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Gospel
Reading: John 20:1-18
The
Easter Gospel reading this year is about Mary Magdalene's cosmic
surprise at what she had expected would be a visit to the body
of her Lord Jesus. It begins with the words, "Early on the
first day of the week, while it was still dark..."
And
that got me to thinking. "...while it was still dark." Our
lives have times of joy and fun, but they also have times that
are dark.
Since
we gathered last year for this major celebration, many people
have faced the suffering that comes to most lives sooner or later.
Some have lost loved ones, others have become ill where before
there was wholeness and health. These are sadnesses that have
been part of the human condition since the beginning of time.
And, in this past year, there has been a horrific increase in
the perpetration of terrorist murders of civilians for the achievement
of political ends—especially in the United States and Israel.
This has constituted an all-out attack on Western civilization
itself, and on the ideals and principles taught and lived by
Jesus Christ.
My
question for today was going to be: How is Easter different this
year for you after 9-11? But I don't think that is necessarily
any different than asking the same question of one whose beloved
has died since last Easter, or asking that question of someone
whose child has died or whose career has been shattered or whose
health has gone from good to suffering and/or terminal.
And
it is no different, really, than asking anyone, anywhere, "What
does Easter mean to you?" Because sooner or later tragedy
visits the lives of all of us. Sooner or later our hopes come
up against times of brutal reality. This past year may seem different
to us Americans, but in the large picture over the sweep of the
ages, it is not so. Pain and suffering are part of life. But
when it is most pronounced in our lives is the most urgent time,
when we need Easter most.
I
have seen tragedies that have caused regular churchgoers to stop
going to church, and tragedies that have caused people to start
going to church. And I think which way we go depends on our expectations
of God. Some folks are taught to live a life that, in effect,
is a bargaining process with God. They try as hard as they can
to be whatever "good" means to them, and in return
they expect God to prevent harm and hurt from coming into their
lives. Those folks will surely meet great disappointment and
probably disillusion, sooner or later.
If,
on the other hand, we expect God to walk beside us and help us
survive times of pain, and to help us grow as a result of it,
then we will probably be one of those who start going to church
following a loss, or who become more confident in our faith,
following a loss. Because God surely will walk with us when nothing
else can help our pain, our ache of loss or great sadness. God
will hold us up when we are sure we can't help but fall. As Mary
Magdalene learned to her great surprise and joy in this morning's
Easter Gospel reading, we are each called by Name by a loving
Lord.
How
do we know God is with us even when we don't get what we want—when
the illness is not cured, when we don't like the way our life
is going, or when a loved one dies? How is it that countless
billions of people have continued to know the peace and power
of Christ's presence even when he has answered their prayers
with a quiet "no."
I
know a man in Memphis who lost his voice. One day, years ago,
he just, for no scientifically explainable reason, lost his voice.
Today he speaks in that gravelly voice of one who has had perhaps
cancer of the voice box. One must listen very carefully, and
perhaps ask him to repeat his words in order to understand him.
Now this man attends the regular Thursday "Healing Service" at
Calvary Church. He attends it faithfully 52 weeks each year.
Hands are laid upon him and he always prays for the exact same
thing: he asks God to give him what he calls "a new voice."
Perhaps
when he started going to that service and saying that prayer,
he was literally asking for his vocal chords to be miraculously
healed. Perhaps. But over the years he has learned that there
are many kinds of healing, and many kinds of voices. He has found
peace with his condition. His anguish has been healed. He has
deeply dear and close friends that he met at these services.
His witness to trust in God has spoken volumes more than his
old voice could have spoken about faith.
So
how do we know God is with us even when we don't get what we
want? Maybe God changes what we want, if we are blessed. Maybe
our prayers come to include listening to God. But most of all,
we know God is with us because of the great Easter promise. Jesus'
resurrection from the dead is not only a promise of raising our
mortal bodies and those of our loved ones after physical death,
but more to the point for living, it is a promise of the resurrection
of our spirit when our spirit is in danger of death in the here-and-now.
Because
Jesus lives the Holy Spirit is a real and divine force that keeps
us safe, way down deep, when all worldly happenings would seem
to defeat us. The Resurrection is the center of all of Christianity.
St. Paul says, "If Jesus was raised, then we shall be raised.
If he was not raised, we shall not be raised." Without the
Resurrection, all Christian hope is just the same as worldly
hope. With the Resurrection, it is a sure and certain hope, resting
on the foundation of God's action on that first Easter morning.
Think
about the disciples on Easter Eve. So far as they knew, Christ
had been executed and that was the end of that. They were despondent.
They despaired of their great leader. Now, think about those
very same people the next day: exuberant, exceedingly joyful.
Their Lord has been raised and they not only have him back, they
have some promises and portents, which are all so good as to
be believable only through faith.
We
find that there are still those Christians who fear that all
the miracles and resurrections are in the past, way back then
in the first century. And there are those who live lives based
on a quiet joyful belief that Christ lives now, that we are upheld
by his Spirit, and that we shall live forever in the glow of
God's love.
Is
it for us to choose? Do we elect to have faith or not to have
faith?
I don't think so; I believe faith is a gift. But we do our part by being open
to it—by not allowing the pain of life to close us up to hope. God does not
force us to believe. He stands ready to shower on us the gifts of faith, hope
and trust.
Early
in the fifteenth century, Dame
Julian of Norwich survived what
had appeared to all to be a terminal illness. In the process
of her recovery she experienced visions of Christ, about which
she wrote and for which she has been the spiritual anchor for
millions over the millennia. For Julian, according to Thomas
Merton, the "heart of theology [is] not solving the contradictions
and pain that come with living, but remaining in the midst of
them, in peace, knowing that they are fully solved, but that
the solutions are secret, and will never be guessed until they
are revealed". She was told in one vision that whatever
God does is done in Love, and therefore "that all shall
be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall
be well."
That
is the gift of the Resurrection, the deep and quiet conviction
that "all manner of things shall be well." Let us rejoice
and be glad in it.
Amen.
Gospel
Reading: John 20:1-18
20:1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene
came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 20:2
So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus
loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do
not know where they have laid him." 20:3 Then Peter and the other disciple set
out and went toward the tomb. 20:4 The two were running together, but the other
disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 20:5 He bent down to look in
and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 20:6 Then Simon
Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings
lying there, 20:7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with
the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 20:8 Then the other disciple,
who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 20:9 for as
yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 20:10
Then the disciples returned to their homes. 20:11 But Mary stood weeping outside
the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 20:12 and she saw
two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the
head and the other at the feet. 20:13 They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She
said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have
laid him." 20:14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing
there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 20:15 Jesus said to her, "Woman,
why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener,
she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid
him, and I will take him away." 20:16 Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and
said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher). 20:17 Jesus said to
her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But
go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father,
to my God and your God.'" 20:18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I
have seen the Lord"; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
NRSV
Copyright
©2002 The
Rev. William A. Kolb
This
homily was delivered at Calvary
Episcopal Church, Memphis,
Tennessee, on March 31, 2002, Easter Sunday.
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