“Changed” (Luke 24:1-12), April 12, 2009

“Mary Magdalene didn’t vacillate here and there in her loyalties, trying church for a few weeks or here and there wondering why “religion doesn’t work for me.”  Her life was changed from being in the control of spirits to being in the control of Jesus Christ because she stayed with the One who had demonstrated his power to transform.”

The day the world changed

On this magnificent Easter morning we gather in this place to remember the day the world changed.  For the better.

The stone rolled away.  The tomb was empty.  Heaven sent its messengers to declare, “He is not here; he has risen!”

And the world changed for the better.  Every major advance in the world for the last two thousand years is directly or indirectly a result of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  While it is indisputable that Christians have often not lived up to Jesus’ teachings and example, think how much good has been done in the world in his name.

The message of Jesus Christ civilized barbaric Europe, resisted the militaristic advance of Islam, brought hope to the lowest caste of India, introduced literacy to South America, spread hope on the continent of Africa, stood strong and even prospered against the totalitarianism in Russia and China, and pioneered freedom of religion in the colonies that would become the United States of America.

Christians believe in the worth of every individual created in the image of God, we have advanced education and medicine wherever our message took hold.  Because we believe all truth is God’s truth and the world is his, we have stimulated the study of science, the preservation of the environment, and the advance of technology.  Because we believe God created human beings free, therefore Christianity has also led the way in advocating personal rights and a free market system.  

Although we have from time to time forgotten this to our peril, a passionate advocacy of freedom and resistance to tyranny and coercion are central to our faith.  Why?  Because that is how God treats every person.  He never forces us.  We sometimes disagree about whether war should be used to defend and extend freedom, but a core value of our Christian faith is that human beings should live in peace.

Christianity has not been without its faults, blind spots, and exceptions.  But I most of what is good about the world we live in can be traced to the influence and legacy of Jesus Christ.  It would not have been so had he remained in the grave.  The world changed when he conquered death.  For the better.

There is only one reason his resurrection changed the world.  His followers were changed one at a time.  They changed from fear to courage, from greed to generosity, from guilt to forgiveness, from enslavement to freedom, from doubt to faith, from bitterness to joy, from anger to love, from back woods nobodies to world changers.

That kind of transformation is still happening today.  The power of the risen Lord is changing individuals from addiction to self-control, from brokenness to wholeness, from conflict to restoration, from disillusionment to joy, from despair to hope, from illness to strength, from abuse to trust.  Before we leave here today, you will see evidence from among members of this congregation that Jesus Christ is still renovating human beings.

Don’t you want to get in on that?  Some of you have come to church today on the back side of those transitions.  You’re still living in fear, bitterness, addiction, conflict, and despair.  You wonder if anything can or will change – in your circumstances or in your heart. 

I am here today with good news!  The rest of your life can be different than the first of your life.    The self-destructive ruts you have come to accept as normal do not have to define you.

Strategies

What changed Jesus’ first disciples?  You expect me to say it was the empty tomb, the risen Lord, and the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  I will not disappoint you.  But I also see some hints in Luke’s gospel that God used other means as well to change those lives.  It’s not like they sat passively waiting for him to do the changing. 

We can partner with God in our own transformation.  Today’s text suggests several strategies.

Take time to think.  We start at the end of this part of the Easter story.  Luke says that Peter ran to the tomb and saw the grave clothes of Jesus without a body, then “went away, wondering to himself what had happened” (v. 12).  Those words are reminiscent of how after the birth of Jesus, Mary “treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).

If you want to see your life changed, it will require some time away from the Internet, with the television off, not even a book to distract you.  Sometimes a Bible close by is helpful, but for this purpose not even that is essential.  I’m talking about just you and God, “wondering what happened.”  Reflecting, thinking, deliberating.  Write it down.  Where is God active in my life?  Whom has he put in my path and why?  What can I change?  What is beyond my power to change?  Why do I want to change?  What have I already tried unsuccessfully?  Reflection is a proactive part of change.

Peter’s shield in the stained glass window is a pair of keys, because Jesus said he would give Peter “the keys to the kingdom” (Matthew 16:19).  Peter became the church’s first indisputable leader.  How did Christ change him from an impetuous, self-confident, confused, denier of Christ into a potent witness to the power of the resurrection?  The answer, at least in part, is Peter’s determination to ask, “What’s going on here?  What difference does it make?”

Don’t go it alone.  How many disciples of Jesus were together that Sunday morning?  Did you notice?  Luke gives us three names of women who went to the tomb, but also says there were “others with them” (Luke 24:10).  That group of women, at least five in number, in turn reported to the Eleven disciples “and to all the others” (Luke 24:9).  There had to be at least twenty, and maybe there were more.

One of them was a woman named Joanna.  Earlier in Luke’s gospel we learn that her husband was the manager of Herod’s household (Luke 8:3).  I wonder if she may have come along that morning because in her connections she could have had some clout if the soldiers needed to be instructed to roll away the stone.  But she was a follower of Jesus, and she had found that her bond with the other disciples superseded her place of influence in the palace.

Togetherness was key to the transformation of these disciples.  We are far too individualistic when it comes to our desire for and need for change.  Somehow we interpret it as a sign of weakness to seek out others for help.

But others provide support when we feel we can’t go it alone.  They provide ideas when we’re not sure what to do next to bring change.  They provide inspiration when we see how their lives have been changed.  And perhaps most importantly, togetherness provides accountability when we’re tempted to quit.

Embrace your crisis. Luke tells us about the “Eleven” (the twelve disciples less Judas) who were together that morning.  All of them were in a state of shock.    They were in a place that no one wants to be – at the lowest point of their grief and loss.

Who better illustrates that grief than Thomas, one of Jesus’ disciples?  He was there that morning.  What else do you know about him?  We call him “Doubting Thomas,” because he was the most disillusioned of the surviving disciples.  He heard the same report that the other ten men heard that morning from the women, but he didn’t buy it.  So much so that when they gathered later that night, he did not join them.  And even when ten of them swore they had seen Jesus, he doubted their word.  For a whole week (John 20:24-29).

But Christ changed his life.  If you look just to the left of Jesus’ feet in our stained glass window, you will notice Thomas’ shield, a carpenter’s square.  He built a reputation for erecting churches with his own hands, from Persia to India.  His life was changed from doubt to faith.

We often resist our moments of crisis – the loss of a job, or a loved one, or a relationship.  We hate those times of life when God seems most distant and apathetic.  We cry out, “No, God, anything but this!  I can’t take it!  I don’t want to lose everything I have dreamed of and worked for.”  But those are almost always the moments when we are genuinely open to change.  The greater the catastrophe, the greater the opportunity for something new to emerge.

Never, ever give up.  The only name mentioned in all four gospels as coming to the empty tomb that Sunday morning to anoint his body was Mary Magdalene (vv. 1,10).  Forget about all you have read or seen about Mary Magdalene in The Da Vinci Code, or the misidentification of her as having an immoral past.

All we know about Mary Magdalene is that Jesus had cast seven demons from her (Luke 8:2), and that she was a financial supporter and faithful follower of Jesus during his public ministry (Luke 8:1-3) all the way through the crucifixion (Matthew 27:56) and burial (Mark 15:47).  She was also the very first to see him alive on Sunday morning (John 20:10-18). 

She stayed with him.  She put all her eggs in his Easter basket, trusting him to change her life.  She decided she would be his whether it cost her everything or even if everything around her crumbled.  She didn’t vacillate here and there in her loyalties, trying church for a few weeks or here and there wondering why “religion doesn’t work for me.”  Her life was changed from being in the control of spirits to being in the control of Jesus Christ because she stayed with the One who had demonstrated his power to transform.

Open your heart to Christ.  We have a role to play in the transformation we long to see in our lives.  Take time to think.  Don’t go it alone.  Embrace your crisis.  Never, ever give up.  Finally, open your heart to Christ.

Ultimately the power of the risen Lord changes us.  That was true of all these men and women.  Some of them met the living Lord that morning, and others met him later in the day, the following Sunday, or sometime during the forty days.  Maybe you will see him today, maybe not.  But keep your heart open to the ways he wants to meet you and show you that he is the change agent you need.

This morning I want to ask you to open your heart to the work of transformation he wants to complete in you.  He is still living, and he is still changing lives.  We will close this sermon with proof.  You are about to witness in a creative presentation the “stories” of dozens of fellow worshipers at Corinth their testimony to transformation.  As you see these cardboard testimonies, open your heart to Christ.