Sermon Title: Sometimes We Don’t Recognize Jesus Either
Sermon Text:
John 20:11-19
Sermon Date:
Easter,
John 20: 11but Mary stood
outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12and
saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and
the other at the foot.
13They asked her,
"Woman, why are you crying?"
"They
have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have
put him." 14At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but
she did not realize that it was Jesus.
15"Woman," he
said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?"
Thinking he was the gardener, she said,
"Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will
get him."
16Jesus said to her,
"Mary."
She turned toward him and cried out in
Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher).
17Jesus said, "Do not
hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my
brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God
and your God.' "
18Mary Magdalene went to
the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told
them that he had said these things to her.
Jesus
Appears to His Disciples
19On
the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together,
with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and
said, "Peace be with you!"
Message
A pastor
went to visit a Sunday school class and he asked the children, “What is Easter
about?” All hands went up. So he said, “Yes?” One child said, “Well, Easter is
a time when we gather around a tree and give each other presents.” ... That
didn’t go too well. Then the next child said, “Easter is a time when we the
whole family gathers together and we have turkey.” Now, the teacher’s face is
falling... Then, finally there is a little girl, waving her hand, and said,
“Well, Jesus gathered his friends for a supper. And, then, when the supper was
over, he went out to a garden and there the police arrested him. Then they
crucified him and he died. And they put him in a big hole in the rock, and they
covered it over with a big stone.” The teacher’s face is beaming..... “And
Easter means that every year they come and they roll the stone back and he
comes out and, if he sees his shadow, it means that there are five more weeks
of basketball.”
Let’s
be honest with each other. After all, we
are in church. We adults don’t always
understand Easter either, let alone Groundhog Day. We just don’t always recognize the deep
meaning and we don’t always recognize Jesus.
Like Mary, so overcome with grief that she
didn’t recognize the one whose death she was mourning. And she wasn’t the only one. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus walks with two
men who don’t recognize him either.
Each time I hear this scripture I think of
Karen and a Sunday school class far, far away…or
Karen told us about a time when she dropped
in on her parents. She lived out of town
and decided to surprise them one day.
She rang the doorbell and when her mother answered, she just looked at
her daughter, not recognizing her. Karen
was obviously a bit offended but her mother just said, “I wasn’t expecting
you.” It took her brain a few moments
for Karen’s presence to register.
It was probably the same with Mary, but more
so. Jesus is dead. Simon has told us about that. We experienced it on Maundy Thursday. We have read the scriptures and sung songs
about it. But like Mary, we aren’t
expecting Jesus to walk among us. To
ring our doorbell. To watch us in our
everyday life. But he is here. Watching us.
Loving us.
This
resurrection thing is hard for some of us to wrap our heads around. We try to make it fit in our understanding of
how science works. But preacher Barbara
Brown Taylor reminds us that what happened in the tomb was between God and
Jesus (“Escape from the Tomb,” Barbara Brown Taylor) and we just don’t know how
this all worked out. What happened in
the tomb was a miracle to be sure, so maybe we should quit trying to make it
fit in science and just accept it as grace --
grace that comes to us, not because of anything we have done or
deserved. Certainly those who waved
those palm branches on one Sunday and called for his death only days later
didn’t deserve this grace. They didn’t
recognize Jesus as the Messiah so why should they deserve this grace that came
with an empty tomb?
For the
same reasons we get an empty tomb filled with grace too. Because it isn’t about us. It is about God, through Jesus Christ, who
wants us to have it.
Whether we
recognize Jesus or not, he wants us to have it.
You know,
we’d be hard pressed to say we would recognize Jesus if he showed up here this
morning. I’d be looking for someone in
jeans and long hair. My friend Linda
would be looking for someone in a really nice suit. Linda’s Jesus would be driving a really nice
car; my Jesus would be driving something second-hand, something that gets him
where he is going. Or maybe a hybrid,
with a bumper sticker that says “Honk if you love me!”
You have
your own ideas and I suspect they don’t match mine or Linda’s. So how do we recognize Jesus??????? How do we recognize Jesus in others?
Are we
spending all of our time looking for people who look like what we assume
believers look like? If we are, we will
miss a lot of Jesus along the journey.
Jesus doesn’t always look like we would assume. Neither do his followers.
If I only
see Jesus in people who look kind of like hippies from the 60s, I’ll miss the
Jesus who really does wear a nice suit and drives a nice car.
And vice
versa for Linda.
So how
about if we focus less on what he may or may not look like and more about how
he lived then and lives through us today?
How do you
recognize Jesus?
Do you
recognize Jesus in children who may not act the way you think children should
act? Do you recognize Jesus in their
exuberance and delight over the small things in life?
Do you
recognize Jesus in teenagers who have pink hair, multiple piercings, tattoos
and go on hunger marches? Do you
recognize their independence and their passion for helping others?
Do you
recognize Jesus in a homeless person who asks for your help? Do you recognize that Jesus also asks for
your help?
Do you
recognize Jesus in people who disagree with you and make you stop and think
about your long-held beliefs?
Do you
recognize Jesus as someone dedicated to saving our environment? Someone dedicated to ending poverty? Someone dedicated to ensuring rights for all
regardless of gender, age, sexual orientation or financial situation?
Do you
recognize Jesus in you? Do you recognize
that each and every good thing about you is a gift from God? Do you realize that God wants the very best for you – to
live a life where people see and recognize Jesus in you?
In the
movie “Groundhog Day,” Bill Murray plays cynical weatherman who has to go to
After Phil
sees his shadow ensuring six more weeks of winter, Bill and the television team
try to leave town but a major snow storm hits and they can’t leave. So he goes to bed that night and wakes up the
next morning, once again on Groundhog Day.
In fact, every day that follows is Groundhog Day. Every day he woke up to “I got you, babe”
playing on the radio and watching Puxatawny Phil coming out of his pen for the
world to see.
In the
beginning he was frantic, then frustrated and depressed. He tries to kill himself, more than once,
unsuccessfully but he woke up again the next morning. Finally he accepts the reality of the
situation and settles into life in Puxatawny.
He takes piano lessons and learns ice sculpting. He saves the mayor’s life and each day after
school he saves a boy who falls out of a tree….a boy who never thanks him. And the young woman he is attracted to begins
to recognize qualities in him that she didn’t know existed. But only after he recognized those qualities
in himself and he was able to open up to her and let her see the good side of
him.
God wants
us to recognize the good qualities of Jesus in ourselves so that we may live
lives that speak to others. But God also
wants us to spend time with Jesus, recognizing how he can change our lives.
Do you
spend time with Jesus each day? Dr.
Brown Taylor says that we should never get so focused on the empty tomb that we
forget to speak to the gardener.
Do you
speak to the gardener every day? Do you
take the time each day to spend time with Jesus?
Simon’s
story over these past two weeks have been the story of a man who found Jesus to
be all he thought and much more. Simon
loved Jesus from afar and up close.
Simon’s son was healed because of Jesus and later Simon had the chance
to repay him by carrying his cross to
Simon
recognized the good things about Jesus and he recognized how the love of Jesus
had changed him, his son and his family.
On this
Easter Sunday let’s choose to recognize the Jesus who loves us; let’s choose to
recognize the Jesus in each other; and let’s choose to recognize the Jesus in
ourselves.
By the
way, in the movie, the next morning after he opened up to the woman he loved, he
woke up to a new day, full of possibilities.
And so do we.
He is
risen. He is risen indeed. For you and for me.