Prop: a stone or rock, some scissors, and paper; a basket of stones or rocks that can be handed out
Participation: During the sermon, all can participate using the hand motions of “rock, paper, scissors”
Are you a liar? That might be a question asked of you if you live in the mountains of West Virginia, where the art of storytelling is called “lying.” It is every artist’s desire to become a “great liar.” To be a great “liar” meant that you could not only write a crafty short story, but you could “tell” the story out loud in an inviting, enticing and mesmerizing way that would leave your audience spellbound. The gift of the true “liar” is to take someone’s imagination where they did not know it could go, and to weave the tale around the mind and heart so that both mind and heart become part of its holographic magic.
After Jesus’ resurrection, the disciples are accused of “lying.” They are accused of “lying” about Jesus’ empty tomb. They are accused of “lying” about his victory over death. They are accused of “lying” about his appearances on the road, in the room, on the mountain, by the sea. All the while an elaborate alternative “lie” is concocted by the Temple leadership in order to sentence the truth into silence. But these “liars” and all their “lies” could not even remotely compete with the True Story, witnessed by the soldiers and documented by Matthew. Truth is stronger not just stranger than fiction. This resurrection story shocked the soldiers into a state of sheer paralysis. It’s a story that, when witnessed personally, can also propel every one of us into a new reality of resurrection life.
When you’re in the middle of a Jesus story, and you think “So far, so good,” you’re in the wrong story. When you're in the middle of a Jesus story, and you think “So far, so odd,” you’re in the right story. Preacher David Bevel Jones once heard the great Sam Proctor say the key to preaching was to get Jesus in so much trouble in the first part of your sermon that no one believes it's possible to get him out of it. He said it was pretty easy to do if you gave the Gospels an honest reading.
A Jesus story was known by its “shock value.” Most other oral “stories” of the time reflected consistent ways to perform this or that ritual or outlined moral guidelines for how to follow better the laws of Moses, usually ending with a concise moral lesson.Jesus’ stories would always subvert the usual expectation.
A Jesus story had a “squirm” factor. It would start out like some of the other stories the rabbis would tell. But then suddenly, it would take a surprising turn, and before you knew it, you were transported into some new understanding of reality and truth. It was this “twist” and “turn” that defined the story of the resurrection experience of the guards as told in the gospel of Matthew that early morning the day after the Sabbath.
And it is this “twist” that “turns” our hearts back to God, slices through the muck of doubt, shakes us back to a reality greater and more mysterious than we could imagine possible.
Stories are the muscle of our hearts, the marker of our identity. Each of us have “stories” that underlie our behaviors, our beliefs, and our belongings. In a sense, your story is what makes you who you are, and guides you in where you want to go. Stories can either make or break us. They are powerful forces that can either lift us up or drag us down during the storms and rocky patches of life. Our stories can make us buoyant. Or our stories can drag us down like a rock around our neck.
Whenever relationships get hard, whenever we encounter problems in life, how we react has a genesis in those stories that lurk below the surface of our souls. A heart of stone built by years of stonewalling will yield a stony disposition. One story that poisons the soul can make for a toxic life. Our stories anchor us to a root identity. Our stories form the fabric of our relationships and responses.
When we construct our own stories, or hide from Jesus’ story, we become “paralyzed” and “powerless” in the face of life’s difficulties. We learn to live “lies” that cause us trouble. Loose threads trip us up. Life cuts us up and bring us down.
When our stories merge with Christ’s story, when we allow Christ’s resurrection story to invade our hearts and imprint our souls, when we live a Christ-constructed life, we emerge pure and fresh and new with confidence and humility, ready to take on the world.
When you have Jesus in your life, the stones that hide the Truth are rolled away, and your true heart is revealed. In that revealing, the power of Christ’s victory over evil and suffering emerges strong and bright. When you have Jesus’ Story in you, your life can’t help but proclaim the truth of Jesus. You can’t help but become a Master Storyteller of truth. .
Stories are powerful agents of change. The great language philosopher Ivan Illich said for example, “Neither revolution nor reformation can ultimately change a society, rather you must tell a new powerful tale, one so persuasive that it sweeps away the old myths and becomes the preferred story, one so inclusive that it gathers all the bits of our past and our present into a coherent whole, one that even shines some light into the future so that we can take the next step forward. If you want to change a society, then you have to tell an alternative story.”
The guards in Matthew’s story experienced a shocking occurrence, a “twist” so powerful, it shook their very minds to the core. They were compelled to tell the tale of Jesus’ resurrection. And yet, their story was “hidden” before it could be revealed, so that a more “reasonable” tale could be woven, one that would squash the truth before the Jesus story could subvert the falsehoods and follies of the world. .
And yet, the story of Jesus’ resurrection could not be hidden under a rock. It could not be kept under wraps. It could not be squelched and PR-ed out of history. Like the stone that was forcibly rolled away from the surface of the tomb, Jesus’ Story, that alternative story, is too unbelievable to be a lie. It powers through any public relations and easy explanations. It explodes away false realities. The encounter with Jesus, even in an encounter with those who would proclaim him, will bring you to your knees and blow away everything you imagined could be true.
Here are three “metaphors” that can help purvey the power of Jesus’ resurrection story. [Pass around a basket of stones and invite everyone to take a stone into their hands].
[Hold up the paper]
Your life is like this sheet of paper: blank page, tabula rasa. When you are born into the world, baptized in the water of Jesus, your life is whole and pure, unwritten and clean as this sheet of paper. As you live your life, your story begins to be “scripted,” written in ways that shape how you interact with the world. When you allow Jesus’ Story to be written upon your story, when your life is “underwritten” with the script of Scripture, your life reflects in its own way the story of Jesus Life-–timeless and true.
But things happen in our lives to distort our stories, don’t they? [Take a scissors out]. This scissors represents “sin.” Sin is a word we don’t like to use anymore. We don’t like to talk about it much. But whatever you want to call it, “sin” is like a scissors that interrupts and tears your story.
We have a run-in with one of our friends, and we allow hate to start chomping away at our hearts –[take the scissors and cut into the paper]. When that happens, sin cuts into our lives, leaving jagged places in our hearts that need soothing and smoothing. When our anger gets the best of us and we hurt someone, [cut another piece out of the paper], our story becomes deformed and our lives broken. When we encounter difficulties in our lives that we cannot handle on our own, [cut again into the paper], we can begin to feel cut down, cut up, our hope cut away, ….until soon, we find we are hiding away from God, too ashamed that God’s image in has has become so blurred and broken. Shame and doubt and guilt –these all continue to distort [fold the paper….twist it] until our beautiful stories look nothing like what God created our lives to be.
But even when our lives have become so deformed and distorted by sin, no matter how frayed and jagged our souls have become, the story of Jesus empty tomb, the rolling away of the rock, and the truth of the resurrection can restore our lives to their former selves. Why?
Jesus IS the rock.
Jesus IS the door.
Jesus IS the good shepherd.
Jesus IS the the gateway.
As that rock is rolled away from the tomb with the force of an earthquake, that’s the kind of force Jesus has in your life when you submit yourself to him and let his story become your story.
Come out of hiding. Show yourself in all your nakedness and vulnerability. Come face-to-face with the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection life. Don’t try to hide it with sub-stories, or lies, or to hide your frayed soul from God’s face under a thin veil of shame. Stand trembling before God, because what happened in that moment of the tomb is this: Jesus, the rock breaks the power and stronghold of sin! [smash the rock into the scissors –or bring down the rock, and then hold up a broken scissors].
The power of Jesus not only breaks the power of sin, but can restore your life to its beautiful visage. Everyone, no matter how life has diced them up, or sliced them down, will become beautiful and radiant in Jesus’ resurrection presence and power.
[Tell everyone to hold up their rock in their hand].
I want you now to hold up your rock. Clutch it in your hand. THIS is the power of Jesus. The power that rolled away the tomb and revealed to everyone the miracle and victory of God’s salvation. YOU are a part of that witness. You are there right now. Can you see yourself in the story? Perhaps you are one of the women, a Jesus follower already, stunned by the glory of Jesus’ living incarnation. Or perhaps your life is filled with doubt, deeply suspicious of the promise of faith. Perhaps you are even living a lie, or have encased your heart in a stony place. Jesus will push your rocks and hiding places aside, and you will be revealed to him in all of your foibles and fakery. And with the power of his might, he will lift away your pain and restore your spirit. Christus victor!
The soldier’s story is your story. What will you do? Will you be compelled in fear to hide from the truth of Jesus? Or will you allow him to come into your life and to smash the power of sin that keeps you from living an authentic and beautiful life?
What kind of liar ARE you?
Based on the Story Lectionary
Major Text
The Gospel According to Matthew on the Story Circulated by the Guards After the Resurrection
Minor Text
Psalms 77, 91, 111
The Song of Moses (Exodus 15)
Job 33 (Elihu’s Sermon to Job)
Hebrews 4
1 Samuel 28 (The Ghost of Samuel)
John 11 (The Raising of Lazarus)
Revelation 18
The Story of the Guards (According to Matthew)
After the Sabbath, just as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to the tomb. Suddenly, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone, and then sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.
The guards at the tomb shook and were paralyzed with fear.
But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid. I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has been raised.” 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, and there you will see him. This is my message for you.”
So the women left the tomb quickly both in fear and great joy, and ran to tell Jesus’ disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” They ran 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.”
Meanwhile, while the women were going to meet the other disciples, some of the guards went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened. After the priests had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to pay off the soldiers with a large sum of money, telling them, “You must say: ‘Jesus’ disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this comes to the governor’s ears, then that explanation will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” So the soldiers took the money and did as they were directed. And this false story is still told among the Jews to this day!
Image Exegesis: The True Story Wins
The story of the guards contains a surprising number of metaphors, including the “story” itself. Some of these include the earthquake, angel (messenger or storyteller), stone rolled away (on which the angel then sits), broken seal, feet, paralysis and trembling, money, and the “story.”
In order to understand the story of the guards, we need to hear the entire resurrection story again, told this time by Matthew. When we do, we see juxtaposed stories that are, in fact, stories within stories. We see, along with Matthew, the moment of the women’s encounter with the angel at the tomb. We see guards also present at this encounter.
Even though the angel speaks to the women and not directly to the guards, it’s clear that the guards are witnessing the entire occurrence. They tremble, then are paralyzed in fear and shock. Their witness is of an authentic supernatural event. Like everyone else in the story, it seems, they too are “running” but they run directly to the temple officials, namely the high priests, to tell them what they witnessed. At that point, yet another story is concocted in order to override the authentic one. As singular as the resurrection story is, it is only a “preface” to Jesus’ many resurrection appearances to come.
The guards are key characters in Matthew’s story. They attest to the truth of the gospel in their reaction at the tomb and hasty flight to the chief priests. They have witnessed something outside of their comfort zone, outside of reason, and outside of explanation. It has caused an extreme reaction in them. In the passage, some of the guards stay, and others go to tell the high priests that something quite frightening and extra-ordinary has happened, and they don’t know how to deal with it. They may be frightened at what they saw, but they are also frightened not to share it. It has shaken everything they know about life and death.
They were there when the rock was rolled across the tomb. They were there when it was sealed. They kept watch every moment. They knew that no one had disturbed the tomb. What happened next went against everything they imagined possible in the real world. When an earthquake shook the ground as the angel rolled away the stone, they witnessed that too, and they began to shake also. When they saw the discarded wrappings, they were shocked and their worldview began to be discarded as well. They knew the missing body should have been there inside the tomb with rigor mortis setting in. Yet it was gone--and their bodies trembled with the rigor mortis of fear as well. What they witnessed was impossible. They saw the stone rolled away. And they saw no body.
They did not see Jesus come out. He had literally been raised and had passed through solid rock before the stone was removed. He had risen through the grave clothes somehow. The stone was not rolled away allowing Jesus to “get out.” It was rolled away so that the women and the disciples could get in . . .and witness that the body of Jesus was not there.
Bodily resurrection was vital to the Jewish understanding of resurrection. This clearly was a resurrection miracle. But that wasn’t all. Not only did the guards witness this odd occurrence of the empty tomb which sent chills down their spine, and an earthquake in which the stone seemed to roll back on its own. That would have been enough to send even the most level-headed sentries to their knees in fear . . or running for the hills perhaps.
But they also witnessed something else that couldn’t be explained –an angel, bright with light. With an entrance like lightning, an angel was suddenly seated upon the stone. It might as well could have been a ghost in their eyes. The angel (literally messenger) told them that Jesus had been raised. They saw the angel address the women, relaying what had occurred. (Angels by the way are some of the most prominent storytellers of the scriptures!) Yes, the guards didn’t think too long. This was a case of having to tell someone what had happened.
The soldiers (at least one of them) was most likely a Roman guard. Matthew lets us know earlier in his story that the chief priests had gone to Pilate, requesting a guard for the tomb. Joseph of Arimathea had himself gone to Pilate before that to request permission to take down Jesus’ body and lay it in his tomb. Now, the chief priests approached the Roman Governor as well. Pilate had washed his hands of the death of the death of Jesus. He was not interested in the Jewish authorities’ agendas regarding this somewhat “spooky” man.
Of course, he gave the official order for Jesus’ death (as Roman authority and permission was required for a Jewish request of crucifixion by the Jewish elite). But he was not interested in the Temple elite’s theology of resurrection, nor their squabbles with the renegade preacher, nor the (what he saw as) petty rules of the Temple, nor their fears of losing control over the people, which would threaten their Temple bank accounts. He was not interested in their concern of someone stealing away the body, nor their fear that a resurrection prophecy might be fulfilled --or at least someone might think it was. He must have been tired of hearing from them at that point. So Pilate granted them a guard. Perhaps he granted more than one. Added to that no doubt were other Temple guards. It would have taken quite a few people to roll the stone in front of the tomb to seal it. And Matthew leads us to believe that a group of guards waited by the tomb.
We know the Roman soldiers were awake during their watch to see the opening of the tomb. We know they shook and were paralyzed with fear. We know they would never say they fell asleep, since falling asleep on guard would result in a court martial and death. No, they were alert, and they ran immediately to the Temple officials. We know that the guarding of the tomb was not a Roman preference, because they didn’t run to the Roman officials to report what had happened. But they reported directly to the chief priests. They were hired by the chief priests, and they reported to the chief priests.
When they reported what had happened, no doubt out of breath and in shock, the chief priests did not waste any time. They saw this as a threatening development –not because they feared God, but because they feared the loss of their status and power should the people learn of the story of what actually happened. Even after the temple establishment had rid themselves of this man, he could still influence people post-death if this story got out.
In a hurried meeting with the elders, they discussed damage control. They decided to pay off the guards to keep them quiet about what they say. In order to squash the truth, they would need to concoct a more logical lie. Truth is always stranger than fiction. No one would believe the truth anyway, they thought. But just in case, they went with the most believable lie: the guards were to report that some of Jesus’ disciples had come in the night while they had fallen asleep, and stolen the body. The guards were assured that if they would agree to say they fell asleep, that no court martial would result, no death sentence would befall them. The chief priests would “fix” it with the governor.
One must only imagine that Pilate, seeing this all as a nuisance and a favor to the chief priests anyway, did not take the story that seriously. No harm did come to the guards. Yet we learn that this “lie”, this fake story, would be circulated among the Jewish communities so as to keep any possible revolt in check, any possible thought that Jesus really was the Messiah. The only report of this story is in Matthew, most likely because he was sensitive to how the resurrection impacted the Jewish communities. Mark’s gospel was most likely written before the rumor took hold between the Jewish and Christian communities. John’s and Luke’s would have been directed more toward Gentile and Greek communities. This story, this “sleeping lie,” was designed to make sure that the people would let “sleeping dogs lie.”
Despite this “lie”, the “true” story of Jesus’ resurrection spread and grew. The truth was hard even to accept by Jesus’ disciples. But one by one, one after another post-resurrection bodily appearances by Jesus, they realized what the women experienced was true. The power of this story lies in its authenticity, told by God’s official storytellers, the angel(s), perhaps the same angels, who proclaimed Jesus’ birth. And in the appearances of Jesus that would follow.
Grave robbing was a capital offense. Despite the spreading rumor that the disciples had stolen the body away, despite all of the later persecution the disciples would face, not one of them were court-martialed for spiriting the body away. The “story” of the temple officials represents not just another deceit-–another payoff like that of Judas, another cop out, like that of Peter. It not only shows the level of deceit, betrayal, and corruption of the temple priests and elders of the Shammai leadership, but it shows that the temple elite would betray their faith, even God, in order to keep God’s miracle under wraps. While the guards were taken “off guard” by the event of the resurrection, the temple priests would pay hush money to keep mum the story of God’s salvation. Their deceit was a deep covenant breaker. When the seal of the stone is broken, revealing the open tomb, the priests would seal their own fate, and the prophecy of the fall of the temple would go forward.
Whenever we choose to “hush up” God’s story, and to invent stories and lies of our own in order to mask the mission of Christ in the world, we risk living lives as paper-thin and weak as the veiled stories we tell.
The Jewish “story” deliberately circulated among the people (see Justin Martyr’s “Dialogue with Trypho” for mention of the rumor) was a bribe not only of the guards, but of all of the people to keep them in line and towing the line of the temple. This “blood money” would attempt to kill the story before it gained life among Jesus’ former followers. Like Judas’ betrayal before Jesus’ death, this betrayal of God’s story would come back to haunt them, as later even Paul (one of their most ardent Christian-killers) would be converted personally to following the risen Jesus.
The Jesus story was not some made-up lie that could be twisted and turned, but a Living Story that would grow and glow in the lives of people. The Jesus story had “shock value.” The Jesus story had “staying power.” It was a story that just wouldn’t stay dead in the tomb. As dynamic as the story of the guards at the tomb, so dynamic would be the spread of Jesus’ resurrection story into the Gentile and Jewish world. Unlikely or not, hundreds, then thousands, would follow Jesus even into death. With this Story, Jesus became even more powerful after his death than he was in his lifetime.
Matthew’s gospel is filled with proofs of the betrayals (and subsequent victory) of God’s story. From Herod’s attempted bribe of the Magi to Judas’s blood money to the bribing of the guards, Matthew’s gospel pays tribute to the authentic revealed True Story that overpowers all attempts at deceit, hidden agendas, and underhanded actions.
As in many passages of scripture in which stony hearts are softened, this miracle of God’s revelation in the early and dark part of the day (before the dawn) echoes the dawning of creation. The vision occurs as though a dream. But the vision is a reality truer than that of the daylight. Most visions in scripture occur within a “deep sleep,” (see Daniel, Adam, Job, Abram). This vision by the guards paralyzes their minds, so that their hearts can see. Their reality is shaken harder than the earthquake that rolls away the stone covering the doors of the Way, the Truth, the Life. Despite all later “cover-ups,” their testimony stands powerfully at the end of Matthew’s gospel as an attestation to God’s powerful entrance into our lives with an unstoppable force.
God’s Story will not be entombed. In fact, God turns tombs into wombs. But Jesus’ Story –a story of victory and salvation over all that would threaten to keep us hidden, sealed, veiled from God-- will always win.