Risen, Therefore Lord

"Risen, Therefore Lord"--April 18, 2017

[Peter said to the crowd at Pentecost:] "This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses....Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified." [Acts 2:32, 36]

For the first followers of Jesus, the news of the resurrection was less about proving the existence of an afterlife, and more about naming who is Lord over life and death.

Let that sink in for a moment.  As the earliest Christian witnesses tell it, both those remembered sermons of the apostles and the writings we call the New Testament, the news of Easter's empty tomb was significant because of what it said about Jesus more than what it said about life after death. 

That is to say, the first followers of Jesus already believed that God was going to raise the dead (one day).  The idea of being raised to new life was already simmering in pockets of first-century Judaism.  And while not every first century Jewish person believed in resurrection (the Sadducee party, for example, was famous/infamous among first-century Jewish groups and sects for not believing a resurrection of the dead, as even the New Testament notes), certainly a good number of them did.  The Hebrew Scriptures--what we call the Old Testament--don't spell out a definitive "doctrine of resurrection" in any one single place, but it is fair to say that all of Jesus' first followers certainly believed that God would one day raise the dead.  And for that matter, there were other Jewish groups--who were decidedly not followers of Jesus--who also believed that God would raise the dead, too.  So when someone like a Simon Peter addressed a Jewish crowd on the day of Pentecost in the early chapters of Acts and makes a reference to the resurrection of Jesus, it wasn't because he was trying to prove that resurrection can happen--it was because he was trying to say something about Jesus.

Note here in Acts 2, when Peter gets to the point of talking about Jesus being raised from the grave, his argument doesn't go, "Jesus rose from the dead--therefore, resurrection must be a real thing."  Rather, Peter's point goes in a different direction, one pointed back at Jesus: "Jesus rose from the dead--therefore, Jesus must really be Lord and Messiah."

To be sure, other New Testament writings (see for example 1 Corinthians 15) take Jesus' rising as grounds for believing in the idea of resurrection for others, but those passages are usually written to audiences that didn't already have resurrection in mind.  But in the Jewish mindset to whom Peter was speaking in Acts, the idea of life-after-death wasn't the thing that needed proving--it was the claim that Jesus is Lord.

And this is the real rub here: saying Jesus is risen means that he really is who he says he is, and that God truly affirms and vindicates Jesus.  To say Jesus is risen from the dead means that he really is "Lord"--a title with a lot of power and punch in the first century.  That not only puts Jesus somehow in union with the living God (whose divine name "Yahweh" was translated "Lord" in Greek translations of the Hebrew Scriptures), but also puts Jesus on collision course with Caesar.  The earliest Christian creed statement was the simple sentence, "Jesus is Lord," which was also a direct assault on Rome's claim about the emperor.  "Caesar is lord" was the mantra that the Empire required its subjects to affirm, often along with worship of the emperor, as a pledge of allegiance (or at least of acquiescence) to the empire's rule. 

And it was on this very point that the first Christians resisted. They went to their deaths--fed to lions, crucified, tortured, burned, and so on--because they refused to say that Caesar, with all his armies, weapons, threats, and bluster, was really in control. They instead insisted that "Jesus is Lord," and for the first Christians, Easter was the evidence.  The empty tomb was God's stamp of endorsement on Jesus, and God's rejection of the empire as final authority.  The empty tomb was God's supreme dissent, if you like, against Rome's verdict and death sentence for Jesus.  The empty  tomb was God's affirmation, to hear Peter tell it here in Acts, that Jesus rules... and that the way Jesus rules really was and is God's way of ruling the entire universe.

Now here is the hard part for all of us: saying Jesus is "Lord" also means confessing that Jesus is "right."  Right in what he said, what he did, what he taught, and how he loved (and loves).  As the great line of Dallas Willard puts it, if you have to hesitate before saying "Jesus is smart," it doesn't mean very much to say "Jesus is Lord."  Sometimes we hear this talk about "confessing Jesus as Lord" and we think that it is just about having a warm fuzzy feeling about this bearded fellow in the robe, but truthfully, to confess Jesus as "Lord" means to say that what Jesus says... goes.  Not just on the things that are easy for you to accept.  Not just on the things I like.  Not just on the matters that leave my personal comfort unchanged.  Not just on the things I think I am doing a good job on.  Jesus is not running as a candidate in our political system, where he is expected to tailor his message to what will get him votes.  Jesus isn't running for office--either he knows what he is talking about, or he doesn't.  And for the earliest Christians, the supreme evidence that Jesus really is Lord and really does have authority to say how things are going to be run, was the resurrection.

So to follow Peter's logic... if we believe in the Good News of Easter, it means accepting that Jesus is right when he teaches us to love our enemies.  If we believe the tomb was empty on that first day of the week, it means that Jesus is right when he says that the poor and the meek are the blessed ones, and that the well-fed and the well-spoken-of are the ones who should be worried.  If we believe that Jesus is risen from the dead, it means also accepting that in God's reign, the last are first and the first are last, and in the end the workers who only did one hour of labor get paid the same as those who worked all day.  If we mean it when we say, "Christ is risen indeed!  Alleluia!" then it also means accepting that the only true greatness is in giving yourself away, the only true victory looks like a loss, and the only real power is in surrender, not in making yourself look tough or beating your chest.

In other words, if we believe the news of Easter, it not only makes a difference in what we believe happens AFTER death--it makes a difference in what we believe about life BEFORE death, too.  It means accepting that Jesus' perspective on things is correct, even if I am not "there" yet... even if I recognize it makes me uncomfortable... even if it means I have to do some learning and growing and changing of the way I think, as well.  That puts a stop to any of this silly nonsense we religious folks sometimes try that says, "Of course I believe in Jesus... but I just don't think that his teaching about ________ is very realistic or practical."  And it puts an end to any schmaltzy gobbledygook  like, "I love Jesus with all my heart... but I don't think his teaching to do good to those who hate you is very prudent." At least not if we read the Bible on its own terms.  Peter doesn't leave us that option.  For Peter there on the day of Pentecost, the logic is airtight with no wiggle room: if Jesus is risen from the dead, then Jesus is Lord.  And if Jesus is Lord, then Jesus is right--about everything, even the things that mean my life will have to change, or be rearranged, or have to be re-aligned.

So... for us who just got done singing, "Jesus Christ is risen today! Alleluia!" this past Sunday... what things might be changed, or have to change, in our day to day priorities, beliefs, actions, attitudes, and prejudices?  What things had we convinced ourselves were necessary for our security and livelihood that Jesus will tell us to get rid of?  What people were we ready to ignore that we can no longer turn a blind eye toward?  What corners of our lives were we comfortably bent in on 'self' with that are now going to have to be hammered out to reshape us?  And how will the risen Jesus lead us out of the tomb, and out of our old self-centeredness, if he really is alive again?

Go... live like Jesus is risen... and thus Lord... and thus right... about everything.

Lord Jesus, as we dare to confess you--and not the powers of the day--are really in charge, let us live this day as your people, taking your lordship seriously.