A Faith Story

In the chaos following the events of Easter morning
            we find the continuation of a story from earlier in Matthew’s gospel.
We pick up on a story from the end of chapter 27.
            The Pharisees requested that guards be placed at the entrance of the tomb,
                        for fear that someone might steal away Christ’s body
                        and claim that he had been resurrected.

So the Pharisees were given soldiers to guard the tomb,
            and these are the men who were scared and appeared as though dead
                        when the angel rolled the stone away.

Now these guards return to the Pharisees reporting everything that had happened.
            The Pharisees create a story based upon their initial fears
                      that the disciples of Jesus came in the night and stole the body of Christ.
            This plays into the plot they had from the beginning.

The interesting thing about this story concocted by the Pharisees,
            is that Scripture gives us no proof that their version of the story is incorrect.
                        Scripture gives us no proof that their story is a false one.

One who reads all of Scripture would certainly say that the story is untrue,
            based on the story of Jesus,
            and the account by the disciples.
But not one of the gospel accounts describes the entire event.
            None of the gospels describes the actual resurrection
                        the exact moment when Christ was raised from the dead.
            They tell of the earthquake, the stone rolled aside,
                        the fear and joy of those who were there,
            They tell the story of the empty tomb.
The gospels tell about the results of the resurrection.

And this leaves the story open to attack.
Because that moment is ambiguous,
            Because there are unanswered questions,
                        the story is open to attack by those who are threatened by it.
                        the Christian story is vulnerable to contradicting stories,
                                    like the one paid for by the Pharisees.

The Pharisees take advantage of the situation
            to create their own interpretation of the empty tomb,
                        one that does not reconfigure the world.
One that makes sense in the system that already exists.

And using just the evidence – the empty tomb – there is no way to say
            definitively and based on the facts...  
You are wrong.

In 1543, Prussian astronomer and Renaissance man Copernicus died,
            and his works were finally made public.
Copernicus argued that the Earth and other planets go around the sun
            This was in contradiction to the commonly held understanding
            that the Sun and other planets revolved around the Earth.

After his findings were published,
            it took another century of research
                        from people like Kepler, Galileo, and Newton,
            before Copernicus’ ideas became widely accepted.

Throughout this time frame,
       some scientists – many of whom were Christian – argued against this new theory.
            They tried to refute Copernicus’ claims and ideas.
They even incorporated some of the observable facts that he documented
            into the heliocentric, or earth-centered, view that they already held.
            Faced with evidence they could not explain,
                        they struggled to maintain the view that they had about the world
            by sticking to their understanding of how the world worked.
                        By aligning these new observations with the system they understood.

Those who held beliefs about an Earth-centered universe
            felt they had much to lose with these changes.
                        The transition of everything that they understood
                        to that which they did not understand was overwhelming.

This was a similar fear faced by the Pharisees
            who manufactured their own empty-tomb story.
They took the evidence placed before them – the story of the empty tomb,
            and fit it into the world-view which they understood.
            they created an explanation for something unknown
                        that conformed with something known.

This is something that we are prone to do.
            It is something we do on a fairly regular basis.
            We take the things that we observe in the world
and the things that we understand about the world
            and place them in the same framework.

There’s good reason for us to do this.
            With the way the world works
                        and the way we work,
            it makes sense that we would try to conform
                        our observations to our understandings.
            And it’s not necessarily a bad thing.
But it may not always be the way things work,
            especially not when we look at the resurrection story
            or when we bring a troubling word into the conversation: faith.

I was talking to someone recently about a TV show
            called Biblical Mysteries Explained.
            The premise of the show is that scientists look at mysteries from the Bible
            and they attempt to describe the science behind how these things might have happened, like the great flood, or the parting of the Red Sea.
I think the idea of the show is fascinating
            I love that people are so drawn to these stories
                        that they are willing to invest time and energy in exploring them,
                        I love the idea that God created us with such curious minds.
                        I love the idea of a world where miracles could be observed logically.

Part of the reason I think this appeals to me so much
            is that I am drawn to the idea of a world in which science and religion
                        do not conflict with each other
                        but in which they complement, inform, and support one another.
For the most part, I believe this is the kind of world in which we live.
I believe this is the world that God created
            and the world in which people like Copernicus explored and discovered.

I think that Christians are perfectly able to be scientists,
            and vice versa.

The story of Christ's resurrection affords us
            the perfect opportunity to explore this convergence.
Most modern scientists might observe that people do not rise
            out of their graves (except in zombie movies).
                        Scientists would say that it is something that is not
                                    scientifically possible.

Christians reading and speaking about the resurrection of Jesus would not disagree.
            Christians don't believe that people resurrect in body all the time.
            We do not say that is a scientifically observable fact
                        something that happened to people regularly,
                        and that Jesus happened to be one of them.
Christians recognize that the resurrection of Jesus was something that was entirely unique.
            And this is where the story of Christ's resurrection becomes a faith story.

In the eleventh chapter of the letter to the Hebrews
       the first verse says
       "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

When we take this meaning of faith, that which is unobservable,
         we realize that the story we read of Christ's resurrection is definitely a faith story.
Even as the gospels tells it.
            The supernatural part, the part where Jesus is raised, is not described.
            It is not something that is seen,
                        it is not something that is observed.
            It exists in the realm of faith.

So when the Pharisees were faced with this story,
            and it was faith in Christ which was required for belief,
            There response was to incorporate the story
                        into their existing system of understanding.
                   To explain this phenomenon using the rules about the world that they had.

But when God conquered death,
            and raised Jesus from the dead,
            it was a new thing that was happening.
Something that defied all of the rules that people thought they understood.
            Something that made people reorient their understanding of God.

For some people, this was not something they could accept.
            they refused to accept that something could happen,
                        that didn't fit into their understanding of the world
            that didn't maintain their status quo.
But for the early Christians,
            Christ's resurrection from the dead didn't have to fit into their understanding
                        of the world
            It meant a new understanding of a changed world.

When we look at the world around us,
            when we think of the things that make sense,
            the things that are observable
We realize that faith is not something that is observable.
            The faith story is not one that fits into a system that makes sense,
                        that is why it's a faith story.

This doesn't mean that the world shouldn't make sense.
            This doesn't mean that science and religion are at odds,
It means that God,
            who created all things,
                        is able to do anything.

Yes the story is ambiguous.
            Yes there are unanswered questions.
            Yes the story is open to doubt by empirical observation.
This is because the one who performed the most important action in the story,
            the one who raised Christ from the dead
                        is God.
And it is pointless to try to force God into our understanding of how the world works

If we trust only in the ways of the world,
            we see around us a world in chaos,
                        world which seems to spin out of control.
But when we place our trust in faith,
            when we place our trust in a Lord that we can't observe,
                        but who brings us out of our own tombs of despair,
                        who raises us from the ways of death
                                    into the hope of life,
            we live in faith, we trust in faith.

Placing our faith in the story of Christ's resurrection
            means being assured of that for which we hope,
                        and believing in that which cannot be seen.

This is the essence of the faith story.
            This is the hope to which God calls us. Amen.