Who was this guy – Jesus? Even from his own time, we know of a number of rumors that circulated about who he was. Some of those rumors were quite ordinary - the kind that you might hear about anyone in a leadership position who was beginning to become well-known. Some said that he ate too much and drank too much with his friends. Some complained that he hung out with the wrong kind of crowd. As he established his career as a teacher and preacher, some even said he was wise and dynamic, well, for a Galilean. People talked about his parents and his relationship with his parents. “Perhaps they just didn’t keep him in line enough as a child,” they said, because he was prone to wandering off as a teenager and he certainly didn’t give them the respect they deserved in a culture that cared deeply about family relationships.

We know about these kinds of rumors. These stories, often stretched in the telling, are told with the purpose of disparaging someone else’s character. These are the rumors we tell in the parking lot at church, or by the water cooler at work. We love this juicy gossip so much that there are whole magazines devoted to telling us intimate details, true or not, about the lives of our favorite celebrities. And better yet, we get that little rush when we’re able to make ourselves feel more important by telling some dirt on someone else. We especially like it when we convince someone over to our opinion about the person. It can feel powerful to build our collective whether it’s against the boss or Aunt Nellie, the President of the PTA or the President of the United States.

But these weren’t the only kinds of rumors that circulated about Jesus. No, that’s just the beginning. There were also strange rumors about him breaking the laws of nature like when he walked on water or cursed a fig tree to death. He was rumored to be able to talk to demons and even cast them out. These were the hard to believe things – the ones that the skeptics denied and the crazies believed. These were the stories that might show up now on late night TV. Something about the strangeness of it appeals to us. People want an explanation. We want to know the sleight of hand behind the magic trick and yet, we are sometimes simply drawn to the magic. Do we really want to know that Jesus, our Jesus could do phenomenal, and perhaps even supernatural, things? Though it may make him seem more believable as the Son of God, perhaps it also makes him easier to write off as a fake.

These rumors were intended to cast doubt upon the religious claims that also circulated about Jesus. Could he really heal the sick? If he were truly religious why did he have to go around healing people on the Sabbath, the day that any work was prohibited by God’s commandments? Was it true that he had raised Lazarus from the dead? Could he be the new Moses, the new Elijah, or the promised Messiah who would save Israel? Even Jesus struggled with these deep religious connotations. He was known to ask his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”

And the disciples responded, “You are our Messiah, our Lord.” And Jesus would say, “Right,” or “you say so,” or “don’t tell anybody,” but then not give much further explanation. Some of those, even in his innermost circle, anticipated that Jesus had political ambitions as the descendent of David’s kingly line. They wanted him to be a political conqueror and establish God’s rule on earth by a combination of his amazing gift for persuasion and their sheer brute force. Judas was probably the best known of the zealots in this line of logic, and when Jesus didn’t appear to be taking Jerusalem by storm, Judas then sold him out to the highest bidder. Both the priests of the temple and the political leaders like Herod and Pilate hungered for his demise. They saw that he was gaining too much popularity in the masses and it threatened their authority. Whether he could actually become “King of the Jews” or not, they still wanted him dead.

So they actually did it – death by rumor. The charges were bogus. The trial fixed. Jesus was crucified, died, and was buried, a heavy stone rolled in front of his tomb. The only ones left who weren’t absolutely terrified to show their faces in Jerusalem were the women. In this particular telling of the story, Luke claims that it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and some other unnamed women who go to the tomb to prepare the body with burial spices.

Much to their amazement, the women find that the body isn’t there. They wonder who took it. Then somewhere out of thin air two men in dazzling clothes come to tell them that he is not in this grave, he is risen – just like Jesus said would happen. In this case, I think we pass over from the regular rumor category to the big whopper of a rumor that has ultimately become the pivotal story of the Christian faith. God does the unbelievable. Jesus loved these gossipy, self-centered, complaining, life-denying people like us so much that he sacrificed himself to show us just how far God will go to show us love. God’s love is stronger, much stronger than even death. Even a grave cannot contain or destroy it. The story gets told, two millennia later, that this Jesus guy pulled off the greatest escape trick ever.

But I do have to admit, the story is pretty fantastic and even harder to believe than all of these original rumors about who Jesus was. The women rush back from the tomb to tell Jesus’ disciples what they have seen, and their first reaction is that it’s an “idle tale” told by women. In biblical culture, the women’s testimony likely didn’t carry the authority of, say, Jesus’ hand-picked male disciples. They had to see it for themselves before they could really believe any of it. Some stories follow in the gospels about Jesus’ appearances to the disciples after his resurrection – to somehow try to prove that it actually happened. But the oldest gospel story of all, in Mark, we are left right here with no proofs, no explanations, and no means for describing how Jesus gets transported back to heaven later.

It makes me wonder what it is that we believe and why? Is the story of Jesus’ resurrection still an idle tale, only a rumor, or is it a story that plumbs the depths of what it means to be a human being that is loved by our creator, and sustained by a powerful living presence that comes as Christ’s gift to us?

Well, rumor has it that the living Christ is still with us – today. Why else would we sing, “Jesus Christ is Risen TODAY” just about every time that Easter rolls around. It’s not that we just heard about it – today. It’s that we somehow believe that the risen Lord is still influencing our lives right here and right now - today. Jesus made some pretty impressive promises at the last – that he would be with us always to the end of the age, that wherever two or three are gathered he would be there among us. I think that sadly, we’ve quit looking for him, or maybe it’s just that we don’t recognize him when he shows up.

Now I’ve seen my share of Jesus pictures – in paintings, wood carvings, stained glass, and recently in a tattoo on my neighbor’s bicep. We’ve looked for him in the clouds and imagined him appearing in all his glory. But I happen to know some of the rumors about who Jesus was and about where he showed up. If anything about the rumors is true, Jesus may be a no-show on Sunday morning because he was up late last night at a party with his friends. If Jesus does finally show up here, he may look too poor, be too dirty, or talk way too loud to be accepted at church. He may say or do something that upsets a tradition we didn’t even know had become so rigid, or he may make a political statement that divides the church into two sides that have no hope of hearing each other out. Ultimately, he may come to church cracking the whip and turning over tables in the Fellowship Hall.

But we have sanitized our Jesus. No painting, stained glass window, or even tattoo ultimately does him justice. We have forgotten how he was talked about in his time. We forget that he’s the champion of ordinary folk and a real lightning rod for the church and everything political. We are amazed at God’s love on Easter morning, but we forget how he ended up in a grave in the first place.

Is it too late for us to recognize Jesus among us? I don’t think so, but we may have to fine tune our vision and our hearing a bit. Yes, we know it to be true that Jesus is a comfort to us when we are feeling alone or afraid, but the same living Jesus is the one who will push us, challenge us, and make us uncomfortable. Truth be told, we are inclined to start rumors about someone when they push all our buttons. When we read about Jesus in scripture, it doesn’t take too long to realize that Jesus is that guy who gets in the elevator and pushes every button available!

Is Jesus still with us? Is that idle tale told by grief-stricken women true? Could he be alive, both with God and in us? You tell me. It’s a strange one -unbelievable really. But I’d bet my life on it.

Amen.