Is It True?
Luke 24:1-11
Is it true? That’s the question theologian Karl Barth insists is on all of our minds right now. He says that’s the question we bring whenever we gather for worship.
It feels especially pertinent on a day like Easter. It is an ancient question.
Is it true?
God created the earth out of chaos and called it good.
Is it true?
God made a promise with Abraham that his descendants would fill the earth.
Is it true?
When God’s people became captive, God lead them out of slavery and bondage into promise and abundance.
Is it true?
When we were unfaithful, God kept faith with us with a steadfast love. God sent prophets to call us back, even as we turned them away.
Is it true?
God loved the world so much that God sent his only son not to condemn the world but to save it.
Is it true?
Jesus lived among us—ate with outcasts—and forgave sinners. He taught us what it to be like God, And what it means to be truly human.
Is it true?
We rejected God’s son and crucified him.
Is it true?
Now Luke doesn’t waste any time. A man named Joseph took Jesus’ body and buried him. The next day was the Sabbath, so the women must wait until the following day to anoint Jesus’ body and to care for the dead.
But who will roll away the stone?
They get there and the stone is rolled away.
Is it true?
* * *
Is it true? Yes. It’s true.
Resurrection is difficult to believe, and yet it is true. Resurrection is not just difficult for modern, post-Enlightenment people.
Resurrection is not just hard to believe for the doctor, or the scientific researcher, or the engineer. Resurrection is difficult for the writer and the poet. Resurrection is difficult for the theologian and the pastor.
An astrophysicist won’t help you—though they may render you a convoluted answer.
Your Sunday School teacher has just as good of a chance of explaining the resurrection as your philosophy professor.
If you think that finding one of the original disciples will help, think again. If you are looking for an explanation of the resurrection, no explanation will be satisfactory.
* * *
Despite this difficulty, the Gospel of Luke doesn’t try explaining resurrection to us; all we get is an empty tomb.
If I were writing the Gospel of Luke, I would have made a colossal mistake.
(Luke must have had an excellent editor.)
I would have tried to describe resurrection.
I would have chosen to go in to painstaking detail
about the breath re-entering Jesus’ corpse.
What happened when those synapses fired again?
Maybe, as soon as Jesus stood up for the first time, he would have defiantly dusted salt off of his shoulder.
I would have conjured up some elaborate scheme for Jesus to roll away the stone. (Do you think maybe he used the linen cloths to make some type of pulley system?)
My resurrection scene would have been corny and tinny, which is to say, it would have been a distraction to true faith.
It would have been a terrible read; I don’t commend to it anyone.
By the grace of God, it would have probably been omitted from the biblical canon.
Luke, though, doesn’t take the bait; he doesn’t try to explain the resurrection. He just places us at an empty tomb.
Confused. Uncertain. A little scared. (This is often out initial experience of resurrection—isn’t it?) Doubtful. Suspicious. Overwhelmed.
Luke leaves us wondering, “Is it true?”
* * *
It reminds me of a sign that I once saw a few of years when I was visiting the Holy Land. We visited many of the places where Jesus lived and did his ministry. At nearly every destination, someone had built a chapel.
There is where Jesus grilled fish for the disciples—chapel. This is where Peter’s house may have stood—chapel. Perhaps, this is where the empty tomb could have been—but now it is a chapel. And so on.
On the door of these chapels would be a sign: “No explanations inside the church please.” Now I am not one for souvenirs—nor am I one to raid relics from foreign lands—but I wanted to abscond with one of those signs!
The purpose of the sign was to prevent tour guides from talking too much. But we could also use one of those signs to stop preachers from saying too much about resurrection. Every Church could use a sign that sign “No explanations inside please.”
Rather, feel the awe. Feel the mystery. Stand at the empty tomb wondering “Is it true?” Stand at the empty tomb and realize that your tomb will be empty too. Stand at the empty tomb and know that there is triumph in the midst of suffering. Stand at the empty tomb, and know that because Christ lives, you, too, will live.
* * *
While the women were standing at the empty tomb processing these feelings, two messengers of the Lord appeared. They have come to preach to the women.
First, they ask a question to the women. Then they respond to the question that must have been on their minds: Is it true? The messengers say “He’s not here; he’s risen. He already told you that he must be handed over to sinners, be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”
But the question the messengers ask really rattles me. It shakes everything that I think know. These words call everything into question. Their question gets to the molten core of Christian faith. They ask the women: Why do you look for the living among dead?
That may the best question ever asked: Why do you look for the living among the dead?
Luke doesn’t try to explain resurrection to us; what we get is another question. He doesn’t jump to answers. Luke gives us a new question to ask whenever we encounter empty tombs. He gives us a new question to ask when encounter emptiness and despair. We have a new question to ask when we are overwhelmed by heaviness of the world.
Why do you look for the living among the dead?
This questions helps re-frame the way Christ followers see the world.
Resurrection gives us a whole new reality.
The prophet Isaiah once heard God say: “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.”
You are being beckoned into a new creation.
“Be glad and rejoice forever in what God is creating.”
The old is gone; and the new is here.
Resurrection changes everything.
Resurrection alters our perception of the world and changes where we look. It re-orients our gaze in the world and shuffles our priorities. It fosters in us a disposition for hope and love that knows no end.
* * *
We come to the empty tomb asking: Is it true?
But Easter is not ultimately about our questioning of the resurrection. Resurrection is not something that we either believe or we don’t. Resurrection is what calls everything we’d otherwise believe into question.
A true Easter is really about allowing the resurrection to question us. We come with one question, and the empty tomb asks its own question:Why do you look for the living among the dead?
* * *
Many of you have heard me speak of Gregory Boyle before; he is a bit of a hero of mine. Father Boyle is a Jesuit priest who has worked in the inner-city of Los Angeles for decades. There he founded Homeboy Industries. By providing a wealth of opportunities and relationships, Homeboy Industries tries to stop people’s involvement with gangs.
He was once invited as a guest on Dr. Phil’s television show. The producers dedicated the episode to potential gang members. Father Boyle worked closely with Dr. Phil’s producers trying to tone down some of the wild ideas they had for the show.
But when Father Boyle came out on the stage of the television set in front of a live audience, he was immediately horrified by the optics. There were two large props that in the middle of the set. One prop was a beautiful mahogany coffin. The other prop was a perfect replica of a jail cell.
Dr. Phil flew teenagers in from all over the country—mostly teenagers were on the brinks of gang involvement.
Dr. Phil grabbed the children by the lapels. In front of their distraught mothers, he said, “Don’t you see that you choice will only lead to here or here—to death or to prison.” It happened again and again.
Eventually, Father Boyle couldn’t take it any longer.
“Phil…” he sneered, "these kids know this. They know it better than we do. They know it will end in death or in prison. They don’t care!”
Dr. Phil was trying to save these kids by offering them more information about the consequences of their choices. But Father Boyle has learned that such information is irrelevant. He knows change is not made because they read the right article, or got to a Bible study, or heard the truth from Dr. Phil. It isn’t information that changes people; it is experiences.
* * *
I am not convinced that we are here today to acquire more information about resurrection. It is not explanations that we need today. What need are witnesses—like Father Boyle.
Those—who like the messenger at the tomb—help reorient our gaze as ambassadors of the new creation. We need people to remind each other of what God has done, and, perhaps even more urgently, what God is doing today.
Easter is not a commemoration of a resurrection long past. Rather, it is the experience of the resurrected Christ today. And we need witnesses like you.
We need each other standing as witnesses of the new creation waving our arms calling each other home when one feels the piercing pain of despair—or when the sting of death still feels so very real—or when all hope is drained from the body.
We need witnesses to ask: Who are we becoming in the light of the risen Christ?
* * *
Southern writer Flannery O’Connor once wrote that she “considers resurrection to be one of the true laws of the physical world.” For her, “death, decay, destruction are the suspension” of the resurrection—"not the other way around.”
It would appear to me that she heard the question, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” And then she took that question pretty seriously.
When we respond to that question with our whole lives, we begin to see what is true and what isn’t true.
First, what isn’t true:
It is not true that death has the final word.
It is not true that we are defined by our despair.
It is not true that we are the sume of our shortcomings.
It is not true that we are hopeless.
It is not true that we have to accept cruelty and inhumanity.
It is not true that we have to concede to violence and destruction.
And then we begin to ask, “What is true?”
Is it true that death has been swallowed up in victory? Is it true that death has lost its sting?
Yes; it’s true.
Is it true that you are forgiven? Is it is true that love triumphs in the midst of suffering? Is it true that you are loved?
Yes; it’s true.
Is it true that if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation? Is it true that everything old has passed away and everything has become new?
Yes; it’s true.
Is it true that you no longer are defined by shame? Is it true that you are free from our worst inclinations? Is it true that sin has lost its grip?
Yes; it’s true.
It’s true. It’s True.
Yes; it is true:
Christ is alive.