beating their breasts despondent, in grief for all was lost. Everyone who knew him, all his acquaintances, and the women who had followed him all the way from Galilee, stood at a distance.

One of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Council of the Temple, had not agreed to having Jesus killed, asked for his body. He took it down, wrapped it in a linen shroud, and laid it in the tomb that he had just had built for his family and had not yet used. The women from Galilee followed him as he took the body, and saw the tomb and where he laid Jesus’s body. Then they went to prepare spices and ointments. The sun was setting and soon it would be Sabbath.

All was still in the world. Everything seemed to have stopped. All the excitement of Passover, the remembrance of God’s liberation of God’s people from slavery in Egypt, was muted. The hopes of liberation, the promise of a Messiah, would have to wait. Jesus had not been the one, his body lay in the stone-cold tomb.

The next morning, dutifully, the women rose, eager to care for the body. They wanted to get there before the stench rose with the heat of the sun. There were at least 5 of them, if not more: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women.

When they got there, the stone was rolled away. Their hearts beating faster for fear of who might be hiding inside, they entered to find that Jesus’s body was gone. Suddenly, the tomb was filled with light. The light was emanating from two figures, asking them “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” What could they even mean? Surely everyone knew that all hope was gone. He hadn’t triumphed. They had been wrong. They had believed he was the Messiah. But then he died. Didn’t everyone know? Didn’t the whole earth respond. The sky had gone dark. The Temple curtain that separated the people from God had torn in two. Even God grieved! How could it all have gone so terribly, horribly wrong?

“Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise.”

YES! Those words had made no sense. They were unbelievable. Every time he had said it, it had made no sense. They could not conceive what he meant…until suddenly, they realized.

They remembered Jesus’ words and ran to tell the disciples. But, to them it was nonsense – the word used here is actually a medical word in Greek used to describe people’s delirium when they have a fever. What the women are saying makes NO SENSE to them. Peter ran to the tomb, probably just trying to figure out what got them so worked up, and there he found the linen shroud and wandered away, alone, wondering at what had come to pass.

Again, they didn’t understand. If he was fulfilling the Scripture, why did he leave them with poor and enslaved and blind and oppressed? That’s what was promised, right? A Messiah, anointed by the Spirit of God to set everything right!

Frederick Buechner wrote, “It doesn’t have the ring of great drama. It has the ring of truth. If the Gospel writers had wanted to tell it in a way to convince the world that Jesus indeed rose from the dead, they would presumably have done it with all the skill and fanfare they could muster. Here there is no skill, no fanfare. They seem to be telling it simply the way it was. The narrative is as fragmented, shadowy, incomplete as life itself. When it comes to just what happened, there can be no certainty. That something unimaginable happened, there can be no doubt.”

Even today, we receive an offering to respond to a crisis that doesn’t have to be as Ukrainians are attacked in their own homes, their streets by an invading country. We rejoice that we are able to gather after two years of learning to live with a pandemic that spread in our very breath, and yet we do not know what variant the future holds, what restrictions will be necessary and whether our neighbors will accept them or not. We continue to pray for friends and loved ones who face terrible diseases, who mourn, who struggle with mental illness, who wrestle with addiction, who are hurting, and we hurt alongside them.

We may ask with the people of Nazareth, the school mates of Jesus, the men and women who remembered him when he was a little boy, Mary and Joseph’s friends, why don’t you fix it all? If you are the Messiah, and you have the power? Why allow suffering?

We may wonder with the disciples and the women who followed Jesus, why did you suffer, Jesus? Why did you let them do this to you? Why didn’t you fix it all? If you are the Messiah, and you have the power? Why did you allow them to make you suffer?

Why? Because the story was not over. In fact, it was just beginning. Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled as Jesus preached good news to the poor, recovering of sight to the blind, and proclaimed that captives be released, and those oppressed be liberated. And we are still being called to respond to his sermons.

Christ didn’t come to set us free from suffering. He came to show us God’s love. He healed because his Godly heart broke at suffering, and he called us to have the same heart. His compassion didn’t let him not heal, not help, not respond, and he called us to have the same compassion. Christ didn’t come to overthrow the powers of this world. He came to show us that nothing had any power over him. He came to surrender that power and to suffer the deepest depths of pain in this world, to demonstrate to us the depth of his love, so deep that he not only wanted to be able to say “I understand what you are going through,” he wanted to be able to say, “I’ve experience it, and in fact I’m going through it with you.”

The traditional refrain on Easter morning is “Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed!” I think perhaps we should add to that refrain: “God loves you! God loves me, indeed!” Thanks be to God! Amen.