An Idle Tale?

An Idle Tale?

(Luke 23:50 - 24:12)

Easter Sunday, March 31, 2013, Windsor UBC, J G White

Have you heard any news lately that was quite a surprise?  Hard to believe?  Or difficult to understand?

A woman, 34 weeks pregnant, is told at the IWK: You are having your baby today!

A man, after brain surgery, is told by the doctor: You have a couple months to live!

A person waiting in hospital for months is told: Your room is ready at Dykeland... tomorrow you can move in!

We also wonder at untrue news we hear, not knowing it is untrue.  Such as...  Kings Transit bus fares are going up!  Jeff White gave his resignation to Windsor Baptist Church!  …

Today, Easter, we enter the lives of some men and women on a day when the news, after the execution of their Leader, was unbelievable and confusing.  Some of the Master’s closest friends at first thought the news an idle tale.  

As Graham read the story from Luke, did you notice the diverse feelings and actions of the people that morning?  The women were puzzled, then terrified, then they remembered, and they rushed to tell others.  Some of the men thought it an idle tale; Peter went, looked, and wondered about what he saw.

The initial responses to God’s action and intervention are the start of a whole new life with the Lord.  A life that follows His.  In His Steps, as the title of one old book puts it.

One simple way to describe the way to follow the Crucified One - who is alive now - is these three steps:  vision, decision, action. So says Dallas Willard in a small group study called The Divine Conspiracy.  I like this pattern.

Vision: a person learns something about Christ, and catches a vision of reality that is new to him or her.  Jesus is real, He truly did live and die for the rest of us, He actually conquered death and evil for us, He opens the door to the heavenly kingdom of God now, as we rely upon Him.  

This is not only good news to one who has never tried to be a Christian.  There are many people who start off in Christianity, and later in life find a whole new hope in God that they had not yet known.  The vision becomes greater!  A deeper conversion can happen when the heart and soul are so moved.  

John Wesley became a famous Anglican preacher of the 18th century.   Well into his ministry, and after a failed revival tour in America, Wesley was depressed and despairing.  This well-loved excerpt from his journal tells of what he experienced on May 24th, 1738.  It sounds like it happened at what we might call a Bible Study or Prayer Meeting.

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

The heart strangely warmed is, to me, the vision of the human soul for what God is really doing.  It is a personal thing. It is a real experience of something new.  Good News.

Step two:  Decision.  It takes an act of will on our part to put our trust in Christ, to admit we are powerless against our own sin and slavery, to join those who call themselves Christian.  

We Baptist Christians stand in the centre of a strong tradition of spiritual freedom.  We believe that individuals have the choice to make - for Christ or not.  To trust Him.  To follow and obey Him.  To be saved by and then apprenticed to the Master.  It is never an infant that we baptize into Christianity.  It is a person who can know Jesus for him or herself, and takes his or her own steps to follow God.  

So, part three:  Action.  The first steps of a saved person are just that, the first steps - the prayer to receive God and salvation, the commitment to rely on the Holy Bible, the obedience of submitting to baptism.  The actions of the rest of life are the real living of Faith in Christ.  We develop lots of spiritual practices that help us live with the Spirit in all of the times we are not doing our spiritual practices.  I pray, I fast, I confess, I worship, I study, I meditate, and so on, so that I become more and more like Jesus in all the moments when I am not praying, fasting, confessing, worshipping, studying, meditating, and so forth.  So it can be for Atira and Christina; so it can be for you.

I had us read today from Luke not only the first resurrection events, but also the earlier moment of placing of Jesus in the tomb.  Our vision, and decision, and action, are well-founded when they stem from the complete Jesus, the complete Jesus story.  Our faith and religion will be from an idle tale if our story is incomplete.

Today, there can be no music without silence; no praise without lament first.

There can be no resurrection without a death; no Easter worship without Good Friday worship.

There can be no coming up out of the waters of baptism without going down first.

There can be no washing clean without there being any sins in life to start with.

There can be no solidarity with and obedience to Christ without denying yourself.

There can be no running the race of faith without being still far from the goal.

Vision, decision, action.  On this weekend many catch a fresh vision of Jesus and what God offers.  Here, and many other places, we celebrate individual decisions to act on that vision.  To act upon Jesus’ word, His gracious invitation to join in and follow.  He becomes our way, our truth, our life.  

Following Christ, others can catch the same vision from us.  The news to some seems but an idle tale, an old-fashioned myth.  “Death on a cross?  Resurrection?  Weird!”  To others, the glimpse of an alternate reality - God’s eternal Kingdom coming to earth as in heaven - is a stunning vision.  Some will decide to act on this, when they meet Jesus Christ.