The Case of the Missing Body

Delivered Easter Sunday, April 24, 2011

Mark 16:1-14; I Corinthians 15:1-11

When I was young I read all the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, stories with names like "The Adventure of the Dancing Men" and “The Adventure of the Speckled Band.” I have watched all the PBS Sherlock Holmes episodes starring Jeremy Brett as Holmes. I am presently watching the new PBS Masterpiece Mystery series that puts Sherlock Holme sin the 21^st century. I have seen all the films, even the most recent one with Robert Downey Jr as the great detective and Jude Law as Dr. Watson. I most enjoy the old B&W films with Basil Rathbone playing Holmes and Nigel Bruce playing Dr. Watson. The Hound of the Baskervilles still is one of my favorite films of all time.

Today we are going to be investigating a mystery: The Case of the Missing Body. The body I am referring to is, of course, the body of Jesus of Nazareth. There is a television show on CBS called Cold Case that deals with cases that remain unsolved for years. Well, this case is 2000 years old. The whole religion of Christianity is based on the solution to this mystery.

The Gospel of Mark presents this mystery in its earliest form. Most biblical scholars believe that Mark’s gospel is the earliest of the four gospels in the New Testament. Many scholars believe that the gospel originally ended with Mark 16:8. If you have your own Bible you might even have verses 9-20 in brackets with a footnote that says that this ending is not in the earliest extant manuscripts. Therefore the earliest account of Easter might have ended with a missing body without any resurrection appearances. It focused simply on the empty tomb. What happened to the body of Jesus on Easter morning? There are three approaches to solving this case.

I. The first approach assumes there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for the empty tomb, and that nothing strange or supernatural happened on Easter morning.

One theory says that there never really was a missing body - that the body of Jesus was buried and decomposed in time like any other body. Those who hold this view say that the whole Easter story, including the empty tomb and the resurrection appearances, is religious fiction. It is just a myth, a fabrication  made up by the church much later. In this case there is no mystery to solve because there was no missing body.

 But there is absolutely no historical evidence for this position. People who hold this view simply assume the empty tomb did not happen without even looking at the historical and literary evidence. All the gospels were written within the lifetimes of eyewitnesses to the events of the first Easter. They all agree that the tomb was empty. Even the opponents of Christ in the Gospels, the Jewish religious leaders and the Romans admit the tomb was empty. One might dismiss the idea of a physical resurrection of Jesus because it is scientifically impossible, as far as we know. But there is no reason to dismiss the idea of the empty tomb. Even a strict empiricist like Sherlock Holmes would never do that unless there was some evidence to the contrary. There is no reason to doubt the statement that that the tomb empty on Easter morning. The question then becomes: what happened to the body? What are the possibilities?

One theory is that the disciples stole Jesus' body. We find this idea in Matthew 28:11-15. It says of the guards at Jesus tomb “Some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all the things that had happened. ¹² When they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, ¹³ saying, “Tell them, ‘His disciples came at night and stole Him away while we slept.’ ¹⁴ And if this comes to the governor’s ears, we will appease him and make you secure.” ¹⁵ So they took the money and did as they were instructed; and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.” This was the official story from the very beginning.

The explanation defies logic. If the soldiers were asleep, how did they know it was the disciples who took the body? How could the large stone guarding the entrance be rolled away without awakening the soldiers? Furthermore, these men securing the tomb were professional soldiers charged with guarding the tomb with their lives. The punishment for falling asleep on duty was death. They would not have fallen asleep. Air traffic controllers may fall asleep, but these guards would not have! How likely would it be that both fell asleep?

A variation on this idea is that the Jewish religious leaders or the Romans stole Jesus’ body. This is the conclusion that Mary Magdalene immediately jumped to when she saw that the tomb was empty on Easter morning. According to John’s gospel when she saw the empty tomb it says, “² Then she ran and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.” But if the authorities had stolen the body, they would have said so when the rumors of Jesus’ resurrection began to circulate.

Another theory is that the disciples went to the wrong tomb on Easter morning. If that were true, the tale wouldn’t have lasted very long. Word would have gotten around quickly and the story corrected. When the apostles started proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus, the Jewish leaders could have directed people to the right tomb and presented the dead body of Jesus! Furthermore the burial accounts make it clear that not only Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimethea (whose tomb it was) but also several women saw where Jesus was laid. What are the chances that Joseph would forget where his own tomb was located?

A third idea is the so-called “swoon theory.” It has popped up repeatedly in recent decades. It was the premise of the best-selling 1965 book, “The Passover Plot” by British Biblical scholar Hugh J. Schonfield. It is repeated occasionally today. This theory says that Jesus was not really dead; he just swooned. He almost died; he had a Near Death Experience. He was either drugged or was so close to death that people back then in ancient times thought he was dead, so they buried him. Then later he woke up, and just walked out of the tomb. Give me a break! If anything is pure fiction, that is! There is no historical evidence for that. Sherlock would just chuckle at that fabrication.

To believe that you would have to believe that Jesus, after being beaten within an inch of his life, crucified for six hours, and pierced with a sword through his side and into his heart, would have been strong enough after awaking to break through the burial garments that bound Him, roll away the large stone that sealed the tomb, fight off the guards protecting the tomb, walk the seven miles to Emmaus where He was seen by the two disciples, walk back to Jerusalem where He was seen by the apostles, all within the same day! It does not seem very reasonable to me.

Fourth is the vision theory. It says that the disciples of Jesus had mass hallucinations or group visions of the risen Christ, which made them think that Jesus had risen from the dead. But even if that were true, it doesn’t solve the mystery of the missing body. Another idea is the ghost theory – also called a spiritual resurrection. This idea is that what the disciples saw on Easter was the spirit of Jesus that had left his body and appeared to the disciples. Again, that doesn’t explain the missing body.

Another idea is the impersonation theory or a case of mistaken identity. A form of this theory is accepted by the religion of Islam. Islam says that Jesus didn’t really die on the cross. They say that God would not have allowed one of his prophets to die in this disgraceful manner. They say someone else died and was buried in his place – possibly Judas Iscariot. That would explain Jesus physically appearing to the disciples on Easter morning, but again it does not explain the empty tomb. In short there are no good natural explanations for the missing body of Jesus. As Sherlock Holmes says, “When all likely explanations are ruled out, any remaining possibility, however unlikely, must be correct.” It is all a matter of logic.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson went on a camping trip, and after finishing their dinner they retired for the night, and went to sleep. Some hours later, Holmes wakes up and nudges his faithful friend. "Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see." "I see millions and millions of stars, Holmes," exclaims Watson. "And what do you deduce from that?" Watson ponders for a minute. "Well, astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Chronologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful, and that we are a small and insignificant part of the universe. What does it tell you, Holmes?" "Watson," he exclaims, "It tells me that somebody's stolen our tent!"

II. The empty tomb and resurrection appearances led the eleven apostles and several women disciples of Jesus to eventually conclude that that Jesus had risen from the dead. What makes this theory convincing to me is how resistant the disciples initially were to the idea. Over and over again the gospel accounts say that the disciples did not believe that Jesus rose from the dead.

^“9 Now when He rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven demons. ¹⁰ She went and told those who had been with Him, as they mourned and wept. ¹¹ And when they heard that He was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe. ¹² After that, He appeared in another form to two of them as they walked and went into the country. ¹³ And they went and told it to the rest, but they did not believe them either. ¹⁴ Later He appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table; and He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen.” (16:9-14)

The other three gospels repeat this pattern of persistent unbelief. The impression we clearly get from the gospels is that the earliest followers of Jesus were skeptics. They did not, would not, could not accept the resurrection theory to explain the missing body of Jesus. They thought he was a ghost, but Jesus had them touch the wounds in his hands and side. This also disqualified the impersonation theory. The Jesus who really died on the cross was really standing before them. He was not a ghost, a spirit, a vision, a hallucination or an impersonator. This was Jesus. They could not explain it, but they could not deny that this was really Jesus.

Faced with this evidence, the only explanation, as unlikely and unbelievable as it seemed, was that Jesus rose from the dead. The fact that Jesus had predicted that this would happen only confirmed the theory of the resurrection. The fact that Jesus repeatedly appeared to his followers over a period of forty days added more evidence. The apostle Paul wrote in our epistle lesson for this morning (which was written about 55 AD, probably even earlier than any of the gospels), “⁶ After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep.” Paul had 500 eyewitnesses testify to the resurrection of Jesus.

          III. Now it comes down to us. What will we believe? This event was 2000 years ago. How can we really know for sure that Jesus really rose from the dead? You have to admit that it is pretty farfetched.  How can we be certain based on ancient documents? Talk about a cold case….  Is there any new evidence?

          The apostle Paul’s story of how he came to believe helps here. He was not always the Christian apostle Paul. He was once the anti-Christian Pharisee known as Saul. He was a heretic hunter. He hunted down Christians and had them imprisoned. It all started with he was a young man and participated in – perhaps even orchestrated – the execution by stoning of Stephen, one of the earliest Christians. Paul absolutely did not believe in the resurrection of Jesus. He thought it was a hoax and that Christians were deceived. What changed his mind? He alludes to it in our epistle lesson.

He writes, “⁶ After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. ⁷ After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. ⁸ Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time. ⁹ For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”

What convinced Paul of the resurrection of Jesus was his own experience of the risen Christ. It was not a physical encounter with the risen Jesus like the eleven first apostles and the women followers had on Easter. This was a spiritual experience. And yet Paul clearly links his spiritual encounter with Christ it to the resurrection of Jesus. The experience convinced him that Jesus had risen from the dead and was alive.

That is what it comes down to for us. I have tried to show that the resurrection of Jesus is a logical explanation for the empty tomb. As unlikely as it seems, the resurrection of Jesus is the best explanation for the empty tomb and the resurrection appearances. But deductive reasoning can only take us so far. For many people it still seems too unbelievable.  Then the only thing that will convince us is personal experience. That is what convinced all the disciples. It is what convinced the anti-Christian heretic hunter Saul.

Personal experience convinced me. I didn’t believe in Christ while I was growing up. I was raised in the church, but I did not believe the gospel of Christianity. I went through the motions of confirmation classes and joined the church, but I didn’t really believe any of it. In fact for most of my teen years I considered myself an atheist. When I got to college I became interested in spiritual matters; I was what they would call today “spiritual but not religious.”   The only time I sent to church was at Christmas or maybe Easter, and only then when I was home and only to placate my parents. I was more attracted to the spiritual teachings that came out of China, India and Japan. Like Taoism – I loved (and still love) The Tao Te Ching, and the teachings of the Buddha and Zen and Hindu spiritual teachers. Even today I appreciate these teachings. I do not see Christ as a refutation of these, but rather a fulfillment of these. But they were not enough for me; I was still seeking. I read writers like C. S. Lewis, who made a logical case for Christianity, and that brought me closer. But it was not until I was almost 23 years old that I believed in Christ, and that was only because I had an encounter with Christ.

As Paul said about his encounter with Christ and subsequent faith, “By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain.” It comes down to grace. God calls us to himself and we respond in faith. Reason can only take us so far; it comes down to the grace of God and our personal response. If you can’t believe based on the historical evidence and reason, then my only advice is to sincerely ask and seek for God’s grace. As Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ⁸ For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” The risen Christ still lives and he still calls disciples to follow him.

Troubled Times

Delivered Palm Sunday, April 17, 2011

Mark 11:1-11; Zechariah 9:9-10

We live in unsettled times. I can’t believe how many crises are happening in the world these days. Japan has experienced a triple catastrophe – the earthquake, tsunami and damaged nuclear power plants leaking radiation and threatening meltdown. The nuclear danger continues for who knows how long. Many North African and Middle Eastern countries have experienced, or are experiencing, political revolutions and turmoil: Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain, Jordan….  I can’t even keep track of all the countries in crisis. We are involved in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. There are tornadoes and floods. On top of that, we have the economic problems in the American and world economies. It has ripple effects on school districts, state and city governments across the country as they make budget cuts and lay off people. The evening news sounds downright apocalyptic.

Jesus talks about a time of wars and rumors of wars. He said, “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be earthquakes in various places, and there will be famines and troubles. These are the beginnings of sorrows.” He goes on to talk about persecution, false prophets and lawlessness; then he concludes, “Then the end will come.”   Some people think he was talking about today! There is a Biblical scholar named Harold Camping who is causing quite a stir these days by predicting the end of the world this year - 2011. He has set a date of May 21, 2011 for Judgment Day and October 21 as the date for the end of the world. But when Jesus said those words he was thinking primarily about his own times. He said, “Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place.” He had in mind primarily the destruction of Jerusalem, which happened in 70 AD. Jesus lived in troubled times.

Jesus lived in a country occupied by the armies of the Roman Empire. Rome had conquered Israel in 63 BC, and had been ruling with an iron fist ever since. Herod the Great, appointed by Rome, was King of the Jews when Jesus was born; he was a brutal ruler. The autocrats in Middle Eastern countries today have nothing on him. Herod executed several members of his own family, including his wife Mariamne, and three of his sons, because he saw them as threats to his reign. In spite of these murders, he still considered himself an observant religious Jew, and he did not eat pork. It gave rise to Caesar Augustus’ famous remark about Herod, “I would rather be Herod's pig than his son.” 

We tend to think of the crucifixion of Jesus as a unique event, but the crucifixion of people who were threats to the state was common. It was a form of torture and capital punishment frequently used before, during, and after Jesus’ lifetime. The first century Roman Jewish historian Josephus reports many crucifixions. Alexander Jannaeus, king of Judea in the first century BC, ordered 800 Pharisees to be crucified and their wives and children killed before their eyes, while he and his concubines were carousing. This event is alluded to in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Josephus reports that two thousand rebels were crucified by Roman governor Quintilius Varus early in Jesus’ lifetime. When Jerusalem was besieged in 66-70 AD, the Roman general Titus (later Caesar) ordered all Jewish prisoners of war to be crucified on the walls of the city and there were as many as 500 crucifixions per day.

It was an unsettled time. Both Roman governor Pilate and King Herod Antipas were on the lookout for any would be Messiahs who might lead a popular uprising against Rome – much like the revolts happening today in the Middle East. So as we celebrate Palm Sunday, we need to think of it as not dissimilar from what we are seeing today in that part of the world.

In those troubled times Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. He chose to make his dramatic entrance into Jerusalem during Passover week – the holiest time of the year when tens of thousands of Jewish pilgrims from throughout the Roman world were gathered together. This was a very dangerous action to do. It is no wonder that he was arrested. And it is no great surprise that he was crucified. Anyone who did what he did at that time and place would have been asking for trouble.

I. Let us look at how Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

First, he came into Jerusalem deliberately. This was not a spur of the moment decision. Jesus had this all planned out. This fact is revealed in his mode of transport. The Gospel writers go into detail concerning how he acquired the donkey that he rode into Jerusalem. Jesus had this entry choreographed. He wasn’t walking into Jerusalem. He wasn’t entering on the shoulders of his disciples or even on a white horse. He was coming on a donkey. Why a donkey? Because it had been foretold by the prophet Zechariah 500 years earlier.

According to prophecy, the Messiah was supposed to ride into Jerusalem on a donkey. By his choice of mounts, Jesus was proclaiming to the whole populace of Jerusalem and the wider Jewish world that he was the Messiah. In the minds of Jews and Romans, Messiah meant political king as well as spiritual leader. There was no separation of church and state back then. Jesus was already a controversial figure before Palm Sunday. But on that day the volume of the controversy increased a thousand-fold.

Jesus appears on the scene during troubled times.  As individuals and families, we may be going through troubled times now. That is when Jesus appears. Of course he does not appear on a donkey riding down Burleigh Hill and through the streets of Sandwich, but he appears nonetheless. He doesn’t come riding on a white stallion to save the day and solve all our problems, but he appears nonetheless.

He appears humbly. Mark doesn’t use the word humble but the prophet Zechariah comes pretty close: “Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey.” He is not only riding on a donkey – but on a young donkey, so young that no one had ever ridden it before. Jesus entered Jerusalem as humbly as he could and still come as Messiah.

Jesus today does not come to solve all our problems. Sorry, if you are looking for a quick fix for your health problems, marriage problems, family problems, financial problems, or any other problems, then Jesus is not the Messiah for you. He never promised to solve all our problems. He never promises us health and wealth and an easy life. In fact he promises just the opposite - that if we follow him we will have more problems. He promises a cross. He promises self-denial – not self-fulfillment.

But he also promises truth – real Truth, not dogma, ritual and rules masquerading as truth. And he promises life – real Life. Life abundant and full. “I came that they might have life and it abundantly.” The Christian life embraces everything the world can throw at us - happiness and sorrow, health and illness, life and death. Life in Christ does not escape from the hard parts of life. It embraces them and sanctifies them. That is what the Cross is about. The Cross is God embracing the brokenness of human suffering and coming out whole on the other side. This is what Jesus offers when he comes.

How else does he come? He comes weeping. Luke’s gospel tells us that as Jesus came down the Mount of Olives riding the donkey on Palm Sunday that he wept. “Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it.” (Luke 19:41) We don’t normally picture Jesus crying as he rides into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. This is his big day. This is a parade in honor of him! People are waving palms and throwing their coats on the road before him, praising him and honoring him as Messiah. You would think this would be the happiest day of his life. But according to Scripture Jesus is in tears, and they are not tears of joy. Luke’s gospel makes that clear. Jesus weeps because the people of Jerusalem “do not know the things that make for peace.”

⁴¹ Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, ⁴² saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. ⁴³ For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, ⁴⁴ and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

Palm Sunday is a picture of God weeping over the spiritual blindness and the warring violence of man. Wouldn’t he also weep today over these same concerns? Do we really think our world today is less violent or less spiritually blind? Herod the Great considered himself a religious man and yet he murdered people. Do not religious radicals do the same thing today? Jesus came weeping.

Jesus also comes to cleanse. In Mark’s Gospel Jesus waits until the next day to cleanse the temple, but in Luke’s gospel it appears to happen on Palm Sunday itself. Jesus goes into the temple and in righteous zeal drives the moneychangers and the merchants from the temple courts, saying, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of thieves.’” When Jesus appears in trouble times, it is not to hold our hands. It is to set things right.

Most of us do not want a Savior who sets things right in our lives. We prefer one who will pat us on the back. We want a Savior who will affirm us in our sin, who will tell us we are alright just the way we are – there is no need to change. We want someone to sanctify our self-centeredness and bless our self-righteousness. We want someone who will bless our blindness, but Jesus came to open the eyes of the blind.

When Jesus comes into our lives, he comes to do some spring housecleaning. You know what it is he needs to clean up in your life this spring. I don’t need to name sins. If I did start naming sins, you might all defensive and block out whatever more I had to say. I let the Holy Spirit do the convicting people of sin! When the Holy Spirit speaks in the depths of our souls, we can’t blame it on a preacher. God speaks directly to our hearts. Christ wants to set things right in our lives. He wants to cleanse the temple, and we are that temple.

II. What is our response to Christ appearing in troubled times? The people who lined the road into Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday responded in two ways.

First, they gave him the ancient equivalent of the Red Carpet treatment. Back then it was the literally a green carpet made of palm fronds. People also threw their clothing on the road for him to ride on. This was a way of honoring a great person. They ushered him into their city. When an important personage arrived in an ancient city, the populace always went outside the city gates and escorted the person into the city through the city gates. They opened their gates and invited him in. Today when particularly important foreign leaders arrive in our country, they are greeted at the airport – often on the tarmac - and are welcomed as they disembark from the plane. They are escorted into a waiting limo and brought into the city of Washington DC. That is what is happening here.

Second, they shouted, “Hosanna.” This is one of those interesting Biblical terms that have a double meaning. We immediately think of Hosanna as a exclamation of praise, kind of like Hallelujah!  But it is much more than that. Halleluiah means “Praise God” in Hebrew. Hosanna is a Hebrew word that means literally, “Save us!” or “Save now.”  The people are actually shouting, “Help us!” This complex word is both a cry for help and a shout of praise.

I like the word because it communicates the mixed feelings and mixed motives we have. We are here today to worship God, but we are also here because we need something from God. I have both of these aspects in my spiritual life. I praise and worship God. But I also confess that everything is not just right in my life; that is why I am here also. I need help from God and well as needing to give praise to God. So I say “Hosanna!” It is the perfect word for troubled times.

And that is what Palm Sunday is about. We live in troubled times. Some of our lives are more troubled than others. But each of us in our own way have things we are struggling with. Life is not easy. Palm Sunday reflects that reality. It is not a simple day of praise and rejoicing. It is also a day of weeping and a day of cleansing, a day to shout, “Hosanna! Lord, help us!” Christ is the Messiah for troubled times, but then and now.

My Favorite Bible Verse

Delivered April 10, 2011

Romans 6:1-11; Galatians 2:20

What is your favorite Bible verse? For many people it is the Twenty-third Psalm: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul….” Others will quote the well-known John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Both are usually quoted in the King James Version. What verse comes to your mind when I ask the question: What is your favorite Bible verse? If nothing comes to mind right away, you might want to think about it. It might reveal a lot about yourself. And it might come in handy some day.

An elderly lady came home from church and discovered a burglar in her house. She immediately yelled out her favorite bible verse at the top of her lungs: "Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins! - Acts 2: 38.” The burglar froze and stood motionless while she called 911. When the police arrived, they handcuffed the burglar, and then asked him, "Why did you stop when she yelled out that Bible verse?" The burglar replied "Bible verse? What Bible verse! I thought she said she had an axe and two 38s!"

Many Christians not only have a favorite verse, but also what is called a “life verse.” This is a verse from the Bible that serves as the theme of your spiritual life. It is like a personal mission statement. It is benchmark by which we can measure events and decisions in our life. It reminds us of what is really true and important at those times in life when we need to be reminded. It serves as a spiritual center, which we can return to when life becomes unbalanced.

Your life verse may change over the years. Mine has. For many years my life verse was Romans 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes….” For most of the 2000’s it was 2 Timothy 1:7 “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” A year or so ago I chose Galatians 2:20. It is a verse I have always loved, but it has became much more important and meaningful to me. “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” That is now my favorite Bible verse. Today, because I am the preacher, I get to preach on my favorite verse. I am going to examine it section by section.

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live.” The NIV puts it this way: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live…” What does this mean? It is relevant to this Lenten season when we reflect on the death of Christ. When it says, “I have been crucified with Christ” it is saying that the death of Jesus is not just something that happened to Jesus more than 2000 year ago. In a spiritual sense it happened to us. It is a mythic event in which we participate. By “mythic” that I don’t mean it didn’t happen; it did happen! By mythic I mean that it has a deep personal spiritual significance that transcends history.

As a follower of Jesus I identify with Christ because he identified himself with me. I am spiritually linked to him through faith. He is an archetypal figure. When he died, I died, even though historically he died long before I was ever born. “I have been crucified with Christ.”  I really believe that. Jesus aid, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny himself take up his cross and follow me.” When we decide to follow Jesus and surrender our lives to him, we become united with him. Paul says in our Epistle lesson in Romans 6 “Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?”

When we give our lives back to God, we die to our own small lives. In WWII Japanese kamikaze pilots would cut their hair and fingernails before their suicide mission so as to give their families something to bury. They composed and read a death poem, a tradition stemming from the times of the samurai. They knew they were going to their deaths. When we decide to follow Christ, in a sense we go to our deaths. We do not physically die in an act of war like the kamikaze pilots of WWII whose purpose is to kill the enemy. Ours is a spiritual death, but it is real nonetheless.

“I have been crucified with Christ.”  What is it that dies with Christ? Who is this “I” that has been crucified with Christ? Paul says, “It is no longer I who live.” “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live…” The Greek word for I is ego. What dies is the ego. In our epistle Lesson Paul calls it “the old man.” He says, “Our old man was crucified with Him.”

As we read these Bible passages carefully we discover that the apostle is talking about two I’s – two me’s. There is one I who dies and one who lives. There is a mortal I and an immortal I. You might call it the false self and the authentic self. The self who we really are, and the self that we think we are. The mortal I is going to die one way or another. All of us will die some day. None of us are getting out of this life alive. Our bodies will fail and cease to function, and our egos will die also. A great part of who we think we are will not survive death. Who we really are will survive, but not our egos. That is something we don’t like to think about, because we are very attached to our egos. We think they are us. We really think that if our egos die then we will cease to exist. But that is not true.

The ego is all in the mind. It is a mental construction that we have fabricated since childhood. It is our minds and emotions; but we are not our minds or emotions. The ego is the collection of our likes and dislikes, our upbringing and education, our experiences, our idiosyncrasies and personality quirks. It is our sense of selfness and selfishness. It has a name given to us by our parents at our birth, and we identify our selves with this name and with this physical body that we attach the name to. That name will one day appear in an obituary that says ‘Here lies Marshall Davis, born September 14, 1950 died ? (God knows when.) The body dies and the ego dies.

But the real I does not die. What is that real I? It is that which is made in the image of God, not what we have made of ourselves in our own image. It is who I am in God. It is who I am in relationship to Christ. It is real and conscious – the real me. I do not plan to die, because I believe Jesus who says, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.” I start every funeral with those words because they are true words. This personality named Marshall Davis will die. But the real me - whom I recognize as me beneath the masks I wear and the body I wear – will live. We can’t take the old man with us to heaven. We have to leave that behind.

On one occasion Jesus met a rich young man very attached to his wealth. He told the man that if he wanted eternal life, he had to give up all his material riches, take up his cross and follow him. The man refused to do it; he could not conceive of life without his things. Jesus turned to his disciples and said, “It is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven then for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.” I love that image. You only get to take with you what you can fit through the eye of a needle. The point is that you can’t take anything with you. You can’t even take you with you. Jesus explained it this way: “Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.” It is sometimes translates “whoever seeks to save his soul” or “whoever seeks to save himself.” The Greek word used is psuche; we pronounce it psyche. It is our psychological self. 

We have to lose ourselves to inherit eternal life. We have to give up our selves. Our selves are not the stuff of heaven. They are temporary earthly instruments that we have – like we have our bodies. In fact we need to think of our selves just like we think of our bodies. To come to God we have to lay them aside. We have to give up our attachment to our selves – bodies and minds - as surely as the rich man had to give up his attachment to his riches. We can’t take our selves with us to heaven. You have to lose your self to save yourself. You have to lose everything you think of as your life to gain true life.

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” When we die to self, what is left is Christ. We are crucified with Christ. We no longer live, but Christ lives in us. When we reckon ourselves dead, then Christ begins to live in us. By faith we die before we die. We are going to die anyway, so we might as well get used to it. We might as well practice now, because this is who we really are in eternity. Anything that is born will die. It is temporary – here today and gone tomorrow. We might as well practice being what is permanent. We are temporary; Christ is permanent. We are dead; Christ is alive.

We are crucified with Christ, and we are raised with Christ. Paul says this clearly in our epistle lesson: “⁸ Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, ⁹ knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. ¹⁰ For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. ¹¹ Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The death and resurrection of Jesus is not just a history lesson that we repeat every Easter. It is a symbol of our spiritual lives. We die with Christ and we are rasied with Christ. It is not about us; it is all about Christ. There is another passage I read at every funeral I do. It is Rom 14:7-9, “⁷ For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. ⁸ For if we live, we live unto the Lord; and if we die, we die unto the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. ⁹ For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living.”

Back to my verse in Galatians 2 – “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Until our bodies actually die, we still live in the body, but we live with a different understanding. As Paul says in Philippians 2 “Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” Paul says in 1 Cor. 2 “¹⁶ For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?”^[e] But we have the mind of Christ.”

When we go through this death and resurrection by faith, we live differently. “Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” Rom 6:4 “¹ If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. ² Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. ³ For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” (Col 3:1-3) Our verse says, “The life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

We live by faith in Christ. We live his life and not our own. Ours is dead. Christ lives. Our epistle lesson says, “Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The whole purpose and meaning of life is to let Christ live through us. Live his life of love through us. Live his life of sacrifice through us. This is who we are and who we are meant to be. This is our authentic self. We are not a petty little egos who are always concerned with I, Me, Mine. Always weighing everything that happens in relationship to how it affects us, benefits us or harms us. What a tiny, selfish, introverted, little creature that is. That is not who we are or who we were made to be. We are made in the image of God to live the life of Christ. We are meant to live transparently to God who dwells in us as Holy Spirit. That is eternal life. That is the Kingdom of God. To live a big life of faith and love.

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

How To Forgive

Delivered Sunday, April 3, 2011

Mark 11:25-26; Colossians 3:12-15

How do you forgive someone who has wronged you or wronged someone you love? That is the topic of today’s message. I am not going to talk about why we should forgive. I dealt with that topic this summer in a sermon called “The Top Ten Reasons to Forgive.” Today I am assuming today that you want to forgive, need to forgive, or feel like you should forgive, but you just can’t forgive. Perhaps you have tried, but failed. The thoughts of anger and retaliation return. You have not been able to really forgive. I am assuming in this message that you have a desire to forgive – perhaps for no other reason than to give yourself peace of mind and bring closure to something that happened in the past. You have heard the old phrase “Forgive and forget.” Well, how do you actually do that?

This sermon topic came out of the Lenten Bible Study that we are doing on Wednesday evenings in the Gospel of Mark. One of the passages caught my attention. Mark 11:25-26 “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. ²⁶ But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.” It says “whenever you stand praying.” That means every day when you do your daily devotions. It means every Sunday we come to worship, and especially every time we come to the Lord’s Supper. “Whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him….” It also says that being forgiven by God is connected to us forgiving others. Therefore this is very important. How do we forgive? There are four steps to forgiveness.

I. First, we admit we can’t forgive. I don’t know if you have had much exposure to the 12 steps of AA and other similar groups. My former church in Lowell, Massachusetts, had some type of 12-step meeting every day of the week. Half my congregation and two thirds of my deacons were former addicts of some type. So I heard a lot about the twelve steps. The first step is: “We admitted we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable.” I am not going to take you through 12 steps but the first step in important for our topic. At some point we have to admit that even though we try to forgive some people, we just can’t. Perhaps you can say, “I will forgive, but I won’t forget.” If you won’t forget, then you haven’t forgiven. By that I don’t mean that you can’t remember what happened; I mean that you don’t think about it unless it is brought up, and even then you forget about it again easily.

When a great harm has been done to us, most of us can’t just forgive and forget. At least I can’t. The first step is to admit that. We admit it specifically and verbally to God. The religious term for this is confession. Confession is good for the soul. It turns our attention away from the offense that someone else has committed and turns our attention to our own offense. In the final analysis the problem is not the sin that someone else has committed against us; it is the sin we have committed. It is the sin of unforgiveness. This sermon is already getting heavy. So let me tell a humorous story.

A woman bought a parrot for a pet. All the parrot did was treat her badly. It insulted her continually, “You’re ugly. You smell like dirty socks. I can't stand you!" Every time she tried to pick it up, it would peck at her arm. One day she got fed up with the obnoxious parrot. She opened the freezer, threw it in and closed the door. From inside the freezer, the parrot kept insulting her for a couple of minutes, and then it was suddenly quiet. She thought, "Oh no, I killed my parrot!" She opened the door and the parrot silently looked at her. She picked it up. Then the parrot said, "I'm very sorry. I apologize for my bad behavior and promise you I will not do it any more. From now on, I will be a respectful, obedient parrot." " OK" she said. "Apology accepted." The parrot replied "Thank you." Then he added, "Can I ask you a question?" She said, "Yes, What?" The parrot looked back at the freezer and asked, "What did the chicken do?"

II. The first step is confession. Second, Ask God to forgive you for your unforgiveness. This is moving beyond confession to repentance. The word “repent” means literally to rethink, “to change your mind.” We have to change our mind about forgiveness. We tend to think that when we forgive someone, that we are doing them a favor. That we are the one who has been wronged and we are granting them this wonderful boon of setting them free from our wrath. The reality is that most of the time those who wronged us don’t really think they did anything wrong. Often they don’t think they need to apologize. Even if they know they did something wrong, they tend to dismiss it as no big deal. They justify their behavior to themselves, and forget about it. We may be holding a grudge for days, weeks, months or maybe even years, while the offender has forgotten about it and is not troubled at all.

When we forgive someone, we are not doing them a favor. We are doing ourselves a favor. Why carry around a load of resentment, anger and bitterness. All that does is poison our heart and soul. Let me make this clear: unforgiveness hurts us more than anyone else. When we do not forgive we are only hurting ourselves. More than that, We are hurting our relationship with God. To put it bluntly, unforgiveness is sin. That is what we hav to get through our brains and let it sink into our hearts. We are so obsessed with the sins committed against us that we are blind to our own sin of unforgiveness.

The greatest commandment in the Bible, according to Jesus, is to love; unforgiveness is a sin against love. It is a denial of love; it is a refutation of love. It is the opposite of love. Unforgiveness is hate disguised as righteousness. We say to ourselves that our cause is right and it would be unjust to let someone off the hook for what they did. But the reality is that we are the one on the hook. We have been hooked by sin.

The apostle Paul says in Ephesians 4 “In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, ²⁷ and do not give the devil a foothold…. ³⁰ And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. ³¹ Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. ³² Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

Unforgiveness is a spiritual poison that can destroy our soul. It destroys marriages and families and churches. Sure, what that person did to us was terrible; it hurt us deeply. But that is in the past; our unforgiveness is continually hurting us now. It is like we are beating ourselves up for what someone else did to us long ago. Unforgivnessess is like spiritual cancer eating away at our soul until our soul is dead. First we need to admit that we can’t forgive. Second, we ask God to forgive our unforgiveness.

III. Third, believe that God can do the impossible. God can give birth to a beautiful spirit of forgiveness in our lives. Before our Gospel lesson today there is a story about a man who came to Jesus asking what he had to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus asked him how he was doing on obeying the Ten Commandments. The guy said he was doing great; he had kept all the commandments since he was a boy. At that point, I think Jesus must have smiled at this man’s spiritual arrogance. But he bit his tongue and said, “Good job. Now there is just one more thing you have to do to have eternal life. All you have to do is sell everything you own, give the proceeds to the poor and come follow me.” The man would not do that, as most of us wouldn’t. If I told you today what Jesus told this man. That I knew for absolutely certain that you would be guaranteed of eternal life and have riches in heaven, and all you had to do was go home today and sell your house, liquidate all your investments and retirement accounts and bank accounts and get rid of every cent and send it to the relief effort in Japan. Would you do it? I venture to say not one of us here would do it. This rich man in the story did not do it either.

The disciples saw this exchange between the rich man and Jesus and exclaimed, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus answered, “With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible.” This is an important spiritual truth. It is impossible for mortal man to inherit eternal life. But with God all things are possible. It is impossible for us to forget about ourselves, our rights, our dignity and our pride long enough to unconditionally forgive someone who has sinned against us.  “With men it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

God can do it. God can produce forgiveness in your heart and soul. Believe that God can do the impossible. This is the step of faith. Immediately before our gospel verses for today are these words of Jesus. “²² So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. ²³ For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. ²⁴ Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.” Forgiveness is an act of faith in God. 

On Monday morning, October 2, 2006, a gunman entered a one-room Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. In front of twenty-five horrified pupils, thirty-two-year-old Charles Roberts ordered the boys and the teacher to leave. He tied the legs of the ten remaining girls, and prepared to execute them with an automatic rifle and four hundred rounds of ammunition that he brought for the task. The oldest hostage, a thirteen-year-old girl, begged Roberts to “shoot me first and let the little ones go.” Refusing her offer, he opened fire on all of them, killing five and leaving the others critically wounded. He then shot himself as police stormed the building. The motivation for the shooting? Unforgiveness. He told the children before the massacre, “I’m angry at God for taking my little daughter.” 

How did the Amish respond tro this brutal act of unforgiveness? They buried their dead, and then fresh from the funerals of their own children, these grieving Amish families came to the funeral of the shooter. They accounted for half of the seventy-five people who attended the killer’s burial. Roberts’ widow was deeply moved by their presence as Amish families greeted her and her three children. The Amish people’s forgiveness went beyond talk; the Amish also financially supported a fund for the shooter’s family.

This is what Christian forgiveness looks like. It was headline news for weeks afterwards. The story of the forgiveness of the Amish eclipsed the tragic murders, trumping the violence and arresting the world’s attention. How I wish that this type of forgiveness was practiced in all Christian churches. As a Baptist I wish it were the headline news for Baptist churches. But what has been the headline news about Baptists in recent years? It is the Westboro Baptist Church - a hate group from Topeka, Kansas, which pickets funerals of soldiers with a message of hate and judgment. It makes me sick. That church is not Baptist or Christian in anything but name. The most recent headlines have been about Reverend Terry Jones and his church in Florida. He burned a Quran a couple of weeks ago, and that act of intolerance and hate has prompted outrage and violence in Afghanistan against UN workers.

How do we forgive like the Amish forgive? Only God can produce that spirit and faith in a community. It is faith that can move a mountain of hate and evil. The apostle Paul writes, “¹⁷ Repay no one evil for evil. … ²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” How I hope that this church, the Federated Church of Sandwich, would have a reputation in this area, in this county, in this state of being a spiritual community of unconditional and complete forgiveness. Jesus said, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

IV. Fourth, when you confess, repent and believe, then forgiveness happens. The secret of forgiving is that it is not something that we do. It is something that God does in and through us. That is what this passage, Mark 11:25-26, means. “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. ²⁶ But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.”

At first reading this seems to be saying that being forgiven by God is conditional upon our forgiving of others.  We might think that forgiveness is something we do and as a reward for our good work of forgiveness, then God forgives us. But I think what it really means is that if we have truly received forgiveness from God, then we will forgive ogthers. If we have not received forgiveness, then we do not forgive. . “¹You will know them by their fruits “ as Jesus says. “Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? ¹⁷ Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. ¹⁸ A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit…. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”

Forgiven people forgive. Unforgiven people do not forgive. Like maple trees produce sweet sap that can be boiled down to maple syrup, so does the true Christian produce sweet forgiveness for all to taste. Forgiveness is the fruit of faith. If faith is present, forgiveness will follow like a shadow follows a person.

How do we forgive? We don’t; God does. He does it for us, in us and through us. We just have to get out of the way. And let him do it We get out of the way by confessing and repenting of our unforgiving spirit. We surrender our hearts and minds to God by faith. Then the fruit of forgiveness is born in our lives.