Easter Message

Easter's a season, you know. We hear about post-resurrection appearances in our lectionary readings and consider how we might, like the earliest Christians, go and tell the good news.

I'm still pondering some of the themes I talked about in my Easter sermon. So I'm posting it here, if you're interested.

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Easter Sermon, Rev. Lisa A. Smith, April 12, 2009, Central Lutheran Church

Easter Joke: Ole died. So Lena went to the local paper to put a notice in the obituaries. The gentleman at the counter, after offering his condolences, asked Lena what she would like to say about Ole. Lena replied, “You just put ‘Ole died.’” The gentleman, perplexed, said, “That’s it? Just ‘Ole died.’” Surely, there must be something more you’d like to say about Ole. If it’s money you’re concerned about, the first five words are free. We must say something more.” Lena pondered for a few minutes and finally said, “O.K. You put, ‘Ole died. Boat for sale.’”
I had two choices for sermon texts this morning. I could have preached the Easter story from John’s gospel or the one we just heard from Mark. John’s version is the one where Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb, mistakes Jesus for a gardener, Jesus says her name, she rejoices and goes and tells everyone. And they lived happily ever after.

We like happy endings: like the happy ending of the final episode of “Friends” over the controversial-left-you-hanging end of “The Sopranos.” I know people who only go to movies with happy endings.

I considered that but then I thought about you. I saw your faces as I stared at the blank computer screen. Some of you are living some happy endings but most of you are struggling and waiting and see how it all turns out. Some of you are trying to get over some very unhappy endings. I thought about you and I thought about Mark’s gospel story that leaves us hanging: They went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Of what the women were most afraid? After all, they were standing in a cemetery (a good start) and the body of their friend had gone missing. If you showed up at Anchorage Memorial Gardens in the same situation, you’d be afraid too. Perhaps they were afraid because they just met a talking angel. Or maybe they were afraid because they had just been given a job to do (go and tell) and that seemed like more work than they were up to on a Sunday morning. After all, Sunday is a good day to sleep in, maybe do the crossword or get coffee.

Whatever those women feared, it had something to do with resurrection. It certainly wasn’t part of their plan. Even though Jesus in Mark’s gospel makes three clear passion predictions (I will suffer, die and be raised in three days) none of Jesus disciples really get it. They didn’t count on Jesus death so they didn’t count on a resurrection. Now the women make the best of what they think is all that’s left: they go to anoint the body.

The problem with Easter, aside from too many Peeps, is that it asks us to believe the fantastical: God brought his crucified Son back to life. The resurrection happened. It’s hard to believe something that we can’t prove. When we hear about resurrection, we too might react by being afraid. Or skeptical. Or indifferent.

One of my running buddies pulled me aside recently religion chat. He said he wasn’t sure if he believed in the divinity of Jesus anymore. He listed the broken places in his life: divorce, children in crisis and financial concerns. I didn’t say much, just listened. Later I kept thinking, gosh, if Jesus isn’t divine, if there wasn’t a resurrection, none of us have any hope. The question we can ask ourselves is this: what is God’s deepest desire for us -- despair or hope? And then how shall we live?

Online recently, I came across a blog by a woman living in Los Angeles. She blogged about getting a tattoo of a phoenix on her right arm (www.drybonesdance.typepad.com) The phoenix, as any good Harry Potter fan knows, is an ancient, mythical symbol of resurrection. After a time, the bird is said to burst and burn into flames, nest included. A new bird soon rises from the ashes.

The woman gets the tattoo because she says it symbolizes a re-birth in her own life and gives her hope for the future. She also notes she’s almost 40, a professional, listens to NPR and must be out of her mind.

When she gets home from the tattoo parlor, only then does she notice the date on the calendar: Ash Wednesday. She writes: “I don’t know if Jesus died on the cross for me or for anybody or if he just died. I don’t know if I am saved but I do know that I believe in death and resurrection. I believe that sometimes you have to live as if something is true before you are entirely sure about it.”

We have all been there. We have all, like the women in Mark’s story, stood in the cemetery, afraid and not entirely sure about it.

Yet we have heard the good news, the words spoken to the women at the tomb by the young man dressed in white: He has gone ahead of you, to Galilee, there you will find him, just as he told you. This is the good news: the resurrection means that Jesus is on the loose and has gone ahead of us. Galilee was the hometown of many of Jesus’ disciples and probably the place they fled after Jesus’ death. So the angel is saying, “Go home, Jesus is there!” And he’s waiting for you. And you will see him, just as he promised. If the angel wanted to be snarky, he would add: just as he promised in Mark 14:28, which you clearly haven’t read.

The good news is this: Jesus goes ahead of us. Not just to our homes in Anchorage or wherever, but Jesus goes ahead of us into the future. We need not fear the future in life or in death. Jesus goes ahead of us. He is waiting there for us. We will see him, just as he promised. This is what the resurrection means: he is with us, ahead of us, always.

One more thing about the woman with the phoenix tattoo. When she and her friend were looking at designs, the friend came upon the winner and said: “That’s cool. The phoenix is coming from the flames and it is the flames.” And in the picture I could see it was true. You could barely tell where the bird ends and the flames begin.

The woman also about how much it hurt to get the tattoo. Which I would say is the same thing about resurrection. You don’t get it without the crucifixion. The blogger writes: “Transformation doesn’t mean that the pain all goes away. Bad things happened. Bad things still do. Some things that are lost are never found again, and I will always have a few broken bits in my psyche. I have holes and scars, but those can be a part of me, and even made beautiful, until you can’t really tell the flames from the feathers.”

May we live in the hope of the resurrected Christ – loose in the world, ahead of us now, with us always. Amen.