Mark 16:1-8 Acts 10:34-43 I Corinthians 15:1-11
Have you ever had an experience that changed the rest of your life? It may have been something that happened in a moment, like almost falling off a cliff while hiking, or something that happened over days, months, or years, like attending college, or joining the military and going through boot camp. Moving away to college forced me to be more independent and self-sufficient and joining the Ada model railroad club during college taught me that my opinion, and my contribution, was valuable even if I was “only” a student and the rest of the club were much older. Being in the military changed my perspectives about a lot of things like the perspective to problem solving learned on the confidence course, and the understanding that I gained from visiting Honduras and seeing real, grinding, third-world poverty for the first time. Getting married, buying our first home, then having children, all changed me in different ways. All of us have had experiences like these. Some positive, like those I’ve mentioned, but other, profoundly negative experiences, like experiencing violence, can exact similar changes to who we are, how we react, and how we see the world.
And when we look at the story of Easter from this perspective, both positive and negative, we can see that the experiences of the disciples and the other followers of Jesus were profoundly transformational. The people that we grew to know in the gospel stories prior to Jesus’s resurrection, are suddenly not the same people that we meet afterwards. One of the common themes that we see in Jesus’ friends and followers, particularly after the crucifixion and before the resurrection… is fear. We are told of the disciples meeting, at night, in a house with all the doors locked and the windows barred… because they were afraid that soldiers were coming for them next. And we hear a similar fear resonating in the story of the women who went to the grave on Sunday morning to care for Jesus’ body in Mark 16:1-8, where it says:
16:1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3 and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”
4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.
6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”
8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
It is important to notice that, at this point, the female followers of Jesus, these key and core women who have been nearly everywhere that the twelve disciples have been, have been told by an angelic visitor that Jesus as risen from the grave and is going to meet the disciples, and Peter, in Galilee. It is likely that Peter is singled out because, due to his grief and guilt from denying Jesus three times, has given up, abandoned the other disciples, gone home, and at this time is intent upon a return to fishing as a career. And so, as the women seek out the disciples, despite being told that Jesus is alive, remain bewildered, confused, and afraid.
As I noted earlier, this fear persists for some time. The disciples meet in secret, after dark, in a house with doors and windows locked because they are afraid. Many of them return to their fishing boats until Jesus meets them there and calls them to ministry a second time, almost repeating their original call stories. We see the men who unknowingly walked with Jesus to Emmaus invite him to stay with them because they feared the dangers of being out on the roads and footpaths after dark.
But once it all soaked in, once they had seen Jesus several times, once they really understood and accepted that Jesus was alive, something about the resurrection completely and utterly changed the people who had seen it and experienced it. Because the Peter that we meet in Acts 10:34-43 is not the fearful man who had given up and went home to his fishing boat or who met at night in secret. Instead, here, we find Peter boldly standing in the temple courts, preaching the message of Jesus Christ, and daring the temple leadership, the guards, or the religious leaders to do anything about it. And as Luke tells the story, we hear this:
34 Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism 35 but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right. 36 You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, announcing the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. 37 You know what has happened throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached— 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.
39 “We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a cross, 40 but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. 41 He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. 43 All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
This, of course, is jumping ahead, but the point is that in the span of just a few days, the entire group of disciples, and all the followers of Jesus, both male and female, had a dramatic change in their personalities and in their behavior. If we didn’t know that the resurrection of Jesus had happened, we would still have to explain what happened to the disciples to cause such a transformational shift. We know, from our own experience, that trauma, education, and other experiences can change who we are, what we do, how we behave, and how we react to the situations and the people around us. But for such a dramatic change, from total fearfulness to boldly proclaiming the gospel and daring the authorities to do anything about it, demands that something dramatic, unusual, and amazing must have happened to transform, not just Peter, but the entire group of disciples and dozens of other Jesus followers.
If Jesus did not rise from the dead, then the complete transformation of the behavior of so many people becomes almost impossible to explain. What’s more, this transformation didn’t end with the disciples and the people who had met Jesus. As Paul explains in his first letter to the church in Corinth, this transformative power rippled throughout the community and across the Roman Empire, through anyone who would hear and believe the story of the gospel. We hear Paul’s words in I Corinthians 15:1-11 saying:
15:1 Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11 Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.
Paul reminds the church that after the resurrection, Jesus appeared to the disciples, and then to a gathering of five hundred believers, but also to James, and then to more people that Paul describes as apostles as a distinct group separate from the disciples, and then finally to Paul himself. But the transformation that we saw in the disciples continued because, by the time that Paul writes this letter, churches have already grown up across the Roman Empire including this one, in Corinth, in Greece, on the other side of the Mediterranean Sea and in Türkiye.
But that doesn’t make sense if the change in behavior that we saw in the disciples and the followers of Jesus is related to the trauma of witnessing Jesus’ death, or because they personally saw Jesus alive after he was crucified and buried, or if this change is connected to any other firsthand experience that involved the physical presence of the risen Jesus. According to Paul, the thing that was transformational was the story and the message of the gospel. The transformation didn’t just happen to the firsthand witnesses, it happened to anyone who heard the story and believed that it was true. Paul says that the transformational power that changed his life wasn’t in seeing Jesus firsthand, it was in the grace of God that inhabits everyone who believes. The power was never in the trauma of the experience, it was, and is, in the power of God that is transmitted from one person to another through the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that is contained in the gospel.
And that is why we still gather in worship, that is why we celebrate Lent and Easter, and that is why, two thousand years later, we still tell the story. Because the power that transformed the disciples from fearful to fearless, is found in the grace of God, and is the same power that transforms lives in our churches and in our communities today. The grace that lived in Paul lives on in you. The story lives in you. The power to transform lives is inside each one of us.
All we need to do to make it work, is to tell the story.
Please LIKE and SHARE!
Click here to subscribe to Pastor John’s blog.
Click here if you would like to subscribe to Pastor John’s weekly messages.
Click here to visit Pastor John’s YouTube channel.
*You have been reading a message presented at Christ United Methodist Church on the date noted at the top of the first page. Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Christ UMC in Alliance, Ohio. Duplication of this message is a part of our Media ministry, if you have received a blessing in this way, we would love to hear from you. Letters and donations in support of the Media ministry or any of our other projects may be sent to Christ United Methodist Church, 470 East Broadway Street, Alliance, Ohio 44601. These messages are available to any interested persons regardless of membership. You may subscribe to these messages, in print or electronic formats, by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at secretary@CUMCAlliance.org. These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.com . All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.comThe “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
Pastor Partridge 