Easter 2011
St. Aidan’s Church
John 20:1-18
I’ve decided that preaching on Easter Sunday is tricky business. Especially in a congregation like St. Aidan's, which in its very mission statement claims its identity as “a place that strives to welcome people wherever they are on their faith journey.” The church this morning is full of people at different places along their faith journeys, including many who might describe themselves as having more questions than faith.
And yet here we are this morning confronted with the most mind-bogglingly impossible part of the Bible. Today we proclaim with loud voices and exclamation points the things that are the hardest to believe, the things for which we have absolutely no scientific proof. All we have are the sometimes conflicting accounts written decades after their occurrence and the heart-felt experiences of generations of believers.
And to tell you the truth, I’ve spent most of this past week flummoxed by the prospect of this sermon. I couldn’t seem to get myself out of Lent, and especially out of Holy Week, enough to prepare an Easter sermon. I couldn’t think ahead to Easter as we entered Jerusalem with Jesus, waving palm branches. I couldn’t skip to the end of the story while Jesus showed us how to remember him in the bread and the wine, and how to love one another by washing their our feet. I couldn’t get my head around resurrection as we watched with horror as the soldiers came to take Jesus away. And I certainly couldn’t get to the happily-ever-after as we hid our eyes while he suffered and died. My heart and head just wouldn’t go there.
And then yesterday morning I read again our Gospel story for this morning and realized the perfect preaching model was right there in front of me the entire time in the form of Mary Magdalene, who also had a hard time getting to Easter.
Mary came to Jesus’ tomb while it was still dark that first Easter morning expecting nothing at all. She hadn’t put the pieces together yet, hadn’t even begun to understand what Jesus meant when he cried out “It is accomplished!” from the cross. She came weeping, overcome with her grief. Mary couldn’t recognize the risen Jesus right in front of her because she was so sure she knew he was just a dead body in the tomb. And even when the risen Jesus called her name and she finally recognized him, she still saw him in the risen-Lazarus kind of way. Alive again, but just humanly alive. A huge relief, but not a new creation. All Mary cared about at that point was holding on to Jesus so tightly that he couldn’t get away from her again. She wanted to walk with him again, listen to his stories, sit at his feet. She couldn’t yet grasp that this wasn’t just her old friend back from the grave. He wasn’t going to just return to his former way of life. And then something changed for Mary. She let her mind be boggled and she finally understood that what she was seeing was humanity perfected… what she was hearing was new life beckoning her… what she was touching was nothing less than God.
I think Mary Magdalene in our story this morning is what faith looks like over time.
You begin wherever you are. Sometimes you might begin weeping and mourning like Mary, and sometimes you might be bored or anxious or scared or overwhelmed or not paying attention at all.
Perhaps you notice or experience something that strikes you as notable but you aren’t sure why. For Mary it was the empty tomb, but for us it might be something in nature or in another person or in a poem you read.
Whatever it is, it starts you on a search, although often you have no idea what it is you are longing for. Mary went looking for a body, but her real yearning went much deeper than that.
And then you encounter God along the way, though more often than not in some form or fashion that you don’t at first recognize, like Mary with the figure that she thought was the gardener.
Then something happens to make God real to you – somehow you hear God calling your name, perhaps not as concretely as Mary did, but in some way you know that the God of the universe is right there with YOU.
Sometimes even then, even when you recognize God in front of you, you still cling tightly, as Mary did, to what you expected from God and have trouble letting go.
But hanging on to the God we have known can keep us from the God who knows us better than we know ourselves. And so at some point, you finally begin to have faith that this God that you have encountered is big and wonderful enough to trust and try to follow.
At each point in our Gospel story this morning, Mary moves closer to the Risen Jesus. She moves from misunderstanding to understanding, from grief to hope. She does in one morning what we’ll do (some of us over and over again) throughout our lifetimes. We are all on some section of that journey.
But there’s one more piece for Mary in our story this morning. She didn’t stop there, with her own personal awakening. We wouldn’t have her story today if she hadn’t shared it with others. Mary Magdalene was actually the first Easter morning preacher. She didn’t go to seminary or have an on-line library of scholarly articles to consult. She didn’t have a week to tinker and agonize over what she’d say, either. Her audience wasn’t one that had probably heard the story year after year, like you all have. And yet she preached a sermon to the disciples that was so effective that it was recorded verbatim in the best-selling book of all time. “I have seen the Lord,” she announced. And then she shared with them her experience of encountering Jesus. Simple, but effective.
And so, in the great tradition of our forebearer, Mary of Magdela, I tell you in no uncertain terms: I have seen the Lord.
Just this week, in fact.
I spent several days early this week with one of my best friends from college whose father died. When I first talked to her, she said people kept telling her that her dad was "in a better place" and although she'd always believed that before, now that she was in the midst of it, she was having trouble believing it. She wanted to be able to go back in time and get to do some of it again. Or better yet, to wake up from this like from a bad dream.
When I got there, my friend and her sister and their mother were there, along with their families. They were carrying on pretty well, accomplishing all the details that go with death – funeral planning and notifying people. One morning they asked me to lead a prayer service, just for their family, and so I put together some readings and prayers and they brought some things that had been important to her dad. They shared stories and jokes, moved between crying and laughing, held hands for the Lord's Prayer, and did a whole lot of embracing.
I was honored to be with them. Humbled to be the only non-family member at such an intimate gathering. I felt like I was witnessing Mary Magdalene at the garden tomb realizing that the figure before her was the risen Lord. It was truly an Easter moment.
Mary Magdalene had trouble getting to Easter. And once she finally got there, she realized Easter wasn’t the happily-ever-after dramatic conclusion to the story, but a new beginning.
My friend’s family experienced the same thing. Like Mary Magdalene, they pushed through the cobwebs and hurt of their own Good Friday and emerged on the other side. It wasn’t the happy ending they would have chosen if the story were entirely theirs to write, but it was a chance for a new beginning. Theirs was a hard-fought and a well-deserved Alleluia.
And so is ours.
Our God encounters us this morning smack dab in the midst of the impossible. Which is just as it should be. It were easy to believe – if it were all bunnies and chicks and chocolate and springtime like the marketing geniuses promise, it wouldn’t be big enough to reveal our God. What we proclaim this morning – Alleluia! The Lord is Risen! – is nothing short of impossible. It is too huge to be encompassed by certainty – too breath-taking to be found only within the realm of our imaginations and common sense. Only a story so open to doubt and wonder could be so worthy of faith.
This morning we may be on a journey that has only just begun, or we may be far along the path. But no matter where we are, this morning we have an opportunity to run to the empty tomb and see for ourselves. After that, who knows?
All we can do is add our own story of encounter to the heartfelt experiences of the generations of believers that have come before and those that will follow. And so I say to you this morning, I have seen the risen Lord! Alleluia! How about you? Amen.
St. Aidan’s Church
John 20:1-18
I’ve decided that preaching on Easter Sunday is tricky business. Especially in a congregation like St. Aidan's, which in its very mission statement claims its identity as “a place that strives to welcome people wherever they are on their faith journey.” The church this morning is full of people at different places along their faith journeys, including many who might describe themselves as having more questions than faith.
And yet here we are this morning confronted with the most mind-bogglingly impossible part of the Bible. Today we proclaim with loud voices and exclamation points the things that are the hardest to believe, the things for which we have absolutely no scientific proof. All we have are the sometimes conflicting accounts written decades after their occurrence and the heart-felt experiences of generations of believers.
And to tell you the truth, I’ve spent most of this past week flummoxed by the prospect of this sermon. I couldn’t seem to get myself out of Lent, and especially out of Holy Week, enough to prepare an Easter sermon. I couldn’t think ahead to Easter as we entered Jerusalem with Jesus, waving palm branches. I couldn’t skip to the end of the story while Jesus showed us how to remember him in the bread and the wine, and how to love one another by washing their our feet. I couldn’t get my head around resurrection as we watched with horror as the soldiers came to take Jesus away. And I certainly couldn’t get to the happily-ever-after as we hid our eyes while he suffered and died. My heart and head just wouldn’t go there.
And then yesterday morning I read again our Gospel story for this morning and realized the perfect preaching model was right there in front of me the entire time in the form of Mary Magdalene, who also had a hard time getting to Easter.
Mary came to Jesus’ tomb while it was still dark that first Easter morning expecting nothing at all. She hadn’t put the pieces together yet, hadn’t even begun to understand what Jesus meant when he cried out “It is accomplished!” from the cross. She came weeping, overcome with her grief. Mary couldn’t recognize the risen Jesus right in front of her because she was so sure she knew he was just a dead body in the tomb. And even when the risen Jesus called her name and she finally recognized him, she still saw him in the risen-Lazarus kind of way. Alive again, but just humanly alive. A huge relief, but not a new creation. All Mary cared about at that point was holding on to Jesus so tightly that he couldn’t get away from her again. She wanted to walk with him again, listen to his stories, sit at his feet. She couldn’t yet grasp that this wasn’t just her old friend back from the grave. He wasn’t going to just return to his former way of life. And then something changed for Mary. She let her mind be boggled and she finally understood that what she was seeing was humanity perfected… what she was hearing was new life beckoning her… what she was touching was nothing less than God.
I think Mary Magdalene in our story this morning is what faith looks like over time.
You begin wherever you are. Sometimes you might begin weeping and mourning like Mary, and sometimes you might be bored or anxious or scared or overwhelmed or not paying attention at all.
Perhaps you notice or experience something that strikes you as notable but you aren’t sure why. For Mary it was the empty tomb, but for us it might be something in nature or in another person or in a poem you read.
Whatever it is, it starts you on a search, although often you have no idea what it is you are longing for. Mary went looking for a body, but her real yearning went much deeper than that.
And then you encounter God along the way, though more often than not in some form or fashion that you don’t at first recognize, like Mary with the figure that she thought was the gardener.
Then something happens to make God real to you – somehow you hear God calling your name, perhaps not as concretely as Mary did, but in some way you know that the God of the universe is right there with YOU.
Sometimes even then, even when you recognize God in front of you, you still cling tightly, as Mary did, to what you expected from God and have trouble letting go.
But hanging on to the God we have known can keep us from the God who knows us better than we know ourselves. And so at some point, you finally begin to have faith that this God that you have encountered is big and wonderful enough to trust and try to follow.
At each point in our Gospel story this morning, Mary moves closer to the Risen Jesus. She moves from misunderstanding to understanding, from grief to hope. She does in one morning what we’ll do (some of us over and over again) throughout our lifetimes. We are all on some section of that journey.
But there’s one more piece for Mary in our story this morning. She didn’t stop there, with her own personal awakening. We wouldn’t have her story today if she hadn’t shared it with others. Mary Magdalene was actually the first Easter morning preacher. She didn’t go to seminary or have an on-line library of scholarly articles to consult. She didn’t have a week to tinker and agonize over what she’d say, either. Her audience wasn’t one that had probably heard the story year after year, like you all have. And yet she preached a sermon to the disciples that was so effective that it was recorded verbatim in the best-selling book of all time. “I have seen the Lord,” she announced. And then she shared with them her experience of encountering Jesus. Simple, but effective.
And so, in the great tradition of our forebearer, Mary of Magdela, I tell you in no uncertain terms: I have seen the Lord.
Just this week, in fact.
I spent several days early this week with one of my best friends from college whose father died. When I first talked to her, she said people kept telling her that her dad was "in a better place" and although she'd always believed that before, now that she was in the midst of it, she was having trouble believing it. She wanted to be able to go back in time and get to do some of it again. Or better yet, to wake up from this like from a bad dream.
When I got there, my friend and her sister and their mother were there, along with their families. They were carrying on pretty well, accomplishing all the details that go with death – funeral planning and notifying people. One morning they asked me to lead a prayer service, just for their family, and so I put together some readings and prayers and they brought some things that had been important to her dad. They shared stories and jokes, moved between crying and laughing, held hands for the Lord's Prayer, and did a whole lot of embracing.
I was honored to be with them. Humbled to be the only non-family member at such an intimate gathering. I felt like I was witnessing Mary Magdalene at the garden tomb realizing that the figure before her was the risen Lord. It was truly an Easter moment.
Mary Magdalene had trouble getting to Easter. And once she finally got there, she realized Easter wasn’t the happily-ever-after dramatic conclusion to the story, but a new beginning.
My friend’s family experienced the same thing. Like Mary Magdalene, they pushed through the cobwebs and hurt of their own Good Friday and emerged on the other side. It wasn’t the happy ending they would have chosen if the story were entirely theirs to write, but it was a chance for a new beginning. Theirs was a hard-fought and a well-deserved Alleluia.
And so is ours.
Our God encounters us this morning smack dab in the midst of the impossible. Which is just as it should be. It were easy to believe – if it were all bunnies and chicks and chocolate and springtime like the marketing geniuses promise, it wouldn’t be big enough to reveal our God. What we proclaim this morning – Alleluia! The Lord is Risen! – is nothing short of impossible. It is too huge to be encompassed by certainty – too breath-taking to be found only within the realm of our imaginations and common sense. Only a story so open to doubt and wonder could be so worthy of faith.
This morning we may be on a journey that has only just begun, or we may be far along the path. But no matter where we are, this morning we have an opportunity to run to the empty tomb and see for ourselves. After that, who knows?
All we can do is add our own story of encounter to the heartfelt experiences of the generations of believers that have come before and those that will follow. And so I say to you this morning, I have seen the risen Lord! Alleluia! How about you? Amen.
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