AND DIDN’T HE RISE…ENTOMBMENT

A Sermon by Bill McDonald from Colossians 3:1-4

March 23, 2008

 

Colossians 3

1So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, 3for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

 

Trapped.  “I’ve got to get out of here!”  But you just can’t.  Do you know the feeling?

 

Julie and I are always thrilled when we are given tickets to see the University of Kentucky basketball team play.  One donor said, “I don’t know exactly where these tickets are but the view is good from anywhere in Rupp Arena.”  So we made our way to the second level, found our section (not too bad), located our row (not too high) and looked for our seat numbers.  We weren’t late; the players were still warming up, but obviously the rest of the people in this section knew what to expect and had gotten there before us.  We had seats 21 and 22.  We stood beside seat number 1 on the aisle and realized that we would be right in the middle of a 42 seat row.  There were only numbers painted on the bleachers to mark the seats--no delineating lines, no seat backs, and apparently no room left in the middle for two humans of normal proportions. 

 

But we pushed through anyway, stepping on feet and kneeing the people in front of us in their backs, accompanied by curses and scowls.  We showed our tickets to the fans who had bulged over onto our spaces and insisted on claiming our subsumed seats, much to their displeasure since they now had to squeeze in even tighter.  Julie and I had to sit sideways to fit into the space, propped with only one cheek each on the bleacher.  There wasn’t room to take off our coats, to move an arm to scratch my nose, or even to inhale deeply.  No one in those rows ever stood up to cheer for fear that their tiny portion of metal pew would be invaded by their neighbors.  It occurred to me that it was going to be like this for at least two and a half hours.  Then I realized that getting back out to go to the concession stand or to the bathroom was impossible.  Of course, that made my fiendish stomach and bladder immediately begin conspiring against me and I had all these sudden urgent needs and desires.  My mind was screaming, “I’ve got to get out of here!”  But I was trapped.  Do you know the feeling?

 

For seven weeks during Lent we have examined the ways we are trapped in life, entombed by weaknesses within us or pressures around us.  Trapped in the lies we tell, crushed by the narrow prejudices we have inherited and invented, dying of thirst from dry earthly springs, sealed into darkness by blindness to the needs of others, confined by death to a brief flickering existence, enchained by our own selfishness—it is as if we were the ones placed in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb instead of Jesus.  And the Roman guards have heaved the huge stone across the opening, drowning us in eternal darkness.  Trapped.  But our Lenten theme has proclaimed that Jesus faced everything that we face in our lives, that he suffered every limitation that we suffer, that he was prey to every sin by which we are tempted, that he was subjected to every societal pressure…and yet he rose above them all.  He was considered conquered, silenced, destroyed, tossed away into a dusty grave to be trapped for all eternity in the unbreakable clutch of death…and yet, didn’t he rise?  And if he did,--no, because he did—we can also rise above it all.  Whatever trap you feel that you are in, whatever hopeless situation has your head in your hands and your hope in the gutter, God can provide a way out.  That is the message of Easter.

 

So the Apostle Paul, writing to us through the letter to the Colossians, tells us to live like free people.  “So if you have been raised with Christ, [and we have!] seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.”  Seek the things that are above.  Get a radical new orientation to your motives and goals in life.  Don’t just accept where you are, where the world is, in hopeless resignation.  Seek Christ’s way and the solution will become evident to you.  “Seek”, as used here, means “try it out.”  “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”  But, oh, we hesitate to try that.  If we have a political problem in our world, we look for a political solution, usually resorting to a military one.  I am 62 years old.  For one third of my lifetime my country has been at war.  War obviously does not work.  What if we tried a spiritual solution instead?  What if we applied the teachings of Jesus, what if we tried the ways of God?  “Well, no, that won’t work,” we claim, without even trying it out.  “If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above.”  If we have a relationship problem, we will rush to our best friend for advice, we will read Dear Abby, we will buy a self-help book, we will follow the tips in Glamour magazine, but what if we applied the faith which we claim to believe?  What if we used an Easter approach, what if we treated our alienated spouse or fractured friend or separated sibling or the parent we haven’t spoken to in years with the principles that Jesus taught, setting aside self long enough to look at the troubled heart of our estranged opponent?  “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”  “But that won’t work,” we object.  Yet Paul would counter that we Christians have died to self and our lives are now wrapped up in Christ.  We have got to quit thinking like mere mortals.  The story of the empty tomb proclaims that there is a spiritual solution to every earthly problem. 

 

If we aren’t going to use Christ’s amazing strategies, why bother with the resurrection story at all?  Let’s just call Jesus a great teacher and end the story with that stone slamming shut over the tomb.  But…if Christ did rise in an astounding turnaround of events, so can we.

 

The old story tells of the man who lived near a cemetery and walked home through it every night.  One night he fell into a newly-dug open grave.  He tried to climb out but the walls were too steep and the ground above would just crumble when he jumped to grab it.  Finally he realized that he would just have to wait until the cemetery workers arrived the next morning, so he settled calmly into a corner to wait.  But soon he heard someone coming, whistling and humming.  Before he could issue a warning the second man fell into the open grave and panicked.  He jumped and clawed and cried and screamed, all to no avail.  Having watched from the shadows all he wanted to see of this futile comedy, the first man said, “Give up; you can’t get out.”  But he did!!

 

The world looks through practical eyes and says, “You can’t get out.  You are trapped right where you are.  This is how things are—and this is how they will always be.  Nothing will ever change.  Accept it.  Give up.”  But Jesus rose from a sealed-tight tomb, a simple citizen from backwater Palestine took on humankind’s mortal enemy and faced down old man Death, one God-anointed mortal flipped the whole created world upside down.  And suddenly all the cards are back on the table and all things are possible.  Trapped?  No!  Live like free people, no longer enslaved by sin or by “life as it always will be.”  Trapped?  No!  Lift your minds and look above for the answers.  Trapped?  No!  There is a tiny beam of light coming through, and now a shaft of light, and now a blinding rush of light and this time it is Christ opening the tomb from the outside!  It is our tomb, but it can hold us no longer.  Life had us clutched, crushed, in its claws, but Easter came…and didn’t we rise?