NUCC
Easter Sunday
April 8, 2007
Each of us has expectations. We expect the sun to come up. We expect a baby to grow, learn to walk and talk, go to school, leave home, get a job, retire, and hopefully die in old age.
We expect the faucet to produce water --- both cold and hot. We expect the phone to connect us to other people. We expect to flip a switch and have light.
In April we expect at least some warm weather. Those of us who wore shorts a couple weeks ago knew the 80 degree days could not last ---- but we weren’t quite ready for the cold blustery winds that have persisted. We didn’t really expect to take out our ski caps, winter parkas, and gloves! All of this when we hear news about the increasing certainty of global warming!
Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and the other women who went to the Tomb “at early dawn” on that Sunday so many years ago had certain expectations.
- They expected to find a closed tomb.
- They expected to find a dead body.
- They expected to provide Jesus with the trappings of a decent burial --- with anointing and burial clothes.
But were these women in for a surprise! A surprise much greater than our little surprise of an extended return to winter. For these women and for us the expected experience turned into an incredible experience.
· There was no body ---- just an empty tomb.
· Instead of a body there were two men “in dazzling clothes.”
What would your reaction be if you came to your loved one’s grave and found it empty with some mysterious, otherworldly person standing beside it? Our women friends were terrified. Fear was written all over their faces. After they were terrified they were perplexed. What in the world is happening here?
But then they remembered.
- They remembered all they experienced with Jesus in
Galilee - The teaching.
- The healing.
- The fellowship over a meal.
- Just like we remember the beloved connections with our departed loved ones, they remembered their life with Jesus.
- They remembered what Jesus had said about being handed over to sinners.
- They remembered what he said about being crucified.
- They remembered what he had said about rising again.
The women remembered, and in the strength of their memory and their connection to Jesus they went and told the men. But the men were skeptical. “An idle tale,” they said. Nonsense. Incredible.
But one of the disciples, Peter --- stupid, stolid Peter --- takes the women to heart. He runs. He stops at the open grave. He stoops into the cave. He looks. And he is amazed.
An incredible, amazing, nonsensical story ---- not to be expected. This is what the disciples heard on the first Easter. This is what we hear on this Easter in 2007. Incredible. Beyond credulity. Beyond belief. A challenge to our intellect and a challenge to our experience. Beyond our “comfort zone.” In fact our “comfort zone” is invaded as we experience a sort of “twilight zone” in the early dawn of the morning and enter into the “resurrection zone.”
We are challenged to change our “frame of reference” from the expected to the incredible. As we grow older many of us have to get glasses and after that change to bifocals or trifocals. We can’t use our Dollar Store glasses anymore. The new glasses require new frames.
Humans try to make sense of new facts by fitting them into old frames of reference. Some things may require new frames. The empty tomb is God’s new frame and cannot be compared to other experiences.
The story Luke tells us this morning shows that Resurrection cannot be fully comprehended by human minds and hearts. The good women who went to the tomb and found it empty were perplexed and even terrified for a reason. To use an American form of speech, this was a “whole new ball game” and the women had to learn to play that ball game. They had to deal with this empty tomb and later they had to deal with the risen Christ, who was not simply resuscitated, but resurrected. Jesus the man who was raised as the Christ had a body, but a body different from any other body, a body that was here and gone and here again. How could these women and men deal with this Resurrection?
I believe they had to have an appreciation for mystery, a certain tolerance for ambiguity, and a willingness to live in “new heavens and a new earth” as our Old Testament Lesson expressed it. They had to trust in the Lord they knew and loved. They had to experience him in a new and more profound way.
I believe we also need to have an appreciation for mystery, a tolerance for ambiguity, and a willingness to experience “new heavens and a new earth.” What would you say is your mystery quotient? How much ambiguity can you tolerate? Can you change?
As I have met folks throughout my life and ministry I have found that some people can deal with mystery and ambiguity better than others. After all we are different kinds of people with varying personalities. Some of us need certainty. Some of us need absolutes. Some of us need to see things as black or white, with no shades of gray. Part of the reason for this is our own special personal make up.
During my life I have become more comfortable with ambiguity. The pieces don’t have to all fit together for me. I have become more able to simply say: “Ah, this I don’t completely understand, but I accept it and am willing to deal with it.” Yes, I have my questions. I have my doubts. But I believe this is God’s reality.
This is how I approach the whole Resurrection mystery. I fully believe that Easter has nothing to do with flowers growing in springtime, the ebb and flow of the seasons, or the cycle of life. Easter is not something we expect. It is not nice and natural. Rather Easter is incredible. Easter strains our rational limits. But that is okay, because God’s love and God’s mind are greater than my love or my mind. I accept that fact.
The Resurrection pushes me to place my faith in the still speaking God, who says: “No, I didn’t place a period there. That was just a comma. Come now and live the resurrection life with me ---- now and forever.”
To this invitation all I can say is:
“Thank you God. You have done more than I ever expected. You are incredible.”
Amen.
