March 23, 2008

Easter Morning
Acts 10:34-43; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-18

Savior on the Loose!

John begins the Easter story with the words, "Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark..." This is always how our discovery of the risen Christ begins - in darkness. While it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb because earlier in the week Jesus had been killed. With him, her hope died.

Earlier this week, someone received devastating news from the doctor. Someone else lost everything, including her cat, in a fire. Earlier this week, someone heard the words, "I don't love you anymore." Someone else said, "I give up."

Earlier in the week, a mother found her son hanging by his neck in the living room, and another family learned that their son was killed by a roadside bomb outside of Baghdad. Earlier in the week, a manager was given the list of employees she'll have to lay off. One of them is a single parent with three children and no safety net.

Earlier this week, high school friends said goodbye to a classmate who died in a car crash. Earlier this week, someone felt so depressed she couldn't even dial the phone to make an appointment with a counselor.

Jelly beans, spring flowers, and new clothes might be enough "Easter" for you if life is pretty much all sunshine and smiley faces.

But if you've spent any time at all in the darkness -- where hope is hard to see -- then maybe you're looking for some of the deep joy Mary ran into that morning in the garden.

Another pain-filled day waits in silence on the horizon. Mary hurries to the place where Jesus' body has been laid, longing for whatever comfort she can cling to by sitting close to the shell that is left of him, rocking back and forth in rhythm to her wailing. Mary has come to the garden to grieve privately, and now she feels a sinking aloneness. The empty tomb is not good news to her at this point. Jesus isn't only dead - he's gone! Dead AND gone.

Entombed in her grief and anxiety, Mary's mind is riveted now on the missing corpse: "They've taken away my Lord," she moans a second time, "And I do not know where they have laid him." At that moment, she turns. And there in the dark in front of her stands a new figure. Her logical mind tells her it must be the cemetery caretaker, a gardener. In the cool of the morning, it would be reasonable to find a laborer getting a jump on the day, equipped with the tools of his trade: a shovel in one hand and a knife for pruning at his waist. But this is no ordinary gardener. Bound in the rags of her grief, Mary looks but does not see. His voice is muffled, as if they are communicating under water until...

The stranger speaks again - "Mary!"-- and a remarkable thing happens.

This time Mary hears with understanding. It is her Lord calling to her through the lifting darkness. "Mary!" At the sound of her name, Mary gets it -- instantly! Like a lamb who knows the shepherd's voice and leaps to follow, Mary recognizes Jesus standing in front of her and instinctively reaches out to him. Contrary to all her expectations, the rabbi she saw crucified, dead, and buried is alive! It is a poignant moment, a moment of pure joy. Teacher and student are reunited, friends are re-connected, a relationship ripped apart by violence is restored. The story of Mary and the Gardener is about Mary's encounter with her risen Lord. But it is about us, too, of course.

Living in and out of the shadows, we too fail to recognize Jesus: fail to see, to hear, to understand...to connect the dots that tie us to one another and lead back to him. Yet our living Lord never fails to know us, to listen and to hear, to cry with us when we grieve - enfolding us in his embrace, calling us each by name.

It is into a relationship with God, Father, Son and Spirit, that the Risen Christ calls you and me. He doesn't ask us to apply for a job with him, so that he can scan our credentials to see if we qualify. He doesn't ask us to train for this relationship, to prove our worthiness by performing a list of tasks mistake-free. He doesn't ask us to believe ten impossible things before breakfast.

He initiates a relationship with us without condition. He calls us by name in love.

And in that love we are known and cherished, received and accepted as we are - unique individuals who are more than complex strands of DNA or the sum of our shortcomings and misgivings. We are less than perfect, it is true - sometimes faithful, sometimes fearful, sometimes tuned in, often lost. But always under the arc of the rich grace of God who loves us with a love that is never exhausted, a love that never leaves us alone in the dark.

We cling to the One who forgives us, who spades up the earth around our roots so that we will grow stronger and bear more fruit. Our connection to Jesus, whether we perceive it or not, transcends all the death we can find - all the deaths that are a part of living and loving in this Good Friday world.

And he is patient with us when we -- like Mary - have trouble recognizing him - which is a lot.

We've got a savior on the loose, and he's likely to turn up almost anywhere, when we least expect him, in every kind of disguise. We lose track of him, then end up discovering him all over again.

Now maybe the Easter proclamation - "Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!" -- finds you looking at your shoes and mumbling, "Or so they say." If you fall into the hard-boiled category, will it please or annoy you to hear that God is looking for a few good skeptics to shelter hope and demonstrate resurrection?

Mary's gospel preaching resounds through the tunnel of time: "I have seen the Lord!" Her testimony and that of others who saw and spoke to and ate breakfast with the Risen Christ, and the witness of their transformed lives - steadfast, some of them, in the face of persecution -- are the first in a breadcrumb trail of witnesses that the savior of the world is at large and on the move.

There are lots of stories of faith, stories of people meeting the Risen Christ on the road to Somewhere. You can find them in scripture, in literature, in films, on the internet. They're told at book clubs and prayer meetings, support groups and coffee shops, on airplanes and in hotel lobbies. Sometimes Christ is recognized and named, and sometimes he isn't...just like in John's story on this Easter morning.

Through the stretched tight membrane of life-as-we-know-it, new life is busting out all over.

Lucy used to dread coming home from work, where she felt affirmed and appreciated, to the belittling of her husband. Now she loves returning to her snug apartment, where she feels safe and she has peace of mind. Even when Caleb is with his dad and she is there alone, she doesn't feel lonely. Lucy feels the healing presence of her church friends, who furnished her entire place with their own gently used items...so that she would have a place to call home when she finally found the courage to leave the marriage after 28 years of mental abuse. Now when she looks around the apartment at each donated item, she sees hope sheltered there. Where once there had been death, Lucy sees resurrection.

Lucy's testimony is what Clarence Jordan was talking about when he wrote, "The crowning evidence that Jesus was alive was not a vacant grave, but a grace-filled fellowship. Not a rolled-away stone, but a carried-away church."

In church and all kinds of other places, (when we're watching) we witness God raising the dead as growing numbers of people hit the wall of their own sorrows and limits, asking deep questions about the meaning of life and their place in it...

Whenever a word of recognition and presence is offered across the deep pit that comes with death - of loved ones, of relationships, of dreams... Whenever a guiding hand is offered in the darkness that comes with the anxiety of living...we know that God in Christ is sheltering hope.

After the resurrection, things do not return to normal. That's the good news.

The Crucified One who has tunneled back from death has busted out of his narrow prison cell and escaped. He is risen and he's on the loose. And he is telling us this morning what he first told Mary Magdalene:

"Do not hold onto me. Do not cling to me but release me, release yourself for the work God is calling us to do together."

Sisters and brothers, with a savior on the loose out there ahead of us, there is nothing we cannot do: move mountains, banish fear, love our enemies, change the world.

Christ has risen!
He has risen indeed! Alleluia!

Kristie Hennig
Chanhassen, Minnesota

[1] Craig Barnes, "Living by the Word: Savior at large", Christian Century, March 13-20, 2008, 16. The first paragraph is a direct quote from Barnes and the list that follows is my own, channeling his in form and concept.

[2] William Sloane Coffin's iconic expression.

[3] Barnes, 16.