“TERROR AND AMAZEMENT"
Mark 16:1-8
John 20:1-18
Rev. Gary Paterson
April 4, 2010
Easter Sunday
It has been said that the opposite of a profound truth is not its negation, but another profound truth, the two not cancelling each other out, but held in tension, in balance, demanding that the reality and significance of each be recognized and accepted. To be more specific on this morning, of all mornings, we gather for worship holding n our hearts the strange truths of Good Friday and Easter Sunday, declaring simultaneously that Jesus died and that Jesus lives – two profound truths around which our lives circle; terror and amazement.
The first truth, we know that one well: Jesus died… was killed, executed, crucified. The gospels are full of details about this, chapter upon chapter: the final meal, the agony of Gethsemane prayer; the arrest and trial; the flogging, the crown of thorns; the cross, the nails, the public mockery. Mel Gibson had a heyday with this truth, offering hours of blood and gore. And while we personally may not have experienced the high drama of crucifixion, we know this truth in our minor key, in all that is hurting and broken in the world, and in our losses, as we are eventually forced to say good-bye to everything and everyone we have loved, and as we face the reality of our own dying. Good Friday is a known quantity.
But Easter Sunday, now that’s more difficult to talk about. Jesus is alive, is raised, transformed, resurrected. The words come easily, perhaps, though we probably aren’t completely clear what they mean. And surely the gospel stories add to our confusion. Is the tomb empty? Is there a walking, talking body that was last seen in the garden? Recognizable, but not; don’t touch me, but feel the wounds in my side; walk through doors, but eat breakfast. Not one Easter story, worthy of trumpet blasts, but brief and often contradictory accounts. It would seem that the original gospel of Mark had only eight verses about the resurrection, ending with the women being so frightened that they spoke to no one; yet, by the time John was writing his version of these events, a woman was the first to encounter the resurrected Jesus, and thus Mary Magdalene became the first Christian evangelist as she proclaimed to the other disciples, still wrapped up in their fear and disbelief, “I have seen the Lord.”
The profound truth of Easter is difficult to talk about, because it seems so far beyond our normal experience. As the theologian Karl Barth once noted, resurrection is not really a “natural therefore” but rather a “holy nevertheless” -- despite the promises of spring, in the world of nature dead means dead, and we’re on to the next generation. And that’s it folks! But resurrection ? -- sometimes it simply something you can sing about … hey, it’s Easter; will the minister please stop talking and just let us sing. I mean, with six or seven hundred of us singing “Jesus Christ is risen today, hallelujah,” with the choir processing in behind the cross aglow in daffodil bloom – what else needs to be said? Surely music is one of the best ways to bring complex theological truths into our hearts. Just sing.
Which is why, you might be interested to know, your congregation is about to launch an international hymn-writing contest, inviting authors, composers, from around the world, to create new Easter hymns, using fresh language, rich in metaphor and symbol; we’re hoping for a grand celebration next Easter, and who knows what we might be singing. Not an easy task, this – hence the incentive of a competition; it’s a real challenge, as you might recall from the hymn we just sang a few minutes ago:
It’s not easy to articulate the profound truth of Easter Sunday, although the chorus of that same hymn does not a bad job:When we seek language, to praise you, O God.all we can utter, seems stale, tame, or odd.Tongue-tied and word lost, we struggle to findphrases that slight neither heart, soul nor mind:
Not bad, eh?Infinite, intimate unbounded friend,cosmic companion who loves without end,nearer than heartbeat, more subtle than breath,keener than insight, and stronger than death.
Now the gospel writers weren’t always the best of hymn writers (Mark wouldn’t have made the podium, although John is in the running for gold, as they say). But these early communicators of good news, discovered that the best way to talk about resurrection was to tell a story, intertwining event with metaphor. “Early in the morning, while it was yet dark”…. See what I mean? -- morning has broken like the first morning, and humans are walking out of the dark and into the light. Three women approached the tomb, only to discover the stone rolled away, funeral wrappings abandoned, and angels in bright raiment declaring, “He is risen, he is not here.” And “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” It sounds like it makes sense… and yet, and yet….
We are left with the challenge of singing these stories, sometimes with our fingers crossed… are we hearing a literal account of what truly happened on that long ago Sunday morning, or are we being offered metaphor through narrative? To affirm the truth of resurrection must one believe in an empty tomb, in young male angels in white robes, in earth quakes and eclipses, with graves opening and the dead walking throughout Jerusalem? Or is this creative and inspired story-telling, so that you know the truth of what is being said, even though it may not have happened that way? I mean, there is no way of knowing what really happened in that tomb on that first morning; that was between God and Jesus; there were no witnesses; humans only got to see the after-effects.
But maybe the seemingly never-ending debate between literal versus metaphoric understandings of the Easter story is the wrong place to focus. Perhaps it doesn’t matter which approach is taken, as long as the story makes a difference in your life. Not so much, do you believe that the tomb was empty, but rather, do you believe in the truth of resurrection, that is, that God is constantly and always present, bringing new life out of death. Is this story something you can give your heart to, stake you life on?
Maybe a better way of talking about this is to ask whether or not you have encountered a risen Christ – that certainly seems to be the underlying direction of the gospels: encounter, in one way or another, is pivotal, although the strangeness of the story suggests once again a confusion of the literal, the metaphoric, and even, the mystical. But do those long ago stories establish a template for us, here and now, pulling together an affirmation of human life that includes our Good Fridays and our Easter Sundays?
A couple of weeks ago several clergy types came together to talk about the state of the church… the United Church. And as we covered the familiar ground of bemoaning shrinking numbers and finances, and the demand for change and transformation, a minister visiting from Calgary, John Pentland, he leaned into the circle to ask, “What’s your bottom line? What keeps you going?” His own answer to that question has stayed with me– “God keeps showing up all over the place.” I like that – it sure feels like an Easter affirmation: God keeps showing up all over the place. Even in the worst of times; eventually transforming the worst of times. The unspoken challenge is the need to recognize these holy appearances… to discern, to name, to praise; and then respond, with praise, hope, compassion and joy. The poet Wendell Berry says that we need figure out how to “practice resurrection.” If you forget everything else I say in this sermon, walk home with that phrase… how might you practice resurrection? What does that mean? And maybe a corollary question: how might God already be practicing resurrection in and through you?
Not an easy task, answering such questions, God knows. For it seems to me that we live a lot of our lives in Holy Saturday, that day between crucifixion and resurrection. Sometimes it feels like the worst has already happened… work ends with the arrival of the pink slip, lovers walk out, the doctor delivers frightening news; the death count in Afghanistan and Iraq keeps growing. But we have survived; we’re still here, though perhaps fearfully waiting for the other shoe to drop, for life to hit us one more time. And yet, we have heard the good news of Easter, it is a shining promise, a possibility, a hope, even though it may not be a fully experienced reality in our present moment. Saturday… but we keep on keeping on, trusting in God’s resurrection power, though the stone in front of the tomb feels like it’s not going anywhere.
An image… as if this Easter hope were contained in a cosmic cauldron, full to the brim with love, light, laughter and life. Yes, we are in between crucifixion and resurrection, these two profound truths, filled with terror and amazement; but the bucket is tipping backwards, pouring out hope, flooding our Saturdays with the promise of new life; almost like a baptism; or as if the cauldron were full of beams of light, strands of energy, threads of possibility; as if a rope ladder were being strung between heaven and earth; as if we now could climb the rigging, moving up from the deck of hard times, up, up, so that the wind whips our hair, we feel free, and a far-away horizon beckons us onward.
I caught a glimpse of this yesterday, walking along the sands of English Bay. It ws alte afternoon, and the tide was out. The wind was cold… this did not feel like a spring day in Vancouver; it was a day for gloves and toque. But I stood there, all bundled up, facing the waves, the grey sky… and then, so unexpectedly, the sun would suddenly appear, and like a vast searchlight, the light would sweep over the ocean, almost blinding in its brightness, up the beach, glistening on the wet sand, and when it finally arrived upon me, like a blessing, my whole body was warmed, embraced…. and for a moment, yes, it felt like Easter hope was filling me up, all the way; all I had to do was hold onto the sunbeams. And then of course, the clouds moved on, and the sun disappeared. But it kept happening over and over, as if I needed to learn a lesson… Friday, Sunday; cold, dark grey; warm, bright sunshine; crucifixion, resurrection; over and over.
The poet William Stafford said it well in his poem, “The Way It Is” –
Two truths… tragedies happen; people get hurt or die; you suffer and grow old. And, at the same time, the thread is there; that holy thread of light, and love; the promise of life, of new life; the God who keeps showing up all over the place.There is a thread you follow. It goes amongthings that change. But it doesn’t change.People wonder about the things you are pursuing.You have to explain about the thread.But it is hard for others to see.While you hold it you can’t get lost.Tragedies happen; people get hurtor die; and you suffer and grow old.Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.But you don’t ever let go of the thread.