The Uncooperative Corpse...

 

The World’s Most Uncooperative Corpse…

 

Luke 24:1-12
24:1 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared.

24:2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb,

24:3 but when they went in, they did not find the body.

24:4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them.

24:5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.

24:6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee,

24:7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again."

24:8 Then they remembered his words,

24:9 and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.

24:10 Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles.

24:11 But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.

24:12 But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

 

Everyone expected Jesus to stay dead. These people were quite used to people who died staying dead. Back in that day, a person could die from a head cold, or a Summer dip in bacterially-infested waters. Why, a person could die from an attack by robbers along the Jericho Road—just ask the near-death victim in the story of the Good Samaritan. Of course, one could die by crossing a Roman soldier, especially if you weren’t a Roman citizen, or if they didn’t like the color of your skin—sure glad we don’t have modern cops shooting people for that reason in our time… Of course you could die for being “convicted” of a crime, real, imagined, or trumped up by your religious enemies. This is pretty much what happened to Jesus. Religious leaders were not happy with his brand of evangelism, saw him as a threat to their gig, and convinced the local authorities that he was dangerous. Pilate, the local prefect, wasn’t convinced, but Jesus was  a nobody to him, the religious leaders thought THEY were somebody, and Pilate just knew they were all trouble to his cushy patronage job , so he wussed out and gave permission for Jesus to be punished—capitally. The cross was an “entertaining” way to carry out the “sentence”—kind of like the electric chair in a town park where the people could bring a picnic and watch a scourged man suffocate to death. (Their idea of entertainment was different back then—like watching a really bad Netflix movie today.)

 

No, these people fully expected their dead to stay dead. Tombs, catacombs, and graveyards were a big business, for this reason. The wealthy folk—Bezos (river trader), Gates (abacus programmer), and Musk (horseless chariots) had rock-hewn tombs; the middle class had community caves, such as the catacombs; and the poor had the above-ground graves outside the city gates, near the garbage dumps. When the Bible talks about “throwing someone into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth,” it would be into this paupers’ gravesite outside the protective wall of the city where the poor families would gather to grieve (weeping) and near where the wild dogs were chowing down on the garbage (gnashing of teeth). Death was no stranger to these folks, and their dead just plain stayed dead, giving them no problems.

 

The main characters in today’s scripture story from Luke were already banking on this “the dead stay dead” track record. The women show up at the tomb where Jesus had been laid by a kind, wealthy guy named Joseph of Arimathea, who owned a nice final resting spot with a garden view. The women came to grieve the loss of their friend, I’m sure, but the text says they brought burial spices to cover the body with, which was the custom when a body was buried in a rock-hewn tomb. They were obviously expecting to find Jesus’ body, since he was dead. We know Jesus was dead because the gospel witnesses describe how, after dying on the cross, a soldier rammed a spear into his side, just to make sure. Those who connived with the authorities to have him put to death must have been satisfied that he was dead, too, as they had left after watching the public spectacle of his crucifixion. No, Jesus was quite dead, so the women came, out of love, respect, and maybe even a desire to honor him one more time, bearing spices for a proper burial.

 

The eleven remaining disciples of Jesus had run off in fear after his crucifixion. Their leader was dead now, and even though he tried to tell them that in his case, this was not going to be a permanent condition, they went with their death traditions and their fears, and fled. We know from other gospel accounts that they clearly were now rudderless (a real problem for a bunch of fishermen), and had no idea what to do, so they planned to return to their trades and most likely fade back into the fabric of first-century Palestine. (The Gospel of John tells us that they went fishing, for example.) 

 

Each year on Easter weekend, Christians rehearse the story of that first Easter when Jesus became an uncooperative corpse. Like he warned he would, he did not stay dead. Now we could spend a lot of time in this message—as I did in so many Easter sermons over 36 years of pulpit ministry—waxing eloquent on how Jesus was not just “revived” from a physical death. While this would have been a miracle equaling that which he performed on Lazarus, who had also been quite dead for three days, this is not what happened to Jesus. Oh, of course he became alive again, but our theology and the witness of scripture believes that he was raised as what Paul called “the first-born of the dead” or the “Second Adam,” meaning something far more significant occurred in what we simply call the “resurrection.” It is the belief of the church that Jesus was raised in a whole different “mode” of human-being—as a timeless, incorruptible one, with a body that would not again decay or yield to disease—a body that could walk the earth, eat roasted fish, get poked, prodded, and even hugged, but one that could also exist in the cosmic, eternal realm of the Divine we call “heaven.” This new body/being Jesus was raised to be could walk through walls and locked doors. It could pop into our time and out of it, just as easily, at least according to the scriptural witness. In describing him as the “Second Adam,” the Apostle Paul was trying to tell us that in the resurrection, Jesus was “created” as the new type of “man” (human) that would be the prototype for all humans of faith in the “second resurrection,” or when God brings the human age to its final fruition. So we see that Jesus was so much more than just an uncooperative corpse, or an inconveniently un-dead guy! The epistle of I John 3 verse 2 says, Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is, meaning in that day, we who have benefitted from what Jesus has “new-birthed” into the world in the resurrection, will “be like him,” or will have this new and divinely, eternally improved self. Ever wonder if you will recognize others in heaven? This seems to be the “yes” answer you were looking for! While Jesus’ disciples DIDN’T recognize him immediately, it was most likely because they weren’t EXPECTING him to be alive! If you ever ran into someone you fully believed to be stone dead, you might not recognize them right away, either.

 

Now, let’s look at the Easter text from Luke again (although the one from John is just as convincing). The women were coming to bury a dead friend. Instead, they found him to be alive, which ruined their plans. After the shock wore off, and the “two men in dazzling clothes” (most likely angels) clued them in, their fears subsided and they ran off to tell Jesus’ disciples about what had happened. The other gospel witness says they were “amazed and perplexed.” I would guess! 

 

There’s a whole other sermon here, by the way. Several times throughout my ministry I preached on how the women were our salvation in this story. The disciples—the ones who SHOULD have gone to the tomb on the third day, since they had been TOLD by Jesus he would be raised, ran and hid. My theory is that if the WOMEN hadn’t shown up at the tomb, God might have just given up on the whole scheme, figuring that if the ones closest to Jesus wouldn’t believe, what would be the chance for the rest of the world? But the women DID come, and Jesus DID appear to them (or at least to Mary Magdalene, depending on how you read the gospel witness), and they DID run off to inform the disciples, and here we are—Christ followers, and “heirs to the promise, possibly because of their faithfulness!

 

So, for the women, Jesus may have been an uncooperative corpse, but they were thrilled to experience this epiphany! The Disciples? Not really so much. Luke says they initially would not believe what the women were telling them. Only after they discovered the resurrection truth for themselves (and in the case of Thomas, after he poked at the side of Jesus) did they believe and even begin to understand what a brilliant event had occurred. Even then, though, they found Jesus to be an uncooperative corpse, now that he was no longer dead. Their plans to be reassimilated into life in Palestine would be jinxed by this no-longer-dead Jesus. He would find them fishing and tell them to go “fish for people.” He would nag Peter three times to “feed my sheep,” knowing that Peter had a penchant for saying one thing and doing another. Jesus was even more of a “bother” resurrected than he was in his first iteration!

 

Now the disciples would have to “go to Jerusalem and wait until the Holy Spirit came upon them,” and would then have to “go into Judea, Samaria and all the world, making disciples and baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” They would scatter, led by the spirit and prompted by persecution and threats on their lives. One would be exiled to an island called Patmos. The rest would eventually die as martyrs, giving their very lives in service to this uncooperative corpse, Jesus Christ. Had Jesus just stayed dead, it would have been so much easier for his first-century followers—but then, there would have been no more followers in the second and third and fourth centuries, nor would the church have been born. And where would we be today? Just as lost and clueless and trapped in our corruptible humanity as was everyone who came before that reborn Jesus shook up life on Planet Earth for all eternity.

 

Friends, we are still being shaken up right now by the un-dead Jesus! His promises are just still as alive and available as they were from the beginning of his being born into the world and after being fully “activated” by his resurrection. And so is his commission to “go into all the world preaching the gospel.” The church would often love to go back to its ancient traditions, hold on to its comfortable doctrines of yesteryear, resist change that is just as inconvenient as that Son of God living-again corpse was to the first disciples. Because Jesus is ALIVE and still calling, inspiring, leading, and empowering us today, we are prohibited from treating his teachings and miracle-working as just history, as merely unchanging dogma. Jesus still wants to save, forgive, and love every single human being into someday “being like him, when we shall see him as he IS”…IS, now and evermore! Let us not hold on to a “form of godliness but denying the power thereof,” as the writer to young Timothy would say. The power available to us today is energized not by doctrines and traditions of the past, but by a LIVING SAVIOR who has kept up with the times! A LIVING JESUS offers a daily challenge to living disciples, and even to those desiring a connection with the Divine. The LIVING JESUS compels us to look at all things Divine through him.

 

A STORY: I was a fan of the TV COP show, NYPD Blue. In one episode, detective Andy Sipowicz, the focus of the series, goes into a diner for a cup of coffee, as he is deeply grieving the death of his son, Andy, Jr., a young cop who was killed while on duty. He sits at the counter, beside an older fellow in a flannel shirt, and wearing a baseball cap. As he leans forward to sip his coffee, he sees that the person sitting on the other side of the man is his deceased son, Andy, Jr. With much excitement, he begins to inquire of his son how this is possible, and shower him with questions. Through his horrific grief, he tells his son how much he loves him. As he is trying to talk to Andy, Jr., the older fellow between them keeps getting in the way, and finally detective Andy lashes out at him. The man simple says, two times, “Talk through me! Talk through me!” Puzzled, Andy leans forward and remarks to the visage of the deceased Andy how rude this other man is being. Young Andy says, “Dad, don’t you know who this is? This is Jesus! He wants you to do your talking through him.” I always loved that scene, and imagine that the Apostle Paul could have been the “writer” recording it, as he makes quite a point in his writings, reminding us to “Talk through Jesus.”

 

What we joyously celebrate on Easter is the same thing that makes our lives more complicated, keeping us from just doing what WE want to do, and enjoying the selfish ambition of fulfilling our own wishes—the uncooperative corpse of Jesus Christ. But because he pulled off that “first born of the dead” thing, now we are conscripted into a mission and a calling far greater than just our little, solitary life. We are now part of the ”Body of Christ,” another way of saying that we are now ALL destined to be “uncooperative corpses” in the great unfolding of the Kingdom of God. We can’t go back to fishing, and when we have those moments of feeling God’s words are an ”idle tale,” that uncooperative corpse “shows up” and freshens the wonderful Spirit he has put into each of us, reminding us to “Talk through me!” Oh, and men, every time you gaze at the “miracle” of women, remember that their “showing up” probably saved our derrieres, on that first Easter. 

 

So PRAISE GOD for the undead Jesus! Hallelujah that Joseph of Arimathea’s gift of a tomb turned out to only be a three-day timeshare! May the world’s most Uncooperative Corpse richly bless you this Easter, and may the life you lead be not EASY, but one with purpose, with inspiring and increasing meaning, and without an expiration date!

 

Hallelujah! He is RISEN! He is UNDEAD, indeed! Amen.