2021.04.04 | Stolen Jesus
“Stolen Jesus”
The Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring
Eden United Church of Christ
Hayward, California
Easter Sunday 2021
April 4, 2021
Good Morning, Church!
The way that John tells the story, Mary Magdalene went early to the tomb to prepare Jesus’ body for burial. But when she got to the cemetery, she found the stone rolled away and the tomb empty.
So she ran to Peter and John and told them that someone had stolen Jesus’ body, and she didn’t know where they had taken him. The two men headed back to the tomb with her in hopes of making sense of these mysterious events.
John reached the tomb first. He bent down and looked in and saw linen wraps laying in the tomb, but he didn’t find the body. Peter arrived next, and was followed by a third.
John went into the tomb, confirmed Jesus’ absence, and affirmed his resurrection. The others weren’t as clear in their analysis. The three men headed to their respective homes, but Mary Magdalene stayed behind at the tomb grieving and wondering what to do next.
She saw two angels seated where Jesus’ body had lain. One asked why she was weeping.
She stated the obvious: “Someone has stolen my Jesus, and I do not know where they have laid him.” Then she turned around and saw someone standing next to her. According to John, that someone was Jesus, but Mary Magdalene didn’t recognize him.
Jesus asked her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?”
Supposing him to be the gardener, Mary Magdalene said, “Sir, if you have carried Jesus away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take his body away.”
Then Jesus called out Mary Magdalina’s name, and she finally realized that this mysterious someone was Jesus. He told her to go and tell the disciples that he was ascending to God, and she did as Jesus’ commanded. She left the cemetery in search of the disciples, and when she found them, she announced that she had seen the risen Christ and that he was ascending to God (John 20: 17-18).
II
By my count, there are six Easter stories in the New Testament. There are two in Mark, one in each of the other three gospels, a sixth in the Acts of the Apostles. Each of the six Easter stories is unique, and the uniqueness is associated with the community out of which the Easter message was received.
I refer to John’s version of the Easter story as the, “Stolen Jesus” version, because this version grapples with the apparent disappearance of Jesus’ physical body, and the irony of him reappearing, but his closest followers (except for John) neither being able to account for his absence nor being able to recognize him when he appears on the scene.
The concern and confusion surrounding Jesus’ apparent MIA status isn’t unique to John’s gospel. Over the years that I’ve been a pastor, I’ve heard many people, even whole denominations, bemoan Jesus' absence, and even go so far as to assert that somebody has stolen Jesus.
The stories are numerous, but the underlying narrative is the same. It goes like this: the believer turns on the news and hears a reporter interviewing a self-identified Christian who claims to represent Jesus and true Christianity, but their description doesn’t sound anything like the Jesus we’ve met in the New Testament gospels.
These self-identified authorities on Jesus portray him as a gun-toting, anti-Semitic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic messiah who is opposed to tax increases for the rich, I opposed to a woman’s right to make her own healthcare decisions, opposed to fare and just wages for all, opposed to equitable public schools, and opposed to a robust public health system.
These false teachers have, in the past, camped with Fundamentalist Protestants, who were steeped in the theology of John Calvin (the 16th French Protestant Reformer), and have shown up in the public square as more Calvinist than Calvin.
More recently, though, these false teachers have revealed themselves to be “Christian nationalists,” whose words and deeds are neither Christian nor patriotic.
Historian Kristin Kobes DuMez, who teaches at Calvin College, an elite evangelical college in Grand Rapids, Michigan, claims that these claim-to-be Christians and patriots have substituted the Jesus of the Gospels with the mythic Hollywood figure, John Wayne, who exhibits a misogynistic, racist, and authoritarian masculinity.
In her 2020 best-selling book, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicalism Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, published in New York City by Liveright Publishing Corp., Professor DuMez describes how in the 1996 General Election, white evangelicals rallied behind the least-Christian president in the history of American and contorted their faith into a fanaticism that has damaged Christianity and our nation.
So, ironically, left-leaning liberal Christians are now not the only ones who feel that someone has stolen Jesus and run away with the Church—a remnant of biblically grounded and theologically astute white evangelicals do too.
I agree with Professor DuMez’s assessment that a large number of Christian evangelicals in this country have traded Jesus for John Wayne. How else do you account for 80% of white evangelicals voting for a libertarian who “lacks even the most basic knowledge of the Christian faith,” and who is “the least Christian president in American history.”
I also agree with the professor's assessment that the groupthink mentality that has swept through this bunch has been damaging to the Christian community and that it poses a significant threat to American democracy. What, prey tell, is to be done?
III
I suppose we could just stand at the empty tomb and fret, like Mary Magdalen, or we could run and hide like Peter, but I propose, instead, that we follow John’s example by:
1) holding fast to the teachings of Jesus as found in scripture,
2) calling out hypocrisy when and where we see it, and
3) saying, “Yes!” to the risen Jesus, and “No!” to the mythic John Wayne.
I also propose that we do as Mary Magdalen did—that we continue to look for the risen Christ in the stranger standing next to us, and that we go and tell others what we have seen and heard. Christ lives, Christ reigns, and Christ comes again, in every word and deed that brings healing to all of the nations under God.
Happy Easter, and amen.