The Obituary Was Wrong

John 20:1-18

We all read them. Oh, don’t deny it. You know you do. We read them for different reasons, but it’s hard to skip them. I’m talking about the obituaries. I know several people who have told me that the first thing they do in the morning is check the paper for the obituaries. As long as they don’t find theirs, then they need to get up and go about their daily duties!

A few years ago, a technical glitch on the CNN web site revealed obituaries for several famous but not-yet-dead people. Here’s the story, according to Snopes dot com, a web site for debunking urban legends and myths.

It should come as no surprise to those who follow the media that most news outlets prepare obituaries for many prominent political and entertainment figures (especially those advanced in years or in poor health) well before their deaths. The passing of a famous personage is always big news, and nobody wants to get scooped by losing time scrambling to compile an obituary for someone who has died unexpectedly. Since obituaries primarily consist of background biographical information and recountings of career highlights, they can easily be worked up long ahead of time; when the sad day comes, all they require is a little updating and the insertion of details about the time and manner of death, and they're ready to run.

Of course, given our squeamishness about confronting the subject of death, no news outlet likes to advertise the fact that they prepare death notices in advance. This isn't usually an issue, save for the [not so] rare occasions when a newspaper or TV network hastily reacts to a death rumor by rushing out an obituary without proper verification, then has to issue an embarrassing "Sorry, he's not dead yet" retraction. (And even in such a case, it isn't obvious to the public that the obit had already been worked up long before the rumor broke.)

Unfortunately, CNN was caught a bit red-faced on April 16, 2003 when they discovered that a technical glitch had made some obituary templates they'd prepared for several famous but not-yet-dead persons (Dick Cheney, Ronald Reagan, Bob Hope, Fidel Castro, Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela, and Gerald Ford) accessible to the general public via one of their development web sites.

Oops.

On Good Friday, Jesus’ obituary was written. I can imagine that some of the religious leaders of the time might have written it up in advance, even trying to sound “fair and balanced” in their treatment of Him. They would, of course, want to bring His followers back under their control, so they would have to be delicate in their treatment of Him.

Maybe that obituary would have read something like this:
JERUSALEM – Jesus of Nazareth, formerly of Bethlehem and Egypt, and most recently, homeless, died Friday at Golgotha, the Place of the Skull, of crucifixion. Jesus was born circa 3 BC in Bethlehem. His father was Joseph the carpenter, and his mother was Mary. His father, Joseph, and his cousin John the Baptist preceded him in death. He is survived by his mother, Mary, of Capernaum and his brothers, James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon, also of Capernaum, and several sisters. He spent the last three years of his life as an itinerate minister, where witnesses claimed he healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, and restored the lame. He was also rumored to have fed 5000 men at one time and another 4000 at another time. This past Sunday, he made news in Jerusalem, riding into town in a kingly ceremony hearkening back to the days of King Jehu. Thursday evening, following a private Passover celebration with his closest associates, Jesus was arrested at the Mount of Olives. In his trial, Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, but he chose to act as his own council and offered no defense and called no witnesses to defend him. Friday afternoon, Pontius Pilate, the Roman Procurator, sentenced him to death, despite going on the record having found him innocent. He was executed at three o’clock in the afternoon on Golgotha Hill, outside Jerusalem city proper. He was buried in the family tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Jewish high council. As he died on Friday afternoon, the memorial service will not be held until Sunday morning, following the Sabbath.

So this was the way it would end. The stories of Jesus would remain for a while, and maybe someone would one day write about him, much like others wrote about the Maccabean rebellion – a good idea that didn’t make much difference in the end. His disciples had already scattered, and after a while, the stories about his miracles would fade away.

Except for one small fact. On the third day, when the women went to his tomb, bringing embalming spices, they found the stone rolled away and the tomb empty! The obituary was wrong! Jesus wasn’t dead! Sure, he had been dead – the obituary was right about that part. But he was no longer dead!

The Jerusalem Times would have to issue a “sorry, he’s not dead!” retraction. In fact, here we are, nearly two thousand years later, and we’re celebrating that retraction. We celebrate that Jesus is alive, that He conquered death once and for all, that God raised Him from the dead, that the obituary was wrong. So, what is it about Easter that brings us to celebrate like we do? Why is this the biggest holiday in Christianity? It is precisely because Jesus defeated death, and what is scarier and more powerful than death?

We began our preparation for Easter back in February as we observed Ash Wednesday, where we contemplated our mortality. We mourned our sinfulness and asked God to remove our sin from us as far as the east is removed from the west. Then during the past six weeks, we dug deep into our emotional health. These were heavy services with difficult topics. It isn’t easy to introspectively examine yourself, especially if you’re finding ugly stuff that hasn’t been dealt with for years. It’s not been easy preparing these messages, either, as they have required me to be brutally open and honest with you.

But on Easter Sunday, we celebrate! We remember that Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus conquered death! That last great enemy… vanquished!

But for many American churches, especially in mainline denominations such as ours, it seems like we stopped reading after we read the obituary. We got the Good Friday message; that Jesus died on a cross, but we never read the paper after that. We completely missed out on the retraction!

For so many, the church has become a mausoleum, the tomb of Jesus. We reverently remember Him. Every season, you faithfully bring flowers to His grave. You still have a picture of Him on your end table, and His book is on your nightstand. You used to think you heard His voice. You used to recognize His handiwork all around you. But as the years went on, you saw Him less and less and you stopped hearing Him. Now, He’s more like a distant memory. It’s fun to tell the stories about when Jesus used to be alive. You make sure His grave looks nice so anyone can come and remember Him reverently with you.

Can you imagine what it would be like to watch this happen? I think it would look a lot like the movie The Sixth Sense. Bruce Willis plays Dr. Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist. In an early scene, he is having a conversation with Haley Joel Osment’s character, Cole, who reveals: I see dead people...Walking around like regular people...They only see what they want to see. They don't know they're dead.

Now, I don’t feel bad about ruining the surprise ending of this movie for you – it’s a nine-year-old movie. In the end of the movie, we find out that Bruce Willis’ character, Dr. Malcolm Crowe died, that all along he’s been one of Cole’s “dead people.” However, he, and, presumably, the audience, don’t realize this until the end. The most difficult part of the movie is watching Crowe’s wife go on without him. First she’s taking anti-depressants, and she watches their wedding video a lot. Later, she’s removed her wedding ring, and then we see her going out on a date. Crowe, who doesn’t know that he’s dead, is devastated.

Unfortunately, the way Crowe’s wife behaved is the way that many behave regarding Jesus. You had a great relationship with Him, but that was before He died. Now it’s time to get on with your life.

No! He’s alive! The obituary was wrong! This building isn’t a mausoleum! The altar isn’t a grave! He’s alive! We celebrate Easter because of Jesus’ victory over death. That victory was over physical death and was also a victory over spiritual death. In Romans 6:3-4, Paul sums this up when he writes, Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

Paul goes on to say this in verse 11: In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

So what this means is that, in one sense, Jesus has already written obituaries. Not for us, exactly, but for our sin nature. They say things like this: Dateline Easter: your sin nature, originally descended from Adam and Eve, died with your baptism into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This sin nature was full of every kind of evil, and though most of it never came to fruition, it was capable of whatever sin you could imagine. There will be no visitation for the deceased sin nature, and the memorial service will be held on Easter, when Jesus defeated that sin nature and death once and for all. Your sin nature is survived by the Holy Spirit, which now resides in you.

What does the rest of it look like? Listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit, because He will help you fill in the blanks. He will encourage you and guide you. Now that your sin nature is dead, you get to live the full life that you were meant to live, that God intended for you. This is why we spent six weeks dealing with our emotional health, with the 90% beneath the surface, with grief and loss, with the power of the past, with brokenness and vulnerability. We dealt with it so that we can become who God intended us to be… so we can live lives filled with the Spirit of the Living God. We don’t have to settle for anything less.

And when we are living lives filled by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit bears fruit in every Christian. What is this fruit? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These character traits are found in Jesus Christ, and if we are alive in Him, we will necessarily demonstrate them.

To gain these traits, we must know Him, love Him, remember Him, and imitate Him. If you aren’t bearing spiritual fruit, perhaps your obituary was no mistake. It’s as simple as agriculture – Christians are meant to bear fruit. If we’re not bearing spiritual fruit, perhaps it’s time for CNN to pull out the obituary that was already written for you, the one that says, “Spiritually dead.” Nobody wants that. So allow God, the Creator of all, to re-create you – full of life. Ask the Living Christ, who defeated death, to reign in your life. Invite the Holy Spirit, who makes all things new, to make you new, to bear fruit in you and through you.

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