Why I Believe in the Resurrection
  April 16, 2006 Mark 16

Once every decade I forgo telling inspiring or amusing stories on Easter Sunday and address the subject: "Why I believe in the Resurrection."

"Of course," you say, "you are the minister- you have to believe it." But I must tell you that I lived much of my life not believing in the resurrection- not really believing. I went to Quaker meeting and I attempted to live out Christ's command to love my neighbor as myself. But, when it came time to hear the Easter gospel, I was with doubting Thomas all the way! I remember an Easter Sunday more than 30 years ago at the Episcopal church we were attending at the time. When worship was concluded the priest greeted the parishioners at the door with a hug and the enthusiastic pronouncement He is risen! Many members of this rather staid congregation headed for the side door where the Assistant was greeting. I got my hug and thought to myself: "I'm glad be believes."

As one who had the benefit of an excellent liberal education, I was raised to be an independent thinker. I didn't lay aside all that I knew about science and reason when I walked into a church building. I was not about to believe such a fantastic claim just because it is written in a book. As a teenager I didn't believe something just because an adult believed it, even one I respected. I believed that Jesus was killed because of his radical teachings and that after his death he was fondly remembered, then idolized and then idealized.

In time I come to believe in the resurrection and I would like to summarize the evidence which made me change my mind.

My belief in the resurrection is grounded in:
1. The experience of the disciples
2. The experience of the apostle Paul
3. The experience of the early church
4. My own personal experience

Let's begin with the disciples. According to the gospels Jesus was abandoned by his disciples. As he was in his time of agony in Gethsemene, they fell asleep. When the temple police came, Judas betrayed him with a kiss and they all ran away. Peter, thrice denied even knowing who Jesus was. According to Matthew, Mark and Luke none of the males who followed Jesus were present at the crucifixion. It seems altogether plausible to me that as associates of one regarded by the Jews as a blasphemer and by the Romans as an insurrectionist they perceived themselves to be in danger. Knowing that, according to Hebrew law, any one hanged on a tree is cursed, it is very reasonable to think that they regarded themselves as being deceived by a yet another false messiah. According to John's gospel they went back to their old line of work- fishing in the Sea of Galilee.

Yet, according to the historical record, all eleven of these disciples went on to be evangelists- zealous, fearless proclaimers of Jesus as the Christ- the promised messiah. According to tradition they all died as martyrs. How does one explain the disparity between these two pictures? The same men who turned tail and ran back to dad's fishing business were transformed into missionaries par excellence? Something must have happened! And we at least need to seriously consider what they said was the reason for the dramatic turn around in their behavior. The testimony they gave was that they had a powerful, life changing encounter with the one they recognized as the Jesus they had followed before death. He spoke to them - commanded them to preach the gospel.

How else can you explain such dramatic change? Some skeptics have suggested that the disciples had hallucinatory experiences because they were suffering from grief and disappointment. They were seeing things. I would dare to ask those skeptics how many other occasions have eleven men and a substantial number of women had the identical hallucination? And even if they did; what is the likelihood that they would all respond in the same manner? This hallucination explanation asks me to stretch my imagination beyond my understanding of psychology.

There is also the view that the disciples got together and agreed that they would spread the story that Jesus had been raised from the dead. Perhaps they stole Jesus body from the tomb and hid it somewhere. First of all this explanation is dubious because it attributes to the disciples a lot more cleverness and cunning than is suggested by the scriptures. Second it asks me to believe that these men would go out and proclaim something they knew to be false. How many people do you know who are willing to die for something they knew full well was a lie?

So I would suggest that the reason given by the disciples is the most plausible available.

Now I turn to the experience of the apostle Paul. There is no reason to doubt that he was a zealous and well trained rabbi who was delegated to concentrate his considerable energy on persecuting the followers of Christ. He was convinced that his fellow Jews were being led astray by a blaspheming, messianic pretender. There can be no doubt however that this same man became the most articulate spokesman for the gospel of Jesus Christ. He was willing to undergo countless beatings, ship wrecks and imprisonment in order to convert people to a new religion. How can we explain this 180 degree turn in Paul's religious convictions? Some suggest psychological factors. He was burdened with guilt over his actions and had a mental breakdown on the road to Damascus. I find little support for this kind of posthumous psycho analysis. In his letter to the Galatians he brags about how zealous he was in his persecutions with no trace of a guilty conscience.

Again, I believe we have to take his explanation seriously. Emphasizing the absolute importance of the resurrection as the core of the Christian gospel he writes: "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day." Something remarkable happened to this man on the road to Damascus. What could better explain his going from viewing Jesus as a false messiah to proclaiming him as the risen Lord than an encounter with a being that communicated with him and which he recognized as Jesus. . "By the grace of God I am what I am" says Paul. Your' darn tootin. If Paul got what he deserved he would have been "toast." He could proclaim the resurrection because of first hand experience with a mysterious reality which he experienced as the risen Christ.

Thirdly, I would cite the experience of the early church as evidence for my belief in the resurrection. Jesus died in utter disgrace and humiliation. Throngs of people called out "crucify him! crucify him." Yet, in a few decades, thousands of people from Greece to Egypt and from India to the steps of Asia turned from their previous religions and accepted Jesus as the messiah. It is an indisputable historical fact that Christianity spread like wildfire. The spread was so rapid that the Jewish authorities within a year or two after Jesus' death had designated people like the apostle Paul to stamp it out.

Why? The clue to our answer lies in the original abrupt ending of Mark's gospel. Mary Magdelene, and Mary the mother of James and Salome went to the tomb. The young man in white says: "But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him as I told you. And they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid." Period. End of gospel. I think its one of those: "you add the ending kind of stories." Everybody reading this document written 40 years after the event knew that the women overcame their fear. This is not something you keep to yourself. This was the good news that Christ had won the victory over suffering and death. He was "the first fruits of them that sleep." The message resonated with people of all walks of life who ask the great existential question of humanity. What happens after we die? What is the purpose of life? The resurrection of Jesus was and is the ground of hope that death is not the end of the story. That ultimately God's justice will be done- the faithful rewarded and the sinners punished.

The apostles and other evangelists must have been very convincing. Their case for Jesus as the Messiah rested upon the credibility of their testimony that Jesus had been raised from the dead. Were all those thousands of people who were converted by the evangelists preaching fools who were deceived by a handful of people who suffered from hallucinations as the skeptics would have us believe? Certainly Thomas wasn't alone in doubting. Many of the others asked the questions we would ask. Those missionaries must have spoken with power that comes from experiencing something quite out of the ordinary. Would they have been so convincing if they knew that Jesus had been buried in a shallow grave and the corpse eaten by dogs? Even in disgrace it is hard to imagine that he wasn't revered by those women who followed him from Galilee and who stuck with him when all the brave men had "headed for the hills." They would not have been haphazard about his burial.

To summarize then: We see a populace which in a few short years went from denunciation to acclamation of Jesus as the Christ. We see Paul being transformed from a persecutor to a proclaimer. And we see the disciples being transformed from a gaggle of disillusioned scardy cats to a missionary force the likes of which the world has never seen. While I am open to listening to other explanations I will continue to assert that these people were fundamentally changed by extraordinary events- visitations of the presence of God in Christ.

But I would confess that my belief in the resurrection is not just founded on the historical evidence. I believe in the resurrection of Jesus because I have heard what I identify as his voice. I perceive that he has called me to be a part of his body; that he has called me, despite my shortcomings to this ministry as a pastoral leader. He has called me here. I claim no vision of him except in my minds eye- particularly in the garden and on the cross. In some receptive moments, now and then, I have been able to hear him admonish me for being so self centered. I have felt his encouragement in the most trying moments of my ministry and my personal life. I have been able to hear him whisper that even I can be forgiven- even I can be an instrument of his love and justice on earth.

Now there are two possibilities. One is that I am imagining things. I may be deluded and in serious need of psychotherapy. The other possibility is that Jesus lives. My logic tells me that if he is dead- just plain old dead -that He could not reveal His will to me. Obviously I choose the second possibility. As long as I do I will live in hope that: according to his tender mercies I will one day put on my spiritual body and go to dwell with Him. I will live in the Easter hope that my spirit will one day be reunited with the essential being of those whom I have loved who now dwell an another shore, in a realm of being that lies beyond our present comprehension. "Now we see though a glass darkly. then we shall see face to face. Now we understand in part then we will understand fully even as we have been fully understood." Happy Easter

God, Have Mercy on Us
A Sermon Preached by Rev. Richard Taber
Pastor, Congregational Church of Salisbury U.C.C.
Sept. 11, 2005

On this the 4th anniversary of 9/11, I thought it appropriate to bring to remembrance some of the images of that event as recorded by UCC Pastor and former Ambassador to the UN, Andrew Young:

One
"As the soot and dirt and ash rained down, We became one color.
As we carried each other down the stairs of the burning building, We became one class.
As we lit candles of waiting and hope, We became one generation.
As the firefighters and police officers fought their way into the inferno, We became one gender.
As we fell on our knees in prayer for strength, We became one faith.
As we whispered or shouted words of encouragement, We spoke one language.
As we gave our blood in lines a mile long, We became one body.
As we mourned together the great loss, We became one family.
As we cried tears of grief and love, We became one soul.
As we retell with pride of the sacrifice of heroes, We become one people.

We are
One color
One class
One generation
One gender
One faith
One language
One body
One family
One soul
One people
We are the power of One.
We are United.
We are America."

My heart is filled with profound sadness to think of the events of 9/11 and the ongoing suffering as families struggle to rebuild and get on with their lives. And it is poignant to remember the sense of unity conveyed by Andrew Young. We were united in purpose. Grace was evident in the midst of tragedy. In that spirit of unity, some of you will recall that I commended our President from this pulpit for his leadership and his address to congress and the nation. Despite my pacifist leanings I did not oppose the military action in Afghanistan. I saw it as necessary in order to bring about the capture of Osama Bin Ladin and the leaders of Al Quida, to shut down training camps for terrorists and to ease the yoke of oppression under the Taliban.

Today we confront the aftermath of another tragic event and the landscape is quite different. There has been tragedy but little unity and, except for acts of heroism and self-giving, I sense that the experience of grace may be illusive. I was tempted to entitle this sermon: Crises that unify, Crises that divide. It is my purpose today to address the most recent tragedy from a theological perspective and I am going to raise the questions which are on my heart- disquieting, prophetic questions rather than comforting pastoral words or funny stories which would be more appropriate to homecoming Sunday. (For those who are visiting, I want to assure you that I a not usually so heavy.) I'll begin with some recollections of our trip to New Orleans about a dozen years ago. Joanne and I went down so that I could have some specialized surgery.

Upon arrival at our hotel we were struck by what it feels like to be a minority. We got out of our cab and entered into the hotel recommended by the hospital. The lobby was filled with many well-dressed folks all of whom were Afro-American as were the hotel staff and managers. This was unlike our visits to Florida resorts where the guests and managers were white and the maids and beach rakers were all were persons of color. A number of times as we watched TV and got about in the city we remarked that it was a bit like being in another country. At the restaurants in the French Quarter the maitre d's and wait staff were black. The busboys were white college students. The mayor was black as were the vast majority of business people and local officials. We were glad for the experience.

A close friend of ours has a brother who was a physician and researcher at LSU Medical Center. We were invited to join him for dinner and he drove us around. We visited the yacht basin on Lake Ponchetrain and it was lovely. Maybe you saw on TV the sail and power boats jammed against the levee like logs at the mill? That is about what was left of it. Then we went to see their home which was in the shadow of the barrier which holds back the waters of Lake Ponchetrain and our gracious host spoke of the repairs that had been made after a recent hurricane and about the new pumps which had been installed. I remember shivering at the thought living in a situation of depending on a man made barrier to keep out the water. I felt the same the next day when I want into Ochner Clinic and saw the levee a half a block from my room 8th floor. But the Mighty Misissip was hidden from view by the levee.

I am not sure that I could comprehend what happened in New Orleans if we had not been there. If we had not looked down on the video images of curving tree lined drives with pleasant houses and saying that looks like Mike's street. We know what it means to say the people of New Orleans live in a bowl.

And that caused me to raise this first question. Is it arrogant of us humans to decide that we should build dwellings any place we choose regardless of the known risks? Are we saying to God that we are so powerful, so confident in our technology that we can shake our fists at the laws of nature when we build houses on the San Andreas fault and whole neighborhoods that are below sea level in a place that is subject to hurricane damage and storm surge? Would I buy a boat that depended on a pump to keep it afloat? Well, no.

This situation reminds me a bit of the tower of Babel. In their arrogance, the people thought that they could reach God. Are we again overreaching our grasp- going beyond what humankind can reasonably accomplish? Even Jesus knew that building on solid rock was important. Good foundations are vital. In our arrogance do we need to say: Lord have mercy on us.

But, of course, we cannot go back in time and we will be called upon to spend our tax money for bigger and better levies so that N.O. will rise again. What was done was done.

But I wonder if you share my sense of outrage that so much of the devastation in N.O. could have been avoided? I think that's one of the things that make this disaster so much different from 9/11. Who would think that a diabolical genius could pull off a scheme to crash two planes fully loaded with fuel into the twin towers? It was inconceivable. But the flooding of N.O. was predicted. There were computer studies. A recent series of articles in the local paper warned of the possibility. The Army Corps of Engineers knew that the barriers were insufficient to withstand a category 4 hurricane, but the money was not appropriated. It is not that we didn't have a way to prevent the devastation we did not have the will. And I am sure that investigation will show that Democrats and Republicans share the blame. Lord have mercy on us for hiding our heads in the sand, of choosing to fund other priorities like invading Iraq.
Perhaps some of you are wondering about our friends brother. He was safe. He and his wife were in Montana visiting children. They had an anxious time because her mother was among the missing, but they learned that she had been evacuated from her nursing home in plenty of time. Add this to the long list of stories about how the folks with means got out of town. But what of all the poor who had no car? Or the poor that had no bus fare- even if there had been sufficient buses to transport them? We know the answer to that question. Those are the faces of despair and desperation that we watched on our TV's hour after hour. The folks on the rooftops with the signs pleading "Please Help. " Was no plan made to take them into consideration in the event that there was need to evacuate? Yes, the more affluent were supposed to leave things behind so they could randomly offer a poor family or a diseased person a lift out of town. How can we as a society, which professes to be "under God", leave those marginal persons about whom our Lord Jesus Christ so concerned to suffer and die? Lord has mercy on us for tolerating social injustice.

But now the suggestion is being made that the victims are better off.

After a visit to the Houston Astrodome designed to boost the president's ratings, Barbara Bush said in an interview on Monday with the radio program "Marketplace "What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas." "Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality."

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway," she said, "so this is working very well for them." So loosing your home and all you own and traveling 350 miles on a bus, not knowing if family members are dead or alive is ok because you get to meals ready to eat and enjoy Texas hospitality? Lord. have mercy in us for our lack of compassion.

Then, of course, God gets His share of credit or blame. An Episcopal clergyman wrote a letter to the editor of the Hartford Courant that struck me a bit like those who after 9/11/01 claimed that God allowed that travesty as punishment for abortion and gay marriage. But this time the flooding of N.O. was God's punishment for gambling and the loose morals of the big easy. Can you imagine conceiving of a God who would want all those innocent children to die in order to punish the riverboat operators who were high and dry? I guess we better leave our cottage in Mystic given the proximity of Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods! Lord have Mercy on us.

God is also given credit for urban renewal. Representative Richard Baker of Baton Rouge was overheard telling lobbyists: "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did." It is remarks like this that cause me to question: How much progress have we really made in overcoming racism in our society? Would the response to this crisis have been different if the vast majority of folks in N.O. had white skin? If racism is found to be a factor then may God have mercy on us. We are a long way from the one color image of Andrew Young. Race relations in America may be one of the big victims of this storm.

And then comes the horror of a federal agency that was called to coordinate the disaster response. FEMA- a weakened, orphaned agency run by people who have no training or experience in disaster management as the wall Street Journal has documented. The people put in charge of responding to the suffering of God's children were political appointees- friends of friends. I am not going to dwell on this since the failures have received much publicity and even a loyalist like Trent Lott has acknowledged the ineptitude of administration officials. According to today's NYT: "FEMA appears to have underestimated the storm, despite an extraordinary warning from the National Hurricane Center that it could cause 'human suffering incredible by modern standards.' "This failure is a travesty which gets me in the gut. Jesus says: "love one another as I have loved you" and God has given us freedom to make choices. God have mercy on us for the choices that have been made.

Before I shift out of this litany of confession, I want to raise a final question about our stewardship of God's resources. The devastation in N.O. has been linked to our lack of care in preserving the marshes- natures first line of defense against storm surges. Second is the issue of global warming. If our oceans are getting hotter and if hurricanes are fueled by warm water then shouldn't we anticipate more frequent and intense storms? If this is the case then how does it affect our reference to natural disasters as "acts of God."? Should God get all the blame if we are making irresponsible choices as stewards of God's creation? Now I am the first to acknowledge that I don't have the knowledge to effectively respond to these if questions. But I sure think we should be paying a lot of attention- especially if we plan to rebuild N.O. with preparations for a "once in a hundred year event" only to discover that it is now a once in 25-year event.

But there is a bright side. Even in the midst of this tragedy there is grace. We have seen people who are in my mind heroes. The folks who did remain on the job in the effort to restore law and order. The men and women who were out there in the boats and helicopters hour after hour risking their lives to rescue victims. We will remember the five year old girl holding the hand of a 101 year old women while her mother (the woman's nurse) pushed the wheelchair after an ordeal of several days of hunger and exposure. We will remember the six-year-old serving as caretaker for five little tikes who arrived holding hands. His name is Deamonte Love. We have example after example of self-sacrificing love. Would that those countless acts were caught on video taping to counterbalance the troubling images of looting.

We may have our own hero. Andrew Belcher, son of Ward and Susie headed off to Tulane on Wednesday before the disaster struck. Fortunately, he heeded his parents warning and evacuated with friend- their car one of many in the gridlock heading out of N.O. He has lost all he could not bring with him. Is he cursing a lost semester? No. He plans to undergo training by the Red Cross in Maryland and then go back south to help with the relief effort.

Finally there has been and will be a vast outpouring of generosity as all of us get involved. Even Sri Lanka and Bangladesh offered assistance.

As I think of all those whose lives have been altered by the storm I come back to these reassuring words of Isaiah:

"Fear not for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall no overwhelm you. You are precious in my eyes and honored and I love you. Fear not for I am with you." Where love is God is present. God is love.