Resurrection happens to all of us. . . dead or alive. . .
The resurrection stories in J0hn and Mark
I saw a cartoon some time ago where two little boys are walking down the street, and one says to the other,
This may be Good Friday, but Sunday is gonna be even gooder.
Ain’t it the truth?
Alleluia! Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!
Somebody asked me not too long ago if I could name all the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. I could not. I knew that one of the Pyramids of Egypt was among them, but I couldn’t name the other six.
As it turns out the list of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World was compiled in the Second Century B.C., and the other six don’t even exist anymore except as recorded in history.
As startlingly magnificent as they were, I think that many of us have a hard time remembering them because they only exist in antiquity and don’t significantly impact our everyday lives.
Unfortunately, I think far too many Christians want to add the empty tomb of Easter to the canonical list of the great wonders of the ancient world, as if Resurrection doesn’t really exist anymore.
But I hope we don’t go to church every Easter Sunday to dust off a great relic of history. I hope we don’t see ourselves as taking the Resurrection out from under its glass case once every spring to marvel at it.
In fact, I would submit to you that if the Resurrection ONLY happened in one instant of historical time to one Jesus of Nazareth, then it might be one for the record books, but it really would have little to do with us unless we are writing a term paper on first century Palestine or perusing through an encyclopedia under “E” for Easter.
As the Biblical scholar Marcus Borg reminds us, Easter isn’t about resuscitation, it’s about Resurrection. It’s not, in other words, about Jesus resuming his old life, it’s about the possibility of a brand-new life, not only for Jesus, but for everyone… forever!
The Resurrection didn’t just happen to Jesus, it happened to the followers of Jesus as well, and that includes all of us today!
Easter was not a one-time event, but an event for all time.
The Easter message is that God isn’t confined to a heaven up there somewhere, but rather that God deliberately chooses to live and move and have being in OUR world. . . a world that is full of a whole bunch of Good Fridays just yearning to give way to Easter Sundays!
God deliberately chooses to live and move and have being in a world that is worried about where and when the next act of terrorism will strike; God deliberately chooses to live and move and have being in a world where our loved ones are serving their country courageously in faraway cities that just a few weeks ago many of us didn’t even know existed, and still can’t pronounce.
God deliberately chooses to live and move and have being in a world where dying and crippled children are sometimes given the squeaky-clean label of collateral damage.
God deliberately chooses to live and move and have being in a world where people are walking through airport terminals wearing surgical masks; God deliberately chooses to live and move and have being in a world where not too long ago one man was dragged to his death behind a pick-up truck because he was black, and another was hung on a fence to die. . . because he was Gay.
God deliberately chooses to live and move and have being in a world where we all have to anxiously wait for biopsy and lab test results. And yes, God deliberately chooses to live and move and have being even in a world where we eventually multiply our age by two and come to the often-frightening realization that there are fewer days ahead than we have already lived.
Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome aren’t the only ones who dare to enter tombs. . . every one of us faces the possibility of having to do just that every time we wake up in the morning.
The fact is the world is full of fears that can cause us to bring out the spices to anoint the deadness, and to give a proper burial to our hopes and dreams.
Dr. Tom Long of the Candler School of Theology tells the story of a former student who came by his office for a cup of coffee. After some chit chat, she said, I have something to tell you.
What is it? Dr. Long asked.
I’m pregnant, she said.
He was overjoyed as he knew that she and her husband and their young daughter had been waiting a long time for this day, and now it was upon them.
She went on to say, we just got the test results, and we know two things about our child. Our child will be a boy, and he will have Down’s Syndrome. I don’t know how we are going to handle this, she said, and here’s the clincher, but we are trusting that God will be there to help us.
I submit to you that at that moment she was standing in the tomb with those brave women in our Gospel this morning. . . full of fear and anxiety, wondering if she had been blessed or cursed; wondering if it was time to prepare for a burial or not.
She had a decision to make. Do we anoint this as a loss and give up, or do we wait for resurrection? Not a cure mind you, but a resurrection. Remember, even the resurrected Christ still had the nail prints in his hands and feet, and the gaping wound still in his side.
Waiting for resurrection means waiting for the strength and power that will allow her to walk away from the tomb and head home to Galilee.
Months later, Dr. long received a Christmas letter from the former student. In it she wrote, after nine long months of unmitigated discomfort, at four in the morning on August 18, I knew the magic moment had come. At last, at 10:55 a.m., Timothy Andrew took his first breath and let out a hearty yell. He’s strong, alert, beautiful, and he shatters daily our images of what we thought he and others like him would be like.
He may need special help, but already he is no slouch when it comes to giving special love. We are not cursed. WE ARE BLESSED!
Kate, our eight-year-old daughter is Tim’s champion. Hearing our concerns about how well Tim might be accepted by the other kids, Kate informed the kids on our block, my brother has Down’s syndrome, and everybody’s going to play with him or else!
One evening we overheard her talking to Tim. I’m so glad you’re here, Timmy, and I will always love you. I’ll never leave you; I’ll always be nearby. (1)
Where have we heard that before? Could it be that this eight-year-old girl gave the best dissertation possible on the meaning of Easter? For what is Easter if it is not God’s way of saying, I will always love you. I’ll never leave you; I’ll always be nearby.
There will be more tombs in our future, that’s a given.
And it all just might be overwhelming if it weren’t for Easter!
But Easter bears the promise that no matter how dark and dreary the tomb, it can be emptied!
The young man dressed in white, God’s messenger, said to those women right there at the grave of Jesus, Do not be afraid. I have always imagined those women saying to themselves, Hmm, that’s easy for you to say. And yet, there is perhaps no command in the Bible that is repeated more times than Do not be afraid. That command occurs at least 85 times in Holy Scripture.
It isn’t that God doesn’t feel or understand our fears. It’s that the God of Easter chooses to dwell with us through our fears. . . God is there through every little death, and every big death that we face every day in our lives. Because God is there, Easter can happen.
Easter doesn’t proclaim that there are no more tombs. . . Easter proclaims that whatever tomb we may enter can be filled with the presence and love of God.
A young father had taken his daughter on a cruise, a getaway because his wife, the young girl’s mother, had recently died. Turning to one another to help relieve the pain, they huddled together on the deck of the ship right there in the middle of the vast ocean, and the little girl looked up and asked a very important question:
Daddy, does God love us as much as Mommy did?
At first the father did not know what to say, but he knew he couldn’t sidestep the question. Pointing out across the water to the most distant horizon, he said, Honey, God’s love reaches farther than you can see in that direction.
Turning around he said, And God’s love reaches farther than you can see in that direction, too. Then the father looked up at the sky and said, And God’s love is higher than the sky, too. Finally, he pointed down at the ocean and said, and it’s deeper than the ocean as well.
The little girl thought for a moment, and then looked up again and said, Oh, just think, Daddy. We’re right here in the middle of all that love. (2)
Easter is about real life. . . your life. . . my life. It’s just as much about today is it is about tomorrow.
As one theologian put it:
The God of Easter did not shun the real world but came into the very thick of it, hugging unwanted children; dining with the scum of the earth; getting his hands dirty in acts of mercy, blessing, and love so real and so deep that they could not be crushed even by death itself.
That first Easter was God’s great Coming-out Party. The empty tomb is God’s great exclamation point that comes in the middle of the sentence assuring us that, at the end of the day, beauty will not be sullied, nor truth denied, nor goodness overcome. (3)
Easter means that no matter what is going on in your life, you can always allow God to have the last word. With God there is no such thing as Game Over, no such thing as Checkmate. With God, there will ALWAYS be one more move.
The empty tomb of Easter is not ONE of the great wonders of the ANCIENT world . . .The empty tomb of Easter is THE GREATEST wonder in TODAY’S world!
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
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(1) As retold from a sermon by Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi, of St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, Poway, California
(2) Ibid.
(3) Timothy George in “Books and Culture.
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