William H. Willimon - "Thy Kingdom Come" Easter Service 9:00 am (April 15, 2001)

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-	The gospel lesson comes from Saint Luke,	0:07
	the 24th chapter.	0:11
	But on the first day of the week,	0:15
	at early dawn, they came to the tomb,	0:17
	taking the spices that they had prepared.	0:21
	They found the stone rolled away from the tomb.	0:24
	But when they went in, they did not find the body.	0:27
	While they were perplexed about this,	0:32
	suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them.	0:35
	The women were terrified,	0:40
	and bowed their faces to the ground.	0:41
	But the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living	0:44
	"among the dead?	0:48
	"He is not here, but has risen.	0:50
	"Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee	0:54
	"that the son of Man must be handed over to sinners	0:59
	"and be crucified.	1:04
	"And on the third day shall rise again."	1:06
	Then they remembered his words,	1:11
	and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the 11.	1:13
	And to all the rest.	1:18
	Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna,	1:20
	Mary, the mother of James, and the other women with them,	1:24
	who told this to the apostles.	1:28
	But these words seemed to them an idle tale,	1:31
	and they did not believe them.	1:35
	But Peter got up and ran to the tomb.	1:38
	Stooping, and looking in,	1:41
	he saw the linen cloths by themselves.	1:44
	Then he went home, amazed, at what had happened.	1:48
	This is the word of the Lord.	1:54
-	Thanks be to God.	1:57
-	An article in USA Today proclaims,	2:04
	"Death is no longer a Downer."	2:09
	Quote, "Death's former finality has been upstaged	2:13
	"by Hollywood's vision of the afterlife.	2:18
	"Where in recent movies, dearly departed communicate	2:21
	"with loved ones, influence events, even come back	2:25
	"for another go-around."	2:28
	We have always liked movies	2:31
	that end happily ever after.	2:33
	But in today's pop-culture, happily ever after	2:36
	has been extended.	2:40
	The TV Show, Buffy and the Vampire Slayer,	2:43
	features Buffy and her boyfriend, Angel, who just won't die.	2:46
	Then there was Meet Joe Black, an interminable movie	2:52
	about the delayed termination of a tycoon.	2:55
	In What Dreams May Come, Robin Williams is killed	2:59
	in a car crash, but incredibly reunited	3:01
	with the family dog in a sort of German romantic landscape.	3:03
	In Titanic, Jack and Rose end the movie happily	3:08
	after all, despite the iceburg thing.	3:13
	Gerald Celente, in his book, Trends 2000,	3:18
	has this theory for all these movies of immortality.	3:23
	He says that we Baby Boomers are watching parents die,	3:28
	we're getting Aids, we're saying to ourselves,	3:32
	"Wait a minute.	3:35
	"A generation as wonderful as ours can't die.	3:36
	"Maybe we won't."	3:41
	When Meryl Streep dared to die of cancer in One True Thing,	3:44
	it was a box-office bomb, giving credence to	3:48
	James Swanson's idea, in the Chicago Tribune,	3:52
	that the grandiose narcissism and impertinence	3:55
	of the Boomers.	4:00
	They're determined, that for them, death is avoidable.	4:01
	He calls it Faith Lite	4:06
	Princess Di is Elton John's "Candle in the Wind."	4:09
	She is forever.	4:13
	We just go on, and on.	4:16
	We're immortal, like Jack Frost, Michael Keaton,	4:18
	in which a deceased father comes back as his son's snowman.	4:21
	Now, just one thing about all this immortality glitz	4:28
	It has nothing to do with Easter.	4:36
	You heard the story.	4:41
	Jesus really died.	4:43
	He didn't appear to die.	4:48
	He was not asleep.	4:49
	He died a death more cruel than we can conceive.	4:51
	He wasn't dead for a moment on the operating table,	4:55
	having an out-of-body experience.	4:58
	He was sealed in the grave for three days.	5:00
	His disciples did not deceive themselves about his death.	5:06
	They did not think that, though crucified, he will live	5:09
	on in our memories, or any such Pagan drivel.	5:13
	You heard how the disciples came to the first Easter,	5:18
	in great grief.	5:23
	They came to Jesus' tomb with no cheap, false consolation	5:26
	such as, "His message will never die."	5:31
	Or, "If we endow a chair at the university,	5:34
	no one will forget him."	5:37
	When they saw the empty tomb, they didn't think,	5:40
	"Jesus has risen from the dead."	5:44
	They thought, "Somebody stole his body."	5:45
	And yet, within about three days,	5:50
	followers of Jesus came	5:55
	to understand that what happened to Jesus	5:56
	was according to the scriptures.	6:00
	According to the scriptures, Israel believed that one day,	6:04
	God was going to solve the problem of Israel's suffering.	6:09
	And while God was at it, God would solve the problem	6:13
	of evil and injustice and death in all the world.	6:16
	The scriptures promised a day of divine victory.	6:20
	And on Easter, the disciples discovered that day	6:25
	in the resurrection of Jesus.	6:31
	The cross, which they thought was the end	6:33
	of their relationship with Jesus,	6:36
	became, really, the beginning.	6:39
	Easter was God's great answer to the deep question,	6:44
	"What's to be done about the world?"	6:49
	In The Green Mile movie, when something good and spiritual	6:55
	is about to happen, this odd glitter started falling	6:59
	out of the sky.	7:03
	And the camera got out-of-focus and fuzzy.	7:04
	And everything was blue.	7:07
	That's the way Hollywood does God.	7:10
	God is something otherwordly, fuzzy, blue, glitter.	7:13
	Well note, that the gospels go to great length	7:18
	to demonstrate that what happened to Jesus on Easter,	7:21
	while it was unexpected and it was strange,	7:24
	it was experienced here, now.	7:28
	It happened when it was still dark.	7:34
	There was a linen cloth rolled carefully.	7:37
	Mary weeps.	7:39
	These are mundane details from everyday life in this world,	7:41
	where people weep and are confused	7:45
	and things end in tragedy.	7:47
	This is daily death.	7:50
	What we're seeing here is resurrection of the body,	7:54
	not immortality of the soul.	7:59
	It's not even really like life-after-death.	8:03
	There is life after death.	8:07
	And God's people can expect it.	8:09
	But it won't be Hollywood.	8:12
	Christians don't believe in the immortality	8:14
	of some disembodied soul.	8:17
	We believe, just as we will say in the creed,	8:20
	in the resurrection of the body,	8:23
	not the resuscitation of the body,	8:26
	a corpse come back to life,	8:29
	not in the immortality of the soul,	8:32
	some divine spark that just goes on-and-on.	8:36
	That happens only in Hollywood.	8:41
	We believe, that dead Jesus was raised	8:44
	by a loving God who would not be defeated by death,	8:48
	here and now.	8:54
	The disciples found the grave of Jesus empty.	8:58
	Jesus' dead body was gone.	9:02
	When the risen Christ appeared to Mary,	9:05
	he appeared not as some disembodies ghost,	9:07
	some kind of spirit, but as a body.	9:10
	Sure, his was a changed body.	9:14
	Mary did not recognize him until he spoke.	9:16
	But it was his body.	9:18
	Late in the risen, Christ would appear	9:21
	to his disciples, and he would touch them in his body.	9:22
	And so, Christians really do believe,	9:27
	as people sometimes say,	9:30
	"When you're dead, you're dead."	9:32
	Death really is death.	9:34
	Fini.	9:36
	But we also believe in resurrection.	9:38
	We believe that God decisively acts,	9:42
	defeats death, makes a way when we thought there was no way.	9:46
	And this is better than Hollywood.	9:54
	The resurrection of the body, Jesus' or yours.	9:57
	It means that this world matters.	10:02
	And it matters now.	10:05
	We may not know exactly how resurrected bodies will look.	10:08
	As Paul says, "It does not yet apparent what we shall be."	10:13
	But we believe, just as Jesus was raised,	10:17
	so, by the love of God, shall our bodies be raised, as well.	10:20
	And this means that the matter of this world matters.	10:26
	We're not into some disembodied, fuzzy, Never-Neverland.	10:32
	God has made a decisive bridgehead against the onslaught	10:38
	of death, right here and now.	10:42
	You will notice, in the scripture and in the hymns,	10:45
	there's a kind of battle quality about them.	10:47
	This thing is political.	10:52
	That's why we pray, each Sunday, "Thy kingdom come	10:54
	"on earth as it is in Heaven."	10:58
	Resurrection is about God at last getting what God wants,	11:01
	here, now, on earth, in the body.	11:04
	that which God will one day have, in Heaven, forever.	11:08
	It's not just that there's some cushy afterlife	11:14
	in store for those of us who manage	11:17
	to make the grade, someday.	11:19
	If it were, then Christianity could be justly accused	11:22
	of being some pie-in-the-sky, by-and-by religion.	11:25
	When in reality, it is a	11:30
	Thy-kingdom-come-on-earth-as-it-is-in-Heaven religion.	11:32
	If Easter was just about Jesus exiting the tomb	11:38
	in some ethereal, spiritual sense,	11:41
	leaving the body in the tomb to rot,	11:44
	leaving the world to stew in its own juice,	11:47
	well where would be the hope?	11:51
	Better go make movies	11:53
	that do death as something only apparent,	11:55
	and spirits taking off to pastel skies.	11:58
	But resurrection is not some vague,	12:03
	inner spiritual experience.	12:05
	It's about a Kingdom come on earth as in Heaven,	12:08
	a new Heaven, a new Earth,	12:11
	first hinted at in the resurrection of Jesus on Easter,	12:14
	one day come in fullness when God does Easter	12:17
	for the whole creation.	12:20
	God faced evil and death on Good Friday,	12:22
	and on Easter, triumphed.	12:27
	And now God intends to do, for the whole world,	12:31
	through us, as Easter people,	12:35
	what was done for Jesus on Easter.	12:39
	In Hollywood, when people die,	12:43
	things tends to get sort of vaporous and fuzzy and pink.	12:45
	But here in church, when we do Easter,	12:50
	you notice that we use the things of this world,	12:52
	flowers, and parades, and people, and above all, music.	12:55
	It's as if a world out-of-tune,	13:01
	marching to the dirge-like beat of death	13:04
	finally gets its intended song,	13:07
	as if the whole Creation,	13:12
	once destined for deadly futility, now soars,	13:14
	healed, reclaimed, by a God determined	13:18
	not to leave us in death.	13:21
	Karl Marx charged that Christianity lulls people	13:26
	into political complacency.	13:31
	Christianity's got nothing but Heaven in its head,	13:33
	some future spiritual thing, removed from the struggles	13:37
	of the here-and-now.	13:40
	John Brown's body lies a moldering in the grave,	13:42
	but God goes marching on.	13:46
	No.	13:50
	The first witnesses to Easter knew something had happened.	13:52
	Their world encountered, entered, wrought, reformed.	13:57
	Easter wasn't God saying,	14:03
	"Now let me get you out of this deadly tearful world."	14:06
	Easter was God saying, "Let me give you a peek	14:10
	of what I am going to do to your world,	14:14
	and you, now, here."	14:17
	You take away the resurrection of the body,	14:21
	Marx is right.	14:23
	Christianity is some kind of wish-fulfillment,	14:24
	escape into some Nirvana of our creation,	14:27
	some exit from the here-and-now.	14:30
	But you take resurrection of the body seriously,	14:35
	or maybe to the point of today's music, joyously,	14:39
	and responsibility is laid on you.	14:43
	Because if you can sing, "Hallelujah, Christ has risen,"	14:46
	then you're singing that Jesus Christ really is Lord.	14:50
	And all the would-be little lordlets of this world, are not.	14:55
	When we sing, "The Strife is Over.	15:00
	"The Battle is won,"	15:03
	it means that we've got to join Jesus	15:04
	in the mopping-up action, wherever evil still exists,	15:06
	wherever anybody tries to challenge the reign of a good God.	15:10
	The Jesus seminar of a few years ago said that on Easter,	15:16
	what happened was, the disciples of Jesus had some kind	15:21
	of experience of Christ's presence.	15:24
	No.	15:28
	That just won't lift the luggage.	15:30
	The resurrection was not some inert spiritual experience.	15:33
	It was God's bodily outer act in Jesus, visible,	15:37
	rising of a son,	15:41
	whose glory put all other sons to shame.	15:43
	Today the great master of defeat, death, has been defeated.	15:47
	So Paul says that in the resurrection of Jesus, every ruler,	15:53
	every pompous politician and presumptive power	15:57
	is in big trouble.	16:00
	You heard the scripture,	16:03
	for he must reign until he's put all enemies under his feet.	16:04
	And the last enemy to be destroyed is death.	16:09
	The great battle has been fought and won.	16:13
	And the kingdoms of this world	16:18
	shall be the kingdoms of our Christ.	16:20
	And he shall rule forever and ever.	16:24
	Amen.	16:29

Item Info

Title:

William H. Willimon - "Thy Kingdom Come" Easter Service 9:00 am (April 15, 2001)

Description:

Sermon start time: 02:04. Sermon end time: 16:30.
The preacher disapproves of the idea of the immortality of the soul. He argues that death is death, where both body and soul decease. Resurrection is not just a revival of the body to catch up with the never-dying soul, but it is bringing in a new Kingdom, a brand new world. Resurrection is the defeat of evil and the glory of God. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Key quotation: “Easter was God’s great answer to the deep question, ‘What’s to be done about the world?’”

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4xk8554k

Date:

April 15, 2001

Speaker:

Willimon, William H.

Liturgical Calendar:

Easter

Biblical Book:

Luke

Chapter and Verse:

Luke 24:1-12

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-1061
ref10279_iap
uachapelsermaud
duke:321274
dcrau001705
ark:/87924/r4xk8554k
7aaf9ab4-7624-455a-a351-58996d2d2c84

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the Creative Commons license indicated here. For more information see https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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William H. Willimon - "Thy Kingdom Come" Easter Service 9:00 am (April 15, 2001)

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1. William H. Willimon - "Thy Kingdom Come" Easter Service 11:00 am (April 15, 2001)

Duke University Archives

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William H. Willimon - "Thy Kingdom Come" Easter Service 9:00 am (April 15, 2001)

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