The Great Vigil of Easter, 2002

Easter Sunday 8:00 and 9:15 a.m.

Witnesses to the Resurrection

Attorneys have often told me that eyewitness accounts of an incident can often vary greatly. Bill Eldred, for example, told me about one memorable class in his course on “evidence” in which two people unexpectedly burst into the classroom, ran around doing crazy stunts, and then ran out – whereupon the professor assigned the students the task of writing down every detail they could recall of what they had seen.

In the whole class of students, there were no two accounts which were exactly alike.

This taught the attorneys-in-the-making to be cautious about the accuracy of eye-witness testimony, but also that similarities in several accounts could be more significant than differences of detail, which would occur naturally. It would be, on the other hand, less credible if every student in the class had turned in an identical account of the incident: that would smack of heavy-handed coaching, or editing after-the-fact.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most important event in history, according to Christian faith. Because of the resurrection of Christ, Christians proclaim that God’s love is stronger than human hate and violence, forgiveness is stronger than sin, new life by God’s grace is stronger than death, better life after death is possible for the faithful, and better life here and now is possible by God’s guidance and power.

So how many witnesses of the resurrection of Christ were there? How many people were there when his body became transformed from a corpse to more alive than anyone had ever been?

The four Gospels are unanimous: no one was there.

By the time one or a few despondent followers trudged to the tomb on Easter morning, it had already happened. He was alive. The Roman soldiers – posted to guard the tomb, according to Matthew – were there but saw nothing until an angel descended from heaven and rolled away the stone, revealing that Jesus had previously left both the tomb and death behind. And the soldiers, experts at killing assigned to guard a dead man, themselves “shook and became like dead men.”

There were no witnesses of the resurrection itself. No one expected it; no one camped out waiting. Jesus’ followers all knew he was definitely dead, and none of them were expecting a sequel to Jesus’ story starring Jesus in “The Return of the King.”

But there were many witnesses to the resurrection. Yes, they differed on some details. Did the first followers of Jesus arrive at the tomb “toward dawn” (Matthew), “at early dawn” (Luke), “as the first day of the week was dawning” (John) or “very early on the first day of the week...when the sun had risen” (Mark)?

How may women went to the tomb? Did they or she see one angel (Mark and Matthew) or two (Luke and John)? Did they come to anoint Jesus’ body (Mark and Luke) or just to see the tomb (Matthew and John)?

Does it really matter? If every story in all four Gospels agreed in every detail, it would seem more like all of Jesus’ followers had agreed on an “official” story to transmit to posterity – or that the Bible was edited to conform to a party line in an effort to make it seem more “credible”. But neither of those things happened.

Likewise, we have several different accounts of Jesus being seen by, touched by, talking with and even eating with his followers, starting on the Sunday morning we call Easter. Details differ. That makes all the accounts more credible. But they all agree on essentials: Jesus was alive. What his followers experienced was not a ghost, or a hallucination born of wishful thinking – for they had no wishful thoughts. They confessed in their accounts they were universally astonished and often afraid. And, often disbelieving. The Gospels were clearly not written to polish the reputations of Jesus' followers. Instead, they are filled with honest, gut reactions of unprepared, uncoached, almost involuntary witnesses to the most wonderful event in history.

The Gospels tell us of men who were too scared even to come to Jesus’ tomb, never mind his execution, until the women went first – and even then John writes that only two men showed up to check out their report that his tomb was empty. The Gospels tell us of women who showed up to anoint his body and arrived having not thought through the practical detail of how to move the boulder away from the cave-like entrance to the tomb so they could do what they came to do. The Gospels tell us of disciples who walked for miles with the risen Christ without recognizing him, who met in secret in a locked room, who wouldn’t believe the reports of their closest friends that he was alive.

No, the Gospels weren’t written to make Jesus’ followers look courageous, prepared, visionary or mutually trusting.

The Gospels were written to tell the truth.

Not some carefully rehearsed, party line account, but the breathless words of someone who has just run in with the greatest and best news in the history of the world. The truth.

By the time the Gospels were written down, it was a truth for which a number of believers had already given their lives.

People don’t readily do that for what they know to be a fabrication.

And they don’t readily do that unless their lives have been transformed by that truth.

It is no accident that all four Gospels include Mary Magdalene as one of the first to discover the empty tomb and one of the first, if not the first, to see the risen Christ. Mary Magdalene, you may recall, had followed Jesus devoutly all the way from Galilee, ever since he had healed her. The Gospel says Jesus had “cast out seven demons” from her, which I understand to mean he healed her of something far, far beyond the reach of First Century medicine which also scared the heck out of anyone. My guess, for what it’s worth, is schizophrenia. And by the way, there is no biblical evidence for the old legend that she had been a prostitute.

Mary Magdalene had been healed by Jesus. Her life had been transformed; indeed, if my guess is correct, you could say her real life had begun. And Mary was not the one any cynical author would have to write in as a witness to bolster the credibility of a story the author had doubts about. No, the people with gravitas, with impressive credentials, had been at the tomb only to bury Jesus on Friday afternoon. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus would have been the people to have quoted in the next day’s papers if the followers of Jesus had conspired to cook up a story.

Mary Magdalene? Even the other disciples didn’t believe her – a fact which they were honest enough to have recorded in the Gospels for all time.

Jesus chose Mary to be the first witness to his resurrection. And she was – persevering in the face of skeptical men. And so did the other women. You see, in First Century Palestine, women couldn’t be witnesses in court (except against another woman), so men were chauvinistically conditioned to be skeptical.

And big-city dwellers from Jerusalem were conditioned to be skeptical of country bumpkins like – Peter and all the other guys. Peter and the rest were conditioned to be skeptical of people who God had turned around 180 degrees in their lives, like - Paul. And Jews who believed in Jesus as the Messiah were conditioned to be skeptical of Gentiles, like – most of us.

Funny how God likes to break down skepticism about The Truth, and picks the darndest people to do it, to be witnesses to Christ’s resurrection.

So, given this track record, who does God pick today to be witnesses to Christ’s resurrection?

Us.

And millions of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ all over the world. They may be skeptical of us and we of them sometimes, but I think there’s a pattern we need to follow of breaking down skepticism between people.

Now of course, we can all say, “We didn’t see Christ’s resurrection,” well, neither did any of the other witnesses. And true, we aren’t going to see Christ in the flesh like most of them did.

But we can experience NEW LIFE IN CHRIST as they did. Healing. Courage. Hope. Meaning and purpose in life. Joy. Community. Commitment. All this, and the hope of heaven too.

If Christ is indeed alive, never to die again, and has defeated sin and death, let’s let every fiber of our lives reflect that huge wonderful reality.

For if we are still living as though material things are the focus of our lives, we are not witnesses to the resurrection.

If we are still living as though this mortal life is all there is, we are not witnesses to the resurrection.

If we are still living as isolated individuals with no community of faith (locally, globally and throughout history), then we are not witnesses to the resurrection.

If we are not living in thankfulness for being forgiven and growing in our willingness to forgive others, then we are not witnesses to the resurrection.

If we are living without actively and systematically committing our time, talent and money to the worship of Almighty God, the well-being of others and the spread of the life-changing Good News of Jesus Christ, then we are not witness to the resurrection.

But if we do any of these things, we can be witnesses to the resurrection, and if we do all of them, we are witnesses of the resurrection, for Christ has changed our lives and through us Christ can bring love, hope, joy and community to those who need them.

Let us be witnesses to the resurrection. Alleluia, alleluia!

(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church