April 21, 2019

Luke 24:1-12

 

What is most interesting, I think, about Luke’s version of the Easter story is that there is no body, no Jesus present.  Unlike in John’s gospel, the one that tends to be more familiar, Jesus doesn’t appear to the women, call Mary by name, and open her eyes to be recognized as their recently executed friend somehow alive before them.  Instead, we have and empty tomb and the sudden appearance of two men in dazzling clothes.  The women who had come to anoint Christ’s body shrink in fear as these two men, (angels maybe?) proclaim what Luke takes to be the thrust of Easter’s good news.   “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here, but has risen.”

It’s not so much a question for the women of the story as it was for the members of Luke’s church.  Reading these words 50 or so years after his crucifixion, that church was being reminded of the truth that was behind their entire existence as a church.  It was actually a truth that colored their whole beings and determined the meaning of their very lives.  That is, the resurrection of Jesus was not simply a 50 year old event of history to be remembered and honored; it was an ongoing reality in their lives and in the world around them.

Between Easter and Pentecost, Easter is actually the younger celebration.  The pouring out of God’s Spirit, which the disciples took to be Christ’s Spirit, is the more ancient feast.  It was there that the resurrection was most fully understood because it was there that the resurrection went from being one man’s history to a reality for all the people.   It went from being an event in time to an event for all time.  That’s when the resurrection became an ongoing experience for the people of God.

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?” is translated into modern terms by the United Church of Christ, which says, “Never put a period where God has placed a comma.”  At first, I thought our new icon (you’ll see it on the sign on our lawn) was a blue on blue UCC version of the Yin Yang symbol.  I wasn’t alone in that either.  But, if you look more closely, you’ll see that it is a comma, and it is meant to reiterate this ancient and modern truth that God is still speaking.  God is still speaking as we hear the scriptures fresh and anew.  God is still speaking as the Spirit works through our words and our actions.  God is still speaking as grace abides through the twists and turns of our lives.  You see, the power of the resurrection is that is it an ongoing experience.  God is still speaking because Christ lives, not simply among those who have gone to heaven, but because Christ lives among the living.  This is why Easter matters and this is why we are here.

The thing is, resurrection truth is not an easy truth for most of us to maintain.  The world has a way of taking it out of us, as does our own thinking, which is why the witness of the women remains so important.  The women put themselves at the tomb; they put themselves at the place of resurrection, and so they are better able to experience it.  The same it true for us.  For us to more readily experience the ongoing presence of Christ we need to put ourselves in the places where Christ will be.

Lucy told me that I could share this story.  I asked her last fall if she wanted to go to the soup kitchen with me.  She said, “sure,” which I was psyched about.  What I didn’t tell her was that we were going with the youth group.  When we pulled into the church parking lot and saw a group of the big kids standing on the steps the energy in my car changed quite a bit.  “Wait a minute,” she said.  “We’re going with them?”  Lucy was just 10 at the time.  She’ll 11 now and maybe the intimidation factor wouldn’t be so potent as it was.  But, suddenly, Lucy was feeling pretty small and out of place.  Walking into a big church auditorium in Bridgeport where strangers were setting up tables, cleaning chairs, and chopping food didn’t help either.  At least, it didn’t help immediately.

Before long I was calling out numbers so that groups of 10 could come up and get their food.  Lucy stood next to me and collected tickets and got to greet each guest personally before they all ate.  Then it was our turn to eat and she discovered how good chorizos are.  We sat with a guy named James, who it turns out was putting himself through Housatonic Community College while living in his car and working at Target.  We all got to talking, but soon I found that I was mostly listening.  Lucy and James had the conversation covered.  Next I knew she was inviting James to church and James was seriously considering it.  Then came time to clean up and Lucy was off like a shot.  She was sweeping tables, putting chairs up, and folding her apron exactly the way you were supposed to.  She even showed me how to fold my apron up, and then told me to get back to cleaning tables.

The Spirit had moved; Lucy had come alive, and it was quite the site to see.  Even on the ride home she was chatting away with the others, just like she was one of the big kids.

Resurrection happens all the time.  We don’t always see it, but our chances are best when we put ourselves in the places where Christ says he’ll be.

One of those places for me has for a long time been church, and in particular, the state of worship.  When we gather with one another, and praise God together, and hear anew God’s good news… when we share our lives with one another, our joys and our concerns, and when together we give ourselves into God’s hands, that’s when God is really real to me.  That’s when I feel most deeply the truth that the divine life is among us and within us.  That’s when I know that we are irreparably claimed by an undying love, a love that makes us who we really are.

But, even if we don’t intentionally put ourselves in places of resurrection, resurrection still has a way of getting to us.  It still breaks through locked doors to find doubting disciples and to let them know that they too are part of God’s “more,” God’s still speaking voice.

One of those places tends to be funerals.  People often gather more out of respect than faith.  They are grieving and raw.  They don’t always know what they believe, but they know what they want to believe.  They want to have hope.  What emerges from these times, especially if loved ones are willing to share their reflections, is almost always a sense of the sacredness of life, a sense that life is more than meets the eye, that ultimately we are part of a miracle and a holy something that transcends us.

That’s part of the reason why Christ’s universal church just celebrated a funeral on Friday.  That’s why we called it “Good Friday.”  His death isn’t good in any conventional way, but what happens in each of the gospels is the same.  In Marks’ gospel at Christ’s death, just as he breathes his last, the Roman guard echoes the narrator’s opening words, “This man was God’s Son.”  In Matthew there is an earthquake and the centurion says the same.  In Luke the crowd of onlookers at the base of the cross becomes a group of mourners, pounding their chests in recognition of what has happened.  And in John it is blood and water that pours from Christ’s pierced side meant to fulfill prophecy and convey the sense that the world has just made a most horrible decision.

This great funeral of the Church that we call Good Friday is the recognition that though we’ve chosen the profane it is the sacred that was offered.  Though we’ve often lived by the ways of the world, it was God’s ways that were given.  Though we’ve often let self-interest guide us, it was holy, self-sacrificing love that was shared.  On Good Friday we see Christ’s loss as our own and we say it too: “This man was God’s Son.”

But, my friends, Easter is Good Friday’s partner.  The sacred we sense through the loss on Good Friday is confirmed through our gain on Easter.  Easter bursts through the permanency of death.  It overwhelms the tyranny of history and time to announce resurrection not only for then, but for always, not only for Christ but for Christ in us all.  Easter confirms that the sacred is tenaciously giving itself to us and making us a part of it.  Easter invites us to claim the good news of this for ourselves, to live in a world of sacrament, to see the sacred within, and therefore to treasure life as the ministry of bringing the sacred out in others.

This is what Christ does.  He says, I love you so much I will live within you.  I want you to see and to find in it your joy.  And, won’t you go with me to the places where I go so that others may see it too?