“(A History & Future of) Transformation”

As we continue to experience the Word of the Lord together, Let us Pray. Give us, we pray, O God, thoughts higher than our own thoughts, prayers better than our own prayers, powers beyond our biological possibilities, that we may spend and be spent in the preaching and hearing of Thy Word. Amen.

Open your ears and your hearts to hear The Word of the Lord.

Mark 16.1-8.

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

The Word of the Lord … Thanks be to God.

I’m not a history buff, like many people are. I enjoy history, will be mildly interested. I know more baseball history than I should. I had to learn church history, which was interesting, but was a struggle. Not because I didn’t want to know, but until I saw some themes, seemed like memorizing dates. I’m not good at memorizing. Learning I love, memorizing, not so much. But, having to study church history, I’d love to give you the overview of church history, especially considering when the church has gone through something very difficult. I know this is why you came to church on Easter, for a history lesson. But trust me, you’ll see the theme soon enough.

God’s people began to have issues in the first two books of the bible. In Genesis they moved from the land flowing with milk and honey to Egypt, in search of food during a time of famine. In Exodus the Israelites, the first temple people, are slaves. And when they got saved, they didn’t just get saved, they got transformed. The difference between the people pre-slavery and post slavery is dramatic. They went through something awful, and when they were saved, they were transformed.

They eventually moved back into the land of milk and honey, you know, after a couple of weeks or so in the desert. It’s that “or so” that will get you. They lived in Jerusalem, David was King during the Golden Age, Solomon built the temple. It was a totally new way of being with God, they had been transformed. Until more time went on. The Babylonians came in, conquered Jerusalem, and exiled the Israelites. This time when they were away from Jerusalem, instead of being in Egypt, they were held in Babylon. The temple was destroyed. After nearly 50 years, they were allowed to leave Babylon, and come back to a wrecked Jerusalem. And they began to build a second temple. But something happened. And you can read this yourself if you want, in Lamentations 4 and Nehemiah 8, the second temple religion was different than the first. The exile was a huge tragedy for the Israelites, a kind of death like the slavery in Egypt, and when the religion was restored, it was again transformed. The paradigm for the Jewish and for the Christian religion is that any time it goes through a death, it is resurrected. But any time it is resurrected, it is transformed.

In 1055, the first huge church split happened, separating the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church. Both sections went through immediate transformation. In 1517, Martin Luther started the ball rolling on the Protestant Reformation, though he did not want a split from the Catholic Church, he just wanted the transformation. And the church split again, and has been splitting ever since. Each time, the church has experienced a transformation, and finds that it is something new. When something dies, it is resurrected, and when it is resurrected, it does not come back as the same thing, but is resurrected as something transformed.

Paul makes this argument in the first few verses of Romans. He writes a normal greetings and salutations section, which reads, “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead…” What does the phrase found in verse 4 mean? Jesus was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead. Many people have said that the power describes the declaration, that Jesus was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead. Which is a nice translation, except for one thing. That’s not what the original language, Greek, says. The greek is a little different. It reads “designated Son of God in power by the spirit of holiness by a resurrection of the dead.” Paul writes that Christ, who has undergone a resurrection of the dead, is now designated Son of God, which he has always been, but now in power. Christ was transformed by his resurrection. After the resurrection, he was proved with power to be the Son of God, and, having defeated death, was in power in a mysterious and new, transformed, manner.

So, this is when I got excited about church history, when there are themes and patters. Every time there is some sort of death, there is a resurrection, and the new resurrection is a new creation, is totally transformed from the old. You don’t really need me to go to Romans 1.1-4 to site that. Just think about Jesus before his death and him after it, search your heart, and ask if he isn’t different, transformed.

Of course, you could also go to the very writer of Romans, ask him a few questions about transformation. If memory serves, he looked a lot like a chief prosecutor of Christians who was named Saul. One day, he was just on his donkey, minding his own business, on the way to Damascus. All of a sudden, he falls off his donkey, and sees a blinding light, literally blinding. In one of those, come to the light moments, he hears the voice of Jesus. He then waits in Damascus for three days, and his site is restored. When it is, he is transformed, name and all, into the most important figure in shaping Christian thought and theology, outside of Jesus. Saul is laid to rest, and the man is transformed into Paul.

Earlier this morning, during the Contemporary portion of our service, Jill read 2 Corinthians 5. 16-18. From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.  Cause, as I said earlier, Christ has been transformed. Going on, at 17. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.

We too have been transformed. The old has passed away, everything has become new. Death has been shown that it cannot separate us from God. We are not under death’s dominion. We are no longer slaves to sin. We are free, in the grace of God. We are free to live our lives the way God originally intended. We are free to be God’s children. We are free. Can I get a witness?

There are many people who talk about the state of things. They talk about the state of religion, the Church, the Presbyterian Church, the state of the nation, the state of the world. And when they do, they always seem to be bringing a message of doom. Some folks will tell you that Christianity is dying. And others might tell you the Church is dying, or that the nation, or the world is heading toward the end. And they may be right. But they usually bring a message of something like, “Repent, or life as we know it will end.” I don’t think those message bringers have studied their history. Of course whatever it is people talk about will die. Without a doubt. But there will be resurrection, and the thing will be transformed.

Death has no place. It’s a wonder that death still tries. We live post-resurrection, nothing stays dead. It’s just the natural created order of things. Something dies, it will come back, transformed.

I’ve begun our minuscule garden. We have a very small spot, which is unfortunate because if we had more room, we could kill more plants. We’re pretty bad. In fact, last year I gave Tanya a challenge. I said give us a flower that will be a challenge for us to kill, so that it might stay around for a while. She gave us , said it would be really hard for us to kill it. Within 3 weeks, it was gone. The Fry’s are good. No flower can take us on.

Which is not entirely true. We have some things that we can’t kill, though we have tried. We have some pretty bushes, a couple of cherry trees that ring in the spring with their early blooms. We have some lilies, some hasta bushes, some blueish thingies that I’m not sure what they are. Spring brings forth new life, resurrection is laid out before us. When spring and Easter collide, which they always do, I am reminded of a sermon I once read that was given by a Latin American priest. “North Americans,” he said, “celebrate Easter at the wrong time of year. You celebrate it as nature is in the midst of rebirth so it is easy to confuse it with the natural cycles of the earth. In the Southern Hemisphere we celebrate Easter in the fall as nature is dying. We proclaim the resurrection in the face of death.” And there is something to that, proclaiming resurrection in the face of death. But I disagree, at least partially. Resurrection is not an unnatural thing. It is inevitable, as history shows us. It is natural, and to be expected, just like the return of flowers, the bloom of the trees, and the greening of the grass. After death, there is life. We are not to be surprised by it, not if we know our history. And we know what the future will hold, because we know who holds the future. Death is powerless, weak, on the road to certain defeat.

Get ready folks, the future holds resurrection and transformation. Praise God. Amen.