On Colored Marbles

and Spinning Spaceships

But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.

(Luke 24:11)

 

A sermon by Siegfried S. Johnson on Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007

 

 

An astonishing thing happened as I drove to the church early this morning, just before sunrise.  Just as I turned onto 6^th Street for the final leg of my journey, with my own eyes I witnessed a bright, spinning spaceship floating softly down to settle on the parking lot of First National Bank.  I never dreamed such a thing possible.  Nor is that all I have to report.  An extraordinary creature surrounded by an eerie glow emerged from the craft.  As you might imagine, I was terrified.  But the Shining One, sensing my fear, spoke, telling me not to be afraid.  It was a surreal experience, to be sure.  Then, suddenly, it was over.  The spacecraft began to spin and gradually vanished from view.

 

Do I sense a slight unease settling over the congregation?  “Were there other witnesses?” you want to know.  I wish I could verify my story with witnesses but, alas (like the hole-in-one I made this summer) there were none.  By the looks on your faces I am made to understand that you don’t believe me.  The kinder ones among you are thinking, “April Fool’s Day was last Sunday.”  The less kind may be thinking, “Has our pastor lost his marbles?”

 

Speaking of marbles.  I propose a test, the test of the colored marbles.  I’ll have our ushers give each of you four marbles – one black, one gray, one pink, one red.  Then they will pass a clear plastic container, asking you to deposit one of four marbles into the jar.  (1) If you think my report to be an outright fabrication, drop the black marble into the jar.  A black marble means that, in your opinion, it’s ludicrous to suggest that a spaceship landed in Mountain Home this morning.  (2) Now, if you think my story probably not true, but you’re not willing to dismiss it totally from the realm of possibility, then drop the gray marble in the jar.  A gray marble means you doubt it very seriously, but you’re not willing to say for sure that it couldn’t have happened just as I have described.  (3) If you think my story probably true, but you’re not entirely convinced, drop the pink marble.  Pink means you’re suspicious, but you trust your pastor and think it may actually have happened just as reported.  (4) Finally, if you think my story most assuredly the truth as to what happened just before sunrise on Easter morning, April 8, 2007 in Mountain Home, proudly drop your red marble.  Remember, red is the marble of faith. 

 

Now, when the voting is done, how much color do you think will be in that jar?  Well, I can guess by your unbelieving looks.  Black marbles will fill the jar, won’t they?  Well, then, okay.  Cancel the test.  I admit it.  I made it all up.  It didn’t happen.  No bright spinning spaceship.  Nonsense.  Untrue.  Bogus.  I was only kidding.  I have concocted . . . an idle tale.

 

An idle tale.  Do you recall that phrase from our text?  “But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.”  This text describes the apostles’ reaction to the women who first reported the empty tomb and the visitation of a Shining One who soothed their fears.  Easter is all about a report that everyone knew could not be true.  Even in a primitive, pre-scientific age, millennia of life experience taught that this story could not be true.  Risen from the dead?  An idle tale, surely. 

 

Who could blame the disciples for their initial disbelief?  The women were reporting something outlandish.  An empty tomb and a Shining One saying, “Don’t be afraid.  Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here.  He has risen!”  Who could blame them if the women’s words seemed like an idle tale?  You think my story outlandish?  I suspect most in today’s world would far sooner believe in visitors from outer space before they would believe that a friend whom they laid in the grave three days ago might now be alive. 

 

He was dead.  The disciples had seen his agony, had seen him breathe his last with the words, “Father, into your hand I commit my Spirit.”  They had heard him say “It is finished.”  And so it was.  “The matter is finished, as he said.  Let us put away idle tales.”  Put to the test of the colored marbles, what verdict would this jury of eleven have rendered?  How many pinks and reds, how much color would have been in that jar?  Little, I fear.  At first, at least, the jar bore a dark hue of disbelief. 

 

By the way.  While I’ve concocted a ludicrous story this morning, there’s one part I did not concoct – the test of the colored marbles.  I’m poking a bit of fun at a somewhat fringe group of bible scholars who for the last 22 years have conducted twice annual tribunals called Jesus Seminars.   Thirty in number at their initial meeting in Berkeley, California, now over 200 scholars meet to vote on the likelihood of the four gospels’ authenticity.  The scholars vote in just the manner I described to you.  You will perhaps not be surprised that black marbles have always been in greatest demand at these seminars.  The usual verdict?  Never happened.  Nonsense.  An idle tale.  In most cases, the gospel records of Jesus’ words are determined not to be authentic, but the result of many decades of emerging Christian tradition.  In other words, for the Jesus Seminar, the gospels describe the Jesus who lived only in the imagination of the early followers, not the historical Jesus, the prophet from Galilee.   

 

Ours is a world in which the scientific Way of Knowing holds sway.  Faith in God, or in a biblically related miracle such as the Resurrection of Christ, seems a leap beyond reason – an intellectual leap which a world given to a scientific Way of Knowing cannot easily embrace.

Ours is a world in which science has proven itself in our daily lives with miracle after miracle, so that science now speaks with similar authority to that which the church once mustered.  So, for much of the world, when it comes to core issues of faith, black marbles are everywhere. 

 

Yet, perhaps, when it comes to our individual lives, are red marbles not in more abundance?  TIME published an article on the Jesus Seminar which asked this very question, “with such a super-abundance of black marbles, can we still believe in miracles?”  It tells of the Jernigan family of Raleigh, North Carolina, a family believing they experienced an outright miracle.  At four months old their daughter, Elizabeth, developed a weak right eye.  The pupil because fixed. A brain tumor was discovered.  Exploratory surgery enabled surgeons to remove part of the tumor from the nerve that regulates the eye, but the rest of the tumor was too dangerous to attempt removal.  The prognosis was an aggressively growing cancer.  Paralysis and death were expected.  Her condition worsened. Doctors wanted to do more surgery to implant shunts to drain the fluid off the brain.  The night before surgery they removed so much thick, infected fluid that they postponed the procedure.

 

Through it all, says Mr. Jernigan, the family, the church, the community, prayed.  Twelve days later, there was no fluid, and no tumor.  Surgery was performed to remove the scarred tissue of the nerve, leaving Elizabeth blind in one eye.  But there were no other lesions.  The pathologists could not discover any cancerous tissue whatsoever.  The medical community called what happened, a “Spontaneous resolution.”  The family and church call it a miracle.  Elizabeth is now 25.  Her dad says, “in the years ahead, if you happen to see a young lady walking down the street with her right eye permanently closed, please don’t think some tragedy has befallen her and extend her your sympathy.  Instead, have cheerful thoughts, knowing that the Holy Spirit dwells in her, and our God is powerful, benevolent, and magnificent.” 

 

What say you?  Shall I pass out the marbles again?  I suspect there would be more color in the jar, more color for the Jernigans of Raleigh, North Carolina.

 

I read a sermon this week by Rev. Stephen Edington which commented, in a most unique way, on this article in TIME.  While he rejoiced in the miracle the Jernigans experienced, he offered his own story.  When his father was a very healthy 69, he became ill with fainting spells, and was treated for a minor stroke.  After extensive tests, there were no indications otherwise.  Hope abounded as recovery seemed certain, imminent.  At his sudden death a few weeks later, it became clear that a brain tumor had hidden itself from their tests.  So quick was his death that his doctors were at a loss to explain the tumor’s sudden manifestation, “as much as a loss,” says Rev. Edington, “as Elizabeth’s doctors were in explaining the tumor’s sudden disappearance.”  The Edington family, too, believes in a benevolent, powerful, and magnificent God, despite the lack of a miracle. 

 

Or, was there a miracle, a miracle of a different color?  The miracle experienced by the Edington family was one of hope which gave peace to the dying and sustained a grieving family in the midst of suffering.  You see, miraculous events are not restricted to those unexplained moments when natural laws seem to be laid aside.  Even in the absence of a “miracle” -- as many would define the word – the mystery of faith can be manifested.  Are our red marbles only for those times when we hear stories of God intervening, circumventing the laws of nature?  Or, will we be emboldened to drop the red marble of faith in response to the greater miracles we see all around us – miracles made all the more meaningful in light of the resurrection of Christ?  In Easter’s bold proclamation, Christos aneste! (Christ is Risen), we affirm that death is changed, and THAT is a both a miracle and a mystery.

 

C. S. Lewis said after the death of a friend, “When the thought of Charles Williams and the thought of death came together in my mind, it was the thought of death that was changed.”  What a remarkable statement.  Normally, when we think of the death of a friend, it is the thought of our friend that changes.   Death seems the eternal constant, the never-changing reality.  What a remarkable thing to think of death as entirely alterable. 

 

Just so for the disciples.  Oh, not at first, at the black marble stage of their experience.  At first, it was their thought of Jesus that changed.  They had trusted it was he who would redeem Israel.  Death dismayed them.  How could they hope for redemption now, when their Savior was laid to rest – dust to dust, ashes to ashes?  But on Easter, their thought of death changed.  Death had been defeated, and it was Jesus who was the same -- yesterday, today, and forever. 

 

Robert Stackel writes, “When Wellington fought Napolean, all England waited breathlessly for the news.  In those days it had to come across the English Channel by sailboat and then be signaled overland by semaphore to London.  High atop Winchester Cathedral the semaphore began to spell out the message slowly, letter by letter:  W-E-L-L-I-N-G-T-O-N-D-E-F-E-A-T-E-D.  Wellington defeated.   Just then, a dense fog settled over the city.  The message could no longer be seen.  The words, Wellington Defeated, spread despair among the British.

 

When the fog lifted, the lights continued to flash the rest of the message, T-H-E- E-N-E-M-Y.  The enemy.  The entire message was, “Wellington defeated the enemy.”  This entirely opposite report turned despair into joy.

 

And so it was that on Friday the message was transmitted: Jesus defeated.  A darkness of despair settled over the disciples.  Yet, on Easter, the fog lifted and the message was completed.  Jesus defeated the Enemy. 

 

Sources and notes:

William Willimon, Pulpit Resource, Vol. 23, No. 2.

 

Nancy Gibbs, “Can We Still Believe in Miracles?” in TIME, April 10, 1995.