Sermon "Resurrection and Reconcilation" San Carlos Community Church Third Sunday of Easter May 1, 2022

This time of year, the very beginning of spring, has seen many great events take place. Our great Civil War came to an end this time of year, as did World War II in Europe. At the same time two great American leaders died, President Lincoln from an assassin's bullet and President Roosevelt from a cerebral hemorrhage. 

The ending of the Civil War and World War II were thus bittersweet for Americans, for triumph was mixed with tragedy, as happened at the first Christmas story when a savior was born and yet shortly afterward children were killed. 

After both of these terrible wars, as after all wars, despite the terrible damage, the healing began, and continues until this day. As soon as General Lee surrendered to General Grant, the Union Army's supply wagons opened up and fed Lee's starving soldiers. 

Reflecting in his memoir on the end of the Civil War and the Confederacy’s surrender, he wrote, “I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.”

In the years afterward men who bitterly fought each other were pallbearers at each other's funerals. Confederate General Johnston stood hatless in the rain at General Sherman's funeral procession in New York City. Asked why he did this, he replied "He would have done the same for me."

One of the many tragedies of American history is that this courtesy amongst the general officers did not sink in deep enough or last long enough in parts of the south. After a few years during which former slaves voted and held office, their rights were curtailed, in some cases quite savagely, leading to a long and bitter history which today has not yet come to a conclusion. 

After World War II President Truman and General Marshall carried out their plan to loan billions of dollars to friend and former foe alike. The vast majority of that money was paid back. America's reward for that generosity was a system of alliances that endures to this day and is now hard at work aiding the people of Ukraine and defending democratic government everywhere.

Magnanimity in victory and graciousness in defeat are virtues that did not come from nowhere but came from a long tradition of which we are justly proud. 

Some 2,000 years ago Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth and delivered himself of various utterances steeped in the Psalms and the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel. He healed the sick and worked some miracles. Then, about this time of year, he died. Immediately afterward, the healing began and continues to this day, the work of the Holy Spirit, perhaps the most amazing human work, the most amazing movement of human beings ever. How it began is not entirely clear, for all the accounts we have in the Bible differ widely.

In the Gospel of Matthew, two women, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, go to the tomb, experience an earthquake and find an angel sitting on the rock outside the tomb. The angel tells them: the tomb is empty, Jesus is risen, go tell the others. Before they can do so they encounter Jesus himself. 

In the Gospel of Mark, it is three women, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome who find the angel and the empty tomb and flee. 

In Luke it is Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Joanna, and several other women who find the tomb empty, encounter two angels, flee, tell the others and are not believed. 

In John’s Gospel, the one we read for today, Mary Magdalene discovers the empty tomb herself and runs back to get some help from Simon Peter and John. The two men discover an empty tomb, scratch their heads and go home. "Then the disciples went back to their homes," is all the Bible tells us.

Then Mary Magdalene looks again, sees two angels and finally Jesus himself, who tells her to report back to the others the good news. This is the most important part of all these accounts of the empty tomb. Go tell the others. Go back to your community with the good news. Do not just sit or stand there alone with your amazement. Go, tell the others.

And so they rejoined the others and still all they could do was huddle together in the upper room for a while, doing, so far as the historical record tells us, nothing. 

Then Jesus appeared to them and he breathed the Holy Spirit upon them and then at Pentecost the Spirit came again, this time as fire and that fire still lights up the world.

Even if you are a complete skeptic about the life of Christ, you still have to account for the astonishing appearance of the early church: the transformation of fishermen and peasants and women into articulate, apparently fearless disciples. They certainly received power from somewhere and they witnessed to Jesus in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.

They preached that the ministry of Jesus was not the destruction of the law, but its fulfillment, the fulfillment, as we heard from Peter this morning, of the promise to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to Sarah, Rebekah, to Rachel and so many others. The Gospel is therefore something entirely new, and at the same time, entirely old. The communion of saints is forever, from the call of Abraham and Sarah to our own call to love God and love our neighbors today, to our own call to bind up our nation's wounds and to forge an enduring and just peace among all nations. Thanks be to God.

John 20:1-18

Now on the first day of the week Mary Mag'dalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran, and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him."

Peter then came out with the other disciple, and they went toward the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first; and stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; he saw the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself.

Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not know the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to their homes. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb; and she saw

two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet.

They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him."

Saying this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away."

Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rab-bo'ni!" (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, "Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." Mary Mag'dalene went and said to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord"; and she told them that he had said these things to her.