“Too Good to Be True?”

Luke 24:1-12 – April 21, 2019

Advertisements often promise us marvelous things. If we wash our clothes with this special detergent, our clothes will be whiter than white, cleaner than clean. The brand new car we see advertised is so shiny and the ride is amazingly smooth. If we buy this fancy shampoo, our hair will become unbelievably sleek and silky. The reality never lives up to the hype. We even have an expression for this: “Too good to be true.”

I wonder whether the disciples felt like this on that Easter morning, so long ago?

We need to go back to Friday, to get a better idea of what was happening. The women did not have time to take proper care of the body of Jesus when it was quickly buried late Friday afternoon, just before sunset. And then after Friday night came, it was the Sabbath. All observant Jews rested on the Sabbath day, as prescribed in the Jewish Law. More than that, it was the time of the Passover, an especially sacred time.

This Sabbath observance must have been especially sad and sorrowful for the followers of the Rabbi Jesus, dispersed as they were. I can imagine some huddling together in the upper room where so short a time before Jesus had led them in that Passover dinner on Thursday evening. Perhaps, a couple more hiding in the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus, a few miles down the road in Bethany. What must have been going through their minds?

The Easter morning story was read for us by Eileen: about the women going to the tomb, shocked to find Jesus’s body gone, and angels there instead. The angels tell the women the Good News, the Gospel message that Jesus is alive again. When they run back to tell the disciples, the men do not believe the women. Here again is what Dr. Luke says: “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.” As we said before, the disciples thought, “Too good to be true.”

The New Revised Standard Version translates verse 11 like this: “¹¹ But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” Rev. Rick Morley, one of the commentators on our Scripture reading from Luke said, “And the disciples thought it was an “idle tale?” How condescending, right? There go those excitable women again…<eye-roll> <knowing-glance to another disciple> <raise of the eyebrows>” [1]

Let’s consider historical context: women in Palestine were second class citizens. They had very prescribed roles in life and in the family, had no standing in court, and could not even be witnesses in a court of law.

However—when Jesus called His disciples, He called both men and women. Both men and women followed Him. The Gospels say Mary sat and learned from Jesus’s teaching just as much as any of the male disciples, and when Martha complained to Jesus about how Mary was not “doing her woman’s job” in serving and doing kitchen duty, Jesus corrected Martha. Not to mention His courteous, egalitarian treatment of women throughout the Gospels—the woman at the well, the woman with the flow of blood, the widow of Nain, just to mention a few. Extremely significant to treat women as equals, especially in that time and place.

So, when the women followers—or, disciples—of Jesus ran back to the others with this witness to the Good News, the Gospel that Jesus is alive!—are we surprised to have the women’s witness dismissed as an “idle tale?” “Too good to be true!”

There is another, sadder side to this “idle tale” business. Rick Morley reflects further: “It’s a popular position in the world and an increasingly popular position in the church. I mean how many people—how many self-professed Christians—take Easter as a nice little hopey-springy cute-bunny-loving pastel-wardrobe-opportunity? How many people who almost never come to church, will come on Easter either because their spouse or mother forced them to—and while they’ll play the game and sing the hymns, they see the Resurrection of Jesus as a metaphor at best, or at worst a cute little myth?” [2]

Yet—this Gospel, this Good News was the women’s real experience! Dr. Luke reports “When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others.” When they ran back to their friends, they did not spout deep theology. They did not expound profound sermons. No, they reported the facts. They told what had happened to them.

Some of these women were at the foot of the Cross on Friday. They had seen Jesus in agony. They witnessed Him suffering for hours, and saw Him die. Some of these same women were now swearing that Jesus was alive again. The angels said so, too!

Rev. Janet Hunt, a Lutheran pastor who has a church in De Kalb, a few dozen miles to the west of us, reflects on this Easter Good News, this Easter promise. She looks at it from a sorrowful perspective. “How will the Resurrection Promise resound in the ears of one whose winter has been long and death has seemed to have had the last say too many times?

“What will it sound like in the ears of one whose week-end is spent in a hospital bed waiting for a risky surgery first thing Monday morning, to the one who has just been arrested for his third DUI and who is waiting his court date, hoping the whole town did not read the police blotter last week, to the one who is afraid to hope that finally this pregnancy will hold?

“What would the gift of life where death has seemed to hold sway mean to those whose fleeing for their lives has left them at our southern border with futures still uncertain? To those whose livelihoods have been destroyed by flooding across our nation’s midsection? To already desperately poor people whose meager existence has been wiped out by natural disaster or disease?

“What does it mean to any and all of these and also to you and me to know that the story does not end with the closing of the tomb on Friday afternoon? Indeed, what if having heard it and believed it, we actually began to live like it was so?” [3]

You and I do not need to preach a sermon, or give deep theological reasons why Jesus is alive. People today need to hear that Jesus IS alive. His life makes a difference. Jesus changes lives—he turns them upside down, and your life—my life—will never be the same again.

Is this first-person testimony too good to be true?

“‘I have seen the Lord’ insists that the ways of love will win over the ways of hate. ‘I have seen the Lord’ confirms that the truth of kindness can be heard over the din of ruthless, callous, and vindictive rhetoric. ‘I have seen the Lord’ gives witness to the fact that there is another way of being in the world — a way of being that is shaped by resurrection, that embodies anything and everything that is life-giving, a way of being that is so counter-cultural, so demonstrative of mercy, so exemplary of the truth of Easter that others will listen to you, watch you, wonder about you and say, ‘Wait a minute. Did I just see the Lord?’” [4]

This—this right here—is where the Gospel begins, with this first-person testimony—the great Good News that Jesus is alive! This great Good News changes everything, for each of us, and for the whole world.

[1] http://www.rickmorley.com/archives/2546

“Idle Talk,” Rick Morley, 2013.

[2] http://www.rickmorley.com/archives/2546

“Idle Talk,” Rick Morley, 2013.

[3] http://dancingwiththeword.com/needing-the-easter-promise-now/

Janet Hunt has served as a Lutheran pastor in a variety of contexts in Northern Illinois. Currently she serves as pastor at First Lutheran, DeKalb, IL.

[4] http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=4571

“True Resurrection,” Karoline Lewis, Dear Working Preacher, 2016.

@chaplaineliza

(Suggestion: visit me at my regular blog for 2019: matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers. #PursuePEACE – and my other blog,  A Year of Being Kind . Thanks!