A slight disclaimer: What follows is the basic text (minus the occasional digressions) of a sermon that I preached at Comox United Church, Comox, B.C. on A[ril 17, 2022. It is not an essay. It is written to be spoken and in a manner that reflects my preaching style, which I suspect might be described as “informal.” Nor does it have the full assortment of citations, acknowledgements, and footnotes normally (and quite reasonably) expected in a more formal work. Please forgive the grammatical peculiarities!
Blessings
Phil Spencer
“It’s All in the Voice”
The church that Paul and others had founded in the ancient Greek city of Corinth was a mess. A variety of internal disputes, claims of spiritual superiority amongst the members, incest, law suits, abuse of the common meal, and more … things were not going well. This led the Apostle Paul to write some letters of correction, which surely were difficult reads for the Corinthian faithful. The portion that Alan read to us this morning comes toward the end of 1st Corinthians and highlights the subject that the Apostle clearly loves to talk about and returns to over and over again throughout his letters: the gospel, the good news. What’s the good news that he—and I paraphrase Paul now—that he first proclaimed to them, which they in turn received, in which they also stand, through which also they were being saved, if they held firmly to the message that Paul proclaimed to them? Surprisingly, it wasn’t love your neighbour, or forgive those who hurt you, or do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God, all of which are indeed vital elements of the gospel, the good news. No, Paul instead pointed to the message that he’d received, and that was that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures and that he appeared to Cephas, to Peter, and then to the twelve and to more, and eventually to Paul himself, whom he described as the least of the Apostles. So, even before Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John had put stylus to papyrus, Paul was declaring that somehow, what we marked on Friday and the event we’re celebrating this morning is the heart of the good news, the thing that this project we’re about in the Church is in some way founded upon.
I’m not at all embarrassed to admit it: I’m a crier, I’m one of those people who gets a bit weepy at times. Now, perhaps you process it differently, but in my mind I normally associate crying with pain and sadness. Yet, in my own life that isn’t usually where it manifests itself. I’m not sure I cried much when I did hospital work, and I got to encounter some very sad things during that portion of my life and similarly, while there’s much joy, I’ve also experienced an inherent sadness to the practice of ministry, in walking for a while with those going through the inevitable trials of human existence. If you can’t bear being around sadness, avoid doing professional ministry because it’s a constant subtext to what we do! But for me, tears normally manifest themselves in other places, in different places. One of those places is when I encounter joy: raw, unadulterated joy.
As I’ve mentioned before, while I grew up in Canada, I was born in the UK, and so I didn’t have an extended family around me when I was young and that was something I always really wanted as a child. I missed the immediacy of relationships with grandparents and aunts, uncles, and cousins, though my parents worked hard at communicating family stories to me to keep the connections strong, despite the time and distance. On those rare occasions when a family member from England came out to visit, it was a really big deal for me. I was over the moon because I so wanted to be a part of this precious extended family. I remember as a young teen being in the airport in Vancouver waiting in the arrival area for my Uncle and Aunt, to whom I was especially attached, though I’d not actually laid eyes on them since I was 4 years old. Such was the power of my parent’s ability to communicate our family story. You know how it is to wait at “Arrivals”: there are all sorts of people standing there in a semicircle, some holding signs with names on them, but mostly people who are just eagerly expecting loved ones. I remember standing there and finding that as the weary travellers appeared, suitcases in tow, and being embraced by friends and family who were so delighted to see them and I found myself standing there, tears running down my face and biting my trembling lip, rather overwhelmed by the reunions and the joy so obviously present. By the time Uncle Tom and Auntie Marj emerged from Customs and Immigration I was utterly exhausted and I remember throwing myself upon my rather bewildered, but delighted “rellies.” I recollect that day well, because I realized then that I was indeed a crier and I was going to have to figure out how to manage that reality.
My parents were both marked deeply by the 2nd World War, and I grew up on tales of both of their experiences, which were powerful. Even though they weren’t politically aligned, they were both Winston Churchill fans, and I remember watching the documentary series The Valiant Years with both of them and even my father playing me recordings of Churchill’s speeches on old 78 RPM records! Such was my childhood! Hence, it was inevitable that I would watch the film Darkest Hour, in which Gary Oldman played Winston Churchill to deserved Oscar glory. I watched it again a couple of weeks ago, and for me one of the most affecting moments was a scene of dubious historicity in which Churchill takes a ride on the Underground and, surrounded by garden-variety Britons, has his quote from McCauley’s poem Horatius finished by someone else on the carriage and he gets weepy. He isn’t weeping out of sadness, but instead he's overwhelmed by what I think was awareness of a common sense of purpose. They were tears brought on by a new consciousness, and a feeling of resolution and he does so unashamedly, though he does sense the need to explain it. It’s as if we shouldn’t reveal any emotion, any vulnerability because it might be perceived as weakness.
Anyway, I think the real problem with tears is that it’s sometimes hard to know what to do with them, how to respond if you’re a bystander, but over time I’ve gotten more comfortable with my own emotions and how they can sometimes be displayed and—to some extent, anyway—how others express them. My son, Conall, is like me in some ways and different in others, but he’s afflicted with the same propensity for getting weepy when experiencing joy and he occasionally sends me video clips that are cunningly designed to reduce me to emotional wreckage. Despite knowing what’s coming I always watch them. There was one he sent me that showed a US soldier returning from year-long deployment in Jordan and Syria (maybe you’ve seen it) and somehow his wife arranged for a surprise reunion with his young son, who’s taking Tae Kwon Do, and who’s doing an exercise requiring a blindfold. He’s standing on the mat blindfolded and his Dad starts to spar with him, and after a few moments he says his son’s name and the boy stops and says, “Dad?” Then he tears off the blindfold, sees his father, and throws himself into his Dad’s arms, thus reducing me to a sobbing mass.1 The point being: he recognized his Dad, how? Through familiarity with his voice.
It was Good Friday—the day of the crucifixion. Betrayed, denied, abandoned by the Twelve whom he’d called and taught, Jesus had died painfully on the cross, utterly vulnerable, broken, yet in some way oddly victorious, his last words being “It is finished,” and I find myself wondering, what was finished? It needs to be said that he wasn’t completely abandoned by those who loved him. John tells us that standing near the cross were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and the one John mysteriously refers to as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” And, oh yes, Mary Magdalen, one whom St. Luke tells us is numbered among the disciples, those who had followed Jesus around Galilee.2 Amidst the swirl of emotions and surely many tears, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those close to the cross were trying to make sense of some of Jesus’ final words, not the least of which were his last: “It is finished” … or, perhaps more tellingly translated, “It is completed.” There was more happening on the cross than anyone watching knew.
It’s really early on Easter morning—still dark—and Mary Magdalene is on her way to the grave of Jesus. He’s been in the tomb since Friday evening, it’s now Sunday, and so it’s been, what? 36 hours? According to the calendar, however, this counts as—Friday, Saturday, Sunday—as the 3rd day. And I wonder, what drew Mary there? Was it a place to weep? The logical place to let out her overwhelming grief? Was it to, in some way, still remain close to this remarkable individual she’d followed over these years? Or was it to fulfill the task, usually left to those with the closest relationship, of replenishing burial spices that would now be especially needed as Jesus’ remains began to increasingly decay? Then again, maybe she just didn’t know what to do, and was drifting, just carried along, uncertain of what she was doing as she bore this terrible sadness. She approached the tomb and, in the half-light of early morning, she saw … oh, my … the stone protecting the entrance to the cave had been rolled away. In shock (I mean, what further indignities could be visited upon this wonderful human being?) she ran off and … where to go? Who to go to? She ran off to, yes, Peter, Peter and the “the beloved disciple,” possibly that mystery figure was even John himself! Who knows? She tells the two of them that they’ve taken away the Master, and she doesn’t know what they—and no, who the mysterious “they” referred to here is uncertain—but she doesn’t know what they’ve done with him! Peter and the beloved disciple in turn run to the tomb, and the 2nd disciple—speedier than Peter and getting there first—he stopped and just looked inside, seeing some of the linen wrappings used to bind the body just lying there. Peter, true to character, isn’t so cautious, of course—he bursts into the tomb, and when he gets inside he sees the burial cloths, and particularly remembers that the linen used to wrap Jesus’ head is all neatly folded. The body’s gone, but it’s like a balloon has been deflated and all that was left were the wrappings, somehow still in place. The Gospel writer then notes that the beloved disciple now entered the tomb and believed, but then also says, rather enigmatically, that they didn’t yet understand the Scripture that he would rise from the dead. It’s as if he knew that something significant was going on, but while he couldn’t name it, for some reason he now had hope. Something, or was that someone? was up.
Then the two of them went back to their homes leaving Magdalene on her own and our eyes are drawn back to the one who will be the first witness to the resurrection to what might be the most important encounter in human history, to Mary. While Paul describes himself as the least of the Apostles, Mary Magdalene is honoured and remembered by the Church as the “Apostle to the Apostles,” messenger to the messengers, the one who is sent by Jesus to bring the news of the resurrection to those who’ll take it to the world. It all begins with Mary’s encounter and her courage and faithfulness.
Outside the tomb still, she looks in and through her tears sees two figures dressed in white, figures who would later be described as angels, but on that day they were simply strangers in white, and one of them asks why she’s crying. She declares that someone’s taken away the Teacher and she doesn’t know where he is. Then she turns around.
It was back in 2001 that I lost a close friend in a motor vehicle accident. He left behind a young family and it was a terrible time and to this day I still remember that sick feeling that overwhelmed me and our family and our community as we tried to process this information. And even though I had no doubt that he’d died (I actually travelled down to the States with the funeral director to bring his body home) I also remember for months afterwards occasionally “seeing him” around town. And, of course, it wasn’t him—it was my mind—and my heart—playing tricks on me. Minds and hearts can do that when you’re sad, grieving, though because of Good Friday and today, I dare to say that one day I expect to see him again.
Mary turns around and sees someone (who else would be there at this hour?) logic suggesting the gardener as the most likely person. A wonderfully perceptive error in recognition for a new creation is now underway, a new Garden is being revealed. But this gardener asks her an odd question: “Lady, why are you weeping?” It wouldn’t surprise me if she was thinking, “O come on, it’s a tomb! Why do you think I’m crying?” But she carefully replies, “Sir”—that’s kurios in Greek—a term of respect, how you address someone who has power (often-times translated as “Lord”), “Sir, if you’ve taken him away, tell me where he is so I can take him back.” Or, to put another way, “After all this nightmare, just allow me to have the body please!” Then Jesus says—because, as we know, it is Jesus—he says to her, “Mary.” I wonder how he said her name, what his expression was when he said, “Mary!” For somewhere in that expression she was hearing, “Hey, Mary, its me.” And in that moment, she recognizes Jesus and there’s confusion, joy, hope! Even death could not keep him down!
She says, “Rhabbouni! … Master! Teacher!” It’s somewhere in the voice, in the way he says her name. You pick up the phone and you recognize the voice—don’t need to look at call display, don’t have to ask, “Who’s calling?” The young boy in the video clip recognized his Dad—and his Dad shouldn’t have been there, because he was overseas—but when he hears Dad’s voice … could it be? Hope!
In the 10th chapter of this Gospel, we read how Jesus says he’s the good shepherd and how his sheep hear his voice, and know his voice, and how he calls them by name. Calls them by name because he knows them, every one of them, that well. And he adds, “I lay down my life for the sheep.” I wonder how long it took Mary to put those things together.
Name-calling is generally frowned upon around here—and rightly so—but I’d like to put in a good word for name-calling, the kind name calling that Jesus does, anyway. After all, this is what he did, and this is what he does. Raised on the 3rd day, released from the grave, Jesus is loose. Don’t hang on to him because he’s on the move, and we’re probably going to have to run a little to keep up. He’s on the move and he’s calling your name and mine, somehow calling your name in a way that probably only you’ll recognize. He’s calling our names because there’s much to do, there’s resurrection to declare and to enact. So, let’s listen carefully for he is risen. And because of this day, as the old song by Brother Claude Ely scandalously and joyfully declares, “There ain’t no grave, gonna hold my body down.” To which I say, Hallelujah!
1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQqNyRFjKrM
2 Luke 8:3