John 20:1-18
My Lenten sermon series has been about being empty and being filled. From the start, I’ve talked about how something already full can’t be filled. It has to be emptied first. Totally emptied.
Once emptied, then you are ready to be filled by Christ. As those at the wedding at Cana found, when the wine totally ran out. Emptiness doesn’t lead to despair and sadness. Jesus used emptiness to lead to belief and faith.
Being emptied and then being filled by Christ leads, as Nicodemus found, to a more authentic self.
At the times when life has emptied our pitcher and we are feeling dejected, apathetic, or meaningless, like the woman at the well, along comes Jesus. One conversation with Jesus fills with life and purpose. Once Jesus fills us, we become those who are able to go forth and fill others who have been emptied.
Emptiness has the ability to stick us in one spot, like the infirm man by the pool of Bethesda. We don’t want to get up. We don’t want to move forward in life. But Jesus comes and fills us--we are able to get to our feet with the Lord, and move out into a life we’ve never known.
Sometimes our emptiness tempts us to fill it with bad--even unGodly--choices. Like the woman caught in adultery. But somehow, even those bad choices bring us into Jesus’ presence. Thrown at Jesus’ feet, humiliated, he stoops down to us, getting down to our level, so that we might rise up with him--forgiven, clean, restored, and challenged to make new and better choices.
What is amazing about the Easter story is that God meets emptiness with emptiness. God fills us, fills the world, with emptiness.
First, God fills our emptiness with the empty cross. I wondered for a long time why Jesus had to die--especially such a gruesome death. Why couldn’t God just announce from the heavens, in some loud booming voice (or in an inner whisper) that we would all hear, that we were all saved? Instead, Jesus was sent by God to die. Why?
The book of Hebrews helped me out there, where in the second chapter it says,
We are people of flesh and blood. That is why Jesus became one of us. He died to destroy the devil, who had power over death. But he also died to rescue all of us who live each day in fear of dying. (2:14-15)
One major piece of our human condition is living under the specter of death. I’m not sure about the animals, but we humans are conscious of the fact that we are all going to die. How we handle that fear of death will determine a lot about how we live. The fear of death can and does create all kinds of neurosis, depression, and apathy. But, if we aren’t afraid of death anymore, then it frees us up to live richer, more God-led lives.
There’s more to Christ’s death, says the writer of Hebrews. With the fear of death comes evil. So, God had to deal with evil also. The only way to not just overcome the devil, but destroy him, is by the sacrificial death of Jesus. The devil and evil had to be destroyed, and Jesus’ death was the way. So, imagine what that does for the human courage of living each day with empowerment? If you knew the power of evil was out of the way, and you didn’t have to be afraid of evil anymore, how would you then live?
With the empty cross, the death of Christ, the world is filled with a certain fearlessness about living. The two main things we fear--death and evil--are taken care of by the empty cross. Those two fears empty the world, empty the life and courage of the people of the world. They empty our lives of vitality and strength and will. But, with those two fears out of the way, the world becomes filled with amazing opportunity to live--to really live. Filled by the empty Cross.
And lastly, God fills our empty world and empty lives with the empty tomb. One of the main messages of the empty tomb is that there is more. There is more to this life than just this life. There is another realm of existence beyond death. To know that, because of the Resurrection of Jesus, no matter how awful life becomes, there will be another day, another world, another life, eternal, beyond the pains and capriciousness of this world.
I just watched, again, the movie, Les Miserables this week. In that movie, Fantine sings the song, “I Dreamed A Dream.”
There was a time when men were kind
When their voices were soft
And their words inviting
There was a time when love was blind
And the world was a song
And the song was exciting
There was a time
Then it all went wrong
I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted
But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
As they turn your dream to shame...
...But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather
I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.
The great good news of the Resurrection is that even though that may be your song, there is more. There is another song, because of the empty tomb of Christ, that will be sung in Resurrection, that will restore your dreams. Never will life “kill the dreams you dream” again, because of the filling power of the empty tomb. Jesus’ empty tomb fills all empty lives, so that a new song will be sung, and dreams will be dreamed again. That is the promise and the power of the empty tomb of Christ which fills an emptied people.
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