Sermon: Easter, 2005

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Easter, 2005

By Charles Rush

March 27, 2005

wish you all a brisk but Happy Easter. Especially parents of young children, going through the Spring ritual of dressing young children up in fancy dresses and sport coats for a very cute photograph. I was looking through a series of shots from that age, my boys in sailor outfits, their sister in lace with Mary Jane shoes. Their mother was trying to get them to sit down and hold the baby. A fight broke out over who would hold the baby and I just started shooting. There is a picture of my oldest two whacking each other. Another of their mother rushing to break it up and wipe tears. One with all three just howling at God knows what. One with one brother biting another. It is a series of 24 pictures and one… yea one… has all three smiling holding the baby.

And good luck trying to explain the meaning of this day to the wee ones. Another year, I tried my hand at explaining the Christian story of Easter. I was talking about Jesus dying and I pulled out a picture of Jesus, a very Aryan looking Jesus on the cross. Ever the educator, I said, "of course, this isn't a real photograph of Jesus, just an artists rendering of what he thought Jesus looked like. Number two son raised his hand and said, "But Dad, you gotta admit, it looks a lot like him."… That discussion didn't advance the ball much either…

Probably it is just as well. We try to dumb Easter down so that even children can understand it. The reality is that we are dealing with a mystery that none of us will ever get our minds around completely. Not now, and not then either.

Whatever happened that first Easter morning, and we have only poetic hints at it in our scriptures- whatever happened, it was a stunning surprise. The disciples had all gathered together in fear, dejection, disappointment. The women were going about their ordinary tasks of preparing the dead for a funeral.

I think of the archeologist Howard Carter at the turn of the century. He had been digging in the tombs of Ramses II for about 15 years, looking for the tomb of one the sons of the Great Queen of Egypt Nephertiti, a young Pharoah of Egypt that died about 1323 BCE. He was not a significant historical figure, but his was the last and only tomb in Egypt that had not been opened or robbed in the past several centuries.

After many years on the site, they had turned up nothing and they were right near the end of the money for their last dig. It was about over. Carter had the workers dig around a building that workers had used for many years right near the royal tombs. A worker hit something solid that turned out to be a series of steps. They dug down, discovered a hidden entry that had the royal seal above the top.

Behind the door, they found a 30 ft. hallway strewn with debris, at the end of which lay another door. After clearing the rubble, Carter opened the door, stuck a candle into the crack of the room and there- as his eyes adjusted to the darkness- was the unmistakable glint of gold shimmering from all around the room. Animals, statutes, a chariot, all gold. He had chanced on what the Indiana Jones's of the world only dream about, a complete, undisturbed burial chamber, the tomb of Tutankamen, King Tut.

In the next few weeks, he would enter several more rooms in the dig, including the actual burial shrine, a gold structure over 10 ft. wide and 9 ft. high. Inside the shrine was a scaracophagus of quartzite block covered with a rose granite lid. Inside that was a solid gold case over 6 ft. long, a quarter inch thick. The burial mask for King Tut, which you have probably seen in a magazine article, was solid gold and weighed 22 lbs. Buried with the young king were 143 pieces of jewelry. It was simply awe inspiring.

One day, Carter is walking the site, like every other day for years and years, with nothing substantial to show for his efforts. The next day, the find of all time.

Our story has even more of the same grace filled sense of awe and incredulity. The disciples could not believe that Jesus had actually died to begin with. There was no Jewish tradition that predicted that the Messiah would die before restoring the Davidic throne and throwing out all of the occupying army. There certainly was no tradition of the Messiah or anyone else being raised from the dead in Jewish tradition. No I have to presume that they viewed the death of Jesus pretty much the same way that those on the sidelines of history today would view such a death. Their hopes that Jesus would be "the One" dashed, power once again holds sway, right and good are smashed by strength. As Mao Tse Tung once put it so banally "All power begins at the end of a gun barrel." How depressing, how dejected, the good guys just don't ever quite measure up. Hope is just a chimera.

…And then… something… what we don't know… but some epiphanic experience unlike anything they had ever experience, unlike anything anyone had ever experienced. And whatever it was, it filled them with a courage, a hope, and a confident power that no longer feared any man, any army, any government.

It is not that it was unambiguous… Actually, even the story in scripture reports that some people didn't believe it. No one really understood it. But it unquestionably changed their view of the world forever. They no longer felt bound by the mores and customs of Rome; they no longer feared the military might of the Imperium. They were citizens of God's kingdom now. They were slaves that had been freed from the fetters of this world, freed from the constraints, the values, the perq's of this world. It was not simply that they had moral integrity that impressed the Romans, which they did. It was not simply that they were a peace promoting and reconciling people that impressed the Romans, which they were. It was the fact that they were no longer afraid of death; they could endure torture and violence. It was the way that they calmly and confidently faced execution, sometimes singing hymns as the Lions were released in the Colesium to tear them apart.

When that happened, when they refused to run in fear, when they stood quietly, calmly singing in faith and peace-- It ruined the spectacle of the Collesium. No one could laugh at that kind of dying. No one could cheer a woman dying in prayer. It turned the gladiatorial events on their head.

Those early Christians were reverently impertinent. In dying, they snubbed the authority of the Imperium; they defied the fear that the Imperium induced in the public. Though few in number, though of no account of reputation, their quiet, confident defiance undercut the basis of Imperial power; the people were moved morally speaking; they were impressed by the spiritual disposition of those early Christians. Some of them even applauded those early Christian martyrs; the Governor's had to quickly change the venue; they came to dread the sight of Christians in the Collesium. Like dictators of every generation that watch as their tried and true methods for manipulating and controlling the mob slip away, they experienced the dread of helplessness while holding the reigns of power.

What did those first Christians see in the resurrection that so changed them? The theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg says that in the resurrection, those earliest disciples got a glimpse of the end of history and it forever changed not only them, but Christians of every age. They saw unmistakably that the telos of history is good, that the destiny of all of us is in the presence of the goodness of God. They saw, that ultimately speaking, the Goodness of God cannot be stopped.

We tried to ignore God's goodness. We have tried to contain and corral it. In the person of Jesus, we tortured and killed it, but the "Goodness of God" cannot be stopped. They saw that God does not need us to accomplish this ultimate goodness. God wants us to participate, for sure. But if we do not participate, the goodness of God pulls us forward anyway ultimately. There may be set backs sure, but there is a disturbing, inexorable direction that history is moving- in the broadest, ultimate sense- whether we work for it or against it.

Karl Barth used to say that we can prepare now or we can prepare later but we will be changed. Our souls will become mature and we will grow into the children that God would have us to become. That is the frightening, liberating thing that the women and the disciples experienced that Easter morning. It gave them an unshakable confidence in what they were about and it made them fearless of torture, violence, death.

This may not mean so much to many of us gathered here today because we have experienced lives that are full of blessing; we have avoided very much set back, hardship, suffering or tragedy.

But what those early Christians experienced was a profound transcendent sense that each and every one of them matters to God. They experienced the promise of God that illness will be healed, that suffering will be redeemed, that justice will triumph, that tragic loss will be restored. Though the world around us forgets and does not care, God does not forget and God does care.

I think of our brothers and sisters this day in South America, in the countries like Argentina and Chile, where they endured decades of military torture, and people were just arrested, carried off, tortured, killed, and never heard from again. They are called 'the disappeared" people.

At the liturgy today, the priest will lead the prayers of the people, and he will begin to read the names of the disappeared one by one. And one by one, from the congregation, someone will respond, "Presente". Maria Sanchez. Presente. Guillermo Perez. Presente. They may be forgotten by the authorities, they may not matter to world opinion, but they are not forgotten by God. They are kept alive in the Community of the God.

Those that are raped, shot and dismembered this week in Darfur are not forgotten by God. Those that were found headless in a ditch in Baghdad two weeks ago are not forgotten by God. And if you should be here this morning, silently carrying some heavy burden of tragedy, loss, disappointment- though your burden may seem small by comparison to the egregious heinous acts that make the headlines of our papers, your burden is not forgotten by God either. This news is good news for everyone but it comes first and foremost to you who have burdens, to you who have suffered, to you who have lived injustice.

The end of history points in the direction of a God who will conserve, who will heal, who will reconcile, who will take our broken parts and make us whole. And for those whose lives in history have been 'nasty, tragic, and short'… this is especially good news.

For those who really don't think we need or want the healing of God, the message of Easter is good/bad news. We are headed for God's healing anyway. God's healing matures us. God's healing makes us spiritually stronger. For those of us who have grown spiritually flabby living on inordinate material privilege, the idea of getting in spiritual shape by shedding our excess stuff is not particularly appealing… at first. The good news is that God will not let us stay so spiritually bloated.

For those of us who have grown spiritually self-centered through the inordinate exercise of unchecked power, the idea of getting in spiritual shape by renouncing all things that stand in the way of our unfettered dependence on God alone is not particularly appealing… at first. The good news is that God will not let us feed our ego at the expense of others forever.

For those of us who have used our intelligence and our education to manipulate the system and evade our responsibility to create a fair and equitable distribution of perq's and privileges for everyone, the idea of getting in spiritual shape by healing our compromise in the direction of integrity is not particularly appealing… at first. The good news is that God will not let us create unjust and dysfunctional social systems forever. God will not let us continue our bad spiritual habits.

Those disciples saw the end of history and in the end we are all moving towards the healing, maturing grace of God. And that will mean different things to different people. Karl Barth used to say that we worship a God whose judgment is mercy… but whose mercy is judgment. God doesn't forget and simple let it go. God stays after us until we mature, until we heal, until we are spiritually disciplined and strong.

That 'good news' witnessed by the first disciples, filled them with outrageous hope, a quiet, confident courage and a remarkable spiritual freedom that few of us ever evidence in our lives. But it should. I think of the poet Wendell Berry. Wendell is a farmer in Kentucky. One of his best poems is entitled "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front." The poem starts with a description of the spiritually deadening safety that defines all of us at some level. He says:

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

The only antidote, according to Berry, is to break into the radical freedom of the Spirit that

God beckons us to experience.

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it…
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
... Laugh…
Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

That sums it up in two simple words: Practice resurrection. With God your ultimate pull, don't take anything around you too ultimately or too seriously. Live with a certain frisky, irrascable, laughter filled, loving independence. Drink deeply of the mystery of this world and be free. And may God bless you with equal parts of courage and creativity. And may you keep them all guessing. Amen.