AN EASTER STORY

Dr. Richard J. Henderson April 4, 2010

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Isaiah 65:17-25
John 20:1-18

In the beginning God created the stars, moons, and planets, and then God swirled them together into galaxies. God and the angels stood looking at this creation.. God said, "It is good."

After God had created the Earth - the plants and flowers, the fish and animals - God created man and woman. They were naked and they were comfortable with that.

God prepared a lush, verdant garden for them to live in. It was filled with vegetation - shrubs, vines, grass, and trees. There were thousands of trees; hundreds of them were weighed down by fruit.

God knew that if they were to be human they had to have the freedom to choose. God said to them, "You can eat from the fruit of any of these trees, but don't eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." The man said, "That won't be a problem; with all of these fruit trees, why would we need to eat that fruit." But before long, the man and woman had eaten the fruit that was forbidden. More important, they had disobeyed the One who had created them and their world and had given them this beautiful place to live.

Because of this they had to leave the garden. They put on clothes because for the first time they were embarrassed. Now they struggled to survive. The man and woman had to work hard to find enough food to stay alive. They made clothing and built a shelter to stay in.

The world wasn't the same. They cut down trees for shelter and burned them to stay warm and cook food. The rains came and washed away the land the trees had protected. The streams and rivers grew murkier. The sky became hazy. As the man and woman and their offspring lived on the land, it began to lose some of its beauty. People began to argue with each other. Brother turned against brother, family against family, tribe against tribe. No longer did they trust each other; suspicions arose, and gossip spread. People who were even a little different were looked down upon.

Soon they were taking the blades of their plows and hammering them into swords. They pounded the cutters used to trim trees into spears. There were conflicts, battles, and full fledged wars. The people had learned to hate.

God responded to this by calling specific men and women to go to the people and tell them what God wanted. God gave them a set of rules to live by. God sent prophets to teach them, warn them, scold them, and encourage them to change their ways. Those prophets helped - at least a little bit.

God paced the floors of heaven. What to do? How to reach them? "Why won't they listen?" God muttered to himself. "Can't they see how destructive they are?"

God agonized over how to respond. He could wipe them all out and start over again. But God tried that with the Great Flood and the situation hadn't improved much.

In the back of his head God knew what was necessary, but he tried to avoid thinking about it because it was painful and an enormous risk. Were these creatures worth the trouble, pain, and anguish that could result? God realized that they were. So God went ahead with the plan.

God chose an amazing young girl. He spoke with her about his plan - she would carry God's son and bring him to birth. The young woman was shocked at the idea, but she agreed. God spoke to her fiancé in a dream to let him know. He resisted, but in the end he came around.

So God slipped into the world unnoticed. He was born as an ordinary, tiny baby who cried and cooed and had to have his diapers changed.

God's son, Jesus, grew to be a strong young man who helped his dad in the carpenter shop. When he became an adult, he went to the Jordan River and was baptized. Then he went into the desert and spent a lot of time alone talking to God. When he returned, he gathered twelve followers who went with him from city to city. These followers were a rag-tag band of disciples - a tax collector, some businessmen, and a few guys who had the distinct smell of fish.

Jesus taught people about the God who sent him; he pointed out the evil in the world, He asked people to turn their lives around and turn back to God. But he didn't just teach, he showed people what it was like to live with God.

He healed lepers and gave sight to the blind. In his life he healed those who suffered in body, mind, and spirit.

The friends who followed him were an unlikely group: women who had bad reputations, despised tax-collectors, people who were looked down on and made fun of. Jesus told these outcasts that God loved them and they were valuable. Many people followed him and began brand new lives.

Jesus criticized the religious leaders who worked hard to look good on the outside and cover up the anger, hatred, and abuse they held within.

Jesus turned the world upside down; those who were considered in were out; those who were outsiders were in. I guess it's obvious that this made those who were insiders - those who thought they were important and pious - very angry. They began to plot ways to get rid of him.

As Jesus gained more followers, the politicians got nervous too. They didn't allow anybody to question them, let alone threaten their power. They wouldn't tolerate someone diminishing their importance, especially if he developed a large following.

Envy, insecurity and hatred grew. Those forces of evil that Jesus spoke against banded together to do away with him. Even some of his friends who were disappointed that he didn't take the kind of power they wanted, temporary and brutal, turned against him.

One night those who were threatened and angry at Jesus came after him. He was arrested. He was tried in a sham court, where even the judge couldn't see what Jesus had done wrong. But crowds of people shouted "Crucify him, crucify him!" So Jesus was taken, beaten, and nailed to a cross on Golgotha.

Now it was clear for everyone to see: God gave us this world and came to us in love, and we killed him. No longer could people hide the evil of their lives - it hung before them on a cross.

After his death the few people who were not afraid took his body down from the cross and buried it in a tomb. They covered the opening with a huge stone.

It was women who discovered it first. The body was gone! They ran to tell the disciples, who didn't believe until they had seen it for themselves. Despair, anger, disappointment, and humiliation suddenly turned to joy, the greatest thrill of any lifetime. The one who was killed, now was raised up; the one they tried to get rid of was back. Jesus, through his suffering, humility and silence, brought new life to the people God made and has always loved.

Because of Jesus' resurrection the lost are found. The final enemy, death, has been defeated forever. God's people can receive eternal life. As Jesus' body was resurrected, so can every person's. And the forces of evil have been defeated. God has come to us and shown us a new way of living. In accepting the goodness of that life, we receive forgiveness for the times when we fail to live up to it. Evil has no stronghold anymore. Christ's life and death have broken it open.

After the sorrow of Jesus' death and the thrill of his resurrection, some of the disciples went back to their professions. One night some of them went fishing and stayed out all night without catching a thing. Early the next morning as they came back toward shore, they saw someone standing on the beach. They couldn't tell who it was. The stranger on shore told them to throw their nets on the other side of the boat. They figured they didn't have anything to lose, so they did what he said. Now their nets were so full that they couldn't pull them in. Then they realized that the man on the beach was the risen Jesus. They went to shore, dragging the nets full of fish with them.

There on the beach a fire was burning. Over the fire bread and fish were cooking. Jesus sat down with these disciples and ate breakfast there on the beach. They wanted to ask who he was, but they knew that this was Jesus raised from the dead.

We who have been held down by the oppression of evil, we who have lived in fear of death, we who have been lost in a confusing world, are now free.

We are freed from the forces of evil because Jesus has overcome them and offered us forgiveness. We are freed from the power of death because Jesus offers us eternal life with the God who has always loved us. We are freed from aimless drifting through life because Jesus has given us a rudder and a true compass.

God sent his Son to set us free: free from aimlessness, free from sin, free from death.

Thank God!

Amen

© Richard J. Henderson 2010