Easter 4, Year A (2017)
Acts 2:42-47
Apparently I am not as hip as I think I am, because last week I heard for the first time about an internet video phenomena that I completely missed while it was going on last year - the MannequinChallenge. A group of people pose stock-still as if frozen in time while someone with a video camera pans around to see them from different angles. These Mannequin Challenge videos have been made by school groups, sports teams, politicians and actors.
On Easter and the two following Sundays, our Gospel readings presented us with a Mannequin Challenge, of sorts. They were 3 different stories that all happened to different people on that first Easter day, giving us different angles on the same Easter tableau. For three weeks, it was as if that first Easter day froze in time and we had extended chance to investigate it in detail.
Our first angle was the view from the story we heard here on Easter morning. When we saw Mary Magdalene at the tomb, kneeling with tears carving lines in her face, frozen with a surprised look while her head turned to glance behind her at Jesus standing there in the act of calling her by name.
The next week, we rotated around the Easter tableau a bit and discovered the disciples (only 10 of them, with Judas gone and Thomas missing). They were in various states of shock and joy and disbelief and wonder as they stared open-mouthed at Jesus just making an appearance inside the door of their locked room.
And then last week, we rotated further around the tableau to see two less familiar men resting from their walk down the long dusty road to Emmaus. They were frozen with their mouths full of food and eyes wide as we caught them in the moment of realizing that the man breaking the loaf of bread next to them was Jesus, their beloved teacher.
What would your reaction have been if you were part of the tableau, frozen inside one of these angles on the Easter story? Imagine, like Mary, that you are feeling abandoned and lonely, mourning the greatest loss you’d ever encountered, and suddenly Jesus calls your name with a voice so loving that it moves your soul. Or imagine, like those disciples, that you are paralyzed with fear, hiding away somewhere away from everyone, and Jesus suddenly appears and says “Peace be with you.” Or imagine, like those men on the road to Emmaus, that you are spending time with an unfamiliar stranger and suddenly you realize that person right next to you is in some way Jesus.
Or maybe there is some other angle on the Easter tableau that isn’t written - maybe you have been part of, or can imagine, some other encounter that feels like resurrection.
Take a few seconds to think of a resurrection moment and then think of a pose that goes with it and then we’ll create our own tableau that tries to capture what we imagine our reactions might be to the resurrected Jesus coming close to us.
(Videos from our own Mannequin Challenge experiments at our three services at St. Aidan's: 8:30 am service , 10:30 am service, 5:30 pm Celtic service.)
The most interesting Mannequin Challenge video I found in my late discovery of this fad was filmed in Grand Central Station in New York City. (See video here. ) 207 people suddenly froze at exactly the same time all around the main terminal. One person was frozen with a spoonful of yogurt halfway to his mouth. A couple was frozen holding hands mid-stride. Another person was frozen reaching to pick up papers he had just dropped on the ground. Another was crouched down tying his shoes. It was amazingly cool to see the freezing begin, especially because it happened so suddenly without any apparent signal. But in some way, it was even more interesting to watch and hear the reactions of the hundreds of ordinary passersby who weren’t in on the plan and were just walking around when this suddenly happened and were so confused and so amazed. And then, at the appointed moment, again, with no apparent signal, all of the frozen people unfroze and began to move along their way.
I think that moment is where we are today with our reading from Acts. The disciples have unfrozen from their various Easter experiences and are beginning to move. And every move they make is through the lens of Easter. They had been scared, weeping, surprised, questioning. But now they are trying to figure out how to live in their world as Easter people. And it is a beautiful thing. We see them moving as the living, breathing Easter tableau as they devote themselves to study and prayer, as they spend time in fellowship and meals, as they take care of each others’ needs. This sounds like community at its most authentic and formational.
Easter was a gift for each one of these early believers, but they were clear-eyed enough at that moment to see that it wasn’t a gift for any one of them alone. Easter was more than an individual affirmation — it was an invitation to pray, and care for, and sit down at the table with all the other broken, hungry, imperfect people in their circle and beyond. And so the early followers of Jesus slowly moved out of their small, dark, confining places of their lives and began living into their new roles as Easter people.
And of course, that’s where we come in to the story today ourselves. We get this season of Easter to hear the stories and reflect again on what that Easter experience meant to the people that have been in some way frozen in time through our gospel stories. But the story doesn’t stay frozen there for us any more than it did those early disciples. We take what we learn, we let ourselves be changed by it, and then we move out into the world living through the lens of Easter just like the early church. We are part of the living, breathing, moving Easter tableau now, figuring out how to walk in love in community with other broken, hungry, imperfect people. And it is a beautiful thing we are doing, even when we struggle and fail and start over again and again. How is God stirring and leading us right now? How is God causing life and love to overflow in and through and from us right now?
Our sort of Easter motto that we repeat through this season isn’t “Alleluia, Christ WAS risen” or “Alleluia, Christ HAS risen.” It’s “Alleluia, Christ IS risen.”
The Lord IS risen indeed. And moving among us. May we move into the world along with him. Alleluia!
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