Since the beginning of Lent, we have shared the unfolding drama of God’s activity in the world; this is the great salvation story that covers the entire Bible from the first chapter to the last. It began where? It began at the beginning with God. God created all things and called them good. God’s intent was original blessing. God made a covenant or committed promise with Abraham and all of his descendents and they became the People of God. Several generations later these people of God found themselves oppressed and enslaved in Egypt. They cried out to God and God rescued them in the great story of the Exodus. God not only rescued them, but led them to the Promised Land. Off and on throughout this story people grumbled, complained and distrusted God. After the people arrived at the Promised Land, they built a nation. There was always the temptation to turn away and king after king led the people to turn away from God to worship the gods of their neighbors. Their betrayal was like committing adultery with God and it led to the destruction of the Temple and a separation called what? The Babylonian Exile. After years of exile, God again rescued the people and the nation of Israel was restored and the Temple was rebuilt. They returned to the covenant with God. Time continued and the people continued to misunderstand what God wanted from and for them even though God sent the Torah or law and the prophets to point them to the way. So God went a step further to lead people to the way God wanted them to live. And that is when we reached the climax of the story, an event so important that time is defined by it. There is time before, B.C. and the era after A.D. What event began this climatic time? The birth of Jesus, the Word made Flesh came into the world to make God and God’s character known and to begin a new age. In Jesus’ life we see God’s character and will expressed in human terms. His life however threatened those who wanted to maintain the status quo and his acceptance of people the religious leaders considered unworthy infuriated them. Once again humanity tragically rejected God. Jesus was betrayed, arrested, publicly humiliated and executed. In his words from the cross, Jesus embodied once again the tenacious love of God saying, “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.” Last week, we were left at the foot of the cross with the scorn and laughter of Jesus’ tormentors still ringing in our ears wondering if God’s grace has lost. Did Jesus’ tormentors have the final say? Was this horror the end? This is where our story picks up today.

READ JOHN 20:1-18

THE SERMON

Can we truly know the despair and then the joy that Mary and the first disciples felt? When Mary first arrived on the scene she thought her beloved Teacher was having to endure one more cruel insult. Someone had stolen his body and had probably thrown it in the dump or out for the animals to eat and she desperately wanted to stop at least that desecration and give his corpse its proper care. I can not imagine the relief and joy that she experienced when she finally recognized Jesus. There are echoes in this part of the story from things that happened in the years before. When Jesus encountered the men who would become his first disciples he asked them, “What are you looking for?” When Jesus encountered Mary in the depths of her despair he asked her almost the same question, “Whom are you looking for?” The ministries of the incarnate, earthly Jesus and the resurrected Jesus began in the same way.^[i] The relief and joy that Mary must have felt when she recognized Jesus! I can understand her desire to embrace him and never let go. Maybe a spark of hope ignited that things were going to be back the way they had been, but Jesus nipped that immediately. Things were not going to be the way they had been before, but he was alive! I wish the Scripture told more detail about this part of the story. I wonder if Mary ran back as fast as she could or if she skipped and danced on the way to the disciples with pure joy. She had seen him with her own eyes and heard his voice; there were no doubts. He was alive! There was more to this story of Jesus than defeat and despair. The dark tomb had become a womb for new life. God’s creative action overcame human sin to bring victory from defeat.

I gave quite a bit of thought to one word in the title for this sermon “Victory Through Defeat.” You see God did not stop the people from rejecting Christ in such a cruel way, but God did not allow their cruelty to stop God from working toward God’s purpose. As George told us last week even through the people’s rejection God said, “I will always love you. You may choose to reject me, even in this horrible way, but nothing, nothing will stop me from loving you through Christ Jesus.” We wish we could avoid suffering. We wish that we could shield ourselves and others we care about from the evil that humans do when they choose curses over blessings, but sin hurts the innocent as well as the guilty. We can have long discussions as we wonder why that is, but we all know that this is the way it is. And so God brought victory through defeat to show us that evil will never have the last word. Sin will not overcome the Light who is “Jesus Christ who came into the world not to condemn the world but so that it might be saved.” (John 3:17)

In some ways it is rather bizarre that we Christians wear an instrument of brutal execution, the cross, around our necks and display it all over the place. Would we wear an electric chair or hangman’s apparatus around our necks? We do this bizarre thing of wearing crosses because of the resurrection, because of Easter. God took an “emblem of suffering and shame” as the old hymn goes and transformed it into a symbol of hope. As the author of the Bible Study that was the inspiration for this sermon series, Bernard Anderson says, “The Cross is the distinctive Christian symbol of God’s victory in apparent defeat. … God had actively entered into the human struggle, changing Jesus’ suffering and defeat into victory by raising him from the dead and inaugurating a ’new creation.’”^[ii]

This is what God does and has done throughout history. God delivers humanity, those who invite God’s participation in their lives; God delivers them from the bondage of evil, sinfulness, and death, redeeming or rescuing them and helping them re-create their lives in a new way. In Jesus, the Liberator has come to set us free from whatever oppresses and binds us. In Jesus, the Way has come to lead us home from whatever exile of alienation our sin has created. In Jesus, the Sacrifice has been made so that no one and nothing can separate us from the love of God.^[iii] We don’t need the Temple in Jerusalem to repair our relationship. We don’t need the High Priest or any priest for that matter, Jesus has done it for us. In Jesus, the risen Messiah we see that God’s will cannot and will not be thwarted by evil. No wonder so many are drawn to celebrate this day.

People today still need to hear this message of hope. People still need the Lord of Life.  I’ve been listening to a song on the country music station that has really stuck with me. It’s by Toby Keith and the first verse is “Yeah the big boss man likes to crack that whip, I ain't nothin' but a number on his time card slip, Gave him 40 hours and a piece of my soul, Puts me somewhere at the bottom of his totem pole. I don't even think he knows my name. Hey, all week long I'm a real nobody But, I just punched out And its paycheck Friday The weekend's here Good God Almighty Gonna get drunk and be somebody.”^[iv] Well, Toby Keith was really close, but he got it just a little wrong. Getting drunk won’t make him a somebody; it just makes him a drunk, but good God Almighty that’s the one who has made him somebody. The message of Easter is for all those who feel like a nobody; who feel like those who have hurt them or stepped on them have won. It says to them, God knows what it’s like to be spit on, to be ridiculed, to be rejected, and guess what they won’t win. They didn’t win over Jesus and God can make sure they won’t win over you if you choose to trust God and follow God’s will for you. You see another message repeated in Scripture over and over again is that human beings have the power to choose. They have the power to follow God’s way or to reject God’s way. Ah, but those who choose God engage the power of the universe in their lives.

I enjoy listening to NPR, National Public Radio. One afternoon several years ago, I listened to an interview with a psychiatric nurse from Tacoma Parks, Maryland. She shared this experience. She was in a discharge meeting for a young girl who was held captive by her rituals and thoughts. The participants in the meeting, the nurse, a social worker, the girl, her parents, and the girl's doctor were trying to make arrangements for her to go home. Making these arrangements was almost impossible because the girl was convinced that the opposite of God now resided in her body, the opposite of God.  She kept interrupting the conversation saying, "It is possible, isn't it? The Bible says it is." Again and again, "It is possible, isn't it? It could be, couldn't it?" Finally the doctor stopped and looked over his half glasses at her and said in a quiet voice. "I'm going to say one thing and one thing only about this. In the Bible and in life, God wins." “The girl seemed calmer and more settled after that.” The nurse continued, "I carry that statement with me as I work for there are few happy endings in my work and few cures."

The message of Easter, the message of the resurrection is God wins; God brings victory out of defeat. This Christ-event, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, is the climatic message of God’s great salvation story. God is with us, creating, acting, initiating, loving, recreating, bringing victory out of defeat, life out of death, and hope out of despair. Now how to get that message out, -- that is where the youth will pick up our story next week. Amen.

Sermon delived by Rev. Nancy Cushman on April 16, 2006.