What Happened?

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

April 16, 2017—Easter

What Happened?

Matthew 28:1-10

After the sabbath,

as the first day of the week was dawning,

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary

went to see the tomb.

And suddenly there was a great earthquake;

for an angel of the Lord,

descending from heaven,

came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.

His appearance was like lightning,

and his clothing white as snow.

For fear of him the guards shook

and became like dead men.

But the angel said to the women,

“Do not be afraid;

I know that you are looking for Jesus

who was crucified.

He is not here;

for he has been raised, as he said.

Come, see the place where he lay.

Then go quickly and tell his disciples,

‘He has been raised from the dead,

and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee;

there you will see him.’

This is my message for you.”

So they left the tomb quickly

with fear and great joy,

and ran to tell his disciples.

Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!”

And they came to him,

took hold of his feet, and worshiped him.

Then Jesus said to them,

“Do not be afraid;

go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee;

there they will see me.”

****************************************

He knew the words so well,

as though they’d been spoken to him yesterday:

“Sir, we remember what that impostor said

while he was still alive,

‘After three days I will rise again.’

Therefore command the tomb

to be made secure until the third day;

otherwise his disciples may go and steal him away,

and tell the people,

‘He has been raised from the dead,’

and the last deception

would be worse than the first.”

(Matthew 27:63)

Pontius Pilate stood on the terrace

in the shadows,

out of the sun,

which still burned hot,

in amber light in the late afternoon.

He looked out upon the sea

that stretched out before him,

and felt the breeze that kept all of Caesarea

cool and fresh,

so different from that fetid dustbowl of Jerusalem.

Those words,

‘After three days I will rise again’

continued to haunt him three long years

after he first heard them,

continued to haunt him even in Caesarea,

a world away from Jerusalem.

He thought about that week three years earlier

when he’d gone to Jerusalem for the Passover.

It was the custom of the Roman governor,

or, as he was also known, the prefect of Judea,

to be in residence that week,

to leave his palace in Caesarea for Jerusalem,

as a display of Roman power and authority;

a reminder to the throngs of pilgrims

to keep the peace,

and not to challenge Rome.

The events of that day near the end of the week

were still so vivid,

that day when the leaders of the Jewish community—

the chief priests and the elders—

came to him in the early morning hours

dragging with them a man they claimed

was a threat not only to them,

but to the Roman Empire itself.

Pilate remembered how

he had to keep himself from laughing

at the absurdity of that claim.

Anyone who looked upon the man

who stood before him

would hardly have considered him

a threat to anyone,

much less the vaunted power of Rome.

At first, the crux of the priests’s complaint

was that the man had claimed to be

King of the Jews,

so Pilate put the question directly to him:

“…are you the King of the Jews?”

The man’s response stunned him,

“You say so.”

(Mark 15:2; Matthew 27:11; Luke 23:3)

Any other man would have been on his knees by then,

trembling, crying, begging for mercy.

But this man’s calmness was extraordinary.

Pilate had never seen anything like it.

There in the presence of the Roman governor,

along with the leaders of the Jewish community,

and with heavily armed soldiers all around,

the man was serene.

The chief priests and elders kept up their harangue:

they wanted the man taken to

just outside the western gate of the city,

to the hill called Golgotha,

and there be crucified,

Rome’s preferred choice for execution;

hung from a cross like a common criminal.

Now, Pilate had no compunction when it came

to pronouncing sentences of execution;

Pilate’s reputation for brutality

was not undeserved.

After all, order must be maintained;

Rome must be obeyed.

But still, Pilate was not one to rush to judgment.

He remembered how he had said

to the chief priests and elders,

“You brought me this man

 as one who was perverting the people;

claiming that he was telling you

 not to pay taxes to the emperor,

and saying that he himself was the Messiah,

a king;

and here I have examined him in your presence

and have not found this man guilty

of any of your charges against him.

… He has done nothing to deserve death.

I will therefore have him flogged

and release him.”

(Luke 23:14-16)

At the time, that seemed so reasonable to Pilate.

A good example of Rome’s fairness,

its commitment to justice to all,

citizen and foreigner alike,

rich and poor alike.

Pilate was pleased with himself

and his display of wisdom.

But as he stood on his terrace,

three years removed from that day,

the crash of the waves on the shore

echoed the angry howls Pilate heard in response:

“Crucify him! Crucify him!”

Pilate then had tried to throw the whole matter

back on the priests –

the Sadducees and the Pharisees:

“Take him yourselves

and judge him according to your law.”

(John 18:31)

But the priests were relentless,

dogged, determined,

almost threatening Pilate,

“If you release this man,

you are no friend of the emperor.

Everyone who claims to be a king

sets himself against the emperor.”

(John 19:12)

What was a single life to Pilate,

especially the life of one who was not Roman,

not a citizen?

Who would miss the man who stood before him,

other than perhaps a few family members?

In a matter of days, he’d be forgotten.

Still, Pilate tried one more tactic,

asking the chief priests and the elders

to choose between Barabbas,

who was a notorious criminal,

a known murderer,

and Jesus.

Pilate was certain that they’d never choose

Barabbas over Jesus.

But that’s just what they did.

And so Pilate sent Jesus to be crucified.

Pilate thought that was that;

that he had washed his hands of

the whole matter,

that he could relax

and get ready for his return home.

But back they came,

the priests and the elders;

the next day,

after Pilate’s soldiers had confirmed

that Jesus was dead,

back they came with that astonishing request,

“Sir, we remember what that impostor said

while he was still alive,

‘After three days I will rise again.’

Therefore command the tomb

to be made secure until the third day.”

That was too much for Pilate:

“After three days I will rise again”??

Such nonsense.

He knew the beliefs of the Israelites well enough

to know that among the priests

the Pharisees believed in

what they called resurrection,

but the Sadducees did not believe in

any such thing.

Why would he worry about something

their very leaders couldn’t agree on?

Pilate dismissed the priests –

telling them to take care of the matter themselves.

But then, the next day,

as he was getting ready to return to Caesarea,

came the news:

the tomb where Joseph of Arimathea

had laid Jesus body

was found empty,

the stone rolled back,

the guards unconscious,

Jesus gone.

The rumors followed Pilate to Caesarea

over the next few days,

the next few weeks:

Jesus was alive: seen by his disciples,

the scars on his body clear;

Jesus seen in the Emmaus Road;

Jesus seen on the shore of the Sea of Galilee –

cooking fish, eating fish!

Not a ghost, a spirit,

but Jesus alive.

        

At the time, Pilate dismissed the stories

as myth, fabrication.

But now, three years later,

those stories had taken hold as true,

and with every passing day,

more and more people believed them.

                          

What happened three years before?

What had Pilate witnessed?

Could there have been any truth

in what he had heard?

Could Jesus have really risen from the dead,

as he apparently told his followers he would?

                                            

As Pilate, old, worn, tired,

stood on his terrace, looking out on the sea,

he still wondered:

What happened?

What was the truth?

We know, don’t we?

We heard it in our lesson:

in the words spoken by the angel to the women:

“I know that you are looking for Jesus

who was crucified.

He is not here;

for he has been raised….

Come, see the place where he lay.

Then go quickly and tell his disciples,

‘He has been raised from the dead’”

All four gospels tell us what happened.

All four gospels tell us not a story,

not a myth,

but the truth.

The words of God’s angel speaking to Mary,

tell us,

tell us what happened,

tell us the truth:

“He is not here, but has risen.

Remember how he told you,

while he was still in Galilee,

that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners,

and be crucified,

and on the third day rise again.’

He is not here, but has risen.”

(Luke 24)

Peter, who so shamefully denied Jesus

those three times the night of his arrest,

helps us to understand what happened,

that we have been given,

“a new birth into a living hope

through the resurrection of Jesus Christ

and into an inheritance that is imperishable…”

(1 Peter 1:3)

“an inheritance that is imperishable”

Pilate, standing in the shadows of his terrace,

would never have understood this,

that in Christ’s resurrection,

we have been given life.

The Son rose on that first Easter morning,

and brought new life to all the world,

and the life was the light of all people..

And the light shines in the darkness,

and the darkness did not overcome it.

The darkness can never overcome it.

We know what happened.

We know the truth:

Christ is risen!

Christ is risen!

Christ is risen, indeed!

Alleluia!!

AMEN