Jim Gill                                                                                                April 8, 2007                                                 “By a Lake”                                               Luke 24:1-12   INTRODUCTION: A young boy came home after Sunday school and was asked by his grandmother what he learned that day. He said, "`God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall have everlaughing life.'"   Someone once told me, “If you want to make God laugh, make plans.”  When it comes to making plans for Sunrise Services we are 0 for 3.  Maybe some year we could celebrate Easter in July and we could have non freezing weather.    This morning we gather because we know the rest of the story, that the weekend that brought such sorrow to so many ended with the joy that discovered on the third day when the sun rose.  The world began in darkness.  Genesis 1:1 says  “In the beginning, when God created the universe, the earth was formless and desolate. The raging ocean that covered everything was engulfed in total darkness and the Spirit of God was moving over the water.  Then God commanded, “Let there be light and light appeared. God was pleased with what he saw.” Then he separated the light form the darkness, and he named the light “Day” and the darkness “Night.”  Evening passed and morning came—that was the first day.   The world began in darkness. The earth was formless and desolate.  There was water…the deep, but that’s all there was. . ..water and darkness.  Then God spoke.     John 1:1 In the beginning the Word already existed, the Word was with God and the Word was God.  From the very beginning the Word was with God. Through him God made all things, not one thing in all creation was made without Him.  The Word was the source of life and this life brought light to people.  The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has never put it out.”   In the Hebrew worldview, the day begins at night.   Because the world began in darkness, with just the Spirit moving over the face of the deep, day begins at night.  Genesis 1:5 says, it was evening passed and morning came the first day. 12 hours of darkness THEN 12 hours of light= 1 day.   In our American mindset we think the day begins when we can see what we’re doing.  But God was doing wonders before we ever came along.  Eugene Peterson says that God invented our need for sleep so that he could get some things done with us out of the way for 12 hours. But then Thomas Edison went and invented the light bulb.   Jesus began his ministry in water.  He went to the river Jordan to be baptized by his cousin John.  Jesus called his first disciples out of the water, Simon and Andrew and James and John were two sets of brothers who were fishermen and Jesus went to their place of business and called them to drop their nets and follow him ,….and they did.   James and John even left their Dad in the boat.   Jesus spent a lot of his ministry in and around the lake in Galilee, the northern part of Israel.  When I went to Israel, I was amazed that there were only two bodies of water there.  There was the Dead Sea, which was pretty amazing.  Number 1, it’s dead.  The water is so salty that nothing can live in it.  It was so salty that you could sit in the water and read the paper like you were in a recliner.    Then there was this body of water in the north which was teeming with life.  It was only one body of water, and it was called the Sea of Galilee.  Much of Jesus ministry was spent in and around this body of water.  On one occasion the crowds were getting too close and pressing in on Jesus and he got in a small boat and cast off the shore to put some distance between him and the crowd.  The water served as a P.A. system as his voice reflected off the waves and reached many more ears than it could on dry land.  On several occasions Jesus used the water as a buffer, when he needed to get away he and the disciples would go sailing from one side to the other, only to find that when they came ashore again there was another crowd waiting.  On one occasion, after Jesus had fed 5,000 people with a kid’s Happy Meal Jesus sent the disciples ahead of him in a boat and he went off by himself up a mountain to pray.  When a storm came up, Jesus came walking on the water to them….and Peter, bless his heart, tried skiing without skis or a power boat and did ok for a few steps anyway.   In the words of the song we sang this morning, Jesus, the one John describes as the Light of the world, stepped out into darkness, opened my eyes let me see beauty that made this heart adore you, hope of a life spent with you.”   Jesus, the light of the world spent nine months in the darkness of a womb.  Jesus, the light of the world spent 33 years of watching the light disappear every 12 hours when the sun went down.  Jesus, the light of the world, spent 36 hours in the darkness of a tomb until….the light of the world stepped out of the darkness of the tomb on the morning of the third day.   Hear the word of God from Luke 24:1-12   In his book, There I Go Again, Steven Moseley tells about Anna Pavlova, a Russian ballet superstar of the early 1900’s. Ms. Pavlova has been acclaimed as the greatest ballerina of all time. Her most memorable performance, however, took place after her death. Anna was to play the role she made famous, the Dying Swan, at the Apollo Theatre in London. Tragically, she succumbed to pneumonia and died two days before the event. Still, on the appointed night, a crowd of her fans packed the Apollo Theatre. The orchestra began playing, the curtain rose, a spotlight flashed through the dark, and the entire audience rose to its feet. They all stood gazing at a pool of light wandering around the stage, accompanied by the orchestral theme. As the light danced and the orchestra played, they remembered Anna Pavlova. In their hearts they could see her on stage, dressed in white with flashing dark eyes. And when the music stopped at last, they gave the vanished Anna a thunderous ovation that echoed on and on in the night. (1) It was an empty stage with only a spotlight, but in their hearts she was alive. For some, this is their understanding of what happened on the morning of the third day.  The Lord was crucified, he died as all of us will one day die, and he was laid in a borrowed tomb, but he lives on in the hearts of those who believe in him.  But if that’s what they believe they have missed the point of this Sunday above all Sundays.  Jesus is much more than a memory, much more than a beam of light moving around and empty stage to the tune of an invisible orchestra in the pit.  Jesus was crucified. Yes, he did die. Yes, he was laid in a borrowed tomb, but when the women, and later his disciples came to visit his tomb on the third day, the stone had been rolled away. The borrowed tomb was empty. The grave clothes that had been wound around his blood-stained body were neatly folded and laid to the side. He was not there! He was alive! He met with them, dined with them, reassured them ” not as a mere memory dancing in a spotlight, but as a real person. This is the story of Resurrection not Recollection.  Is this important? As my friend from Minnesota would say, “Yah, Sure you betcha.”  Ultimately, you and I have a choice to make. It is the most important choice we will ever face. Does Christ merely live in the hearts of his disciples as they “recollect” thoughts about what he did and said while he WAS alive or did he “resurrect” and is he really alive today just as you and I are alive? Which is it? Are we immortal because there are those who remember and cherish the fact that once we walked this earth or are we immortal because Christ has once and forever battered down the gates of death? Death is often an ugly experience.  It means separation, loss, heartache beyond description. Oh, we try to pretend it is not so. Has anyone here ever hear of Mrs. Martin Van Butchell? I would be surprised if anyone has. She's been dead for over 200 years. Mrs. Butchell left a will. It specified that on her death, her husband had control of her fortune only as long as her body remained above ground. I don't know what she had against being buried, but that was her stipulation. Mausoleums were little known at the time, so the husband hired the Scottish anatomist William Hunter to embalm his dead wife. Then he dressed her in fashionable attire and put her on display in the family parlor. Daily visiting hours were held for those who wished to view the corpse inside a glass-lidded coffin. As news of how life-like Mrs. Butchell looked spread, the art of undertaking quickly became a thriving business. Families were encouraged to soften the loss of loved ones through embalming the person to look as life-like as possible. Some embalmers, to drum up new business, took their prize corpses on tour, exhibiting embalmed bodies in the windows of barbershops, in public halls, and at country fairs so that rural folk could get a glimpse of the latest in funeral treatment. And the public was duly impressed. (2) We disguise death in many ways. Through our language, for example ” he passed away, she's gone, mother's no longer with us. We dress the deceased in his finest suit or her prettiest dress. We make use of the embalmer's art. Sometimes we retreat into memories of better days. We’ll do anything to keep us from dealing with the finality of death.   Did you know that Jesus being placed in the tomb was intended to be temporary?  In Jesus’ culture they didn’t practice embalming.  Their practice was to lay the body in a tomb and cover it with spices.  Over a period of a year the body would decompose and they would then take the bones and put them in a small box called an ossuary.  Real estate was precious in those days and they couldn’t afford to take up valuable land with coffins under perfectly good growing ground. This year's outrage for Christians was “The Lost Tomb of Jesus,” a documentary suggesting that a south Jerusalem cave discovered in 1980 contained the ossuary that used to contain the bones of Jesus — indicating he wasn't resurrected. The filmmakers also suggest that Mary Magdalene was buried in the tomb, that she and Jesus were married, and that a stone box labeled “Judah son of Jesus” belonged to their son. The documentary was unveiled six days into Lent by James Cameron, Oscar-winning director of “Titanic,” who produced the film. Top archaeologists in the U.S. and abroad called that claim and the film's findings preposterous, but a book based on the documentary quickly climbed the best-seller list. “There is more tolerance in the general culture for all things wild and wacky about Jesus,” said Ben Witherington, a New Testament expert at Asbury Theological Seminary and author of “What Have They Done With Jesus?” Cameron insisted his documentary was not meant as an attack on faith.  That’s what the artistic director of the hotel in Manhattan who planned to exhibit the six foot 200 pound Chocolate I told you about last week said.  The fact that the exhibit was to have appeared last Monday and ended today was canceled was the real “coincidence.” Death is ugly if the Resurrection is merely a spotlight on an empty stage. But if it is about an empty tomb, then death is an entirely different matter. Indeed, if it is really is about an empty tomb, death can be seen in an entirely different light. Death has been conquered.  The borrowed tomb was once again available. As it turns out, it was only needed for the weekend.   Easter Thoughts—by Darrell Cluck God borrowed a body to become one with us. On a borrowed beast he rode to a borrowed room where he broke the borrowed bread and poured the borrowed wine,  borrowing condemnation from ones on borrowed time.   He bowed his head and borrowed death.                            They wrapped him in borrowed linens and laid him in a borrowed tomb.                                   The loan was paid in three days.                           He was alive!   The tomb intact                           He was alive!     Busy paying back, his debts.                                     To the beast he gave the dignity of usefulness                                    To the room immortal fame                                    To the bread a new purpose                                    To the wine a new design.                                    To the linens he gave the glow of glory                                      To the ones condemned another chance                                                 To the tomb he gave a song of triumph.                                      To death, a dance.     Anna Pavlova danced in the hearts of the people who loved her and admired her. They remembered what she used to look like when she danced the Dying Swan.   But Jesus was not a dying swan.  He was the Dying Lamb of God who did so to take away the sins of the world, but on the Sunday morning of the third day he was the Rising Son… the Rising Lion of Judah, The Rising and Risen Son of God who for 2,000 years has been alive and reigning over this world.    Over a period of 40 days this Risen Son appeared to his disciples, individually to Mary Magdalene, to Peter, to his younger brother James, to 10 of the disciples, to 2 who gave up and headed home to Emmaus, to 11 of the disciples a week later when Thomas could make the meeting, at one point to 500 at one time…and finally, by a lake….  A little after a month had gone by and the disciples had gotten restless and decided to go fishing.  Once again they had spent the night fishing and caught nothing.  Which tells me that Jesus did them a favor by calling them to leave their nets and start catching people, because they never did have much luck with fish.   Jesus calls to them from the shore and tells them to try casting their nets on the other side.  They do and the nets filled to overflowing.  Peter realizes it is Jesus, puts ON his clothes and jumps into the water and swims to shore.  Jesus already has some fish on the fire and he invites them to bring some of what they have just caught and add it to what he has prepared.    Before he was crucified Jesus shared a Last Supper with them.   Here, before he ascends and returns to his Father in heaven, he shares a Last Breakfast….by a lake.    Let’s pray.   Eternal God, Creator of the universe, this is the day of all days! Today we celebrate the empty tomb. Death could not hold your son! You raised him! The hopes and dreams of your people are joyfully bursting forth in song. We know and believe that because Jesus lives, we shall live. Forever! We do not want our joy to ever fade! Cause the truth of the resurrection to transform us into bold witnesses for you. Enable us to make the most of the time that we have in order to reach every creature on earth with the good news of the kingdom. In the name of the risen Lord, we pray. Amen.     1) Jerry Clower, LIFE EVER LAUGHTER, (Nashville, Tennessee: Rutledge Hill      Press, 1988).   2) Steve Mosely  There I Go Again, (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1991). 3) Charles Panati, Panati’s Browser’s Book Of Beginnings,  (Boston: Houghton        Mifflin Company, 1984).