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| Who's On First (Mark 16:1-8) |
| Written by Pastor Fausel | |
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Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed!) Alleluia! Grace and peace to you, in the name of our risen and living Lord and Savior, Jesus, the Christ. Amen. The old comedy team of Abbot and Costello had this routine that’s been saved for posterity called “Who’s on First?” What they did is they played some games with the language by giving the players of a fictitious St. Louis baseball team nick names like “Who” and “What.” So the name of the First Baseman was Who. w…h…o. So when Abbot tells Costello, “Who’s on first.” … that’s a declarative statement. The man, whose name is Who, is playing first base. The comedy comes when Costello hears that statement as a question, as “Who’s on first?” with a question mark. So, Abbot tells him: “Who’s on first, “What’s” on second, and “I don’t know” is on third. Costello replies: “That’s what I want to know, “who’s on first?” “Who.” “Who’s on first?” “Exactly!” “I don’t Know.” “No, He’s on third. Finally, Costello asks in frustration: When you make the paycheck out at the end of the week for the first baseman, who gets it?” Abbot replies: “Every dollar of it.” “Who?” “Absolutely!” The more questions Costello asks, the more confused he gets. Watch it all today on You Tube when you get home. Easter. The Resurrection. Like “Who’s on First,” The Resurrection is not a question … but a statement. But it seems the more we ask questions about it … the more confused we may get. And so, our reading this morning from the Gospel of Mark gives us just the facts. The statement of God. The Resurrection occurred. How can we be sure? How can we be positive? God gives us two witnesses: Number one … the empty tomb … and number two…the testimony of the angel. Remember two witnesses were always necessary to establish the truth of anything. And so then Mark speaks about just women coming to the tomb … they were just the witnesses necessary again to establish the truth of the matter. No extra talk about Peter, or John; although they both did witness the empty tomb … Mark has no discussion of reaction of the disciples… For Mark … the Resurrection is a fact … a Statement of God. A fact that made the witnesses he speaks of tremble and flee in fear. What had happened? God had intervened in the affairs of human beings like they had never seen before! This was a “God thing” of God proportions. It made them recognize that God is very real … and He’s not far away. The problem that maybe many of us have today … is that that’s not how we think of God … if we think about Him at all: That He’s real … and that He’s not too far away. God has not moved. He is every bit as close to you and me right now as He was in Bible times … as close as He was to those women on Easter morning. And if He doesn’t feel that way to you … maybe the distance isn’t on God’s end. We offer our prayers only when we’re at the end of our rope. Only in desperation, only as the last resort … Churches, well, those are for good people who are doing their things for God because that’s their thing… God becomes a real part of our world only when we consider what goes on at the funeral home … not at the office … not at backyard barbeque… not when it comes to making major life choices or decisions … We earnestly hope… that we’ve sincerely believed enough … so that God might have mercy on our soul. And God replies: Why is there any question in your mind about that? The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is a statement … not a hope. Not a question … but a fact. That’s God’s stand. As St. Paul says, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: That Christ died for our sins … that He was buried … that he was raised again on the third day. And Paul goes on to note that those facts were witnessed by over 500 people who saw Jesus alive after His execution on the Cross. It happened. And because it did … St. Paul tells us it is of first importance! First. What does that mean? It’s not an idea we lock away in a safety deposit box … only to be opened on the day of our death … No, it’s the center of who we are and what we do … it gives us hope for a future … it gives us a daily reason to live … it gives us purpose. Wow. All that? Yep. All that, because Jesus died, was buried … and most importantly, rose again. The resurrection did occur. So … how does that event connect to the here and now? Why is that so important to our questions of existence and purpose and hope? Go back to what we said earlier. Where is God? Is He off somewhere, like off in another Galaxy starting another earth? Is He passively watching each of us from a distance, sometimes smiling, sometimes frowning, just waiting to see if we’ll cook ourselves in our own stew? No. How can we be sure? Because of Easter. More precisely, because of the resurrection. God took on Human flesh and blood … stepped into our world … and then lived a perfect life … in your place. Took the death on the cross … that your sins deserve … and he even got buried. But as St. Paul puts it, He was raised from the dead on the third day. What that means is this: God has done everything necessary to put each of us back in a sinless state in His eyes. And what He has done becomes ours personally as we come to faith, by the power of His Spirit working through the waters of Holy Baptism and His Word. God did it all. And then He gives it to us. And as a result, we are saved. And in that, He promises He will never turn His back on us. We are saved through that faith which He has given us that makes all that Jesus did … ours. The resurrection … is Ours! And that’s why our faith … and living our faith … is of first importance. Our faith connects us to God. It makes His grace and mercy ours. It answers the question of what will happen to us when we die … it gives us purpose to live. So what’s the problem? The problem is this: Our faith is not bullet proof. The Bible is clear, the idea of once-saved, always-saved is not taught anywhere. Good people, once faithful people, have fallen away and have made a shipwreck of their faith. As we said earlier … God doesn’t move. If it seems that He has, well, perhaps we need to look at ourselves. You see Church isn’t a bunch of do-gooders just doing their thing. They didn’t invent the church. God invented the Church. Why? The Resurrection. His intent was that the Church would be His means to make that Reality, the Reality of the Resurrection, yours, and mine … and the whole world’s. Once we truly embrace what the Resurrection means … we can’t help but want to share it. But at the same time … here in this world there’s a full-court press on to take our faith that holds on to reality, away from us. The unholy trinity, the Devil (he is real by the way), the corrupt world in which we live, and our own sinful, selfish selves … all three … are out to destroy our faith. How do they do it? Easy. You take faith from being number one … the most important thing, the guiding principal in our lives … and you move it down … to number two. The unholy trinity is really good at pushing a lot of things up into that number one position, like fame, or prestige, or money And once our faith has taken that shot … been bumped down to number two … for many people it continues to slide, it goes into a death spiral … it takes on priority three and then four, then ten and then it’s forgotten. They might have fond thoughts as they drive by a church … but that’s all. They don’t see God at work in their lives… or in the lives of others at all … God seems very distant. But guess who moved. You see … the biggest mistake people make about church is that it’s supposed to be about entertaining ME. Nice sermons, fun songs. Nice friends. It’s a place to go to do your thing, and then feel good about yourself, because you’ve made God happy. No. God invented the Church because He knows that the faith He has given each of us is not bullet proof. The reality of the resurrection can be lost from our hearts. And so, the Church is His means … to minister to our Faith. We might think that when we walk through the doors of the church that we are the ministers … it’s all about us doing things for God. No. Church is truly about God doing things for us, ministering to us. Ministering to our hurts… repairing those bullet holes in our faith we suffered last week … Yes, in response to that ministering of God … we do see church people ministering to others … However, those people just think they are! I’ll let you in on the secret: God is actually ministering to other people … through them! So, if tomorrow just seems like another day for you. Stop. Ask yourself: What are you living for? Why did you get up this morning? Ask yourself: “Who’s on First??” Christ is risen; He is risen indeed! In Him. Amen. |