Sermon from Sunday 11 May

 

Reading(s): Acts 9:36-43, Revelation 7.9–end. This sermon was given by Keith Atton at All Saints and St Mark.

It is a pity that Christmas gets so much publicity. It was not so for St Paul. In 1 Corinthians 15 where Paul set out his beliefs, Jesus' birth is given no detail, there is just the statement that Jesus was born; Paul reminded the Corinthians what he himself had been taught and which he had passed on – that was that Christ died, was buried, was raised and appeared to his followers. This is what was the most important thing (1 Cor 15: 1-8).

A few theologians have cast doubt on Jesus' physical resurrection. Some have suggested that when the itinerant preachers, the first preachers of the gospel, whose stories of Jesus failed to convince, the resurrection story was added. They can point to the very brief hint at the resurrection in Mark, the earliest gospel, assuming, as most scholars do, that the original gospel finished at Chapter 16 verse 8. For me, this line of argument is simply wrong. It fails to take account of Paul’s epistles, most especially 1 Cor 15. This was written about 55AD, some 25 years only after the resurrection – when witnesses to the resurrection would have still been alive as Paul points out in v6. The same message is given in brief form in 1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18, written some 5 years earlier. Assuming that Paul’s “creed” is what he was taught after his conversion and not at another time, this would be about 3 years after the events of the resurrection. Paul was writing some 15 to 20 years before Mark.

The resurrection of one human was not what Jews of the time would have expected. They disagreed over whether there would be no resurrection at all or a general resurrection at the end of time. Therefore, witnesses were needed to this totally amazing event. It is interesting that Paul’s list of witnesses does not include the women who are the first witnesses to the empty tomb in all four gospels. Tom Wright has pointed out that in court cases the evidence of two women was only worth that of one man. He argues that Paul therefore ignored the women who were first at the empty tomb and, although the gospel writers would not be comfortable with the women being included, since the women actually were there as the first witnesses, they felt forced to include them. He argues that this helps to certify the truth of their accounts; if they had simply made up the story they would have had the disciples as the first witnesses, not the women.

The stories in the gospels are very much like those in our lives now. A few years ago, my friend of seventy-five years wrote an account of our lives at primary school age. I was one of his witnesses but there were others and the finished version, in parts, is not all as I remember it. In my family the only argument I can remember my mother having with her brother was about some past event; only the two of them who were present when they disagreed had been there at the time of the event and they could not agree. Talking to one of my cousins, he referred to our granny’s funeral where he assumed both of us were present, except I was not there because my mother did not let me know in time; I did not bother to correct him and explain. My guess is that you have had experiences like these in your lives; the gist of the story is correct but the details have become clouded in the mists of time.

The resurrection stories of the empty tomb are cloudy. All four gospels have Mary Magdalene present, Mark and Luke have Mary the mother of James who may be the same person as Matthew’s other Mary, Mark has Salome, Luke has Joanne and other unnamed women and John has Mary Magdalene alone. I suggest that beyond Mary Magdalene, who was certainly present, there were other women who the gospel writers, as second-generation Christians, could not identify with certainty but could make a guess at because they were known to be always there with the group around Jesus and his disciples, so they assumed that they must have been there at the empty tomb.

The post resurrection appearances of Jesus are different in the three gospels that have them; (Mark does not have any appearances - the stories in Mark seem to be based on Luke and therefore have been added later). Paul simply has a list of those who saw the risen Christ, starting with Peter and the twelve. Again, the details are cloudy but the central fact remains.

In 1 Corinthians 15: 50-57 Paul makes it clear that Jesus' resurrection is an example of what is in store for all. Yes, the details are again not clear (v42-4) but this is the central promise of our faith. Our reading from Revelation 7: 9-17 puts this promise in another more poetic way. Jesus' resurrection is for us.