4/11/04

From Terror to Amazement:
The Rest of the Story

Isaiah 65:17-25
1 Corinthians 15:19-26
Luke 24:1-12

Did you know that in the Eastern Orthodox Church, Easter sermons always begin with a joke? It's true! It's to honor the holy joke that God played on the universe by raising Jesus from the dead on that first Easter. We're not Eastern Orthodox, but I think it's a great tradition. So ... A man is driving along the highway and a rabbit (not the Easter Bunny) runs in front of his car. He tries to avoid the rabbit, but he can't. (Don't worry, this has a happy ending). He gets out of his car and realizes that the rabbit is dead. Being a sensitive man and an animal lover, he feels awful and begins to cry. Another driver comes along, stops, and asks the man what's wrong. "I feel terrible," he says. "I accidentally killed this rabbit." "Don't worry," says the woman in the other car. "I know just what to do."

She goes into her glove compartment and gets out a spray can, goes over to the limp dead rabbit, and sprays the contents of the can all over it. Miraculously, the bunny rabbit comes to life, jumps up, waves his paw at the two people, and hops off down the road. Ten feet away, the rabbit stops, turns around, and waves again. Then it hops off down the road another ten feet, turns, and waves again. This happens over and over until the bunny rabbit is out of sight. The man can't believe his eyes. "What was in that spray can?" The woman turns the can around so he can read the label. It says: Hair Spray ... Restores Life to Dead Hair ... Adds Permanent Wave. (i)

We ended last week's sermon in a very different mood. Jesus had been crucified and the centurion, who finally realized that Jesus was the Son of God, cried out, "Oh, dear God, what have we done?" I promised you that today you would hear the rest of the story. And here it is.

Joseph of Arimathea, a "good and righteous man," took Jesus' lifeless body down from the cross, wrapped it in a linen cloth, placed it in a new rock-hewn tomb, and rolled a large stone across its entrance. The women who had accompanied Jesus from Galilee went with Joseph to the tomb, saw where the body was laid, and then went back to where they were staying to prepare the burial spices and ointments. Being good Jews, they rested on the sabbath, which would have been Saturday. "But on the first day of the week [that is, Sunday], at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared."

It was an ordinary day, the first day of the week, and it was an ordinary dawn - surely a time of beauty as the blazing sun poked above the horizon, causing the few clouds in the sky to turn a brilliant pink - but still, an ordinary dawn. The darkness of night was over; a new day filled with new possibilities was dawning, like every other new day.

On this ordinary early Sunday morning, several ordinary women come bringing ordinary spices to anoint the body of an extraordinary man. They know that Jesus has been someone special, but they are also realists - he has died, and according to Jewish custom his body must be anointed. Women in this society are charged with the gruesome task of anointing the dead bodies of loved ones. It's a job they have to do, not a pleasant one, but someone has to do it. This is the lot of women, to be first at the cradle as midwives and last at the grave as undertakers. (ii) We can imagine that they come with heavy hearts but also with a solemn sense of responsibility.

The scene at the garden cemetery when the women first arrive is one of calm and peacefulness - ordinary women about to be performing an ordinary task on an ordinary day. But all this calm and commonplace suddenly and radically changes as they get to the tomb and find the stone rolled away from its entrance. This is definitely out of the ordinary, and an ominous feeling of dread begins to seep into their souls. Something is very, very wrong. Bravely, they step over the threshold, stoop down, and walk tentatively into the small enclosure that is the tomb. Jesus' body is missing! They are totally bewildered. But before they have a chance to do or say anything, two men in dazzling clothes suddenly appear beside them. Needless to say, the women are scared out of their wits. They are terrified. Who wouldn't be? Recognizing that these might be divine beings (angels we would probably say), they bow their faces to the ground. The men speak: "Why do you look for the living among the dead?" What a strange question. If the women weren't so terrified they might have responded: "We were looking for the dead in the place of the dead, a tomb! What are you doing here? And where's the body of Jesus?"

But they are still too frightened to say anything, and the men in the dazzling clothes tell them very calmly: "He is not here; he has risen." Then they remind them of the prophecies Jesus related to them when they were all in Galilee - including his arrest, his crucifixion, and his rising on the third day. It's like a light bulb going on in their heads. In a split second their feelings are transformed from terror to amazement, and then just as quickly, to utter joy. They remember Jesus' words and are overwhelmed with joy. They dash back to where the disciples are staying and eagerly tell them, but the men don't believe these women, dismissing their report as an "idle tale." But Peter, needs to see for himself, and he runs to the tomb, looks in, sees just the linen cloths, and is amazed. The Easter story in Luke's version moves from terror to amazement. But this is not quite all of "the rest of the story." We also need to think about what the story means for us today.

Let me begin with something not too obvious, but interesting. I find it fascinating that in our Bible that identifies by name about 3,000 people, all of them men except 300 or so women, scriptures that have a distinctly patriarchal bias, where women are usually ignored or given lesser roles, here in this most important story in the New Testament, it is a woman or women who are the first at the tomb - in all four Gospels - meaning that they are the first witnesses of the resurrection. And in our story today some of the women are specifically named, yet the disciples, with the exception of Peter, are not mentioned by name. Perhaps this is a sign from God about those who are excluded and neglected. As in the Christmas story, when those outsiders, those lowly shepherds, were the first ones to get the good news of Jesus' birth from the angel, so in the Easter story, women - Mary Magdalene (of Da Vinci Code fame), Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and others - women, usually on the fringes of society, get from the angels the greatest news of all, the news of Jesus' resurrection. God is persistent in raising up the lowly and also the lowly parts of each of us. (iii)

What happens after the passion and crucifixion of Christ is indeed good news, the greatest news of all, but especially so when we are able to connect it with what is happening in our lives. I'm glad that Easter comes in the spring, at least for those of us who live in the northern hemisphere. It's the season when earth's vegetation comes to life, a time of lengthening days, the fragrance of flowers, the greening of grasses. New life springs forth in spite of the snows and cold of winter, and the season itself gives us hope when we may be feeling hopeless, which is also, of course, a primary message of Easter, hope. What's also comforting is that we can proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ risen, not because of our own faithfulness, but because God is faithful. The faithfulness of God in Christ is powerful enough to break down barriers, overthrow oppressors, and even raise the dead to life. Because God is faithful to us, each of us from the youngest to the oldest, each of God's children is given hope, strength, and courage for our daily lives against whatever comes our way. For sure, because Christ lives we are also promised eternal life after death ourselves, and that's a great promise. But we're also promised new life today. The great 19th century Boston preacher, Phillips Brooks, who also wrote the beloved Christmas carol, "O Little Town of Bethlehem," put it this way: "The great Easter truth is not that we are to live newly after death, but that we are to be new here and now by the power of the resurrection." (iv)

To amplify this just a bit more, we can rejoice that Christ's victory is also our victory. Christ rose for us, to put love in our hearts, noble thoughts in our heads, and more starch in our backbones. Christ rose to convert us, not from our earthly existence to something extraterrestrial, something beyond life, but rather, from something ordinary, drab, and mundane, something less than life - to the possibility of being fully alive right now, of being fully what God intended for us to be.

On this Easter Sunday my prayer for each of us is that we will experience the Resurrected Christ today not as a distant memory, but as a living presence. With that living presence of Christ in us, we can become more than we have ever been before. With the Risen Christ in our hearts, we can become more fully alive, more courageous, more dedicated, more joyful disciples, (vi) energized, like that "Energizer Bunny," to spread Christ's gospel of love and hope, forgiveness and salvation, wherever we go, in whatever we do. Beloved in Christ, choose always the possibility of life, for Christ's powerful victory of life over death is ours also. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. This good news truly is "the rest of the story." Alleluia! Amen.

The Pilgrim Church of Duxbury
Rev. Kenneth C. Landall i Lorain Giles, Aha!, 4/11/04. ii LectionAid, Volume 12, No. 2, 4/11/04. iii Ibid. iv Ibid. v Alan Kelchner, Lectionary Homiletics, Vol. XV, No. 3, 4/11/04. vi Ibid.