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(Mark 16: 1-8) A Sermon Preached By Rev. Peter W. Shidemantle
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Easter Sunday, April 16, 2006 |
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PEBBLE HILL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 5299 Jamesville Rd., DeWitt, NY 13214 Phone: 315-446-0960 FAX: 446-0672 |
| I got some bad news a few days ago. My mentor in ministry, with whom I worked as his assistant pastor just out of seminary, Bob O’Meara, died suddenly while on vacation in Mexico with his wife Selma, and their daughter Jocie and her family. Bob had retired just a year ago after a pastorate of more than 30 years at First Presbyterian Church in Rome, NY. Bob preached at my ordination, along with Dave Muyskens married Karen and me, and was part of my service of installation here almost 13 years ago. Bob was pastor at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Syracuse before he went to Rome, and a lot of folks in our presbytery and our congregation know him, and have remained close to him, all these years since. He was just 71 and didn’t look that, tall, thin, apparently in great shape. He was scuba diving when he died. A memorial service for Bob will be held tomorrow at First Presbyterian Church in Rome. I got a call a couple of days ago from a former member of the church and still a close friend to the O’Meara family, asking me if I thought there was anything she might do to help the family. She just couldn’t go to the service, she said. It would be too hard. People do want to know what they can do at times of death. They want to help, want to do - but the things that must be done are taken care of by very few people. It’s hard to believe that Bob is gone, that his life has ended. If you’ve buried a loved one, as some of you have very recently, you know all of this. It is important for us to realize that this is where the Easter story begins. It begins where we, in our human experience, know life to end. Jesus was dead (Apostles’ Creed - “crucified, dead, buried”). They couldn’t believe it. And so Mary the mother of James, Mary Magdalene, and Salome were bringing spices to the tomb of Jesus to anoint the body of their dear friend. This is what they could do, what they expected to do. The story ends, according to what is most likely the original ending of Mark’s gospel, with the women running from the tomb in terror – grief suddenly replaced by fear, the desire to do something replaced by the inability to do or say anything. When they arrived at the tomb and saw the stone had been rolled away, they looked inside and saw a “young man” sitting there who said some words to them. They weren’t the usual funeral words. He didn’t say Jesus was “asleep in the arms of God,” nor that he would “live on in their hearts.” He didn’t say that Jesus would be remembered for his great contributions to “the betterment of humanity.” What they were told was “He isn’t here.” They were told “He’s gone ahead of you, just as he said he would, back to Galilee. You’ll see him there, just as he told you.” Back where they and the other followers lived and worked, back where they had to pick up their lives again – that’s where they would find him, just as he said. Being as familiar with the story of Jesus’ resurrection from death as we have become, perhaps we come at Easter like we come to the promise of Spring. It comes around every year, and even though we expect it, there is a certain delight in it, like there is delight in the sighting of the first robin in the spring, or the first daffodil blossoms - and so Easter comes around each year at its appointed time. But there is nothing inevitable about Easter, in this sense. What is inevitable is what takes our loved ones from us – death and the pain and suffering that often attend it, and the grief that seeks something to do even while knowing there is nothing, finally, to be done. And we learn to live with that. We can learn to live with the emptiness and learn how to compensate for loss - because we have to. But, like the women who went to the tomb and found it empty, we don’t know what to do with this. How in the world do you live with resurrection? Even Mark is not much help. In the English translation we read from the last phrase of the gospel story is grammatically neat and tidy: “. . . and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” But a more literal translation of that phrase is something like, “terror and amazement had seized them is why...” We’re not sure what the sentence is supposed to do next, just like the women, the first witnesses, didn’t know what to do next. An Italian film maker is quoted as saying that every story has a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order. What is standing at the end of Mark’s book is a sense of being unfinished. And in the most important way imaginable, what we have at the end of his story is not an ending at all, but a “handing over” of it. Now it is your story, and mine. It is for us to write the next chapter with our lives. We don’t come to church on Easter for a funeral. That’s not what we expect. But what do we expect? Death is such an ever-present reality in our world. Not only the death of those close to us, but the violent deaths of war, the senseless deaths of terror, the heartbreaking deaths of AIDS, so many of its victims children . . . Each of us could add to the litany. Those who purposely bring on the death of others, using death and its threat as a tool of ideology, or revenge, or hatred, assume that they hold the power of death over life in their hands, that the fear of death is an ultimate control. This, of course, was what those who put Jesus to death believed. They believed they stopped him, they controlled him, they defeated him. Have you ever wondered why Jesus, when he was raised from the dead, didn’t stride triumphantly back to Jerusalem, head right for Pilate’s palace and call him out: “Pilate, you made a very big mistake.” Or why he didn’t stand on the steps of the temple, addressing the crowd, chiding them for their fickleness and betrayal - showing himself to the multitudes? I suppose it was for much the same reason that he chose the way of servanthood and love over the way of political or military or miracle-working power from the beginning. It is the way of death to enforce its power over life. Death speaks, and when it speaks the most of which we are capable is to meet it with dignified acceptance, of not forgetting those who have gone, of honoring their memory. Yes, these things we can do. But that’s not what we’re dealing with here. “He is risen. He is not here.” With those words the threshold is crossed between what is humanly possible, humanly conceivable, and what is possible only with God - what only God can conceive. This is really out of our control, out of the world’s control. It is nothing less than creation happening again. As in the beginning when the earth was without form and void, when all was chaos and God reached into that chaos shaped and formed a world and called it “good,” so “all who are in Christ” Paul tells us, are a “new creation.” In him God reaches in to the chaos of sin and violence and hatred and bigotry and abuse and oppression. God reaches into the confusion over life and the fears over death - and makes all things new. That’s why the language of Christian conversion has always been the language of “rebirth,” of “new birth.” With Jesus’ resurrection they (his followers and friends) didn’t just continue on as before. Now everything had changed. It was nothing less than new life for them now that he was raised. And because he was raised, it is nothing less than new life for us. Across the centuries the religious quest was phrased in terms of humanity’s search for God. Where is God to be found? With his resurrection it’s the other way around. “He is not here. He has gone before you.” Now there is no place that Christ does not wait our coming - no place he does not wait to meet us with his love, his grace, his claim, his command to love as he loved. Whether we wanted God to do it or not, God gave his life for us - and now that Christ is raised our problem is not, where can God be found. Now God’s search for us becomes our problem. Now that the tomb is empty there is no place that we may not meet him: Because the tomb was empty, we can’t hide from him behind our rebellion and our unbelief, for he will not stop seeking us. Because the tomb was empty, we can’t protest that our guilt or shame excludes us from his presence, for he won’t stop forgiving us. Because the tomb was empty, we are not safe behind our pride or resistance, for he will keep loving us until those walls come crashing down. Because the tomb was empty, we are not protected by our own comfort or ease, because he keeps showing us his scarred hands and feet. Because the tomb was empty, we can’t withdraw securely into our own insulated lives, for he will keep meeting us in the poor and the sick and the dying. “You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is not here. He has risen . . . He is going before you . . . there you will see him.” Our problem is not that we cannot find Christ, but that we cannot escape him. Our only real prospect is surrender. Our only real hope is in being found. Christ is risen and gone before you – to your homes, and your places of work and your schools, to the streets of the city, to the war zones and homeless shelters and board rooms . . . there you will see him, just as he told you. For Christ is risen . . . Alleluia! Amen.
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| Copyright, Rev. Dr.
Peter W. Shidemantle. All rights reserved. Permission granted for
non-commercial use.
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