by Rev. Art Wiese
April 11, 2004 -- (Easter Sunday, Midweek Lenten Series)
Sermon Text -- John 20:1-18
Throughout the last several weeks, we have been examining "the Marks of the Church," those seven characteristics which Martin Luther pointed to as defining who we are as God's people and exactly what it is that makes us church: The Word of God, the Forgiveness of Sins, our Public Worship, our Work of Ministry, the Sacrament of Baptism, the Sacrament of Communion, and our Shared Suffering. The premise has been that most of us are from other places. We are an immigrant church, and as immigrants, most of our ancestors have come from other places. Like my great-grandfather Wiese, they packed their trunks with all their worldly possessions, everything that was essential to them in their old life, and everything that would be necessary for them to make a new life for themselves in the new world. Along the way, we have taken from the trunk a Bible, the source of God's Word for us today; Family Pictures, the symbol of forgiveness, the force that holds God's people together; Candles, the sign of God's Presence among us; Garden Seeds, an image of the tools we need to be God's Witnesses in our daily lives; the Bowl and Pitcher, the instruments for our Cleansing in the Waters of Baptism, the Cup and Plate, the dinnerware for the ongoing nourishment of our faith around the Table of the Lord; and the Cross, the ultimate mark of Christ's suffering, in which we participate through our faithfulness to God. Those are the essentials for who we are as God's people. They are the necessities for our life together as the church. And they are the basic requirements for how any "poor, confused person," to use Martin Luther's phrase, can tell where "such Christian holy people can be found in the world."
I want you to notice one more thing about these "Marks of the Church." They are not tied either to any place or to any time. They are completely mobile. Our ancestors have all brought them along with them from the old countries. They came from Germany, from Sweden, from Norway, and from any number of other countries where they were a part of God's people and they planted them firmly in our history as God's people in a new world. They didn 't always come in exactly the same form. They didn't always use precisely the same language. They didn't always do things in completely the same ways. We have to acknowledge that our church histories have their differences. And yet, the marks are all there, no matter where we are from or where we are going. That is why I have chosen to display these symbols in their more antiquated forms. Very few of us can read from this particular Bible. Very few of us would want to dress like my grandparents on their wedding day. Very few of us would ever use such ugly candlesticks. Very few of us have carried seeds wrapped in a handkerchief. Very few of us now wash in water poured into a basin on our nightstand. Very few of us regularly eat and drink from such antique tableware. And very few of us would ever want to participate in the suffering of the cross. But, we recognize every one of them. We know what they are. We can visualize each one of them in their present-day and modern forms. The language is different, but Word has not changed. Styles are different, but family is the same. Words and music are different, but the God we worship is the same. Techniques and practices are different, but our witness is the same. Water sources are different, but baptism is the same. Food and drink are different, but communion is the same. Problems and hardships may be different, but suffering because of faithfulness is still the same.
Continuity and change, change and continuity, they are an essential part of our Christian faith. Next week, we will hear the story of Thomas. That is a story about continuity. Today, we have heard the story of Mary. It is a story about change. When Mary goes to the tomb that first Easter morning, she goes expecting to find that nothing has changed. She was there when Jesus died. She was watching when then took him down from the cross. She saw where they had laid him in the tomb. As far as she knew, he was still dead. That's what we would expect from her. The dead usually tend to stay that way. They do not change their status from one day to another, not in this world, not in this life. So, she comes to the tomb, to remember and to mourn, in the one place where she knows that he will be, but Jesus is not there. The stone is rolled away from the entrance to the tomb and his body is gone. No wonder that she thinks that his body has been stolen. It's the only logical explanation, so long as nothing has changed. But, as Mary is soon to discover, that is not the case. Everything has changed. From now on, everything will be different. From now on, nothing will ever be the same. Jesus is alive. He is not dead. He is up and out of the tomb, living and on the move, risen and ready for action. Nothing can stop him now. And nothing can stand in the way of his followers becoming the "holy Christian people" that they were meant them to be. It will take a while. They will need first to understand what has happened. Then they will need his power from on high. But it will happen. And when it does, they will become just as enlivened and as invigorated as he is as he stands in the garden and whispers Mary's name. For what God has set in motion through Jesus' resurrection is something completely new, a new power, a new force, and a new people bound together in and empowered by their faith in God's risen Messiah. And like him, they are to become a people on the move, a people ready for action, a people no longer bound by their past, but ready to live out a new future in the presence of the living Christ as a community identified by "the Marks of the Church."
Amen.