Below, for your consideration and reflection, is the sermon from Bethel's March 23, 2008 Easter Sunrise worship service.
John 20:1-18
March 23, 2008 Easter Sunrise
Rev. Marc Sherrod, ThD
Turning, tossing those two nights that flanked that long ago Jewish Sabbath, patching bits and pieces of sleep, snatches of rest – or, was it closer to truth that the immediacy of grief permitted no sleep at all? The whirlwind and shock of sadness has a way of twisting day and dark into one unforgiving, long nightmare. Did grief send her, flashing back, to what once was? Did she speak with her friends, his followers about the loss they all felt? Try to console one another? Or, did she grow quiet and turn inward, dealing with her sorrow in silence?
She last saw her Lord, cross-bound, cross-nailed, cross-crucified, and God only knows what anguish and despair, what heart-ache, stirred inside, two days later, as she picked her way before daybreak to the tomb, that horrible image of blood-mingled-sweat dripping from her Lord’s bruised, torn flesh – that all too vivid last picture of him in his life and in his dying, fresh in her mind.
If he had died in our hometown, what might Mary Magdalene have done? Might she have crept, alone, into the funeral home, when no one else was around, to try and peer beneath the embalmer’s veneer of life, to see what reality mortality had left behind? Or maybe, back to the cemetery, after the burial procession had driven away, after the gravedigger had finished his digging and covering, a private moment to weep beside the grave where he was laid, just to stand near a body once known so well, trying somehow to turn memory into life? Would she have spent her hours staring into some photo album? Would she have built a little flower-covered shrine to erect alongside the highway to mark the spot where his cross once stood? Would she have created a memorial website, written an obituary for the local paper?
Early on the first day of the week, Mary came to the tomb while it was still dark.
That is the universal truth of grief. It is dark, always, without exception. Her way may not have been the way we’ve done our grief, but grief is grief whether the hour of sorrow strikes then or now.
It is true that the culture and circumstances of the New Testament contrast dramatically with our own. Ours is an age of material comforts and endless entertainment options, instantaneous gratification and all manner of medicines to mask pain and to alleviate suffering. Grief, however, remains that uniquely persistent, penetrating experience that cannot be anaesthetized, quarantined, or banished into oblivion.
What Mary never expected was to discover the stone rolled away. Nor, then, to find herself scurrying back the way she’d come to locate Peter and John, to tell them the sad news: “His body is not there.” No matter whom it strikes, for those left behind, death is always first about sadness – an emptiness that words cannot describe. And to think – no body, no corpse, to mourn – probably the hardest kind of death of all to face, since so much of memory is attached to physical attributes, features of hair, eyes, hands.
Mary did not come to the tomb to verify a belief that Jesus would rise again; that was not her purpose; she came prepared to mourn his untimely death – that was all. In these initial moments of her grief, Mary’s only thought was for the body; for she assumes that the body has been taken, placed elsewhere, against the desire of family and friends. It’s another sign of grief and grief’s power to confuse and distract, that wrong assumptions get made, that the bereaved find themselves running and scurrying about, trying to do this and that, to console and resolve all the unsettled details.
Perhaps this fog and disorientation of grief offers one explanation for why scripture’s details vary so widely in the four gospel accounts regarding what actually and happened on that first resurrection morning. If grief has grabbed you and twisted you to the ground, can you really be expected to recall precisely what happened? Was there one angel or two, and what did they say? Was it only Mary Magdalene who has a conversation with the Lord, or were there additional women who came first to the tomb? What about the Roman guards placed there to prevent grave robbery, or that centurion who came to belief? Was there an earthquake that moved the stone away? Did the graves around Jerusalem burst open as the souls of Israel’s patriarchs and matriarchs experienced release from their own bondage to death and made appearances to the living in Jerusalem? Did only one of the original disciples come to the tomb, or were there others? And just where were these male and female followers told to go after they realized he was not dead: to Bethany? To Galilee? To some place not even announced?
If you read the various gospel accounts, the details surrounding the empty tomb differ in remarkable ways, and, surely, if those first believers had wanted only to prove resurrection as historic fact, they would have taken time to merge all the stories into one, or, at least, they would have chosen one as the true story and tossed the others out.
But the power of scripture’s collage of resurrection accounts and personal narratives is that they proceed out of authentic grief . . . out of that maddening, furious pursuit for meaning and resolution when it seems there is none to be found. Death disturbs everything so deeply!
Maybe the accounts are different because the human experience of sorrow is so varied, for the sadness we feel when someone we love dies can’t finally be squeezed into well-defined grief stages or explained by psychological categories – some of us who taste grief may try our best to play the part of the stoic, while others break down; some weep and wail while others get angry for what has been lost; in a particular family, one takes the lead while in another, the pain of past encounters and losses come to the surface.
It is not just death that defines our lives. Many of us dwell in the drama of loss. We lose a job. A friend moves away. A relationship dies. The place of fond memories gets torn down. A co-worker retires and doesn’t come back. There may be no more difficult human task than the experience of loss and letting go.
Easter comes to us this year and every year out of the shadow of that primal burial cave, which is the archetype for all human loss and sadness and our deep-seated fear abandonment. Before we get to Easter’s alleluia, we come, like Mary, first to the tomb of darkness and that fear deep within the human psyche, the fear of total separation from God and the despair that anything good, redemptive, hopeful will be snatched away from us. That is grief. That is the power of grief.
Grief overwhelms Mary, and she breaks down in tears by the door of the empty tomb. When she sees a couple of angels sitting in the place where Jesus was supposed to be, she is not at all impressed or reverent, and tells them, flatly, “They have taken the Lord.”
Next, a man appears, whom she assumes to be the gardener, and he asks why she weeps. The immediacy of grief’s grip can reduce us to mere shadows of our former selves, and even our ability to recognize people known before can get momentarily lost; at least, that seems to be what happened to Mary Magdalene -- she fails to see Jesus the first time she turns around and he speaks to her: “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Worried, still, over the location of her Lord’s corpse, Mary assumes he’s the one responsible for placing the dead body elsewhere and so she pleads that his dead body be returned to its rightful place of burial.
But, for Mary, there will now be a second turning to face Jesus, and that will make all the difference.
Again, the man speaks, this time calling out her name: “Mary.” Like best friends who uncannily complete each other’s sentence, or like family members who detect the true emotion beneath the words or gestures of the other, so Mary recognizes Jesus when he gives voice to her name.
To be honest, it would suit me just fine if what happens next in the narrative didn’t happen, for, apparently, in this moment of inexplicable joy, as Mary embraces her Lord, and all the pain and agony of her grief vanishes, then Jesus says what would seem to be rather harsh, insensitive words: “Do not hold on to me.” Don’t cling; don’t stay attached; stop hanging on to me – Let go!
What Mary, and what we all have such a hard time realizing, is just how much Easter is not about staying in the grief of our past, but rather is much more about turning to the new, risen Jesus -- to a future whose possibilities we can only begin to imagine.
Truth is, following Jesus is a never-ending process of losing him the moment we think we have him captured, only to discover him anew in an even more unmanageable form. Every time we lay another of our expectations on Jesus by clinging to him, it is but one more futile effort on our part to get him back in the tomb. But Jesus won’t stay there.
Mary discovers that the old Jesus is gone and a new Jesus is preparing to ascend to the Father. With the nail holes still in his wrists and the pierced abdomen, he is raised up as Lord. He has been bruised in the process – love can create all kinds of bruises, but he is no longer as he was before. Mary Magdalene cannot hold on to her little Jesus any more, and neither can we. He is risen.
“Do not hold on to me.” It is a simple truth and profound mystery: the risen Jesus cannot be held or controlled. Jesus does not stay where we expect him to stay. He is alive and he is always going on ahead of us.
Such a truth can be deeply disturbing, especially for folk like ourselves who would like to squeeze Jesus into our own little denominational or ecclesiastical boxes, to pin him down so that he matches our particular belief system, or worse, to put him into the service of political, economic, military, or national ideologies. But if you trust that God is saving the world, then it becomes paramount to let go of the idea that you or I are the ones in charge of the world.
Easter is not finally a matter of correct belief, such as “do you believe in the doctrine of the resurrection,” for the resurrection was the one and only event in Jesus’ life that was entirely between him and God. There were no witnesses whatsoever to what happened inside the tomb, because no one was there. Mary and all the rest arrived after the fact. Two of them saw clothes. One of them saw angels. Most of them saw nothing at all because they were still in bed that morning, but as it turned out that did not matter because the empty tomb was not the point. What the Gospels ask is not, “Do you believe?” but rather “have you encountered a risen Christ?”
And this risen Christ says, “Do not hold on to me.” Jesus has outgrown the tomb and all of our old ways of treating him. We need to learn that what matters is not that we be confident in our hold on Jesus, but confident, rather, in his hold of us.
Mary, once filled with unbearable grief in the darkness of that first Easter morning, now, after turning to Jesus for the second time, goes forth and proclaims the good news to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord.” She realizes that the only way to move out of the shadow of grief is by moving ahead. And the only person who can lead the way is the Savior. But not the old Rabbouni she once knew, which is only one more thing that has to be left behind.
Until we discover a new vision of the Savior, a savior who has risen out of our disappointments, we’ll never understand Easter.
The good news for us this Easter is that God does not leave us to our own devices, even when we are full of grief, doubt, or despair. If we will but have faith and turn to Jesus, God’s voice will break through the fog of our lives, and then we can have a new beginning.
Have you encountered the risen Christ?
Gracious God, by Christ’s rising from the dead, you have made us one with all your people on heaven and on earth. We proclaim your mighty acts in holy history; we behold your power in sending light to conquer darkness; we celebrate your triumph over the powers of hell and death.
Bring your Easter glory to all who sit in places of despair, whether in the prisoner’s cell, the addict’s seclusion, the bereaved’s loneliness, or the ill person’s pain. Be present, in your mercy, with all those we have named aloud or in silence, who need to feel your new life of hope and healing rising up within them. Comfort the sorrowful; give food to the hungry; clothe the naked; bring freedom to the oppressed; encourage the weak and faint-hearted; give strength to caregivers and to all struggle under burdens difficult to bear.
We praise you, eternal Father, that Easter rings forth the glad announcement that the old order has passed away, and that the new has come. And so, by the power of your spirit of resurrection, make us all one in your church, here and in all lands across the earth; give us fresh vision for the generous stewardship of all our abundant resources, a renewed commitment to honor our common calling, ministry and mission; give us steady encouragement for how we can be communities of reconciliation -- building bridges, not walls.
May Easter hope bring healing to the nations, that we would set aside our love of power and choose the pursuit of kindness and justice, that we would stop our senseless use of violence and warfare to resolve problems or conflicts, choosing, instead, the ways Jesus and others who have chosen paths of peacemaking instead of war-making. Bring wisdom to all who lead the nations, that guided by your love, the poor might have their needs met, that orphans and widows might never feel forsaken or forgotten, and that all your children everywhere would have health care, educational opportunities, and all those things fundamental to life’s sustenance and enjoyment.
We praise you for the presence of Jesus with us. Because he lives, we look for eternal life, knowing that nothing past, present, or yet to come can separate us from your great love made known in Jesus Christ our Lord, in whose name we are bold to pray together, saying, Our Father . . . .
Easter Sunrise Service
In the name of our risen Lord, welcome to all who have come out on this frosty morning for this communal celebration of our life together in the body of Christ! At one point this week, I realized, given the weather prediction for this morning, the low to mid 30s, that perhaps Peter’s experience in the courtyard and warming his hands around the fire might be a better biblical event to remember and re-enact! But here we are, nonetheless, and it is good to be gathered in this beautiful part of the God’s creation for this special service and celebration! Welcome to all of you! A special word of thanks to the participants in the service – I tried to contact all the churches in the Kingston area via letter a month or so ago to be as inclusive as possible with regard to leadership for this morning. Thanks to Jamie Jordan for sharing his musical gifts today. I do want to say a special word of welcome to Rev. Sonny Works, who I understand was recently elected as pastor of the First Baptist Church, Kingston. Glad to have you in our community! For the years I’ve been in Kingston, Father Joseph Pinner of St. Andrew’s Episcopal church has been instrumental in organizing and leading this service. He has had some health issues, including a blood clot in his lung that is obstructing his pulmonary artery and thus limiting his capacity to work. Please remember Joe. Also, a personal word of appreciation to all who remembered me during my time of facing cancer and as I continue to try and recover and return to full-time work.
As people of hope, who have been claimed by God to share the light of grace and mercy, let us continue our worship, singing together the Easter hymn, the words in your bulletin, “Christ the Lord is Risen Today.”
Offering
We thought it appropriate to receive an offering this morning, which will go to assist the ministry of Hands of Mercy Enterprises, the local food pantry in Kingston that serves the needy in our community and beyond. We’re grateful for the work of the Executive Director, Sharon Pinner, as she and her cadre of over 25 volunteers reaches out with the compassion of Christ. Currently, 18 churches support this ministry financially. In 2007 over 8300 people received food assistance, including 3000 children and over 1500 senior citizens. Hands of Mercy also does a number of referrals for victims of domestic violence, those needing housing and legal assistance. If you are available, as many as 10 more volunteers are needed to help staff this important outreach. Please be generous as we receive this offering for Hands of Mercy. Let us worship God as we present our gifts.
