Passage: This Week's Second Reading

"Dead Man Down Under"

For Michael O’Neill of Middlesbrough, England, death was just a vacation. No, I’m not talking about some elaborate near-death experience here, but a real life variation on Death Takes a Holiday.

On June 2, 2008, Michael decided to take a last-minute trip to Australia to visit a friend and made his plans without telling anyone. His neighbors, who had seen neither hide nor hair of him for days, grew worried and called the police, who broke down the door of his flat only to find that he had disappeared, leaving behind no evidence of what had happened to him.

Honest mistake, right? But it gets weirder. A few weeks later, a death notice appeared in the local paper for a Michael O’Neill, another resident of Middlesbrough, who was about the same age as the intrepid traveler and who had brothers named Kevin and Terry. In a bizarre coincidence, the vacationing Michael’s brothers are also named Kevin and Terry.

Friends and neighbors of the very-much-alive O’Neill figured that their worst fears had been realized. That is, until one of them received a postcard from him, confirming that, while he was indeed Down Under, it wasn’t in the way they had thought. Michael arrived home on August 11 to find his front door smashed in, police watching his flat, and his neighbors, once again seeing him on the street, believing in ghosts.

"Everywhere I am going, people I know are grabbing hold of my hand, saying, I thought you were dead!’" O’Neill told The Daily Telegraph. "They can’t believe it’s me and I’m still alive. I’m a nervous wreck because everywhere I go people keep grabbing me!"

Sorry, Mike, but that’s the natural reaction when someone who’s "dead" returns from Down Under! Jesus himself experienced a similar reception when he, too, returned from the down under of the grave — except that his friends and neighbors had seen him die. They knew it was no vacation.

The events of what we call "Good Friday" left Jesus’ disciples, his closest friends and even his casual acquaintances no doubt shocked at the brutal, painful and shameful way that Jesus had died on a Roman cross. The only saving grace of the whole experience was that at least his body was allowed to be laid in a tomb by his friends instead of being left on the cross for days to rot in public humiliation, as was standard Roman practice.

But it wasn’t like Jesus hadn’t told them where he was going. Unlike Michael O’Neill, Jesus was very clear with his friends that he would be taking a trip down the road toward the cross and the grave. In fact, Jesus had given them his fateful itinerary three times but it says in Luke 18:34 that "the disciples did not understand any of this. It’s meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about."

They were surprised, then, on Sunday morning, to find the tomb door open, the flat stone of his resting place empty and no indication of Jesus’ whereabouts. Matthew even wrote that the Pharisees, with Pilate’s permission, had made the place where Jesus was laid as secure as they could. They put a seal on the stone that was sealing the tomb and posted a guard, but to no avail.

Instead of being missing and presumed dead, Jesus was dead and presumed missing. No one needed an obituary to determine that Jesus son of Joseph had died. The question was, where had his body had been taken?

It was the angelic messengers who provided the first clues as to his whereabouts. "Why do you look for the living among the dead?" they said. "He is not here, He has risen." Then they reminded the women again of his travel plans. Jesus had told

them that he was going to be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and rise again on the third day. Two disciples traveling on the road to Emmaus got the same reminder, only to find that it was the risen Jesus himself who was delivering that reminder.

Now gathered together in Jerusalem, with the anxiety, grief and wonder of the last three days on their minds and the center of their discussion, the disciples and friends of Jesus tried to sort out the evidence. But then, suddenly, there he was among them saying, "Peace to you." Like the perplexed and astounded neighbors in Middlesbrough, the disciples thought they were seeing a "spirit."

Death is a trip from which no one is supposed to return, so it’s little wonder that the disciples "still disbelieved for joy and were marveling." Yet, unlike Michael O’Neill, Jesus had no problem with people touching him to see that he was real. "Touch me and see," he says to his bewildered friends, "for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." Luke makes it clear that this was no projection of imagination or collective fantasy. The risen Jesus was touchable and even hungry, asking his friends for something to eat.

These physical details about Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances are offered by Luke as a form of proof, cataloging and foreshadowing the essential thrust of the message about him that his disciples would carry into the world. It’s instructive for us to remember that the "good news" the disciples preached was not bound up in the teachings of Jesus as much as it was focused on the pivotal events of his death and resurrection.

The risen Jesus reminded them that it was not a philosophy they were dealing with, but a real and resurrected person in whose name "repentance and forgiveness of sins" would be proclaimed "in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem."

Later, in the book of Acts, Luke tells us that the disciples did not go around the Roman world setting up Jesus memorial societies or simply repeating his parables. Instead, they proclaimed that Jesus was alive, that his death and resurrection had ushered in a new age and covenant and that they had been witnesses to the facts.

They also understood that, after his ascension, they were to continue to embody his scarred hands and feet, feeding a world hungry for the hope of salvation, wholeness, and the promise of new life made possible by his sacrificial death and bodily resurrection. They hadn’t seen a ghost or a resuscitated corpse. They had witnessed something utterly new, surprising and overwhelmingly joyful.

No matter how bizarre their story seemed to be and no matter how much the prevailing powers tried to crush their movement, they continued to be “witnesses” to the reality of resurrection. We must not lose the connection here that the Greek root word for “witnesses,” “μάρτυρες,” is the same as our root word for “martyrs.”

There in Jerusalem, sometime on that amazing Sunday, Jesus mapped out for his disciples just how the journey had been leading God’s people to this precise point in history. He led them on a biblical travelogue through the liberating stories of the exodus, on to the warnings and exhortations of the prophets, and through the pain and hope of the psalms to his own journey to the cross.

His death had been an essential part of the journey and was now to be seen as a holiday instead of a day of mourning. Jesus had journeyed downward from heavenly exaltation into humanity, had taken the trip to the depths of pain and death, and had returned in amazing triumph. By God’s grace through faith, and because of Christ’s resurrection, death is no longer our final destination.

Jesus was the original dead man Down Under, but the passage of time since that first Easter Sunday can distance us from the feeling of surprise. Easter comes every year, but it usually finds Christ’s

followers arguing among themselves and debating theological points and social issues while the rest of the world pretty much yawns in indifference.

Maybe that’s because we haven’t been communicating the magnitude of the disciples’ surprise at the resurrection. We can become so enamored with our churches, our structures and our worldly priorities that we neglect the incredible news of the Gospel. We act as though Jesus has gone on some kind of long vacation, and while we do a few things in his name, while we put a half-hearted effort in the little things we do for Him who went the full distance for us, we don’t usually expect anything to change as a result.

And that’s where we are missing the boat. We seem to be content with mediocrity. But John 3:16 isn’t the "mediocre" commission, or even the "good commission. It’s the "Great Commission." Even if we consider ourselves "good," "good" isn’t good enough. Jesus himself said that the words of Matthew 22:37 and 39 are the "greatest commandments." Those commandments are, by the way, are to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." The other Great commandment is to "Love your neighbor as yourself."

Do I, as the pastor of this church think there’s a possibility that we can break out of the rut we’re in and become a great church? By the power of God, absolutely. But it’s not going to be easy and it’s not going to happen overnight. And it’s going to require a new mindset by each and every one of you here today.

Look at our Epistle lesson for today. In these verses, John offers a word of encouragement and motivation to those for whom the resurrection is a distant memory or a theological mystery. He writes, "See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God." John reassures us with the words, "and so we are." John continues; "we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he [Jesus] appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."

The friends of Jesus came "looking for the living among the dead" that first Easter Sunday. The promise of resurrection means that we’re always looking for the dead to come to the land of the living! Who are the people in our community who need new life? Who’s on a spiritual vacation from which they can’t seem to return? How can this church welcome them home?

By the grace of God through faith, we have been clothed with the power of the Holy Spirit. We are enabled and empowered to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus to all nations.

Jesus didn’t recruit rabbis and scholars for his inner circle of followers. He didn’t look to the religious establishment of the day to build his team. Instead, he assembled a ragtag bunch of folks with generally unimpressive résumés. Jesus wasn’t looking for religious superiority or extraordinary talent.

Jesus wanted ordinary people, people with hopes and dreams of their own, but he also people who were willing to leave their lives behind and follow the man who would ultimately be their Savior.

Jesus sent them out on a mission that was too great for them to possibly accomplish. Under Jesus’ teaching and touch, they became a force that forever changed the world. Although he has not asked you to leave your everyday lives behind, He has issued the same call to you.

If Christ can accomplish His purpose through the lives of common men like the men he chose as his disciples, imagine what he can do with you. All we need to change is our community, our little corner of the world. May the Holy Spirit empower each of you to see the places where you can make a difference in someone’s life and recognize people to whom you can proclaim the Gospel. Amen.