Sermon for Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025
Scripture: Luke 24:1-12
But on the
first day of the week, at early dawn, the women who had followed him from
Galilee came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2They found the stone rolled away from the
tomb, 3but when they went in,
they did not find the body.
4While they were perplexed about this,
suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them.
5The
women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to
them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has
risen. 6Remember how he told you,
while he was still in Galilee, 7that
the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the
third day rise again.” 8Then they remembered his words, 9and returning from the tomb, they told all
this to the eleven and to all the rest.
10Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary
the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the
apostles. 11But these words
seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.
12But
Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen
cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.
This is Galileo. You’ve
probably heard of him. He is the
Godfather of Modern Science. He proposed
and championed all sorts of scientific theories. Like this one [drop something from the
pulpit]. Isaac Newton sharpened the
theory of gravity, but it was Galileo who brought it to the forefront.
He heard about a device to see into
space developed in the Netherlands and began developing his own. Taught
himself the art of lens-grinding and made a telescope capable of seeing detail
on objects in space.
With his new telescope, he could
see to the sun, and observe the movement of the planets, and he began to
advance the Theory of Heliocentrism, originally developed by Copernicus. Heliocentrism, which means…? [the sun, not
the earth, is the center of our solar system]
Heliocentrism
went over big…especially with religious leaders. They were so curious about it, they called
him in to explain it…to the Inquisition.
After much back and forth during which Galileo refused to disavow the
theory, he was threatened with burning at the stake, at which point he thought
better of his principles and recanted. Spent
most of the rest of his life under house arrest, testing theories and
recognizing that science could show us a lot about the world.
·
He was right, of course. About science, about heliocentrism, gravity,
and a whole bunch of other stuff. But
some of his theories contradicted what the Inquisitors understood from the
Bible—because they were “Biblical Literalists.”
“Biblical literalism” is the most common heresy of our day, particularly
in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The Inquisitors read a few verses,
like the 10th verse of Psalm 96 and understood them to say that the
earth did not and could not move. So obviously
it couldn’t revolve around the sun.
This idea of Copernicus’s, being
touted by Galileo…it was nothing but an idle tale.
We humans are a proud lot. We don’t like to admit when we don’t
understand things, so we often find it easier to just declare something
“wrong!”
“Idle.”
“Woke.”
It’s easier to just dismiss things
we don’t understand than to take after Galileo and investigate. Stare into the heavens night after night and
record the minute movements of the celestial bodies. Drop objects of different masses off of a
fixed point and see whether they reach the ground at the same time.
Have an actual conversation with a
transgender person. Or better still—as scientific method would dictate—have
several conversations, make notes, and examine what you learn.
It’s still not hard to find truth. When
it’s the truth about individual people, the generally accepted best practice is
to ask them. “What do you like to be
called? What are your pronouns? Are you a vegetarian?” Pretty simple, right?
It’s not hard to find the
truth. If you’re looking. Some people aren’t actually looking for
truth. And there’s a well-funded
Anti-truth Lobby that makes a lot of noise and has its own TV network.
We are gathered this morning around
a simple truth discovered by women two thousand years ago. They went to the tomb, prepared to anoint the
body of Jesus, and found things amiss.
So they utilized the Scientific Method:
--Observation: “The stone is rolled away, and the tomb is
empty.”
--Testimony from eyewitnesses: “He is not here but has risen.”
--Reliance on previous research: “Remember how he told you, while he was still
in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be
crucified, and on the third day rise again.”
--And finally: Publish the results of your findings. “They told all this to the eleven, and to all
the rest.”
In a society that is interested in
discovery, in progress, and in uncovering the truth of the world around it, your
careful attention to all of those details will convince folks that your
theory—it’s only a theory at this point—has merit.
In another sort of society, say,
one which discounts the intellect and contributions of women—or one controlled
by an increasingly paranoid religious mob: your findings—no matter how carefully
researched—will be dismissed as “an idle tale.”
And then you’ll have to wait until
your words are repeated by the “right people,” or until the power structure
returns to a focus on truth and progress.
The word of resurrection got out
pretty quickly. Jesus wasn’t going to
leave that in the hands of the people who started dismissing his most ardent
followers the minute he was gone. So he
appeared to them, ate fish with them, showed them all of the empirical evidence
of his sufferings and of his resurrection…
…and then the men said, only a little
late,
“Christ is risen! “ He is
risen. Alleluia!
And
that’s why, if you Google “first apostles,” you’ll get something that looks
like this [the 12].
Instead
of this [Mary telling the disciples]
But,
hey, at least the word got out relatively quickly. For Galileo, it was a little bit longer. After a period of thought and study, the
church declared that Galileo had been right all along, and the pope lifted the
condemnation of Galileo, and released a statement saying that the religious
authorities in Galileo’s day had leaned too heavily on interpretation of
scripture, rather than scripture itself.
Fortunately, we never do that any
more.
Which pope, you say? Anybody know?
John Paul II. 1992.
When
Jesus stood before the Pontius Pilate, the Governor of Judea, Pilate asked him,
“What is truth?”
Truth can be
hard to get a hold of. Different people
often hold to different truths, and in really dark times, even truths verified
by science and reason are jettisoned for political expediency. And we all start wondering, “What is truth?”
We have a truth, don’t we? It’s a set of truths, really. Sometimes we call it a Creed, but the truth
is always more than can be contained in some statement of faith.
Our truth is about Jesus. This
morning it centers in the proposition, Christ is risen, he is risen indeed,
alleluia…
…but there is more. We believe in a Lord who loves fiercely and
accepts fiercely. Whose two primary
tasks are to proclaim a gospel of love for all people and care for the
vulnerable, and to heal those who are sick in any way. Who passed that work on to us, and demands
that we do it, or not call ourselves Christians.
Christianity without compassion,
without empathy, is simply not Christianity.
It’s not true.
We hold that truth, and like
Galileo, and the women apostles, we find ourselves in the difficult position of
having to defend it. Which we will, and
we will be victorious as Christ is victorious, because that is the way the
world works. I’ve got thousands of years
of evidence to back me up, here.
Eventually, the truth will out.
One more thing, that must be said
this day. We have a truth, around which
we gather this day. You also have
a truth, and here in this place, we want you to live your truth, whatever it
is. We will fight for your right to live
true. Because that’s what Jesus would
do, and our truth is in him.
Amen
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