"Skepticism in the Face of Faith"
Sermon Presented April 8, 2007
Easter
Luke 24:1-12
It seems to happen in predictable manners that, on the weeks before Christmas and Easter, Time and Newsweek publish articles about faith issues. Some are meant to shock and some to enlighten. Some present negative perspectives on the commonly held beliefs of people of faith - perspectives that can cause a person to examine faith from a new perspective, or to abandon it altogether.
Newsweek's latest issue presents a debate on the topic of God between Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in Orange County, California and atheist, Sam Harris, a Ph.D. student in neuroscience. When I scored the debate on the believability of the arguments, the atheist came out ahead. I believe someone else could have presented the Judeo-Christian perspective on Scripture better than Warren did. What it boils down to is that belief in the reality of a higher being has a lot to do with faith and background and little to do with logic. We can't quantify faith!
Today is Easter Sunday, and what occurred on this day almost 2000 years ago in the city of Jerusalem is about as unbelievable as any science fiction novel you might happen upon. Our text is Luke's account of Jesus' resurrection, and it has several differences from John's account - the text for most Easter sermons. The reading begins with the word "But", and what comes before the "but" is that the women who attended Jesus' crucifixion, went home to prepare the embalming spices and ointments and then they rested because it was the Sabbath. "But" now, the Sabbath is over and the women are on the move. I'm reading from Luke 24:1-12.
The Easter story begins - not with the Hallelujah Chorus, but with women coming to the tomb to care for the dead. They have no thought that the tomb will be empty. They just want to mask the odor of decaying flesh with the spices they lovingly prepared. They come looking for the body of Jesus and are asked "Why are you looking for the living among the dead? Don't you remember that he told you that he would be crucified and then rise on the third day?" These women with a mission move from grief to puzzlement to fear to remembering Jesus' words. As they revisit their memories, they ponder the message they hear.
They find nothing as they expect - no body, two angels, and the message that Jesus has risen. They leave to tell the disciples, but no one believes them. Gender is the most probable reason for the dismissal. The men consider the source of the report and attribute it to emotional women who are too grief-stricken to know up from down. However, the text says that Peter goes to the tomb to check it out, and when he looks in, he sees the linen cloths by themselves, and goes home, amazed at what he sees.
As an aside, the 12th verse, the one about Peter checking out the tomb, is not in some of the older manuscripts. Early scribes sometimes added material - words or sentences - to make clear their own understanding. A scribe may have added this verse later to make it correspond with the message of another gospel. No one knows for sure.
We often hear things that we don't understand because there's no reason for us to understand. A person without a computer won't pay attention to information about creating a Web page, just as a woman who is past her child-bearing years won't pour through articles on childbirth. If we go to the doctor and hear a diagnosis that puzzles us, we may get stuck at that point of diagnosis and not hear the rest of what the doctor says. If we hear or read a spiritual truth and aren't ready to receive it, we may close our mind to it because we aren't ready to digest the information. Understanding can come later when we are ready.
I imagine that's what happens to Jesus' followers. They have been with Jesus for three years, listening to his teaching and watching him change people's lives. Because they are expecting him to rule an earthly kingdom, they can't comprehend his death - let alone an empty tomb. They heard his message, but much of it is buried in their subconscious minds. Now the women are asking them to resurrect that message in the face of the empty tomb, just as they had to do. But the disciples yawn, check their watches and wonder when the sermon will end so they can go home for dinner. The news of Easter is just too preposterous to believe - an idle tale. It isn't until Jesus appears to them that the "idle tale" becomes reality. Their faith is based on their personal encounters with the risen Lord and not on the empty tomb.
I hope and pray that people meet Jesus when they enter this building. I experience Christ here - especially in the music, but my most powerful encounters with him are in unexpected places like nursing homes, hospitals, funeral homes, St. Ben's and Milwaukee Christian Center - any place among the sick, the dying, the suffering, the elderly, the grieving and the poor. Christ is in people and when we minister to people, we meet the risen Christ. Maybe we look for Jesus in the wrong places - just as the women who went to the tomb did!
The world we live in is a much more rational world than it was even 30 years ago, and people who think are skeptical at times - no matter how strong our faith might be. When our faith falters, we need to take time to remember those times when Jesus was most real to us - at our baptism, when we committed our lives to follow him, the birth of our child, the deathbed of a loved one, sitting beside the lake watching the gulls, or listening to a concert at the Performing Arts Center. As we remember, our faith is strengthened once again.
Let's go back to that Newsweek article. Sam Harris, the atheist, said: "I no more believe in the Biblical God than I believe in Zeus, Isis, Thor and the thousands of other dead gods that lie buried in the mass grave we call 'mythology'. I doubt them all equally and for the same reason: lack of evidence" (Newsweek, April 9, 2007, p. 55).
From another perspective, Rabbi Abraham Heschel, probably the most influential Jewish theologian of the 20th century said: "God did not make it easy for us to have faith in him, to remain faithful to him. This is our tragedy; the insecurity of faith, the unbearable burden of our commitment. The facts that deny the divine are mighty, indeed; the arguments of agnosticism are eloquent, the events that defy him are spectacular… Our faith is fragile, never immune to error, distortion or deception. There are no final proofs for the existence of God, Father and Creator of all. There are only witnesses. Doubt and faith are not at war. They are parts of the same whole" (Ibid. p. 55). Heschel said: "There are only witnesses!" We are witnesses!
In the April 16th issue of Time that came out last Friday, there was an essay by Bruce Grierson titled "The Age of U-Turns" (p. 74). The essay was about flip-flops and how they have a bad name. John Kerry was blasted in the last presidential election for changing his mind and now in the early stages of the 2008 presidential race, Mitt Romney is being accused of the same thing. I'm glad Grierson wrote this essay, because it mirrors my own thoughts that if we never change our minds - if we never make an essential u-turn - we aren't growing as people or Christians. If we continue to mirror the ideas and thoughts of an author, pastor, Sunday school teacher or our childhood without examining those ideas, we are stagnant. And when we examine our beliefs, we sometimes need to make a u-turn in light of new understanding. Skepticism can help bring us to new understandings that will ultimately strengthen our faith.
The Bible is a faith history - a compilation of writings that trace God's working in God's people. Just as children growing up in the same family have different perspectives on life in that family, so do the biblical writers. Each of the four gospel writers tells of the death and resurrection of Jesus from their perspective, and the accounts differ - but why wouldn't they?
My perspective on Jesus' life, death and resurrection may differ from yours or that of Rick Warren, but that doesn't make one of us a better Christian than another. What makes us faithful followers of Jesus is how we let the living Christ dwell in our hearts and manifest his love in our actions toward others.
To say that Jesus is raised from the dead is not to say he returned to his earthly life. That is gone. It's dead! To say that Jesus rose from the dead is to say that God reached into the tomb and into history, lifting Jesus up to new life. And it is to say that God will do the same for us. But in order to receive the new life we have to stop clinging to the old one. We have to stop looking for the living among the dead. Easter is that simple and yet that profound!
