Sermons by Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Going to the places of real life to meet the Risen Lord
Easter Sermon, 2003 -- Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Cathedral Church of the Nativity, Diocese of Bethlehem
It is a joy to greet each of you as we come to the greatest day of the church's year, the day of triumph for Christ, for life, for humanity. But joy seems to be put on hold as our Gospel lesson interrupts with a grim scene in a cemetery where visitors are quaking in terror and confusion.
No matter how much it hurts to lose someone, when they are dead, we try to get things settled so we can go on with life. Imagine visiting the cemetery plot of someone you love and finding it wide open and empty with a James Dean look-a-like in a white tee shirt saying no, your loved one is no longer dead, and has gone back to where you first met them, and you should now go back there to meet them and move on with your relationship.
So Mark's gospel ends with the visitors at the tomb in terror and confusion. Just as you or I would be, whether we believed the strange young man or not. And what if it were really true - I know my reaction to the report that one I grieved was alive again would certainly include terror, but that would be the beginning. Then the physical symptoms would start.
Mark is not Stephen King; he is not playing games with us -- he is showing natural reaction, and letting the reader figure out that the resurrection calls each of us to go meet Christ, to find faith and a voice to tell about the resurrection. Each of us must decide how the story comes out.
Resurrection. God's longing for us, God's passion for reconciliation, restoration, and recreation of our life burst through when the same Jesus whom the world crucified for his faithful loving has his consistent love approved and vindicated in the dark cave when all of a sudden those eyes flashed wide in triumphant love. We are not speaking of mere resuscitation of a corpse, but some altogether new and yet the same Jesus. As Spock used to say to Captain Kirk, "It's life, Jim, but not as we know it." Or at least life, as more than we know it. Today we are asked to enter or at least to taste a bit of that life. Easter living is about what you do after you know your sins are forgiven.
The problem that arises when this story is told is the same problem that has been around for 2000 years. I'm not asking for a show of hands, but I do wonder how many people in this room believe this story?
Next week, when the story of Thomas and his doubt rolls around, some preachers will try to transform the agony of doubt into some kind stoic heroism as though the pain of doubt were a kind of virtue. Trust me; it happens. But that is not what is going on in the New Testament, and, believe me, first-century people had functioning minds, too. How do we, in the terror, amazement, and confusion of the proclamation that someone who was dead is now alive -- how do we know if any of this is true and worth risking anything on?
But here I am determined to disappoint you. You can't argue about whether or not it's true any more than you can argue about whether or not you can swim -- you have to get into the water. The only way to find out if the risen Christ is present and available is to try to live with him every day for fifty days, to participate in his life through prayer, acts of love, and participation in the life of his body the Church. Watch and listen for signs of a new reality. At the Easter celebration we debate nothing -- we do invite people into community as we go to all the places of real life to meet him.
The people concerned with Jesus Seminar issues have produced another book-this time Canon Tom Wright has written 804 pages to prove to us that Jesus DID rise from the grave, and that there is no other way to account for early Christianity and the behavior of early Christians. That's great, and I look forward to reading about it. But that's still ancient history. The way you know if it's true in any way that is of use today is to jump into the water and see if you can swim, or at least float any better than you could before.
In a few minutes, when we say, "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again," we are saying something about ourselves as followers of Jesus, and our ability to swim the waters of life. DO you think very often about what tremendous things we claim here in these three short sentences? Our destiny is the same as Christ's. We're swimming when we live as though that were true: we are swimming when we are people who faces challenges, who face dying, and who in and through it all know vindication and life in Jesus Christ. Acting like that is true, like we are meant to be more than grazing animals, is what it means to have faith, to swim.
Today in many churches the Sunday School children find the Alleluia that was buried or hidden at the beginning of Lent. A way to understand the angel's charge to follow Jesus into Galilee is look for the Alleluia in my own heart, and to find and bring it out in others. Around the dinner table this afternoon, can you be the secret agent who helps other people remember joy? How do we provoke each other to find our inner Alleluias and come out?
We don't go hunting for Alleluia just to have a nice day or cheer up other people. We do it so that our children will know that there is much more to life than the grim business of keeping up with the Joneses. There is the adventure of finding oneself in God as we seek the greatest good, the highest and best use of our lives. No matter what else is going on, even crucifixions. Take a risk, take a risk to be excellent, productive. Nobody ever generated many endorphins sauntering; nobody ever got an exhilarated sense of having done their best without daring to break a few self-imposed limits. Nobody ever looked back from their deathbed and was a proud of a life that took no chances. Nobody was ever proud of the number of limits not tested.
The religious connection here is real. God made Jesus to live a kind of life, and he did it, despite the inconvenience, pain, and death - and Easter vindicates that life and how it was lived. If you and I take the trouble to ask what thing or things God has made us to accomplish and go for them, hammer and tong, despite inconvenience or death, we are vindicated already. To the extent that each of us is a wimp, a grazing animal, to that extent each of us is an unbeliever. God will never force you to excel; only you can take responsibility for being what you can be. Only you can take responsibility for provoking those around to tasting joy in life.
The future is possible. The parts of us that fear, the parts that stumble, the parts that regret and grieve -- all the parts of us, the imbecile and genius that is in each and every person, hear in the Easter Alleluia that the future is possible: possible . accessible . ours . in Jesus Christ. Easter calls us to live into that joyful truth every day, as agents of God's love, and as creatures who were designed to thrive and enjoy doing so.
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