John 20:1-18
When I was a child I spent many easter vacations in Phoenix, Arizona. My grandmother and my uncles lived in Phoenix. When Mom was growing up - there was no air-conditioning, and there were no public swimming pools. My mother remembered the beautiful weather in the spring and so many years when school let out for Easter - my father stayed home to do income tax returns for his clients and my mother put the three of children in the car and drove us to Arizona.
Mornings were beautiful in the desert you had crystal clear blue skies overhead, and could look out the windows and see for miles across the desert floor. I first noticed it when I was a child, but more so as an adult when I spent a summer working in Scottsdale. I was used to waking up in the morning in Ventura to the "marine layer," or what we called fog. What you see is not the true horizon when you are in the midst of fog. You know there is something out there, but you can’t see it.
That was the experience of the women on the first Easter Sunday. They went to that tomb for one reason, and one reason only, and that was to minister to the body of their dead Lord. They were going to prepare the body for burial. That whole process had been interrupted by the observance of the Sabbath. This was unpleasant work. This was emotionally draining work. It was difficult work. It was work that would render the women ritually unclean, so it was a work of great sacrifice. But it was also "holy work," because it deals with death, it deals with one of those boundaries of existence.
In this version of the resurrection story, Mary is weeping outside the tomb of Jesus. She has already run to tell Simon Peter and the other disciples that Jesus’ body had been stolen. The disciples beat Mary back to the tomb to see if what she said was true, (you know how men never believe what a woman has told them) when Peter and the other disciple see the grave clothes lying there they return to their homes…The rest of the story belongs to Mary. She is the one who saw the angels. She is the one who saw the risen Lord. Peter and the other disciple saw none of this. They saw nothing but a vacant tomb with a pile of clothes in it. They saw nothing but emptiness and absence, they were all in a fog; none of them understood that Jesus was to rise from the dead.
Any way you look at it, that is a mighty fragile beginning for a religion that has lasted for over 2000 years now, and yet that is where we are this morning facing that tomb, on that morning, on what did or did not happen there and how to explain it to anyone who does not happen to believe it too. Resurrection does not square with anything else we know about physical human life on earth. No one has ever seen it happen, which is why it helps me to remember that no one saw it happen on Easter morning either.
Yet, the Early Church rarely preached anything but Jesus' resurrection from the dead. All else seemed irrelevant and insignificant next to the magnificent news that the bonds of death had been broken, and the Reign of God had begun. In the time since then, however, it seems many of us who are preachers and scholars have become focused more on Jesus' teachings and on finding his instructions on life's little problems, and feeling a near-embarrassment about preaching the resurrection. In our attempts to distance ourselves from irresponsible and future-oriented pie-in-the-sky theology, we perhaps have lost the ability or inclination to proclaim the resurrection.
Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States writes: The fact is, at least for me, the resurrection makes all the difference in how I live my life. The resurrection is how I can "be not afraid," but instead be a bold and active witness to the love of God.
When I was preparing for my consecration as the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, I was getting a lot of death threats. Preparations were being made for the consecration security, and I was asked for my blood type, so that preparations could be made for immediately beginning medical treatment on the way to the hospital, should something violent take place. I remember saying to our two grown daughters, who were worried and anxious about my well-being, "You know, there are worse things than death. Some people actually never live -- and that is the worst death of all. If something does happen, remember that the God who has loved me my whole life, will still be loving me, and I will have died doing something I believe in with my whole heart."
As I strapped on my bulletproof vest just before the service, I remember feeling blessedly calm about whatever might happen. Not because I am brave, but because God is good and because God has overcome death, so that I never have to be afraid again. That is the power of the resurrection. NOT in what happens AFTER death, but what the knowledge of our resurrection does for our lives BEFORE death. I am not worried nearly as much about life after death as about whether or not there is life before death!
My friends, we are no longer prisoners to the power of the fear of death. We don't have to be worried about how all of this is going to turn out. We know the end of the story. God reigns. Death is vanquished. We are given life eternal by a merciful and loving God.
In some ways, John’s gospel is about how Jesus had outgrown the tomb, it was too small a focus for the resurrection. The risen one had people to see and things to do. His business was among the living, to whom he appeared not once but four more times in the Gospel of John. Every time he came to his friends they became stronger, wiser, kinder, more daring. Every time he came to them, they became more like him.
Mary is told not to hold on to Jesus. The risen Jesus standing before Mary is not the Jesus who will stay forever. The permanent presence of Christ will be through the Spirit even for disciples like Mary, Easter does not return her and Jesus to the past; Easter opens up a new future. The resurrection is not a return to the past, but a movement to a new way of living in the future.
Ashley Smith is 26 years old. She was taken hostage by Brian Nichols two weeks ago. Nichols is accused of shooting three people, in an Atlanta, Georgia Courthouse. He is accused of shooting another person before he put a gun to Ashley’s head and held her hostage in her apartment.
This is from her interview: Ashley said after a time, she asked Brian if she could read. She retrieved a Bible and a copy of "The Purpose-Driven Life." She said he asked her to repeat a paragraph from the book "about what you thought your purpose in life was -- what talents were you given." I basically just talked to him and tried to gain his trust. "I talked to him about my family -- things that had happened in my life. I asked him why he did what he did. And his reason was because he was a soldier for his people."
"He asked me what I thought he should do. And I said, "I think you should turn yourself in. If you don't turn yourself in, lots more people are going to get hurt." He said, "Can I stay here for a few days? I just want to eat some real food and watch some TV and sleep and just do normal things that normal people do." So, of course, I said, "Sure. You can stay here." I wanted to gain his trust. He needed hope for his life. He told me that he was already dead. He said, "Look at me, look at my eyes. I am already dead." And I said, "You are not dead. You are standing right in front of me. If you want to die, you can. It's your choice." She continued: After I started to read to him, I told him I was a child of God and that I wanted to do God's will. And at one point, he said, "You know, I'd rather you shoot me-- the guns are laying in there –but I said "I don't want anyone else to die, not even you." And he was hungry, so I cooked him breakfast. He was overwhelmed with -- "Wow," he said, "real butter, pancakes?"
And -- we pretty much talked about God ... I said, "You know, your miracle could be that you need to -- you need to be caught for this. You need to go to prison and you need to share the word of God with them, with all the prisoners there."
In the morning Brian Nichols allowed Ashley Smith to leave her apartment unharmed. After working on this story at the Times, my husband asked me if I knew anything about the book "The Purpose Driven Life." Yes I told him, its quite popular, it is basically a simple book on the basics of Christianity, written by a Baptist minister from Orange County. …Really it is old news.
Yet, in a Good Friday world, where so many folks cannot see the true horizon, but live lives where their vision is clouded by the fog. Easter people like Bishop Gene Robinson, and Ashley Smith demonstrate, that the power of the resurrection may be old news – it may be a mystery that we will never comprehend, but somehow it is quite relevant – and new again.
Let it be new in each of us this morning. Alleluia, Christ is Risen. Amen.