Easter Sunday
William G. Carter
April 21, 2019
Easter brings out a crowd. This is our big day. The music is joyful, the
flowers are rejoicing, and the people around us are exuberant. Even those who
had to walk a distance to find a parking space are in a good mood. When I go
home for dinner, I’ll recount my altered nursery rhyme: Here’s the church
without a steeple; open the doors, see all the people.
As we heard from the apostle Paul, there was a day sometime after the
resurrection when 500 people saw Jesus alive, all at the same time. Nobody else
mentions the incident. I think it is remarkable, not only because he wrote the
letter over twenty years after the resurrection, but that there were 500 people
present. Most of the resurrection accounts are much smaller. Paul himself was on
the road to Damascus when he sees and hears the Risen Christ for the first time.
Nobody else saw Jesus, but he did
In fact, it’s this personal, one-at-a-time experience of Easter that
lies at the heart of this well known story of Mary Magdalene, who comes to the
garden alone. We are never told why she comes. Grief, perhaps? Or the lingering
shock of losing her friend? Or disbelief that he is gone?
She had stood by the cross with his mother. She saw him sip the sponge
of vinegar and heard him breathe his last. Then it was over. There was nothing
left to do but go home and sit still for the sabbath. After a brutal death like
that, after such a stunning loss of one so brilliant and young, I’m sure she
didn’t feel like doing anything.
And when the sabbath was over, she walked to his grave. Why did she go?
You know why she went. No specific reason, but a lot of reasons. He was gone, but
she thought, “Maybe if I go to the place where they laid him to rest, it will
almost be like having him still here. And little did she ever expect what would
happen.
The Gospel of John tells us what happened. Mary sees the tomb has been
broken open. She runs to find Simon Peter and another of the disciples. “Somebody
moved the stone,” she says, half out of breath. “They took him away, and I don’t
know where.”
The two disciples race toward the open grave, and the younger one gets
there first. But he didn't go in. Apparently he didn't have to do that. Right
on his heels, Simon Peter blusters right in, takes a good look around, and
doesn't say anything. We don't know what he thinks.
It’s
then that the other disciple, the younger one, steps in, looks around, and
believes. Both of them see the grave wrappings but no body. There is no
talking, no interaction, no vision of the Lord. Then they return home. But
something has happened in the younger one. He saw the empty tomb and needs no
further proof. He believes Jesus is risen. As for Peter, there’s no word that
he believes anything other than Jesus is missing.
Meanwhile,
while all this is happening, Mary stands outside, weeping. For her, an empty
tomb offers no consolation. It’s merely empty. So now it’s her turn to look. Through
scalded eyes, she sees two angels in white, but she is not particularly impressed.
What she wants to know is, "Where have they taken the body of Jesus?"
So
when she turns around from the grave and sees the gardener, she doesn't really
see him. "Sir, if you are the one who has taken away his body, tell me
where you put him." There is no plan yet for what she would do if she
found it, but it’s horrible that his body is missing. It would be one more
humiliation of that wonderful, blessed friend.
But
then Easter happens. With a single word, the gardener wakes her out of the
trance of grief and calls her into the light: “Mary.” He calls her by name –
and that changes everything. Now the world begins again.
I
am often curious how people come to faith. People stop by and tell the stories
(there’s often a story). Sometimes if they are courageous enough, they might
tell me how they lost their faith. Or at least, how they shed an old confining
faith that just didn’t fit any more.
As
we hear this story, please take note of two things. First, Easter faith is something
new. It’s not the same old thing. It’s more than a habit; most likely,
it’s the thing that started the habit before it became a habit. And it’s the
confirmation of a lot of hunches that we’ve had along the way – hunches that
there really is a God, and that this God is creative, generous, and wise, and
at the center of it all, there’s something alive. Something so full of
exhilaration, so pregnant with joy, so abundant and gracious that it startles
us, and stuns us, even shakes us out of a kind of slumber and brings us into
the light.
Jesus
won’t let Mary hang on to the old ways. “Don’t cling to me,” he says to her. “I’m
going to my Father and yours.” The Galilean teacher with carpenter’s callouses
is returning to where he came from, where he has always belonged. He will keep
speaking and she will keep hearing his voice, but he has new life to keep
birthing, new people to bring into God’s flock, new joys to create out of the
ashes of sorrow.
For
her, this is all new. For any of us, this is new. Life in the Risen Christ is
not merely a continuation of the status quo. It’s something bigger, something deeper,
something wider, something far more true.
If
Christ calls your name or shakes you awake, you are not going to stand for the hundred
different ways that the power of death encroaches on us. You’ll have no
tolerance for injustice and no patience with corruption. You will not let your
neighbors be excluded from God’s resources nor permit the downtrodden to be
demeaned. You will take a stand in every for the fullness of life and the
abundance of joy, because full life and abundant joy have found you – and called
your name… “Mary… Brian… Barbara… Gene… Rebecca… Donald… Tom.”
Of
all the things that Easter means, it means that God raises Jesus up as Lord
over every false and destructive power that reduces or destroys the gift of
life. Jesus Christ is alive again, and he is going to keep feeding the hungry, gladdening
the broken-hearted, forgiving the broken-souled, speaking the truth to all, and
revealing the grace of heaven. Death is defeated and that is new. That’s the
first and greatest truth of the Easter faith.
And
here is the second truth: this Easter faith comes to each one of us at different
times, in different ways. One size for Easter does not fit all – and the
story in the Gospel of John has already told us this.
·
Mary
Magdalene sees an unsecured, open tomb, and it disturbs her. She runs to tell
the others, two of them run to see what’s going on. Simon Peter looks in, sees
the empty bed, the folded-up wrappings, but sees no angels, hears no voice. So
he leaves. He doesn’t believe, not yet.
·
The
other disciple looks in, sees the very same arrangements, and he does
believe. It comes easily to him, and he departs.
·
So
then Mary looks inside the tomb, sees the same situation, plus see a couple of
angels, but that’s not enough to spark belief. Faith comes only when she is
personally addressed, when she hears a voice. The point is, all three of them
are different.
That’s
not all there is to the story. That night, the disciples lock themselves away
in hiding. Suddenly Jesus appears, fully alive, and now gives them something to
do: “I send you as the Father sent me; go and forgive sins!’ They believe because
they now have a job to do.
Then
you might remember Old Thomas, the patron saint of show and tell, He wasn’t
with the others, and said, “I’m not going to believe until I have physical
proof.” A week later, Jesus comes to him and says, “Hey Thomas, do you want to
touch my wounds?” Belief for him was inescapable.
Every
one of them came to believe in a different way.
In
fact, Simon Peter, whatever did happen to him? He went back to his old line of
work, back to the old fishing boat. He returned to the Sea of Galilee, and one
night he didn’t catch a single fish. Then a stranger appeared on the shore and
said, “Cast the net on the other side of the boat.” And immediately, there were
153 tilapia fish jumping into the net. Peter said, “OK, OK, I have seen the Lord.”
Each
occasion was different; no experience was better than any other. The only thing
that mattered is that they came to trust that Jesus is alive, and that trust
brought alive something in them. That's how it is with Easter faith. As a wise old
Christian once put it,
Faith is not for all the same experience,
neither is it generated for all with the same kind and degree of
"evidence." For some, faith is born and grows as quietly as a child
sleeping on grandmother's lap. For others, faith is a lifetime of wrestling
with the angel. Some cannot remember when they did not believe, while others
cannot remember anything else, their lives having been shattered and reshaped
by the decision of faith.
There is faith based on signs and faith
that needs none; there is faith weak and faith strong, faith shallow and faith
deep, faith growing and faith retreating. Faith is not a decision once and for
all, but a decision anew in every situation.[1]
So
I think about all of this, the amazing news that we hear this day and the
nature of faith. Some of us take to it easily, and others wish there was more
sunshine and fewer clouds. Maybe you came to worship this morning, confident of
what you know. Or maybe you came hungry for Jesus to finally call your name. Maybe
you are afraid of something. Or maybe you need something important to do. It
could be that you know what it would take to start believing, or believing
again, and you’re not sure you want to drop some of the burdens – intellectual,
emotional, or otherwise - that you’ve been carrying for such a long time.
Here’s
what I say to one and all: relax and rejoice. The Risen Christ knows who you
are. He knows what you’ve been carrying. And what he desires for you is what all
of us desire for ourselves: to be completely alive. To know that we matter to
God and to one another. To trust that we are loved. To welcome the happiness of
this day so that it might lift us a little higher.
For
this is what I believe: there is a deep desire in each of us for a joyful, honest,
abundant life. This is the first sign that the Risen Christ is at work within
us. This is already the promise that he is already calling your name, and he
will call it again and again.
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