Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor Sermon Podcast
Hope Series (#1) : If There Is No Empty Tomb, There Is No Justice
Hope Series (#1) : If There Is No Empty Tomb, There Is No Justice by Senior Pastor, Ken Wilson
My thesis today is very simple. We're starting a three-part series on hope and my thesis is this, if there is no empty tomb, there is no hope for justice at all. We understand that Jesus began his work in Luke chapter 4 by announcing the Jubilee, the year of the Lord's favor when the poor and oppressed of this world would be set free from all of their oppression. He came in other words to bring justice to the earth, which means the righting of wrongs and the restoration of all that's been lost and taken from us. We know that as Jesus traveled the land of Israel, teaching in the marketplace and the synagogue and the temple and the courtyard and the home, he brought justice with him, healing the sick, casting out demons, elevating the poor, confronting the powers of oppression head on. Of course, this put him at odds with the powers of injustice, those for whom the status quo conferred great privilege like King Herod, like the scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees, the at that time corrupt priesthood and ultimately the Roman Empire itself, which was at the height of its power in that era. For a while there in the ministry of Jesus, it looked like they might all just roll over. He was so wildly popular as deeds were so powerful, but then the tide turned and things got ugly. In the days and hours before his death, Jesus succumbed one after another to the unjust powers and he did so at every conceivable level beginning with the very personal level of betrayal, one of his own friends betrayed him. The temple guard arrested him on trumped-up charges. He went on trial before the St. Hedren, his own elders were in kangaroo court modality, ignoring the mosaic due process code. Then he went to Herod on appeal, but Herod apparently was looking for entertainment more than justice. Next he went into the custody of the Roman soldiers, where he was tortured for sport, onto the Roman governor who deemed him innocent but sentenced him to death for political reasons. And worst of all, gasping for breath on the cross like a common criminal, this just man felt heaven's abandonment as though justice itself was on a leave of absence. We didn't know it then, but later it dawned on us that he stands when he stands under the power of injustice, with everyone under the thumb of the unjust powers of this world. He stands with the children neglected and abused. He stands with the invisible women over the ages, suffering unspeakable things like the women of Africa dying of AIDS since their infected partners, encouraged by the teaching of the world's largest Christian communion won't use protection, which apparently is deemed a moral evil greater, I guess, than premature deaths in the making of orphans. He stands with everyone named in the office gossip or falsely accused anywhere. He stands with every worker exploited by every employer, and every honest employer ripped off by dishonest workers. He stands with the victims of the slave trade, past and present. He stands with all of them, and he cries the victims cry of anguish is there no justice on earth. And then he died and was buried, and the only question worth asking is what happened next? That his spirit separated from his body enter its eternal rest and nothing more. If so, he's little help to the cause of justice on earth. Is all this religious experience in his name, the whole Christian movement over the millennia, just a testament to the power of his memory and his example, yet another monument to the enduring power of the human spirit or the divine spirit? If so, I'd rather be a Buddhist. The Christian hope that there is one is tied to this. Place your bets on it or not, but this is the claim. The tomb is empty, not because his body was stolen and disposed of quietly. The tomb is empty not because he swooned and was brought off the cross and revived, and he stole away to North India where he found a wife, and they had children, and he died a ripe old age. The tomb is empty because this victim of injustice, dead and buried, rose from the grave a sign of coming attractions. The word for it is resurrection. Resurrection does not mean his spirit lives on. That was already well understood by the Greeks that when the body passed away, the spirit lived on. There was no special word for that. It certainly wasn't resurrection. Resurrection means what it always meant in Hebrew thought that mortal flesh would be one day transformed by an act of recreation by which the dead wake into a new and transformed bodily existence that we can't even picture or imagine. It would be so wonderful. Resurrection doesn't mean anything if it doesn't mean the graves giving up their dead. So don't be deceived by those who claim the empty tomb doesn't matter. Whether the tomb was empty or not, it is said, doesn't really matter. It's the Christ of faith that matters. There is a faith that would save us making any bets with our lives. They would have us play poker with chips that don't stand for cash. Their intentions are good to give us a nice soft landing in case we're disappointed, but the effect is to rob life of meaning because meaning feeds on risk. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Don't be deceived by those who talk about justice as if it's possible in any ultimate sense without an empty tomb. It's not. Last week it was a week ago Friday as a matter of fact. You may have read the Ann Arbor News, a young student from the Eastern Michigan University was killed. Her mother, according to the news account, was a troubled soul, lost her job and along with it, she lost her health insurance. And with that, she lost her ability to stay on her psychotropic medication. I think it was an antidepressant. Her mother then began slowly according to the news account to lose her grip on reality. She became obsessed with the thought that she and her daughter would become homeless and terrible things would happen to her daughter. Unfathomably, she took a handgun from the closet and killed her only child. The daughter's name was Lisa Radke, and she had just become a member of this church at our most recent new membership. Lisa didn't lose her spirit when she lost her life. Her spirit lives on, but that's less comfort than it seems. Because what Lisa lost when she lost her life was the only life she's ever known. Her in-flesh spirit life, her in-spirited flesh life, her bodily God-given and imaged and animated heart pumping, air-breathing, tasting, touching, hearing, sleeping, waking, wide-eyed, wondering life. Those are miss her, may benefit from her intercession, and her immaterial presence in the cloud of witness, powerful benefits. Indeed, but what we will not have, for now at least, is what we most want back, which is Lisa. At her funeral, Lisa's brave cousin said this. They were like sisters. A cousin would have been, I guess, in her 20th. She said my only fear is that I'll forget the sound of her laughter. Please don't forget the sound of Lisa's laughter. Lisa was known for her joy and her animation, as it were, and her laughter. Unless we have the hope of hearing Lisa's laughter again, her blood-warm belly laugh, we have no hope of justice. Lisa's death, after all, was an act of violence. And as such, it was a personal act of injustice, but it was one, if you knew the backstory that was facilitated by the impersonal unjust powers of this world. Whatever powers and principalities that are, that it get off on the most prosperous nation in history, unwilling to make sure everyone who needs it has access to health care. So unstable people don't have to stop their stabilizing medication when they lose their jobs. Someone's happy with that state of affairs, and it is not the power of God. Lisa, living on in our memory, or resting in the bosom of Abraham, her life and safekeeping in the arms of her Savior is a comfort, but comfort is not enough. What we need is a present, empowering future hope. We need a present, empowering future hope that this and every injustice will be made right again. That Lisa will get not only her spirit, but her life back. That what was taken from her and from us will be restored to her and to us. What the universe demands and what we ought to is justice. And if that Easter tomb was not empty, if the Easter event, as it's called by some, was no event at all, but a risk-free and pious interpretation of what is really a non-event, the last time I looked, an event requires that something happened to be an event. If the resurrection didn't happen, we must not delude ourselves into thinking Jesus has any power at all to do what he claimed he was here to do in the first place, which was to bring justice on earth. No, the empty tomb means everything. The empty tomb and the resurrection appearances and the resurrection faith that gave birth and wings and staying power to the church. That's the source of something beyond comfort. That's the source of hope, a present, empowering future hope that justice has the last word. This is probably among the earliest writings I'm about to read from the New Testament. We're talking about the mid-50s, so maybe a decade or so after the resurrection, this writing no doubt precedes the gospels that we have. It's from Saint Paul in his letter to the Corinthians. The Corinthians were uncomfortable with the idea of resurrection. They were informed by the Greek worldview, which was the body wasn't that important. What was important was the spirit. It was a kind of dualism so that after the shell of this body passes away, that's when life begins in the spirit and our spirit lives on. This is what Paul had to say introducing a different gospel than that. Now, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. For what I received, I passed on to you of first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. That he didn't mean we read about on the Bible because the Bible didn't exist at that time telling the story of Jesus dying for our sins. He meant the Hebrew Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter and then to the 12th. If Mrs. Paul had been around, he wasn't married, we don't think. Mrs. Paul would have reminded him that it was actually women who first were the eyewitnesses to the resurrection, but Paul had a Greek audience and the women weren't considered very good eyewitnesses, so he just left that little fact out. It's included in the gospels, however. After that, he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. But someone may ask, "How are the dead raised?" It's the same question that's asked today. That just sounds barbaric. The dead raised, how idiotic to think that the dead, could be raised. Here's Paul's answer, according to the science of his day, "With what kind of body will they come? How foolish what you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps, of weed or something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined that each kind of seed gives its own body. So will it be with the resurrection of the dead?" So we're not to picture the resurrection of the dead like some kind of a movie. What are they called? The zombie movies where the dead came back and they look worse off after they come back than before. We're not to picture the resurrection and those kind of gross terms. It's something wonderful. The body that is sown is perishable but is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. In other words, a body that is fitting for the age which is to come. Not a spirit, but a spiritual body. Listen, I tell you a mystery, Paul goes on. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed in the New Testament era. Death was understood as sleep because it was understood that what we're aiming for is the resurrection when we wake up. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed in a flash in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. Then the saying that is written will come true. Death has been swallowed up in victory. Now listen to this, therefore my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. He started out talking about this is the gospel on which we take our stand. This is a future hope that is empowering for the present. Therefore my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. The hope of resurrection is a present empowering future hope. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul for the storms of this life. This hope allows us to stand firm and to labor, to give ourselves to the work of the Lord and what is that work, to establish justice on earth. Isaiah 42, here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight, a messianic prophecy. I will put my spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. In other words, his justice is not going to come with military power. A bruised read, he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness, he will bring forth justice. He will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth. In his law, the islands will put their hope. Lisa Reddy was, I think, three or four weeks shy of graduating from Eastern Michigan University with a degree, I think, in urban planning, urban studies, something of that sort, because she had the heart of Jesus for justice. Boy, it really bothered me when she died. You know, one of the things that bothered me was I just started to get to know her. She had just joined the church. We didn't experience much of Lisa's participation in the church, because she was just getting going. But she was someone who had a future. I mean, she was a leader. She was a contributor. She was someone who wanted to get things done for the kingdom. And that was just a terrible, terrible loss. You know, we're a young church. We've actually been around in one form or another for like 30 years. And I've been pastoring the church for that long. And I can count on one hand the number of members of the church, members of the church who died while there were members of the church, Marilyn Hintermeyer, Avalon Jackson, Jane Hilliger, Glenn Wilson, John O'Connell, and now Lisa. But we are not going to forget Lisa. We are going to be empowered by our hope and do the work of the Lord in memory of Lisa. We've got some elections coming up, people. You heard about that on TV? We've got some elections coming up. There are some people running to represent us in state government, for example. We'll contact them and tell them about Lisa's mom, a fragile person made more unstable for lack of a prescription, and see if they think health care is for all and are willing to work for it. Your political philosophy, you don't want the government involved in health care, we'll find, pony up some private funds, but let's do something. In the meantime, we've got a church here. We can do something without government involvement to establish a little more justice on earth. We've got a single mom's ministry. Lisa's mom was a single mom, the picture that you saw of her up there that was so beautiful was Lisa serving in the single mom's ministry, washing, doing a pedicure for one of the single moms. Lisa's mom was a single mom, and she didn't have anything like a single mom's ministry nearby where she lived. Many single mom families have to stretch a paycheck a long way. We have at our mom's night elf, our monthly dinner, something called the Everything But Food Pantry. That's what the pink bag boutique is all about. It's like an Everything But Food Pantry. It's the needed items that single moms can't get with food stamps, for example, to help them stretch their paycheck. But the shelves have been a little light of late, so we took a picture of the shelves just to show you how light they are. When's their next single mom's night out? Second Tuesday in May, so we want to fill those up before them. No, nothing in April? We had it already. Okay, last week, that's why they're empty. If you're one of those people that you're fortunate enough, you don't have to worry about food or basic supplies. Isn't that wonderful? I mean, I can't tell you the last time I worried about having enough food or like soap or basic supplies. Certainly when I was a student, we were concerned about those things and married and having kids and living on $600 a month and whatnot. But I haven't worried about food and basic supplies in a long time. So if you're one of those really fortunate people like me that doesn't have to worry about food or basic supplies, think of your fellow man. Lend her a helping hand, put a little love in your heart that Jackie Deschan in Motown. You see, it's getting late. Oh, please don't hesitate. Put a little love in your heart and the world will be a better place for you and me. So pick up a pink bag on your way out, fill it and return it. You could do that after the service. You'd be allowed to go early if you don't have time. You can skip the ending worship and go to Hillers and fill up as many things as you can and bring it back for the for the single mom's night out to everything but food pantry. You know, Nancy and I were talking of a single mom like Lisa's mom ever gets laid up off from her job and can't cover her medications. I think the cost of the medication would have been like $200 a month for antidepressants. You know, if a single mom came to us in that situation, we would be ill-prepared currently to help. But we could change that. We need someone to do some research on this for us. Someone who can like work the angles like could we work with some, you know, Pfizer's in town, could we work with Pfizer, maybe some local pharmacies, find the best deals, like a Sam's Club, you know, like the best deals. There's huge disparities among pharmacies for the cost of prescriptions. We could have someone who did all that kind of research and worked the angles so that we could get a fund to cover the gap. Now that'd be a, that'd take a lot of money to really serve those needs because prescriptions are expensive. But we could do something rather than nothing. You know, if there's someone who will tackle this project, that means who will faithfully administer justice, faithfully administer justice, and raise up someone to faithfully administer it with you so that if you get hit by a car, the show will go on. If we can find a person or two to do that, we'll have a benefit concert. That will get ragbirds. We'll do something. We'll put our best show together, have a benefit concert, or do something to raise some money to start something, a fill in the gap, prescription fund for single moms. Lisa's mom feared homelessness. Lisa cared about this issue, homelessness. We've got a 15 passenger van out in the parking lot that was donated to the church for the youth ministry, and we use it on the weekends to bring to cart students from the university here for church, and we occasionally use it for youth events. But we could launch a mobile ministry to those who live under the freeway overpasses. There was a homeless person not too far. I think over by Briarwood, I think it was in February of this year who froze to death. There's a number of homeless people who for one reason or another don't want to live in the shelters even when it's freezing cold. They have little camps all over the city. We could load up that van with provisions and get teams of people to just go out and befriend the people and bring them a hot meal and bring them an extra blanket when it's cold outside, offer to take them into a shelter if they need it, but to help them survive if they don't. Most of the ones out there are often out there because they want to stay out there in those little camps. We could easily do that. But we need some reliable, faithful people to be core leaders, to faithfully administer justice for this project, volunteer the time, a commitment to stick with it for at least a year or two until it's launched and stable. So we can do some things to administer justice on earth. And why would we want to do that? Because the tomb is empty. That's why we want to do that. Because the likes of Lisa will be raised when this age has run its course and we will hear that laugh again and we'll see that smile. That's a future hope that is empowering us for the present to do the Lord's work. And the Lord's work is to bring justice on the earth if the Bible is true. Pascal said that faith is a bet. Faith is a bet. That's Blaise Pascal, the mathematician philosopher mystic. He likened faith to a bet. If you're not risking something for God, if you're not making a bet with your life such that if you bet on the wrong horse you'll be disappointed you are not living a life of faith. Do we know for absolute certain sure that Jesus is risen from the dead? We don't have that kind of knowledge on this earth. We see through a glass darkly. We know in part all our knowledge is in part. You have to decide are you going to place your bet on Jesus risen from the dead or not? It's a bet said Pascal. It's not a certainty. If it were a certainty it wouldn't require faith. Place your bet on the empty tomb. That's what it means to believe in a risen Jesus. Listen to that crazy impulse which is an almost unbelievable impulse. When you consider the human condition the impulse is the hope. Have you ever met someone who's just had the worst life, the worst possible circumstances? And you think what gets them up in the morning? Well there's this crazy instinct that human beings have. It's the instinct to hope for a better day. Now there would be some who would say well that instinct to hope that's just what we have to have in order to get through the day but there's nothing really to hope for. The problem is if you believe that it doesn't work anymore and you die and so we're in this dilemma we have to place a bet with our lives and there's this crazy impulse in us to hope for a better day. Oh Lord, heaven is good. Heaven is fine as a waste station but heaven is not the Christian hope. Scour the Bible from first to last. Heaven is not the Christian hope. Heaven is the Christian's comfort in the meantime. Our hope is a new heaven and a new earth and transform bodies in which to live and move and have our being. Christians are materialists. We believe in the goodness of God, in the goodness of God's creation, in the goodness of matter, in the goodness of our bodies, in the goodness of the heavens and the earth. We do not believe that the body is just a peanut shell and our deliverance is to be separated from our bodies so that our spirits can live on forever in heaven. Christianity wasn't needed to bring that into the world landscape. Greek philosophy had already done a fine job. We believe in the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come, the earth to come. So gather up your chips. If you've got a few chips in your pile or a lot of chips in your pile but gather up all the chips in your pile on your poker table and shove them into the middle of the table and listen as the cloud of witnesses in the room lets out a gasp. Wow, these poker shows. Isn't it awesome, you know, when the guy, you're seeing what, oh, the odds and the risks and, you know, there's some young guy out there and he's, you know, what, going for broke and he takes all of those chips and he pushes them into the middle of the table and every one around goes, this is going to be great one or another. This is going to be fun. And then show the cloud of witnesses that you mean business by serving the cause of the servant king which is justice on earth as it is in heaven. If we believe that, we will believe our labor will not be in vain and we will labor more, we will labor harder, we will labor with more hope. So let's get cracking because it's Easter. Now, what can you do practically if you are in a position in your life where your Christianity has not mobilized you, has not empowered you to actually stake something on the Christian message. In other words, oh, I don't know. It's just maybe like a belief system. It's part of your, I don't know, your emotional support system but you haven't actually stake anything on it. If you discovered in a National Geographic special that actually the DNA of Jesus was found, a little shred of it was found in that tomb and he wasn't bodily risen from that. It wouldn't make any difference to you because you haven't staked anything on actually something happening in the world. It could be right or could be wrong. What do you do if you're in that position and you're kind of a cultural Christian but you haven't actually made the bet that makes a Christian a Christian? Well, there's two things. Number one, you could if you're really looking for what is the Christian message all about anyway? Maybe you haven't had a chance to like, you know, you go to a buy a used car and you know, you don't just take the car because someone recommended it to you. You want to see the car and even if you're not very automobile savvy, you know, you at least got to kick the, there's something about kicking the tires, isn't there? You just got to kick the tires. There's probably the least effective thing you could do to check out a car but we all kick the tires. You look under the hood, do you sit in the seat, do you take it out for a test drive? How do you do something like that with Christianity? Well, we have a class called the Alpha Course where you can kick the tires of Christianity and you can poke and you can prod and you can ask questions and you can sit or does it even make any sense? Is it worth my investing my life in this message? That's called the Alpha Course. I, it takes I think six or seven weeks and it's starting up soon. You can sign up in the lobby. Another class that you could take if you maybe identify with a Christian, you've made that commitment in your life. You've, you've staked your life on that reality of the empty tomb and it's made, it's a decision that you've made in your heart and you've, you've, you've put down your roots in that decision. But you're really not moving in the Christian journey. You're really not making any progress. You're, you're, you're still in the process of trying to find a church home, for example, or to see what does that path actually feel like to be walking on it? Then I recommend to you another class called Introducing Jesus Brand Spirituality. We're starting that in, I think, a week from Wednesday and Nancy and I will be hosting along with Don and that's a, that's a class to get you on the journey, get you moving and teaching how to pray and what does it mean to serve the Lord and how do you blend all the different dimensions of Christian spirituality. Take that class but do something like that. Of course I could have you raise your hand and pray the sinner's prayer but I think it's more significant if you make a decision right where you are to do something about it, to invest something of your life. And I would recommend one of those two classes, the alpha course are Introducing Jesus Brand Spirituality. Okay, I'm just going to leave you with some books for further study. These are on our notes as well. The first one is the one I recommend most. It's Simply Christian, a new book by N.T. Wright. Why Christianity makes sense? And N.T. Wright is just awesome. The great vampire novelist Anne Rice said this goes beyond mere Christianity by CS Lewis. So it's a darn good book according to Anne Rice. So I highly recommend Simply Christian, why Christianity makes sense. Especially if you have thought in the past, well, gee, Christianity is just about going to heaven when I die and you haven't really understood what the gospel of Jesus is really about. This book would be, would just be awesome. Simply Christian. A second book, this might apply to maybe one or two people in the city of Ann Arbor. It would be the Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T. Wright. If you're like a professor, this would be great. Actually, if you really, really like to study, this would be awesome. It's dense and dotting, but it's the definitive work on the Resurrection. And then a third book comes highly recommended to me called Under the Overpass, A Journey of Faith on the Streets of America by Mike Kankowski about what it's actually like to be almost person and to live in those, under those freeways, overpasses and when it's cold and how you get by and how a person gets into that into that condition and how a person gets out of it, that would also be a great book to read. Okay, let's stand up. Wouldn't it fun having worship with the kids? I really enjoyed that. Thanks to Lori Cake and the team who were working with our youth ministry, the kids ministry, to have them have them up here helping us out with the worship today. For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night he was betrayed, took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way after supper, he took the cup saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this whenever you drink it in remembrance of me, for whenever you eat this bread or drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." So God, we come into your presence today, set free from our sin by the offering of your son's blood and sacrifice, set free from our just god awful preoccupation with ourselves because we know that you are our Father and you care for every need. And so we come to this table today with a sense of celebration and with a sense of victory and all the things that you have won for us and what you're yet to do is that you have begun a good work in us. We'll bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus. And so as we come, we pray again for the forgiveness of our sins. That sacrifice went into the past, into the present and even into the future in which we stand with forgiveness. So we step into the forgiveness as we step up to this table today. And we thank you for the grace, the desires, through Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's do two lines on the center aisle and you can just come on, we need more, more, more Eucharistic ministers and Vijay here. Yeah, let's do it. That'd be great. And if there's a couple people from the prayer ministry team, I just wonder if you could hang out in the wings. And if you have a need for healing or you have a particular personal need that you'd like some prayer for after you receive communion or you could go straight, straight away there, there'll be someone there who can who can pray for you. So hit it, Maestro. Oh, there you are. Oh, I'll reassure you.