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Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Jesus' singular life threatened both a religion and an empire, so they charged him with heresy and sedition. It is so unfair how something so small can threaten the status quo. Now when I preach on Easter, I like to begin with a joke, you know, for joy. So here it is. Why does the Easter bunny have such a good complexion?
Speaker 1:Because he exfoliates. Oh. Well and okay. Groans groans. Seriously, though, skincare is no joke.
Speaker 1:Last week, I even heard the comedian Bill Burr on Neil Brennan's podcast say, with all seriousness, that he looks good for his age because unlike a lot of other men, he knows how to moisturize. So Bill Burr and the Easter bunny, they know what's up. But now we're kind of a long way from Easter Sunday. So hello. Let me introduce myself.
Speaker 1:I'm Bobby, one of the pastors on the team, and I'm so delighted that you are here today. Today, of course, we join our voices together where we're feeling all that joy or not, and we proclaim yet again Christ has risen. Hallelujah. Now we've been in the gospel of Mark all lent and anytime we spend a bunch of time in one of the gospels, I'm always like, oh, this gospel, this one is my favorite. I heart Mark.
Speaker 1:And one of the neat things Mark does is leave all of this room for the end of the story. And some folks even say that the first part of Mark is basically prologue just so Mark can get to the passion, the story of Christ crucified. And so we remember that story today in its fullness. We began holy week on Palm Sunday, and Jeremy talked about the lead up to the triumphal procession into Jerusalem through the disciples' denial of Jesus' thrice predicted death. And he reminded us that Mark is doing so much more than say, man, these disciples, they just never get it.
Speaker 1:Marx says, yeah. Maybe you wouldn't get it either because it's hard to imagine the scale of confrontation and how it starts and it ends with peace. And then on Good Friday, Scott drew us into the story of the woman anointing Jesus' feet for death. And we see not only her action, but we see that she understood Jesus' self giving love and poured it out just like him. And that's only one interaction Jesus has on his way to the cross where, as Scott put it, God dares to be wasteful and poured out.
Speaker 1:And today, we pick up the rest of the Holy Week story in Mark 14. But, of course, before we dive in, let's take a moment to pray. God of the sunrise, we saw you in humble places this holy week, washing feet, offering bread, speaking hard truths about the future, praying in the garden, being deserted and alone. We waited in holy vigil, holding our breath with you in the tomb. And now we see you on Easter Sunday no longer bound by death and hate.
Speaker 1:And as we trace the story again today, we take a moment to take care. We breathe in a little more peace, and we breathe out some of your shared passion and suffering. We know that there is still so much pain in the world, in our relationships, in our bodies, and minds, and we sit here in need of Easter again. From the top of our heads to the bottom of our feet. May resurrection life pull us forward to Jesus.
Speaker 1:Amen. So we wrap up the gospel of Mark together today, and we'll go a little low before we get to Easter's high. But first, here's my question. How often do your nightmares come true? Now it's Easter, not Halloween, I know, but just humor me.
Speaker 1:Just last week, I had a bad dream where I was trying to escape a building that looked a lot like it was from The Handmaid's Tale. And I ran and turned a corner, and I ran and turned a corner, and I could not find the door to my escape. And I can't even tell you what was chasing me. Who knows? Maybe it was that exfoliated Easter bunny.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's terrifying. Hard to say. But usually, my nightmares, they don't come true. And today, we drop into Jesus' nightmare, the one that actually happened. And while there are so many depictions of Jesus as this pitiable victim, I think he operates with this curious amount of control.
Speaker 1:Like, he's saying to every force that violates him, you made this nightmare, but I'll wake you up from it. So we're thrown into a dark scene. It's night, and the high priest and chief priests and elders and scribes, they gather to look for just the right testimony to find cause to kill Jesus. But the gathered testimony is a mess of contradictions. And in exasperation, the high priest asks, are you the Messiah, the son of the blessed one?
Speaker 1:I am, said Jesus, and you will see the son of man sitting at the right hand of the mighty one and coming in the clouds of heaven. Now Jesus is quiet at first. He doesn't dignify the lies that are swirling around him, but he does speak up about his identity, which is funny because for most of Mark's gospel, Jesus has been trying to keep his identity under wraps. And when he tells this cobbled together court, meaning under the guise of the night, that he is the picture of the prophet Daniel's vision where the son of man or the truly human one comes down from heaven to usher in a kingdom that will never end. He's telling them that contrary to how it looks, where it counts, they have no real power to judge him.
Speaker 1:And with his silence and few words, Jesus judges them. It's a strange sort of climax that in this dark place, Jesus steps into the light. The next morning, the nightmare continues. The religious leaders are in cahoots with the state, and it turns out that both sides want Jesus dead, and one can't do it without the other. Jesus is hauled before the Roman governor Pilate, and Pilate asks him, are you the king of the Jews?
Speaker 1:And take note, this is not a gentle question. Pilate is not a good guy. The ancient philosopher Philo described Pilate as naturally inflexible, a blend of self will and relentlessness. So how do you think a merciless governor meant to keep peace in this region for Rome puts a stop to a movement that is hedging on rebellion? Well, by squashing it, of course, and making it look like he is not to blame.
Speaker 1:So Pilate asks the crowd, I'll free one of two men. The choice is up to you. Jesus, whom Pilate has called the king of the Jews, and that's not a compliment, by the way. It's a threat. Or Barabbas whose name can be translated as son of the father, and that is eerie as if he and Jesus have the same nickname.
Speaker 1:One being jailed for violence and the other for peace. And the crowds yell, crucify Jesus. Why? What crime has he committed? Asked Pilate.
Speaker 1:But they shouted all the louder, crucify him. Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged and hauled him over to be crucified. Okay. We've traced two twin trials, one religious and one Roman.
Speaker 1:And notice how the story doesn't put God at the center of this nightmare. God's no puppet master pulling the strings. It's clear that there are two institutions moving the plot along, one of faith and one of jurisdiction, and both are threatened by Jesus. Jesus, the guy in the tunic who spent most of his time outside surrounded by poor people, who told stories about a better world and made people feel like they could be free. Jesus' singular life threatened both a religion and an empire, so they charge him with heresy and sedition.
Speaker 1:It is so unfair how something so small can threaten the status quo. And you know what is so true here? You can do everything right. You can make really good choices. You can live from your values and still end up in a nightmare.
Speaker 1:The end of a marriage, the friend who hates your guts, the luck that is never on your side. It does you no good to deny the brutal truth that you bear witness to in the world, that being human is hard, and that there are no guarantees that you'll stay safe. I'm so sorry for the times that real life is even worse than the one that we dream about. So we make space for that even on Easter Sunday because there is no way you all showed up here today with everything in your life just perfect. With that awareness, we go to the cross.
Speaker 1:At nine in the morning, they crucify Jesus, and the charge above his head reads like this. Look at this guy, beaten and hardly breathing, quite the king of the Jews. And in his death, Jesus keeps company with criminals crucified on his left and right. His friends are nowhere to be found. At noon, a chilling darkness settles over the land and we're meant to remember the judgment of the darkness plagues in Exodus.
Speaker 1:It's divine shade on Rome's perversion of peace. And then at 03:00 the people hear Jesus cry out, my God. My God. Why have you left me here? And with a loud cry Jesus breathed his last, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
Speaker 1:Now these two verses together might be the most mind bending verses in the bible. When we read them in the NIV translation, we get a lot of space between the two instances. Death, new paragraph, curtain torn. But in the text, the two sentences are actually joined together. It's Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two.
Speaker 1:Immediately, there is a cosmic shift, a curtain torn in two. What's up with that? The last time Mark used the verb, to tear or to split, was all the way back in Mark one verse 10. Jesus is baptized, and heaven is torn open as the spirit descends on him like a dove. And these two references, the sky torn and the temple curtain torn, are about removing barriers that we think exist between us and God.
Speaker 1:You think God is far off in heaven and you are down here below? The baptized Jesus tears that idea in two. You think God is hiding out in a temple and you need incantation to access holiness, the crucified Jesus tears that idea in two. You think God is far away from you when life has bowled you over? I mean, you see the pattern now.
Speaker 1:When you have reached the bottom, fallen into a low place, maybe that's exactly where the barrier you thought existed between you and God is ripped in two. Maybe it's right there at a scary beginning or a crushing ending that you fall right through to grace. Sometimes we rush out of Jesus' death moment, but when we stay just a little longer and really look at it, we come to affirm this truth. There is no place so low, so profane, so horrific that God is unwilling to go. And I know that doesn't make sense of any hell on earth that happens in the first place?
Speaker 1:Why do we have this freedom to forgive and then throw it away for revenge? Why do we shrink our humanity with hate instead of expanding it with love? Why do we battle and strike out and lie about so much just to feel safe? Because we can. Because we're hurting.
Speaker 1:Because we're so afraid. Jesus didn't come to show us how mighty and powerful God is. While might and power might be very true parts of God, Jesus came to show us that we are capable of such horror. And not once will God turn that horror back on us. God will absorb it.
Speaker 1:God will be lowered into it. God will transform it. Death will become new life. So we're here on Easter Sunday. When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome bought spices so they might go to anoint Jesus' body.
Speaker 1:Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb, and they asked each other, who will roll away the stone from the entrance of the tomb? But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. And as they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and the right side being the symbolic place of solidarity. And the women were alarmed. Don't be alarmed, said the young man.
Speaker 1:You are looking for Jesus, the Nazarene who was crucified. He has risen. He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go tell his disciples and Peter, he is going ahead of you to Galilee.
Speaker 1:There you will see him just as he told you. Now in that Easter morning story, what stands out to you? Maybe the presence of three women and no dude disciples? Interesting observation. There's Mary Magdalene whose name could even mean the tower.
Speaker 1:Another Mary, maybe Jesus' mother, but seen through the lens of discipleship. She's made it to the end when others fell away. There's Salome, possibly the mother of James and John, nicknamed sons of thunder, who with force like that strangely aren't there, but their mother is. And maybe you're like, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:The women, Bobby. We get it. But what's up with this man in white? Is he an angel, a martyr, a reminder of Jesus' mountaintop transfiguration? Yes to all?
Speaker 1:And finally, maybe you noticed the tomb where death was hiding has become the classroom of resurrection. I mean, can you imagine it? These women on their way to the tomb, they think they're walking to the tragic, bitter end. They think they'll find a lifeless body and treat it with love respect. And after that, they'll figure out what to do with all of their grief.
Speaker 1:But it doesn't happen like that. They're told to get going, to head for Galilee, to go back to where it started in the beginning. Back in chapter one, Jesus came to Galilee to proclaim the good news that God was not far off but near. As close as this new teacher's gestures, as curious as his stories, as good as every healing left in his wake. The gospel of Mark is a never ending story.
Speaker 1:When you get to the end and you think you are left with nothing, you loop back to the beginning where all you can see is hope. I think Mark wants you to know, to really experience for yourself that the Jesus story never ends from Galilee to Jerusalem back to Galilee around and around and around we go again. But here's the funny thing. For a resurrection story, we never actually see the goods. Mark doesn't deliver a shiny resurrected Jesus.
Speaker 1:He just says, get going. Start again. You'll meet Jesus in all of the places you always met him. Now I know it looks like Mark's gospel goes on past verse eight, but it is widely believed that while those endings were added pretty early sometime in the second century, they weren't part of what Mark wrote. And that's not a secret.
Speaker 1:If you open up your bible, you will find a footnote, and down at the bottom of the page, it will explain that what follows after verse eight was added later. And that's perfectly cool. Later, Christians wanted to pass on a picture of what unfolded. But for Mark, maybe a more complete ending was just too much. Maybe when he tries to explain everything, he realizes that we lose the mystery of resurrection, and we risk missing the point.
Speaker 1:Remember, Mark has been doing this all the way along. We've been talking about it for months now. Mark wants you to discover Jesus for yourself. So we'll end today with what we know to be Mark's ending, his effort to turn the story over to you. Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb.
Speaker 1:They said nothing to anyone because they were afraid. Come on. After everything, they don't get it right? The women were told to go and tell the disciples and Peter that the resurrected Jesus would meet them in Galilee, and they run and they gasp and they say nothing, and they are afraid. Think about all of the times in Mark's gospel.
Speaker 1:Jesus told people after a sacred encounter that they should probably shush up about it, and finally, we're hearing the permission we have been waiting for. Speak. Speak now. Speak up. And instead, these women are silent and afraid.
Speaker 1:And, honestly, I kinda like it because it does us no good to make the women so heroic that they lose their humanity. No. These women, they are disciples and apostles just like every other disciple and apostle. They followed. They loved.
Speaker 1:They led. They served. They chickened out. They found their voice. They tried again.
Speaker 1:They had to have. We would not be here telling the story of what they saw if they didn't gather the strength to try again. Their faith and their silence and their fear belong perfectly in the story because it is so human. And Jesus came to tell us he'll meet us right here, right here, in every part of our humanity. So now it's over to you to see in every ending some sort of new beginning no matter how scary that feels to tell what Jesus has done for you maybe with your words or with your love or your peaceful way through conflict.
Speaker 1:You'll feel like you get it wrong some of the time, maybe even when it counts the most. And this is the beautiful thing about Mark's flawed messengers in the resurrection story. Even in their fear, they don't fail. In fact, they never could. The story was too good not to overcome their fears and yours because resurrection, it finds you even when you struggle to believe.
Speaker 1:This is what makes it Easter Sunday, the bright, warming sun of your faith. Let us pray. Loving God, thank you for this never ending story from every end to a new beginning. It's a lot to get to Easter. The highs and the lows, the sorrow and the exaltation, the abandonment, and the ever present friendship of God.
Speaker 1:So as we move into Eastertide, the fifty day season your church has carved into the calendar to explore discipleship, won't you invite us into deeper devotion, more mystery, more grace, more peace, more beauty, more joy, more life. May we practice all of it world without end. Amen.
Speaker 2:Hey, Jeremy here, and thanks for listening to our podcast. If you're intrigued by the work that we're doing here at Commons, you can head to our website, commons.church, for more information. You can find us on all of the socials commonschurch. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel where we are posting content regularly for the community. You can also join our Discord server.
Speaker 2:Head to commons.churchdiscord for the invite, and there you will find the community having all kinds of conversations about how we can encourage each other to follow the way of Jesus. We would love to hear from you. Anyway, thanks for tuning in. Have a great week. We'll talk to you soon.