Now who’s the one laughing?

Grace, Mercy, and Peace be to you from our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.

Forty days in the desert has passed. Relax. Time for Vicar to preach more… Easter-ly.

April ...the day of fools. Overflowing from that appointed day, sometimes it becomes the month of fools. My friend's birthday lands right on April 1st. Imagining the birthday presents he gets, no wonder he's so fun loving. Erica, my beautiful wife: Erica's birthday is on the 9^th; and she'd had to be a fool to marry me.

In April 1976 the British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio 2 that at 9:47 a.m. a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event would occur that listeners could experience in their very own homes. The planet Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational alignment that would counteract and reduce the Earth's gravity. Moore told his listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment that this planetary alignment occurred, they would experience a strange floating sensation. When 9:47 a.m. arrived, BBC2 received hundreds of phone calls from listeners claiming to have felt the sensation. One woman even reported that she and her 11 friends had risen from their chairs and floated around the room. — From the Museum of Hoaxes.

Call it group hysteria, what have you… people testify to things that they feel. So sometimes we believe in things that aren't true. And if we get clowned by a trusted source, that just makes us less willing to trust them again. "It sounded scientific …seemed to make sense." When tested we can even play ourselves to believe it. But truth stands up, especially when darkness descends. Not too different from yourselves, listen to the troubled hearts of the early church, how after the Passion they doubted as recorded in Luke 24:

13That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. 16 But their eyes were kept from recognizing him.

Just why couldn't they recognize Jesus? Let's look the Museum of hoaxes again:

#52: Smellovision In 1965 BBC TV featured an interview with a professor who had just invented a device called "smellovision." This miraculous technology allowed viewers to experience directly in their own home aromas produced in the television studio. The professor offered a demonstration by cutting some onions and brewing coffee. A number of viewers called in to confirm that they distinctly experienced these scents as if they were there in the studio with him. Since no aromas were being transmitted, whatever these viewers thought they smelled coming out of their TV sets must be chalked up to the power of suggestion.

The mind tunes in,sometimes tuning out reality. The disciples were too busy with his death, their disappointment, and fears… that they couldn't see the life that He foretold in His death. He knows all things. If only we'd listen and believe it. Y'know a good teacher is patient, knowing that a student doesn’t learn like clockwork. So Jesus continues to teach, again, patient as only God could be:

17And he said to them, "What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?" And they stood still, looking sad. 18Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, "Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?" 19And he said to them, "What things?" And they said to him, "Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. 21But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.

After spending all this time with Jesus, seeing all the miracles, believing his teachings, promising a new kingdom, he's gone. Delivered, condemned, crucified. "I don't want to believe it, but what else can I believe? We thought he was going to show us the kingdom. Was it all a joke? A hoax? A prank for fools!?"

In April 1957 the BBC TV news show "Panorama" announced that, thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. The report showed footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti from trees. Huge numbers of viewers called the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. The BBC diplomatically replied: "Place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best." — from Museum of Hoaxes.

Hope like that will fail. Just like hope in sticking any regular ol' Joe in the dirt, like you and me, and wishing with a little time and water, they'll sprout up alive in Spring. Wouldn't it be a shame if what we professed were a hoax. To arrive in hell and find out, you've been wrong. Too late--too late is the cry, who let opportunity pass by.

There are plenty of critics of the church who see us as letting truth pass us by, robbing us of knowledge by Christianizing everything, dumbing it all down.

#7 in the Museum of hoax: Alabama Changes the Value of Pi A 1998 newsletter contained an article claiming that the Alabama state legislature had voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi from 3.14159 to the 'Biblical value' of 3.0. (Before long the article had made its way onto the Internet, and then it rapidly made its way around the world, forwarded by people in their email. It only became apparent how far the article had spread when the Alabama legislature began receiving hundreds of calls from people protesting the legislation.) The original article, which was intended as a parody of legislative attempts to circumscribe the teaching of evolution, was written by a physicist named Mark Boslough.

The scientist’s April Fools gag worked. It's the usual suspects: bible thumpers. Pseudo-authorities. Apparently, the point of the church is to control you. To keep the money rolling in… Trust me, if it was about the money, there’s plenty of other jobs, maybe I’d have not left the military. Be a man of the New Testament? Too many bible preachers are at poverty level. How more pathetic if they lived in poverty for a hoax.

(It'd be less shameful if at least they made some money, got some respect, a nice nest egg for retirement… but no. That's not always how it goes. Churches nowadays are quick to eject their preacher, clowned like Noah's shame, when a child is quick to parade a father's mistake. ...To deny the giver.)

"Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened."

No one gets up after three days. "Samson the strong man could not pull himself out of the rubble; how, after all the beatings, how could Jesus? (Now what do we do? Where do we go? Where could the broken body of Christ have gone to?")

(#53: Invents Food Machine.) After Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, Americans firmly believed that there were no limits to his genius. Therefore, when the New York Graphic announced in 1878 that Edison had invented a machine that could transform soil directly into cereal and water directly into wine, thereby ending the problem of world hunger, it found no shortage of willing believers.

(As a little kid, I looked up to Edison as a servant of mankind, who used the gifts God gave him. But turning water into wine… that's starting to sound more than amazing, like a miracle, water into wine… even… familiar.) We'd believe in the genius of a man. But we'd forget the Godhood of Jesus.

So Jesus listens to their forgetfulness. And then reminds them how unforgetful (how unforgettable) He is.

22Some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, 23 and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see." 25And he said to them, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" 27And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

From the beginning to the end, it’s Jesus. Teachers get frustrated… parents lose their cool… when students don't seem to get it. So in ministry, we forgive. Still they could not see Him. Evidence won't convert anyone. The heart demands for miracles, then explains them away.

(These men just can't listen to what the women say and believe it.) They are the authority in their lives, submissive only to intellect. (See something's wrong if you are always right.) When's the last time you were corrected by another? If it's been awhile, it might be because you won't listen, (that you won't see the light of day.) It's hard to listen to other people's opinion, or them to listen to us, if we assume we are correct. They just might offer us a fresh perspective.

(The heart demands for miracles, and then explains them away. Probably because since childhood we learn that adults change their mind, you cannot trust promises… that "maybe we'll go to the park" really means no hope you can bet on. Listen folks, we don't always know when we are learning. You don't need to know you are being taught to learn something. But…) humans have a way of ignoring the truth that's right in front of your eyes. The little ones can teach us about plain simple faith, to receive without being able to take it, to believe without being able to understand.

It’s good to listen to each other. Although April's Fool's almost makes you afraid to go and believe in anything. Because some pranks go too far: "An Australian woman called emergency services to tell them her baby had fallen off the bed and stopped breathing. When the ambulances arrived, there was no sick baby. (Only a sick woman.) It was her idea of a hilarious April Fool."

(That's no longer humor.) But just a day later, unwilling to see what truth there may be, we lost a little one, this past Wednesday, April 2, 2008:

Just 19 years old, Aswin, a first year student of a private engineering college went for a swim in the Malankara reservoir near here along with friends. Soon after he entered the water, Aswin was seen struggling to stay afloat but his friends who watched him drowning from the banks of the reservoir mistook his cries for help to that of an April fool prank, the police said. By the time they realized their mistake, it was too late for the student. His body was later fished out from the reservoir by Fire Force with the help of local people, the police said."

So we should open our ear and hear what others say. Life and death is on the line. Likewise, they should do well to listen to what we confess.

(All but four of the major world religions are based on mere philosophical propositions. Of the four that are based on personalities rather than on a philosophical system, only Christianity claims an empty tomb for its founder.) Abraham, the father of Judaism, died about 1900 B.C., but no resurrection was ever claimed for him. "The original accounts of Buddha never ascribe to him any such thing as a resurrection; (in fact, in the earliest accounts of his death, namely, the Maha-pari-nib-bana Sutta, we read that when Buddha died it was 'with that utter passing away in which nothing whatever remains behind.)'" (Smith, TS, 385) "Mohammed died June 8, 632 A.D., at the age of sixty-one, at Medina, where his tomb is annually visited by thousands of devout Muslims. All the millions and millions of Jews, Buddhists, and Muslims agree that their founders have never come up out of the dust of the earth in the resurrection." (Childers, as cited in Smith, TS, 385)

So along with all mankind, with great numbers, religion may return dividends on earth, but in the end, never pays off. All our earthly foolery leads to the same place. Death. No resurrection. If we listened to them, let them feel heard, I wonder if they'd want us to stick around, so they can hear more of the Word of life:

28So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, 29but they urged him strongly, saying, "Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent." So he went in to stay with them.

Maybe they ask us stay like they asked Jesus to… Maybe, that is, if we gave them something more than what they offer us. Instead of a different set of religious issues that eventually lead to death, we should preach the solution: the resurrection. Let's teach them as Jesus did, so we may lead them to where they can see him. Watch this:

30When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. 31 And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.

How could they recognize him? With forceful words? Like Christian Taliban? Trying harder to listen or recognize truth? Simply, finally: with the breaking of the bread. The breaking of His physical Body restored men to God. So the breaking of His Body at the table restores men’s eyes to see their risen Lord. Jesus joined them at the table, having taught them how all things speak of the Christ crucified, our risen Lord.

Life despite death is what Peter and all of the apostles preached. They were transformed from scattered sheep to loyal defenders of the faith, even unto death. They weren't afraid of being punked by a prank--because there was no mass hysteria, only genuine eyewitnesses who lived it like they saw it. Christ is alive! Peter could question, "Did it really happen like I remembered it?" As ugly and raw as you saw it, you witnessed it, you wrote it, Peter. As many others have testified, seen it, believed it: These are historic events you just can't ignore as childish myths and jokes. Lives are changed. Willing to die. For a joke? I don’t think so!

About 2 weeks ago on Holy Saturday, when we were watching the Passion of the Christ, I can barely contain myself from jeering "Yes!" Picture it, upon the cross Jesus breathes out His last. You'd expect the next thing you'd see Evil incarnate do is rejoice in victory. Instead, from above you see water pool and drop to the earth. A storm rages and so does evil's face: freaking out because the plan has failed! In Christ's death and resurrection, the devil got punked. Pranked. Clowned. Shown for the foolishness it is. In the evil eyes of blind hate, it couldn't see the power of Love.

Christians, we are reminded in Easter that we are not simply believers in God, theists, but believers in the God who raised Jesus up from the dead, made him both Lord and Christ. Yes we crucified him. Let blind eyes pass away, as eyes of love, and a heart of joy, is offered to you.

What the flesh is weak, God builds up. God communicates the attributes of the one to the other: the eternal to the flesh. We the flesh, in ourselves, add nothing. But God who saw it good to dwell in the flesh comes to us, giving us everything. No fooling. So I ask you? Is the shepherd Good?

Josh McDowell wrote, "After more than seven hundred hours of studying this subject and thoroughly investigating its foundation, I have came to the conclusion that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the most wicked, vicious, heartless hoaxes ever foisted upon the minds of men, OR it is the most fantastic fact of history."

Fact. It's no hoax. And there's no middle ground. There is evidence that demands a verdict. The evidence is in.

He fulfilled all the Old Testament prophecies. Archaeological finds confirm what you have heard. While some doubt the Apostolic handing-down… through the hands of men… there is nothing in ancient manuscript evidence to match such textual availability and integrity of scripture. Pontius Pilate, the authority, announced that he finds no guilt in Jesus. Consequently, no guilt in you either. That evidence has been buried.

If Christ was still in the grave, you'd be too. If God himself, all powerful, all knowing… if God could not break the chains of death, how could we? We'd still be dead in our sins. Then we'd are all be caged in fire.

But Christ raised himself up, died in flesh, raised in flesh, as he showed in Lazarus. As he shows in everyone who believes that this Christ who we men crucified, God raised, showing how devil is done with. Yeah, this time of year, someone got fooled. But it was evil who got schooled.

The best prank was on the devil. God laughs, surely as Jesus wept, God laughs. The devil thought he could pull another fast one on us… trying to kill God. Casting doubts that we are trapped by sin, by the grave... But what happened? Jesus has uncaged you, restored you to life. God used death to destroy death. Now who’s the one laughing?

[blessing]
May the peace of God that does transcend all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Acts 2:14, 36-41
1 Peter 1:17-25
Luke 24:13-35