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People Who Bet Their Lives on Jesus
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Luke 23:50 - 24:12 (New International Version)
Jesus’ Burial 50 Now there was a man named Joseph, a member of the Council, a good and upright man, 51 who had not consented to their decision and action. He came from the Judean town of Arimathea and he was waiting for the kingdom of God. 52 Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body. 53 Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen cloth and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been laid. 54 It was Preparation Day, and the Sabbath was about to begin. 55 The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. 56 Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.
The Resurrection
24 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’” 8 Then they remembered his words. 9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. 10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. 12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.
People Who Bet Their Lives on Jesus
One of these years I think I might just wake up on Easter Sunday, tell those who are interested that the printed version of the sermon will be available on the web site this coming Tuesday but I have decided we are simply going to hear the story from the gospel and sing three or four extra hymns—and all the stanzas to boot.
Now I said I might do that. Part of me thinks it could be the best thing I ever did. Part of me so enjoys preaching that I don’t ever want to take the chance that folks would prefer worship without a sermon. Part of me just doesn’t want to deal with the Board of Deacons at the next meeting because either they would tell me I had no business doing that or that if I didn’t want to preach on a permanent basis that could easily be arranged.
The problem you see is that this day simply defies all attempts to wrap it up in a neat little package. I love the story I read about Eugene Peterson who remembers a preacher from his youth who launched into an Easter sermon, “The Thirteen Incontrovertible Proofs of the Resurrection.” Peterson says the sermon went on for an hour and a half, by which time no one much cared any longer whether the Lord had risen or not.
At the beginning of Luke’s gospel, this author tells someone named Theophilus that he has investigated everything carefully and is now going to write an orderly account…so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed (Luke 1:3, 4). By the time he gets to our text for today he is coming to the end of this first volume and I think he tells the story so his first reader and those in every age who hear what has happened will decide to bet their life on Jesus.
Of all the unlikely characters to do that, the first is Joseph of Arimathea. I think we are never quite sure what to do with this fellow. Luke says he is a good and righteous man, and while that is commendable he did not have enough influence on the council to persuade a majority that Jesus had done nothing to deserve death. But he bets his life on Jesus. It cannot be otherwise.
This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. I realize what I am about to say cannot either be supported or challenged, but from what I know of the Romans and of Pilate, I suggest this is the one and only occasion where the body of someone who is crucified for promoting insurrection is taken by a member of the Jewish council for burial.
Do you know why he would have asked Pilate for the body? I am speculating again, for John tells us the Temple officials did not want the three bodies hanging on the crosses during the sabbath. But the Romans liked nothing better than to have evidence of their swift and brutal justice displayed as a warning against other potential trouble-makers. Joseph then has to identify himself as at least sympathetic to Jesus in the eyes of Pilate. That day you can be sure the Roman version of CSIS opened a file on Joseph of Arimathea.
Joseph also had just submitted his resignation from the council of Jewish elders. Or, to be accurate, once he went public with his love for Jesus and his belief that the coming of God’s kingdom was wrapped up in the ministry of Jesus, his resignation was submitted for him. The council had bet their life on the keeping of their traditions. Joseph bet his life on Jesus.
It wasn’t necessary. The Romans would have thrown the three bodies in a mass grave. But Joseph was going to bet his life on Jesus. Somehow he believed, I think, that this was not the end of what God had started in and through Jesus.
The women bet their lives on Jesus twice. The first time is when they go to the tomb early on the first day of the week with the spices for the body. You know, of course, that this is unnecessary. It is an act of devotion and love, not an attempt at preservation. If you look at verse 55 of chapter 23 in our text, you understand that the women knew Jesus was dead. They come with the burial spices because they had rested on Saturday. But the fact they come with burial spices means they were not expecting to find an empty tomb.
Let me take a bit of a detour for just a minute and talk about what it is we are not celebrating here today. We are not celebrating that Jesus somehow managed to avoid the cross. Luke tells us that at one point the soldiers pulled a fellow out of the crowd, Simon of Cyrene, and made him carry the cross. And you can hear the skeptic suggest, “Maybe the Romans got the wrong fellow. Timing is everything and Simon’s was the worst possible. He got put on the cross and Jesus slipped into the crowd.”
I remember years ago reading the theory of a British scholar named Hugh Schonfield, who said Jesus had planned the whole thing. He didn’t die but somehow managed to take some sort of drug that made it appear he had died. Again he slipped away only to reappear on the first day of the week.
Luke notes that the women saw the tomb and how his body was laid because he wants us to know Jesus was 100% dead. You see, the reason for Easter is resurrection, that out of death God brings new life. It is a stunning surprise to the women.
They too, like Joseph, bet their lives on Jesus because coming to the tomb identified them with him and they were content that it be known that they had loved and followed him. But I said they bet their lives on him twice. The second time comes when they tell the story.
I do love the compelling honesty of the Bible. Did you hear how the first report of Easter was received? But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. The plan should never have been to enlist women as the first Easter witnesses. Their testimony was not accepted as valid. A far better plan would have been for half the group to stay and keep the angels occupied with small talk while the other women recruited a disciple to come and hear the message.
But that, of course, is a silly idea because it was God who decided that the women who had come to express some sort of devotion to Jesus were going to be the first witnesses to the greatest day in history. Having been so blessed by God, they were not going to let a little thing like how a group of frightened, discouraged men might receive the story, lessen their joy and sense of new-found purpose. They were going to bet their life on Jesus.
I recently read about a man named Walter Bouman, who was a professor of theology at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio and who died several years ago. He knew death was coming; he had been diagnosed with inoperable cancer.
Professor Bouman’s grandchildren asked him what he thought heaven would be like and he said, “Great music without station breaks.” The kids weren’t satisfied with that. “But you like Bach and Beethoven,” they said. “What if someone likes Led Zeppelin?” “Then they get a soundproof room,” was the answer.
A reporter got wind that a theology professor was dying and asked to interview him. He asked him how it was he remained so buoyant, so alive, despite knowing the end was near. Bouman said, “My greatest source of encouragement is the Christian story of God into which I was baptized in July of 1929. The Christian news is that Jesus of Nazareth has been raised from death, that death no longer has dominion over him. I have bet my living and now I am able to bet my dying that Jesus will have the last word.”
One of the great painters of the medieval era was a monk who was born Guido di Pietro, but is best known today by the name given him after his death, Fra Angelico, “angelic father.” Most of his paintings are in the monastery of San Marcos in Florence. Perhaps the most famous of his paintings is the announcement of the angel to Mary that she was going to have a son. But Fra Angelico also painted a picture of the resurrection.
The risen and victorious Christ is standing with his feet on a partially opened door in the ground—out of which is peeking and trying to escape a hideous looking demon, Satan, no doubt. It’s not a particularly beautiful picture but as you look at it, it becomes clear what the artist was trying to say.
That terrible figure trying to get out represents everything that those people feared: disease, plague, hunger, war, death itself. But the risen Christ is there with his foot firmly planted on the door.
“Easter is so profound,” wrote Anne Lamott. “Easter says that love is more powerful than death: bigger than the dark, bigger than cancer, bigger than airport security lines. Hope is not about proving anything. It’s about choosing to believe this one thing: that love is bigger than any grim, bleak stuff anyone can throw at us.”
So, my friends, there it is. You see when I read the story, the only conclusion I can come to is that it must be true. If the men who had followed Jesus during his time of ministry in Palestine had been wanting to invent some story of his victory over death they would never have come up with a few women being surprised at the tomb. But I can’t prove it.
I think that’s one of the reasons why flowers are associated with Easter. When I look at the fragile and exquisite beauty of a daffodil that pushes up from the earth when winter is still trying to hold on to our part of the world, I see an unmistakable sign of the Creator. But I can’t prove it.
All any of us can do is what Joseph did, what the women did—bet our lives on Jesus. What I mean by that is at the same time the simplest thing and the most profound, the easiest thing and the most difficult. It’s simple and easy because Jesus is alive and asks us also to follow him in love and in compassion, in peace and in justice. It’s profound and difficult because Jesus is alive and asks us to follow in love and in compassion, in peace and in justice. He will take any of us just as we are and then spend the rest of our lives making us what we can be. And I will bet my life on him.
