It’s Not What You Think

The Easter sermon from Ledyard Congregational Church, Ledyard, CT

Though the details vary from Gospel to Gospel, it is clear that women were the first witnesses to the resurrection.  And it’s not what you think.  Unlike other religious leaders of the time, Jesus had women in his intimate circle.  They are hidden in the stories, often without names but they are there. But here, Mary is named and known. History has made Mary Magdalene an unsavory woman, but there is not a shred of historic evidence to suggest that this is true. Recent archaeological evidence suggests that Magdala may not even have been a real place. The name will probably stick, because calling her the “other Mary” doesn’t seem all that helpful, but it would be good if she lost the undeserved reputation.

The Easter event, however we understand it, begins in darkness. Before the sun started to tug at the edge of night, a time so quiet you could hear the trees breathe, that is where Easter begins. But the darkness was more than the absence of light. It was also the presence of fear, bewilderment, and a deep sense of uncertainty. Frederick Buechner called it “the darkness of the resurrection itself, that morning when it was hard to be sure what you were seeing.” Was it really an angel sitting in the unlit tomb? Were those shadows in the corner really grave clothes? The quiet stranger lingering outside, who seemed somehow vaguely familiar.

“Early in the morning, while it was still dark” is where Easter begins– with a sense of being lost and a profound absence of certainty. The earliest followers of Jesus had left home and life and family for the sake of this rabbi… and now it seemed it was all for naught. They stumbled around confused and afraid in the half light on that third day after Jesus’ crucifixion.  

I find that hopeful, because most of the time I don’t have it, whatever “it” happens to be all figured out. And for over 2000 years people have been trying to codify, explain and expound on the Easter event. And 2000 years later “it” has not been all figured out.

All the celebration and trumpets and flowers and alleluias came a few hundred years later. The first Easter was very tentative.

Mary Magdalene’s journey to the tomb was rooted in sadness but in her going to the grave, at great risk to herself, she also bore witness to Jesus’ teaching that love is stronger than death, and perfect love casts out fear. And perfect love is not love without error; it is love that trusts its source.  Mary’s love for Jesus was greater than her fear of what might happen to her if she trusted her heart. It is often in such heartbreak that resurrection begins.

And the Easter moment comes for her when she recognizes Jesus; there are few details given in any of the gospel accounts.  We are given just enough to discern a truth, even though it is not a logical event.

It is a consequence of modernity that we think in linear terms, the dawn of movies and other recording equipment has changed how we understand reality.  The resurrection stories, THIS resurrection story is not intended to be a movie script.  The truth of the story goes beyond the words recorded and it’s not what we think. 

Any way you look at it, that is a mighty fragile beginning for a religion that has lasted over 2000 years now, and yet that is where so many of us continue to focus our energy: on that tomb, on that morning, on what did or did not happen there and how to explain it to anyone who does not happen to believe it too.

Resurrection does not square with anything else we know about physical human life on earth. No one has ever seen it happen, which is why it helps me to remember that no one saw it happen on Easter morning either.

Barbara Brown Taylor wrote; “The resurrection is the one and only event in Jesus’ life that was entirely between him and God. There were no witnesses whatsoever. No one on earth can say what happened inside that tomb, because no one was there. They all arrived after the fact. Two of them saw clothes. One of them saw angels. Most of them saw nothing at all because they were still in bed that morning, but as it turned out that did not matter because the empty tomb was not the point.”

The point is that somewhere along the line they recognized him in the faces of those he loved when he walked this earth.  They recognized him in each other’s eyes when they spoke the words he gave them, when they remembered that following Jesus on the way was the only thing that mattered, and that Jesus was the way and showed the way.

The resurrection became real in a different way for all of them. God used the stuff of their lives as the raw material in which to make the resurrection real. 

John Shelby Spong, the late bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey, suggests in his book, The Easter Moment, that it was the remembering and the telling, the scared and sacred sharing that transformed this group of confused fisher folk into a mighty witness to an even mightier truth. They recognized the risen Christ in their midst, were strengthened by sharing a meal in his name. 

And IN TIME they found their voices and their courage and carried on.  The truth of the empty tomb became real when God’s loving power was felt in their hearts and in their gathering. 

They heard the words and followed the simple directions from the angel, but it didn’t become real until they had some time to sit with it. 

We hear the words and understand them, but Easter does not become real until our own lives are transformed by it. 

Easter is always a moment that changes all other moments.

We don’t think too much about eternal life until someone we love dies.  We don’t think much about the promise of God’s sustaining love until we are ill and think we might die.   We may not think much about hope until it eludes us; we may not think much about joy until it returns to us on the heels of despair. 

The promise becomes real in the stuff of our own lives.  And it happens again and again as the stuff changes. 

Albert Schweitzer wrote, “To those who would follow the risen Christ, whether wise or simple, he will reveal himself in the conflicts and the sufferings which they shall pass through in his fellowship.  And as an ineffable mystery they shall learn in their own experience who he is.” 

But Easter is never just about us…it’s also about the passions at work in Jesus’ earthly life…his love for those no one else paid any attention to; his willingness to speak truth to power and lay bare the corruption that masqueraded as faithfulness.  Jesus was all about an upside-down realm where the last were first and the first were last.

Resurrection is at once deeply personal and totally communal…as we mark the Easter holiday as a point in time…it is not the anniversary of an event…it is the reminder of new life born of discipleship and community.

The resurrection stories are a mix and mess of mystery and human bewilderment, and we do well to remember it is not the empty tomb that made believers of them.  It was their fellowship with one another, their shared doubt and shared faith…it was their growing awareness of his presence as they lived the life he showed them.

And so for us…Christ is present in our fragmented lives…calling us to wholeness.

Christ is present in our sadness and grief, unfolding a way to healing.

Christ is present in the midst of all that comes to an end, with a promise of presence and unfailing love

Christ is present n the struggle for peace, going on ahead of us to show the way.

Christ is present in the yearning for justice, calling us to repentance and lives made new.

Christ is present in our fear of death, calling us to the hope of eternal life in Jesus Christ

Christ is present in our fear of life, saying follow me.