SERMON: Easter Day, Year B
John 20:1-18
Preached Easter Sunday, April 5, 2015 at St. Philip’s, Brevard by RDF
If you sat down one day to write your own epitaph, what would it say?
As a young man, Ben Franklin did just that. His self-penned epitaph is light-hearted, and it ultimately went unused. But in
these nine brief lines, Ben Franklin captures not only the spirit of his own profession, but also the true meaning of Easter:
The Body of B. Franklin Printer;
Like the Cover of an old Book,
Its Contents torn out,
And stript of its Lettering and Gilding,
Lies here, Food for Worms.
But the Work shall not be wholly lost:
For it will, as he believ'd, appear once more,
In a new & more perfect Edition,
Corrected and Amended By the Author.
Don’t you love it? Ben Franklin, imagining himself resurrected as a new and more perfect edition of himself —
re-published by the Author of all creation.
On a glorious Easter morning like this one, it’s easy to forget that resurrection is not just about Jesus. We are here today to
proclaim once again the amazing news that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. He was indeed put to death on a cross,
buried in a tomb, and “raised on the third day” (1 Cor. 15:4). And we are here to celebrate, sing, and shout our alleluias.
As Ben Franklin’s epitaph implies, however, resurrection is also about us — and all of creation. Easter is such Good News
precisely because it’s not about Jesus alone. “Just as Christ was raised from the dead,” says Paul, “so we too might walk in
newness of life” (Romans 6:4). And, in another letter, Paul quotes an ancient hymn that says, “Sleeper, awake! Rise from
the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (Ephesians 5:14).
You remember the story of Lazarus. He was the brother of Martha and Mary, who call for Jesus when Lazarus becomes
deathly ill. But for reasons no one can fully explain, Jesus delays going to them. After he finally arrives in Bethany, Jesus
summons Lazarus from of the tomb, where his body has been lying for four days. Upon hearing the voice of Jesus, the dead
man staggers out. And Jesus says to the onlookers, “Unbind him and let him go” (John 11:38-48).
One reason we have the story of Lazarus is to set the stage for the resurrection of Jesus. But the other reason is to remind us
that the new life God gave to Jesus is also for others. Death and resurrection; this world and the next; old life and new:
these things are woven throughout the Bible, like golden threads. And it’s not as if they didn’t exist before Jesus. It’s that
his life, death, and resurrection reveal them to us better than anything else we can imagine. His story embodies the pattern
at the heart of all reality — more effectively than anything we’ve heard before or since. Jesus shows us the way to eternal
life — not only after we die, but also right now. The challenge is to train our hearts, minds and souls to recognize God’s
gift of new life, and to live it out day by day.
Let’s return to good ol’ Ben Franklin for a moment. What would you think if he came back to life tomorrow. Would you
believe it? And would you trust whatever he had to say? That was the dilemma for the disciples after Jesus rose from the
dead. Not only did they have to believe it, they also had to convince others that the resurrected Jesus had something
powerful to teach us.
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There’s at least one person alive today who understands this dilemma better than most. He’s a North Carolinian and
Episcopalian by birth. In fact, he’s related to some people I know who live in Charlotte and in Transylvania County. Dr.
Eben Alexander was among the most accomplished neurosurgeons of his day when, in 2008, he contracted a rare case of
bacterial meningitis. The effect of this sudden illness was that it attacked his brain and put him in a life-threatening coma.
Over the course of six days, doctors at a hospital in Virginia worked feverishly to diagnose and fight his condition. But
several days later, they began to conclude they could not save him. And so they prepared his family for the need to
disconnect Alexander from the life-support systems that had been keeping his body alive.
All this came to a head on the seventh day, when members of Alexander’s family left a sad and sobering consultation with
the doctors to try to rouse him from his coma one last time. To their surprise, his eyes opened and he began to look around
the room. Moments later, after other family members had rushed in, Alexander sat up in his bed and declared, “All is well.”
And, again, “Don’t worry … all is well.” Alexander could say this not only because he had just survived a very close brush
with death, but also because of what he experienced while he was in the coma. In his New York Times best-selling book,
Alexander recounts his journey into the afterlife, his interchange with God and other divine beings, and the knowledge he
wants share with the world.*
By his own admission, Alexander was a lapsed Christian and probably an agnostic who leaned towards atheism before his
near-death experience. This is a man who benefitted from some of the best academic and medical training the world has to
offer: Phillips Exeter Academy, UNC-Chapel Hill, and Duke University School of Medicine. Eben Alexander has a
professional résumé that is the envy of most neurosurgeons, with stints at Duke University Hospital, Massachusetts
General, and academic appointments at the University of Virginia and Harvard. Over the course of his career he wrote
more than 150 papers in peer-reviewed publications, and gave more than 200 presentations at conferences around the
world.
If I were to describe in detail what Alexander says he experienced during his near-death ordeal, about a third of you would
accept it at face value, a third would immediately be skeptical, and the rest of you would probably have very mixed feelings.
You’re welcome to read his book and decide for yourself. This much, I will say: due to the stories people have told me
about their own near-death experiences, I find his account to be quite believable. For me, his story rings true — despite the
skeptics and debunkers who, not surprisingly, have attacked his testimony.
This is a neurosurgeon whose patients had told him of their own near-death experiences. But before his brush with death,
Alexander discounted such stories on scientific and medical grounds. In regard to religious faith, Dr. Alexander emerged
from his six-day coma a changed man. During his ordeal, he had a foretaste of the unseen reality that is all around us right
now, and that awaits us in the next life — the very things that Jesus came to reveal.
Using Alexander’s own words, this is what God showed him during his coma: “You are loved and cherished, dearly,
forever. You have nothing to fear” (pp. 41 & 71). “Love is without a doubt, the basis of everything…. The day-to-day kind
[of love] that everyone knows — the kind of love we feel when we look at our spouse and our children, or even our
animals.
“This is the reality of realities,” says Alexander, “the incomprehensibly glorious truth of truths that lives and breathes at the
core of everything that exists or that ever will exist…. God is present in us at all times. Omniscient, omnipotent, personal
— and loving us without conditions…. The (false) suspicion that we can somehow be separated from God is the root of
every form of anxiety in the universe, and the cure for it … [is] the knowledge that nothing can tear us from God, ever”
(pp. 71, 76 & 161).
Like Jesus, this is someone who has figured out what really matters and what doesn’t. That’s the gift of Easter; that’s the
gift of resurrection; that’s the gift of New Life. Thanks to the love of God we see so clearly in Christ, this gift is ours at
every moment.
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“Lord, how are we to respond to this day?
When tombs do not stay sealed;
when … immobile bodies walk into the daylight;
and people who were gone are alive again;
anything is possible.
“We have no frame of reference for this — no logical explanation
to make resurrection a normal everyday occurrence
And yet, that’s exactly what it is now —
ever since you refused to remain a victim of the grave.
And suddenly we can see it — resurrection is everywhere!
“You truly are alive — and your life breaks out
in surprising ways and unexpected places
even in our own hearts and lives.
“And so, Risen Jesus, Eternal and Abundant Life-Giver
We praise you, we celebrate you, we bow in awe
and we open our hearts again, that you, O King of Glory
may come in.”**
* Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey Into the Afterlife (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012), p. 113. Find
Alexander’s CV at: http://www.ebenalexander.com/about-dr-alexander/curriculum-vitae/
** Easter prayer by John van de Laar [© 2006 Sacredise]