God’s new world – Luke 24:1-12, 1Corinthians 1:18-21, 26-30
It is always daunting on Easter Sunday morning to say something adequate about the absolutely new and unexpected event of the resurrection, about the new life we have been given, about the new world God is creating – which, as Martin Niemoller says, “interrupts and runs counter to the uniform rise and fall of the [old] world’s rhythm” – about the new beginning God has made in Jesus.
But I am taking confidence this Easter in two things – the presence of women at the tomb and the presence of this community gathered – in person and on Zoom – this morning.
Every account of the resurrection has three things in common: the tomb is empty, the tomb is found empty on a Sunday morning, and Mary Magdalene is there. In the gospel of John, she comes alone to the tomb, in Matthew, she comes with “the other Mary”, a Mary obviously known to Matthew’s community, in Mark, with Mary the mother of James, and Salome (who church tradition – just to confuse us – also calls Mary). But in Luke there are four other women – possibly more. Verse ten says, “It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and the other women with them”.
The writer of Luke has a habit of highlighting the women. Throughout this gospel there are uniquely Lukan references to the faith and faithfulness of women; the accounts of Elizabeth (1:41-45), Mary (1:38-56) and Anna (2:36-38) at Jesus’ birth, women Jesus ministers to (the widow of Nain (7:1-17), the crippled woman (13:10-17), a woman in the crowd (11:27-28), the daughters of Jerusalem (23:27-28)), women who minister to Jesus (the woman who washes Jesus’ feet (7:36-50), Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna and others (8:2-3), Mary and Martha (10:38-42)) and the stories Jesus tells about women (the lost coin (15:8-10), the persistent widow (18:1-8)).
Why is there this emphasis on women – right across the gospels, but especially in Luke – being present at the empty tomb?
There are several reasons. As Jeanette reminded us on Friday, death and tending to the dead was, and often still is, women’s work. Luke is also highlighting the faithfulness of these women who continued to follow Jesus, as disciples should (23:55), even when others fled. But there is another reason why women are persistently present in the resurrection stories.
I found a parallel this week watching a New Zealand film produced by Taika Waititi. Throughout the film, as in most of his films, were Māori actors; in lead, supporting and background roles, playing high school dropouts and school principals, nurses, and obstetricians. Because Waititi wants indigenous representation to be normal. “I make normal stories,” he says, “about normal people who happen to be brown.” Māori people are a normal part of the world Waititi is creating.
And this is why women are present at the resurrection, indelibly part of the resurrection accounts. Women are a normal part of the new world that God is creating. Their presence is one more sign that resurrection has begun, that God’s new world is breaking in. William Loader writes, “Having women as witnesses to the resurrection was part of a consistent subversiveness which belonged at the heart of Jesus’ approach.” The new life has started.
The angels, part of God’s new world, address the women as disciples, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” they ask them. “He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” The implication being that, as disciples, they were with Jesus in Galilee; and that, as disciples, they heard Jesus tell his disciples that he would suffer and die and rise again (9:22 and 18:31-33), and now, as disciples, they “remember his words”, verse eight, they believe, and they go and tell, “all this to the eleven and to all the rest.” As we just sang this morning, as “apostles to apostles!”
The eleven and the rest, however, are caught between the old world and the new. To them, verse 11 says, “these words seemed…an idle tale and they did not believe them”.
But there are signs of new life, signs the new world is breaking in. Peter gets up and runs to the tomb. He too sees the tomb empty, and returns amazed, one step away from believing.
We too are caught between the old world and the new.
We look around us and see a world of violence, hatred, greed and suffering and are tempted on this Easter Sunday to say that this news of new life, of a new way of being, of a world of kindness, love, generosity, and compassion is just an idle tale.
But there are still faithful disciples; still following Jesus, still remembering his words, still sharing his love and his life, their love and their lives, with others.
The theologian Jurgen Moltmann (who is now 96) was a German soldier in World War 2. He spent the last months of the war in a POW camp in Scotland, and there he was shown, as the war ended, images from the camps in Belsen and Auschwitz. He was overcome with shame, of having been, unknowingly, implicit in these horrors, and the only future he could see ahead of him was one filled with despair. But in this deep depression, a chaplain gave him a Bible and he began to read it and in the story of the crucifixion, Moltmann encountered a God who understood what it was to experience suffering and shame.
In 1947 he was given permission to attend a Christian conference that brought together young people from around the world. The Dutch participants asked if they could meet with any German POWs who had fought in the Netherlands. Moltmann went to meet them full of fear and guilt and shame, feelings that intensified as the Dutch Christians spoke of the pain Hitler’s Germany had inflicted on their lives and on their country. But they did not speak in a spirit of vindictiveness but came to offer forgiveness. They embodied the love Moltmann had read about in the story of Christ, and it turned his life upside down. He discovered resurrection. In his own words, “God [looks] on us with ‘the shining eyes’ of his eternal joy”. He found new life, a new way of being. He found himself in the new world God is creating.
It was unnamed Christians, normal Christians, Christians whose kindness, love, generosity, and compassion embodied the Christ they served who changed Moltmann’s life. And it is still normal Christians serving Christ who change the lives of others.
“Consider your own call,” says Paul, “not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak…to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised…, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are.” This is the source of our new life, of God’s new way of life, of the new world that God is creating – “Christ Jesus who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”
This week I have also found a parallel to these Dutch Christians and to these Corinthian Christians as I have been doing the induction for Steve Coster, our new Community Leader, (who will develop our Community Centre and work with young adults and families). And that parallel is all of you! As I’ve been talking with him, stories have come out about how an invitation from this person brought this person to our community, how this encounter transformed that person’s life, how this group have cared for this person, or how this group keep faithfully working away on this issue, how inspiring and challenging and encouraging and helping and healing, and part of a new world that God is creating, these normal Christians in this church are.
So let us all take courage this morning from the women and keep faithfully following, faithfully remembering, faithfully telling, and faithfully living out the new world God is creating. And let us also take courage from the lives of normal Christians lived around us, lives of kindness, love, generosity, and compassion that embody the Christ they serve. Most of all let us take courage from Christ who is or us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption and who is risen indeed!