Episcopal Church of the Messiah

Worship Service Sermons

April 3, 2010

I can imagine!

They have seen their beloved leader, teacher, friend, executed, and they have undoubtedly spent the Sabbath trying to rid themselves of the events of the day before and the image of Jesus, suffering and dying on the cross. Their minds must have been filled with questions and recriminations: Why? Why did he have to die? How could this have happened?! Why did we let him go to Jerusalem! What does it mean? What now? Is that all there is?

And they are eager to tend to the body of their Lord, to render their last, loving act of service to him.

Finally, it is dawn on the first day of the week, and the women can make their way to the tomb, bearing the spices they have prepared.

I imagine them walking in silence, each shrouded in her own grief.

They enter the tomb – perhaps dreading the task that lies ahead of them, perhaps eager for this last chance to do something for their Lord - and they discover he’s not there! The body is gone!!

Where is he?

Did someone steal the body?

Did we accidentally enter the wrong tomb?!

And while they are struggling with this – trying to clear their heads in the midst of the fog created by grief and loss – suddenly two men in dazzling white appear and chide them: "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again."

Well no, as a matter of fact, they hadn’t remembered, and it didn’t make sense to them then, and it doesn’t really make sense to them now. Yet, as they leave the tomb, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them, while they do not shout "He is risen!" – they are at least open to the possibility that something beyond their understanding has occurred.

We enter that same tomb today, with centuries of culture having shaped our response. We expect to find it empty; we’ve heard the story before and we know that the body’s not there... And yet, even as the women were perplexed, many of us are skeptical.

Rather than embrace possibility, our enlightenment mind-set demands proof.

"Impossible!" we say.

"Just because the body isn’t there doesn’t mean he’s been resurrected!"

"How can that be?"

"It’s too outrageous to be true!"

"Explain it! I want to understand…"

Two very different responses - confused and perplexed, but open to possibility – or doubting and skeptical, desirous of proof…

This week’s edition of Newsweek, in fact, spoke directly to our contemporary mind-set. Appropriate to the season, they ran an article on Resurrection, and the author began with the assertion that "this story – the resurrection – has strained the credulity of even the most devoted believer. For, truly, it’s unbelievable!"

For truly, it’s unbelievable!

And yet we DO believe it. Or, at least, we want to believe it.

Indeed, it is a central tenet of our faith. (I’m reminded of the incident in Jose Saramago’s book Death with Interruptions where, within the borders of a small Western European country, death does indeed "take a holiday." One New Year’s Day people simply stop dying. As you can imagine, what sounded at first like good news soon had staggering implications, not the least of which were economic! As the demand for nursing home care increased and mortuaries went out of business, the public began to raise a great hue and cry. The church, too, was concerned. "Do something!" the bishops urged the government. "Do something! Without death there can be no resurrection – and without resurrection, there can be no church!"

DO SOMETHING!

We need the Resurrection!

Perhaps because it is so important to our identity as Christians, people wrestle with it – it doesn’t make sense! On the one hand we are drawn into the mystery – we want to believe it – but then our enlightenment minds kick in: "Yes, BUT…" they say. "Yes, BUT - how do we know?" We want to understand, to be able to explain… We want it to make sense!

In Victor Villaseñor’s book "Estrellas Perigrinas" he relates a conversation with his grandfather, who has been urging him to write about a particular incident. "How can I write about that?" Victor asks. "I can’t prove that it’s true!" And his grandfather replies, "The most important things in life can never be proven. Like love… How do you prove love? You can only experience it…"

Sometimes we need to be reminded that we are more than our cognitive selves, and there are some things that can only be experienced.

Like the disciples and the women at the tomb, we, too, may have forgotten that speech of Jesus when he predicted the events of this week, the suffering and death and resurrection. And we, too, would do well to remember Jesus’ response to Peter, in that same speech, about our "default tendency" to set our minds not on divine things, but on human things.

We set our minds not on divine things, but on human things.

We have a hard time leaving room for God to be God.

Instead, we try to understand God in human terms.

The Resurrection?

If the best scientific minds of our time cannot explain it, does it mean it didn’t happen?

Or, perhaps, it means only that it isn’t up to us to know the mind of God.

Can we suspend doubt, set aside that skeptical part of our nature, and allow God to be God, and simply rest in the mystery?

For it IS a mystery – a wonderful, life-giving, hope-filled mystery!

And, as the journalist Dennis Covington observed, "Mystery is not the absence of meaning, but the presence of more meaning than we can comprehend." (Salvation on Sand Mountain, p. 204)

Mystery is not the absence of meaning, but the presence of more meaning than we can comprehend.

Abraham Joshua Herschel, the Jewish theologian (I Asked for Wonder) said, "There are no proofs for the existence of the God of Abraham. There are only witnesses. The greatness of the prophet lies not only in the ideas expressed, but also in the moments experienced. The prophet is a witness, and the words a testimony."

As it is for the existence of the God of Abraham, so it is for the resurrection: there are only witnesses.

The greatness of the followers of Jesus lies in the moments experienced.

The women in today’s Gospel are witnesses, and their words testimony, to a mystery filled with more meaning than we can comprehend.

It’s interesting to note that nowhere in scripture do the women at the tomb challenge the message of the angels. Not one says, "Impossible! How could that happen? Prove it to me!"

They don’t analyze the mystery; they don’t waste time trying to establish all the ways something else might have occurred – wrong tomb, stolen body, not really dead…

They hear the Good News, they receive the mystery with an openness to the possibility of what they do not understand – the Resurrection.

And it is that openness, that willingness to live in the mystery, which allows them to see and know the risen Christ in the days to come, as he appears to them, giving them experience after experience of the Resurrection.

They become witnesses, and their words testimony.

They respond with proclamation rather than explanation.

And it is our own willingness to live in the mystery which allows US to see and know the risen Christ as he appears in our own lives, giving us, too, the experience of the Resurrection, that we, too, might become witnesses, and our own words testimony.

This evening, like Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women, let’s open our minds and our hearts to the possibility of the resurrection, that we might move into that mystery where we meet the Risen Christ as he breaks into our lives.

Then as witnesses, neither perplexed nor skeptical, let us exclaim:

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

The Lord is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!