H. Michael Brewer
Crescent Springs Presbyterian
Easter 2006
THE COMEBACK
Mark 16:1-8
They should have known, those followers of Jesus. They should have guessed what was coming
on Sunday morning. After all they’d grown up with all those stories.
Like the story of Israel in Egypt. In those days there rose to power a Pharoah who did not
remember Joseph and the promises to the Jewish people. He made the Hebrews into slaves, forced
to do unbearable work under whip-wielding tyrants and when they complained, he murdered their
babies.
Their tears and blood falling into the thirsty desert sand, the people tried to remember. Hadn’t
there been a voice that called to Abraham? Wasn’t there a promise, a blessing? Wasn’t there some
God who said, “You will be my people”? But no sign of that God in Egypt, where deities with heads of
hawks and jackals reigned supreme. Whoever that God was, that was long ago and far away. That
God had lost interest in a slave people. That God had gone on to greener pastures.
So with limping spirits and bent whip-scarred backs and hopeless hearts, the Jewish slaves
pulled the ropes, dragged the stones, raised the scaffolding and cried out their anguish to the molten
Egyptian skies, cried out to a God they barely remembered, a God they scarcely believed in anymore.
And God came back.
In a burning bush and plague and darkness and blood, God came back and Israel walked away
free. They didn’t stay free for long, not by historical standards. Just a few hundred years and then
down from the north came the chariots, war horses, and iron spears of the Assyrians. Cities burned
and pillaged. Whole tribes carted off into cruel exile. And then the Babylonians marched down and
finished off what the Assyrians had left behind. Back into slavery. Deportation. Exile. Despair.
We finally pushed God too far, they said. We crossed the line, we sinned too much, we broke too
many promises, and now even God has written us off. We had a good run, but our story is finished.
We’re finished. God is finished with us.
But God came back—the God who never breaks a promise, the God whose love is everlasting, the
God who moves great kings and empires as if they were chess pieces. God came back and brought
the people home.
Now fast-forward to a hicktown in the boondocks of First Century Israel, Roman troops on every
corner, registering these Jews, enrolling them, taxing them, squeezing them dry. Assyrians, Romans,
it’s all the same. Make the best of it. Keep your head down. Don’t draw attention. It’s not like we’re
going to challenge the most powerful army in the world.
But down in the back streets, in a stable out back, a teenage girl pants and gasps, and between
the pains she whispers, “My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my savior… God
scatters the proud, God pulls down the mighty… God lifts up the little people, God remembers, God
fulfills…” And there in a stinking stable in an occupied land against all expectations, God came back.
Anybody who knows how the world works knew Jesus was doomed from the get-go. He flouted social
conventions. He associated with the wrong people. He invited outcasts into the sanctuary, partied with
sinners and prostitutes. He publicly insulted the religious leaders once too often. Friday’s bloody
business was no surprise to anybody with eyes in their head.
So the friends of Jesus wept and hugged one another, and said, That’s one more trophy for the
Grim Reaper. We should have known. He was good man, but we should have known better. All that
“love your enemies” stuff, all that business about “trust God no matter what.” It doesn’t work that way in
real life. In the real world, gold makes the rules and steel enforces the rules, and dreamers like Jesus
never last long.
The women went out to the cemetery to pay their last respects, to lay their disappointment to rest,
to get some closure, but what they get instead is a surprise. Just when they figure it’s all over…
God came back!
They shouldn’t have been surprised by what happened on Friday—or by what happened on
Sunday. They should have known, just as we should know by now that our God is the Come-back
King, that resurrection is God’s way, that death, doubt and despair can never get rid of God.
What is Easter faith? Is it believing in the empty tomb? No, plenty of people saw the empty tomb
and convinced themselves that the body had been stolen.
Is it believing that people can be raised from the dead? No, many of those who saw Lazarus
stumble out of the tomb never achieved Easter faith.
Is it believing that Jesus got up on Easter morning? No, the Roman guards knew Jesus came out
of the tomb, but that didn’t lead them to faith.
So what is Easter faith? Easter faith is unshakable trust in the God who keeps coming back even
when everything seems lost. Easter faith is living the conviction that God rules the world—not dollars
or dictators—but the sovereign God! Easter faith knows that the rebel powers of this world may kill the
body, but they cannot stop the God who resurrects us body and all, bringing us to life, bringing us to
abundant life.
So let me tell you why we are here, why we bring out the Easter lilies, why we put on our best
clothes and sing our loudest songs. We are here because God keeps coming back.
If you have wandered into some lonely, listless desert and you can’t remember the last time you
actually felt God’s presence, don’t give up. God will be back!
If through stupidity or arrogance or sin or misfortune you have descended into your own private
hell, a spiritual dungeon from which you know there is no escape, God has not given up on you. God
will be back.
If grief and bereavement have dragged you into the depths, if loss, depression and paralyzing fear
have pulled you under, God will find you. God will come back for you.
Easter faith brings us here today to sing and rejoice because two thousand years ago, in the face
of defeat and death, God came back. No matter what the world does, no matter what life hands to us,
we are not afraid because God always comes back.
Soli Deo Gloria!