What is Easter? I mean,
here we are, a big crowd in church today… families all together …
and aren't we lookin' fine! I got new shoes and I can
see several new Easter outfits in the congregation. The children look exceptionally
well dressed don’t they? We have
beautiful lilies, and we have special music, and some of you probably have
family feasts planned after worship. We do these things every year. But is that
Easter? Is that what Easter is all about?
Or is
Easter the story we tell again today … that a man named Jesus, a
carpenter from Galilee, was sent by God …that he was born of a virgin
… that he gathered some disciples … that he taught and showed them
the extravagant, indiscriminate love of God … that he performed some
miracles … that he confronted the holy gatekeepers of his day? On this day do we remember that he was
arrested by religious leaders, turned over to the government authorities, and executed
by cruel crucifixion… that they buried him in a cave, hastily because the
start of Sabbath outlawed labor, and then they rolled a big boulder over the
entrance - I should say "exit" - and set a guard to keep him in.
Of course, all that happened on a
Friday, and then everybody took Saturday off … according to custom
because God commanded it … because God had rested on the seventh day of
creation. You can imagine how one group
of folks enjoyed that day … relaxing … savoring their victory at
last over the rabble-rousing Galillean … while
another crowd cowered in unspeakable grief … their leader gone …
their friend gone, their hope gone … and nothing left for them but fear
of what might happen next …terrified of how far the Roman reaction, to
all labeled "rebel," might go. But naturally, most people just
observed the Sabbath as usual … completely oblivious to what God was
doing among them … in the unseen darkness of a cave. And the world rolled
on as usual to cover the tombs of every soul and every dream encased in this
too-frail flesh.
But today is Sunday, of course…we
walk with the women to the tomb to weep and to finish what was left undone
because his time came too soon. We always have unfinished business with the
dead. And this is grief. We wonder who will roll away the stone, and plan to
ask someone to help, though we half hope to find no one because we don't really
want to see what's behind that stone any more than we want to roll away the
stone from the other grief and sorrow we've buried and tried to forget. And
then we are there. It's not easy to
piece together what happens next. There seems to be a lot of confusion in the
ruckus of resurrection.
Mark tells the story as an
announcement of Jesus' life from the angels much like the angel's earlier
announcement to Mary that Jesus would be born, which Mark does not remember
because this birth announcement is
the one that matters most to him. But Mark ends his gospel with the women
scared speechless that the stone has been rolled back and the dead raised. Resurrection is terrifying in Mark.
Matthew tells the story as an
earthquake, only instead of killing the living…it raises the dead. This
earthquake shakes up the whole world, even to the end of time. Resurrection is
world shaking, earth shattering change in Matthew.
Luke tells us how the men thought
the women's story a hysterical old wives' tale until Jesus showed up in person
at a bread breaking in Emmaus. Jesus showed up again to give the disciples
their marching orders. Resurrection is communion and mission in Luke.
And John sets the story in a spring
garden, where Mary mistakes Jesus for the gardener, which of course, he is - in
the Garden of Eden of God's new creation. She recognizes Jesus when he calls
her by name. Resurrection is the dawn of eternity and an intensely personal
experience in John.
The story is told in many ways in the
Bible. For Paul it means nothing can separate us from the love of God. For the
author of Acts it means Christ is alive in the mission of the church.
It's a lovely, engaging story,
whoever tells it. It is also an old, old story, dusty with history, embellished
by tradition, picked to pieces by the scholars, and preached to prattle by the
pastors. There are some who want to reduce the story to a kind of legend. What
really happened, they insist, is that the disciples just couldn't get Jesus off
their minds. His Spirit lived on within them. As they gathered and remembered
stories of their days with Jesus, it occurred to them that he was still with
them in a way. And this is a way in which he is still with us, as a memory, as
a story. So we tell it and tell it and tell it, and especially we tell it again
every year on this special day. Telling the old, old story.
Is that Easter? Is that what Easter is?
Others grant that Easter is more
immediate than history and tradition, but insist it is also universal.
Every culture has its spring fertility myth, and Easter is ours. It is about
the ubiquitous power of life over death … the perpetual return of spring
after winter … the fertility and fecundity of life as God has made it.
Easter is experienced by everybody, whether they believe in the resurrection of
Jesus or not. Life coming out of death is something God has "built
in" to creation.
In I Thought My Father Was God,
Randee Rosenfeld tells of her father slipping
into a sudden coma in
Or is Easter an
experience reserved for the faithful …
for those who confess that "Jesus is Lord" and trust
their souls to him? In Living Jesus Luke Timothy Johnson observes:
The most important question concerning Jesus, then, is simply this: Do we
think he is dead or alive? If Jesus is alive, everything changes. It is no
longer a matter of our questioning an historical record, but a matter of our
being put in question by One who has broken every rule
of ordinary human existence. If Jesus lives, then it must be as life-giver. Jesus is not simply a figure of the past in that case, but a person
in the present; not merely a memory that we can analyze and manipulate, but an
agent who can confront and instruct us. What we learn about him
must therefore include what we continue to learn from him. If Jesus is
dead, then his story is completed. If Jesus is alive, then his story continues.
So is Easter something present and
personal and possible even for us here today? In 1875 the British poet
Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote a poem in memory of five Franciscan nuns banished
from
If Easter is a verb, then it is here
and now and not just there and then. And Jesus is alive, and
here with us, and still teaching and still doing miracles and still showing us
the extravagant, indiscriminate love of God. It is still terrifying because the
world is not as we thought it was, and we have given ourselves too often to the
wrong rule…the selfish choices…the things that rust corrupts and
moths destroy. It is an earthquake because everything has shifted … and
the powers that oppress are defeated, for God always has the last word, and the
last word is life. And it is the first day of a new creation as the stone is
rolled away and we are alive with Christ, in Christ, for Christ, forever.
Several accounts say Peter and John
visited the empty tomb that day, heard the announcement, and then just went
back home. We, too, can choose to ignore the fact of God and the call of the
risen Christ, because it's just too scary. Maybe we don't have the will to
change because we have it pretty good or, maybe we don't have the courage to
change because as tough as our lives are, they're the only lives we know. So, at
hearing the news that he is risen, we don't cry … we don't laugh …
we don't shout "Hallelujah"… or run to tell our friends. We
just go back home today, back to the mind-numbing, soul-killing world we know
as it always has been. We shake it off… we don't let it touch us …
we don't let it change us … we keep it at arm's length … we leave
it to the hysterical faithful. Is that
what Easter is, for you?
Or might Easter be about the power and
life of God alive in you right now, today? Is it the living Jesus calling
you by name … here … in this moment … then sending you out as
his agent to love your neighbor as yourself? Is it the mystery and awe and
ruckus of resurrection at work in our midst to shake us up and change our
direction and give us a new beginning in this very hour? Is Easter a present,
active verb freeing you this second from the tomb of your worry…your
bitterness … your fear? In the words of Janet Morley:
When we are all despairing;
when the world is full of grief;
when we see no way ahead,
and hope has gone away:
(what do we say?)
Roll away the stone!
Although we fear change;
although we're not ready;
although we'd rather weep
and run away:
(what do we say?)
Roll away the stone!
Because we're coming with the women;
Because we hope where hope is vain;
Because God calls us from the grave
And shows us the way;
(what do we say?)
Roll away the stone!
What do we say? ("Roll away the
stone!") What do we say? ("Roll away
the stone!") What do we say? ("Roll
away the stone!") Yes, Beloved, roll
away the stone! Amen and amen!
May we pray?
Roll away the stone from all the dead places in our hearts today God.
Unbind us from the wrappings and trappings of life which keep us from loving
each other and living fiercely and freely in you. Call us by name and raise us
to a new level of life. With souls filled with joy and hearts filled with love,
send us out as an Easter people to proclaim your victory over violence and
hatred and death in the world. Easter in us today, O Lord.
Our world needs it! So roll away the stone and let the "Alleluias"
begin. Amen and amen.
Mary Anne Biggs, Pastor
Nekoosa United
Nekoosa