Easter Sunday 2012

Isaiah 25:6-9 p 568 6On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.7And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever.8Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken. 9It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the LORD for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. This is the word of the Lord….Thanks be to God Mark 16:1-8 p 829 16 And When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome go and buy spices, in order that they might go and anoint Jesus.2And very early on the first day of the week, they go to the tomb, as the sun was rising. 3 And they had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?”4And they look up and see that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.5 And as they were going into the tomb, they see a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they are astounded.6But he says to them, “Do not be afraid; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised up; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him.7But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”8 And they went out and fled from the tomb, being seized by terror and astonishment; and they said nothing to no-one, for they were struck with fear. This is the word of the Lord….thanks be to God An empty tomb changes everything. It was the dawn of a new day. The women, headed to the tomb, don’t seem to understand that—yet. They have gotten up very early, to care for, in the only way left to them now, their friend Jesus, who is dead. They have gotten the spices, and they are, rightly, concerned with the logistics—the tomb is sealed by a stone—a very, large and heavy stone. But when they get to the grave, the stone has already been rolled away. That should have been their first clue. An empty tomb changes everything. And they find inside the tomb not their friend, their beloved, but—a stranger, dressed in white. And he says: “Do not be afraid” Which, in the Bible, is always a cue to be afraid—because it means that the things we know, the things we understand to be the bedrock of reality, the things we are so sure of—are about to get changed. The whole world is about to be changed. We are about to be changed. And the young man says something else: “you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who has been crucified.” As if, in their grief, they didn’t understand who they were looking for, or what had happened to him. As if, in those 3 days, they might have, somehow, forgotten what happened to their leader. As if they couldn’t know the terrible death he had suffered, the terrible news of his death, the terrible truth that there was no more hope. The women were there, at the foot of the cross! They saw what had happened! They knew just how bad things were. And in their grief, they came anyway. “He is not here. Look- there is the place where they laid him. He has been raised.” An empty tomb changes everything. And the women are stunned, struck silent. Because what do you say, when everything you have known, is turned up side down? What can you possibly say when the impossible has become possible? What words can you summon to talk when even the dead won’t stay dead—how could you possibly go back to the disciples and try to explain that. Listen to what the angel says: for that is what he is, a messenger from God, an angel: Look. Go. Tell. The women are told to tell- and yet, as we read at the end of the chapter, the end of Mark’s gospel, that they told no one nothing—a double negative, in case we didn’t get it the first time—they told no one nothing—because they were afraid. So, it was a total fail. If Jesus was the king who was to come into the city on Palm Sunday, the conquering hero, then that was a failure, wasn’t it. If Peter, that fiery disciple, denied his lord, well, that was a disgrace and a failure. And if the disciples, afraid of what would happen, afraid of the authorities, afraid for their own skin, ran away, well, that was a pretty big failure. And if Jesus, the king, the savior, the Messiah, the One we have waited for, was arrested on Thursday and crucified on Friday, then that was the biggest failure of all. So it should be no surprise that the women fail at their task—to go and tell. But apparently, someone told. This news is so big, so good, so on-going, that it reaches out to us today. Did you hear the way we read the Gospel this morning? The Greek in this story uses almost entirely what is called “the historical present”—that is, things are happening now, written as if we are right there—because we are both there and here, and God is here, and the story is still on-going. The Good News is still good- that God is with us, that God is wiping away our tears, that God continues to be with us even in our failures, that God removes our disgrace, that even in our darkest moments, God is still saving us and loving us. So our call, this Easter morning, is the same as the women’s that first Easter morning. To Look. And Go. And tell. We are to look: to see where there is new life, impossible life, made possible only through the action and grace of God: People fed—where there was no food. A new church—born out of the death of the old one. A life restored, after a jail sentence; life healed, after addiction. New life—when the old life was gone, but we still clung to it because we were terrified, even when the messengers of God said “Do not fear”. Resurrection, an impossible thing, made possible by God who is still acting and moving today. We are not to stand around empty tombs, but we are to look, and see the new life that God brings. There was a story recently in the Presbyterian News Service, about St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. There were a small church—and they were dying. Fewer and fewer came. A neighborhood school for children with disabilities asked if they would be willing to sell their property. We wanted to be a missional church, said their pastor, the Rev Anne LaMar. “We looked at what scripture has to say about what kind of building God wanted us to have, what kind of building did our members need to help them grow in faith, and what good news did our neighbors need to hear,” Rev LaMar said. What they soon realized was that the aging building no longer met their needs and that the congregation’s participation in mission was more important than its location. “Then we realized that the Little Lighthouse (the school) was our neighbor — good news to them would be for us to tell them, ‘Yes, we will sell you our property,’” LaMar said. So they did. They moved, and are now worshipping in a converted garage. Which sounds like failure. Now it’s interesting, that the angel on that Easter morning tells the women first to go and tell the disciples and Peter, that Jesus will meet them, is going ahead of them, into Galilee. That’s home territory for them. They are to go back home. Here’s an amazing thing: despite what Thomas Wolfe wrote, you can go home again. That with God, reconciliation and peace may take place within families. But also, in light of the amazing, life-changing resurrection, we are called to go to our ordinary, everyday lives, among the people we already know. Because God is there. In the Galilee of our everyday lives, we shall see and recognize the Risen Lord. That church in Tulsa, St. Andrew’s, was in a kind of Galilee- a regular neighborhood, still in Tulsa, and they met, every Sunday, in that converted garage. Ordinary, everyday worship. Rev LaMar still preached from a lectern. And the people still sat in chairs, set out in neat rows. But one day, one of the deacons looked out the back door, and said “you know, that backyard would make a wonderful garden.” Now, they just happened to be situated across the street from an apartment complex that housed many families with at-risk youth. So in the ordinariness of their everyday lives—in a backyard garden, they invited the youth to come and join them. The youth work in the garden, and are allowed all the free produce they can carry. Fresh produce that would be too expensive for many of those families. They are spreading the good news—one zucchini at a time. What started as failure was turned by God into new life. This is the God that changes our disgrace, our failures, into new life and hope. That Easter morning, the angel has one last instruction for the women: they- and we—are to tell- or, really “begin telling. Start telling.” Because the telling is not ever finished, not ever done. Just as Mark’s gospel opens with “the beginning of the Good News”- there really is no end to the good news- we are to begin telling, and keep telling. With our words. With our actions. With our lives. Easter is a holiday when many families get together. At Thanksgiving, many families have a tradition in which each person at the table tells something for which they are thankful. Make this Easter the time you and your family begin to talk about new life, impossible life, the good news- where you see it in your everyday day lives. An empty tomb changes everything. Amen.