Every time we read scripture that mentions a great earthquake, I get a little nervous. I remember the time there was mention about the Great American Shakeout, the annual earthquake drill, and we had an earthquake here.

I guess it’s a little bit of superstition.

The biggest earthquakes I’ve experienced here were one that woke us up at 2:34 in the morning, and one at 10:44 in the morning while we were packing to return from vacation in Brookings.

No one said anything about earthquakes either time.

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Let’s go to God in prayer.

God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, to help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.

Amen.

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If you came to the sunrise service, you may notice that the account of the events differs from the scripture we just read. If you want to believe that the entire Bible was written by the hand of God, that’s fine, but many people who study the Bible don’t think of it that way. They recognize that what we have in the English translations cannot possibly be the same as the original, as any time something is translated, there is nuance lost in translation.

Additionally, those who translate the scripture are not working from originals, but from various copies and fragments of copies, seeking to be as accurate as possible to the original.

And the originals were written by different people and communities, decades after the events.

So many people look at the Bible as a collection of testimonies of the experiences many people – most, if not all of them, men – had with the divine.

I”m one of those people who look aty the Bible this way.

That doesn’t make the Bible bad or wrong. It makes it real and, dare I say, human.

With that in mind…

Mary of Magdala and Mary of Bethany went to the tomb, and suddenly…

…there was a great earthquake…

and an angel rolled back the stone, frightened the guards, and told the women to not be afraid. He tells them Jesus is not there, and to go to Galilee where they will see him.

As they run to tell the disciples, Jesus meets them and says “Greetings.” And then he tells them to not be afraid and to go and tell the disciples – his brothers and sisters – that he will meet them in Galilee.

Jesus tells them to take the story to the disciples.

In this account, Jesus makes these two women the first two apostles, called to proclaim the good news of his resurrection to the other men and women.

There is a Gospel according to Mary Magdalene, but it didn’t make it into the canonical Bible.

It’s hard to get published.

But according to this canonical Gospel, the call to tell of the resurrection is first trusted to women, and then to the people who had traveled with Jesus for three years.

You might think that a resurrected Jesus would be an even more powerful teacher. But Jesus doesn’t remain with us, because he had taught the disciples what they needed to know:

⁴⁴ But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.

Matthew 5:44-45, NRSVue

“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

Matthew 7:12

‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the greatest and first commandment. ³⁹ And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Matthew 22:37-40, NRSVue

(This is also in Mark 12 and Luke 10)

There are a lot of stories of Jesus we can tell, but the most important story, the theme that runs through them all, is this:

Love each other.
Love people you don’t like.
Love people who don’t like you.
Be as nice to others as you would like them to be to you.

These are simple rules to teach.

They can be complicated to work out how to live.

But this is the story we are called to tell. Not “Don’t do these things that don’t affect other people, because God doesn’t like them.” Not “These kinds of people are no good.” Not “We need to conquer land in the name of Jesus.”

Instead, we are called to tell a story about Christ living our hearts as love.

And the best way we can tell the story is not “You better start loving each other. Jesus says so!”

(even if I’m kind of doing that right now)

but to tell the story by living it, demonstrating what it’s like when faithful people love others.

And so my challenge to us all today, and every day, is to

Love each other.
Love people you don’t like.
Love people who don’t like you.
Be as nice to others as you would like them to be to you.

By living love, you will tell the story until Christ comes again.

Amen.

Let’s sing NCH 522 I Love to Tell the Story

* Scripture quotations marked NRSVue are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue

* Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James version of the Bible.