“We Have Seen the Lord!”
“On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’” 8 Then they remembered his words.” 9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. 10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles.11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. 12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened."
“Jesus the Christ is risen!” This is the good news that Mary and the others declared on the first Easter morning. Christ is alive, death and despair are defeated. Jesus Christ is risen.
My beloved dad died on an Easter morning, 22 years ago. I had just returned to my office after leading Easter worship when my colleague came in to tell me that my aunt was on the phone. I knew why she was calling; dad had been dying of cancer for a few months and my aunt was visiting my parents. My first response? "Hunh. Death on Easter morning. What do I do with this?” I came back to church late in my late 30’s. I had left on the great sabbatical that starts for many young people just before or after confirmation. I was snared back in when we had our third son baptized. We’d managed to have the first two ‘done’ without any entrapment, as a lot of parents do, no matter how sincerely they tell the minister that it’s their intention to attend regularly and raise their child with the congregation. It’s my husband’s fault really, he grew up Baptist and couldn’t bear to not have them ‘done’ somehow. But with the third, with the third, during the baptism prep weekend I somehow heard the gospel with new ears. I am a political animal, political sociology was my undergrad work, and growing up in the 50’s and 60’s, studying in the 70’s, it became pretty clear to me that we as a human race were doomed. There was no hope for us. Kent State, Viet Nam, Black Panthers sent to racist jails so they would be murdered, President Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Oscar Romero. A Silent Spring. The movement for women’s equality was underway but the women were mocked as being strident bra-burners. Any voice that raised dissention was quickly eliminated, jailed, or dismissed. It seemed to me that the obstacles towards equality and hope were insurmountable.
But, but, something I heard on that baptism prep weekend rang a bell in my heart, awakened a refrain from my long forgotten Sunday school days. There is good in the world, and we know the Way. And so I started going back to church, because it seemed to me an Easter faith, an Easter God, and Easter people were the only way to drag us out of the path we were on. Left to our own devices, without God, humanity was hooped.
And so, these stories of women discovering the empty tomb, of their encounters with angels and radiant gardeners and the testimony that Christ was risen continue to root me. To give me hope. To give me the impetus and the energy to continue to engage the principalities and powers.
The women, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them, come to Jesus’ tomb with spices to anoint his body. Spices to cover up the anticipated stench of someone dead for three days. They come with beauty in the form of an aroma to overcome the decay of death. They had to come knowing there would be almost insurmountable challenges in accomplishing their task. Truly, ‘who will roll away the stone’, the enormous boulder blocking the cave of Jesus’ internment, was a real question. But they went anyhow, starting out on their way to care for the leader of their Way of faith.
I wonder how often we overthink starting new undertakings, how often we hesitate and maybe even allow ourselves to be blocked by the lack of a clearly laid out strategic plan? But how much more interesting it is, how much more faithful to start out on something when we can only see one, maybe two steps ahead. And really, isn’t that where we are now? Covid’s not over, but we take a couple of steps into community. The church overall is in decline, but we open the doors anyhow. Next week you are going to consider what kind of leadership you need and hopefully give the go ahead to start looking for a new minister. Our lives might be in chaos, but we nevertheless make dates in our calendars and get up every morning, check that Zelensky is still OK, make the coffee and start our day yet one more time. Sometimes, the stone isn’t as insurmountable as we thought. Sometimes, once we muster the energy and courage to encounter it, it’s actually already gone.
The women enter the tomb, expecting the body. The big stink. The physicality of the death of their beloved. But he’s gone. He is not there. The tomb is empty. Not quite empty – the strips of linen that had wrapped his body are still there, so they know they’re in the right place. They can see that what bound him has been shirked off. He is no longer confined in death. He isn’t really confined by life either, or at least not by life as we know it.
The angels tell them, rather impatiently it seems to me, maybe a bit of mansplaining going on, that he’s not there. “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” Just as promised he has been raised. Remember what he told you! And Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them rush back to where the rest of the followers are gathered to tell them what they’ve seen. And this to me is where it gets really interesting, and timeless. “When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others….But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.“
The men didn’t believe the women. They blew off the first apostles, the first ones to tell the good news of Jesus’ resurrection. This will come as no surprise to many women, even still. The number of times we have a creative idea, a helpful insight, a warning, but no one hears it until a man suggests it. When John came to Comox, to speak to the congregation I’m working with on visioning, he was joking that an expert is really just someone from away with a PowerPoint. And a particular part of the anatomy that is unique to men I added. That’s what’ll really get them to sit up and take notice.
They dismissed the women as speaking nonsense. I love that the New International Version of the Bible interprets the word as nonsense, no-sense. I mean really, how much sense does someone raised from the dead make? Really, who’s going to buy that?
My dad had this habit when you told him something, of commenting in a way that sounded like a confirmation of what you said. Not an affirmation, but a confirmation, as if what you said was up for debate. “Wow, it’s really pouring out.” Dad would look out the window, “Yes, it is.” One day my mom had had enough. “I’m not asking you Joe, I’m telling you!” which led my dad to mutter later, “I kind of liked it better before your mother found her voice.” “We’re not asking you,” the women say, “we’re telling you: “Christ is risen!”
Non-sense. Life after death. Hope, love, unconditional grace. They’re all non-sense. In our culture of pragmatic utilitarianism, where everything has been commodified, monetized, when the value of everything comes down to profit-margins and ROI’s (return on investment, puleeze do not use that term when you consider undertaking some mission work, I will find you!), how marvelous, how fitting, that the reaction to the news of Jesus’ resurrection is, “No-sense!” What a relief for those of you who might find it difficult to even tell people that you go to church, who might dismiss you as being irrational and foolish, to be able to declare “I know! Isn’t it great! I’ve found a place of non-sense!! Finally, somewhere I belong!”
For all the times in the tombs of our lives: with severe health diagnosis, with children fighting addictions, accompanying our children as they grapple with their sexuality or gender identity, with divorces and severed relationships, with job terminations, worrying about our grandchildren and what kind of planet they will be living on, and pondering our purpose in life, how absolutely wonderful that we, that you find a place that celebrates the wonder of non-sense, of hope beyond hope, of life beyond death, of complete and utter irrationality. Of a God who squanders love and life, and beauty with no heed to pragmatism or ‘reality’. No ROI’s in considering our worthiness.
Makoto Fujimura, a wonderful man who writes about the imperative for churches to care for culture, to tend the non-sense, says: “Beauty and mercy are the gateways to the new creation because they don’t make sense.” (Makoto Fujimura speaking at Princeton) Beauty, the aroma of anointment for the dead, doesn’t make sense, but gives witness to God’s new creation. Mercy, the break from vengeance, from harbouring grudges and slights, the mulligan we receive every day of our lives, doesn’t make sense, but gives witness to God’s new creation, to the non-sense of the economy of God’s realm.
Peter, an early incarnation of my dad, got up to go see for himself what the women were talking about. Weird that he went alone; I wonder if he didn’t want to embarrass himself by allowing for the possibility. He went alone and coming upon the tomb he discovers that as it turns out, the women were right. “Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves…” Hunh. The tomb is empty. And then, here’s another really interesting part, “and [then] he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.” He went away by himself…
Early on in our time together, at our first workshop, I asked you what you missed most during the time the church was closed and you couldn’t gather together. Community, was your quick response. You missed getting together, being with each other, leaning into each other for comfort and encouragement, for laughter and shared tears. You are not people who would slink away on your own, to ponder the miracles and the misery of life. You yearn for, and you value a community who will hear you and hold you, and then send you into the world knowing that you do not go alone. That will trust you when you say, ‘Christ is risen!’ Indeed, that counts on you to tell them that.
You have in your leadership here, in your past and now in Wayne and in the extraordinary lay leaders, people who have shown you the way to be that community. And you will soon enter into the process of seeking another minister to help you continue to be that people. I would caution you to not put too much pressure on that new person, to not place all of your hopes for the future of the church on their shoulders. In truth the future of the church lies on your shoulders. On how you live out your call to tell the world “Christ is risen. Hope is alive.” And to welcome and reach out to and encourage those who yearn for good news.
It is on you to bring the extravagant beauty of the anointing spices into the world. To be the aroma of hope despite all evidence to the contrary, the aroma of life in the face of death. It is up to you, in Christ and with Christ, to spread all the non-sense of our faith, to sow mercy and beauty and squandering love and indignant protest throughout creation, and for creation. I never did have a great insight into what I believe in the face of my beloved dad dying on Easter Sunday. All I know now is that I was carried through the valley of the shadows of death, and the air in that valley was infused with the healing aroma of life. I know that death did not defeat his life of love, nor did it defeat my faith in God’s capacity to wrench delight from despair. Our final hymn is one Dad chose for his memorial, and in the words of that hymn I still hear his commitment to goodness, and am encouraged in my own. I learned to live in the no-sense of understanding that dad is somehow still with me, because I heard the women say: “Christ is risen! Hallelujah!” Amen