On this day the LORD has acted; *we will rejoice and be glad in it.
A child is working very hard at coloring a picture. She has drawn using many colors and every stroke she makes is done with very careful attention. An adult nearby asks her what she is drawing. She tells her she is drawing a picture of God. The adult says, “Well no one knows what God looks like.” And the child tells the adult, “Well they will when I am finished!”
We come together on this glorious morning to celebrate something that is the foundation of our lives together as Christians—we who follow a man from Galilee, who taught and healed and loved and welcomed all to the feast of God’s abundant grace.
He lived a short time and was executed brutally by an oppressive government. But today we stand on this side of the grave, welcoming life and love that never ends, raising our voices in Alleluias!! Christ is risen!! The Lord is risen indeed.
We come together proclaiming loudly, with kites and umbrellas, and beautiful flowers and songs of praise, that death could not contain Jesus Christ. That Jesus lives. That Jesus Christ waits for us, is always out in front of us, and will meet us wherever we are. Whether that is at a food pantry providing food to someone who is hungry or sitting at the bedside of a beloved friend who is seriously ill, whether that is digging in the garden with an expectant child or sitting alone worried about what the next day will bring; whether that is writing letters or marching to change practices that are killing this fragile earth, our island home or writing a card to someone on their birthday. Big things, simple things, public actions, private thoughts—Jesus is there. Jesus lives.
In our reading this morning from Mark’s Gospel, is a story that perhaps has not been heard often. The women, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and Salome come to the tomb to care for the body of their beloved Jesus. As is Mark’s way, there is not much chatter or discussion of their condition, but we can only imagine that their acts are ones of profound faith. They have been the ones who stood by after everyone else fled in terror and confusion, watching as this one that they loved and followed is killed on a barbarous cross. And now, wherever they sheltered through the dark night, they have gotten up, put one foot in front of the other, bringing spices so they might anoint Jesus’ lifeless body.
In some indication of their state of mind, they have forgotten until they are almost there, about the stone that will obstruct their entrance into the tomb. But when they arrive, the stone has already been rolled back. And when they look into the place where Jesus had been laid, they find instead a young man dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side (or the place of authority). And despite the many times that Jesus told them in his life on earth that he would be killed and then on the third day be raised—this final confirmation fills them with “terror and amazement.” From the Greek these words are even more astonishing. The words in Greek mean “trauma” and “ecstasy.” We are told that they run away and tell no one. Mark’s Gospel ends in a place that leaves a large opening for us to step into with all our hearts and all our minds.
Mark’s ending has always been unsettling, as demonstrated by the at least three attempts to fix an additional ending to it. But in Mark’s story the women are filled with trauma and ecstasy at the message they receive and they run away from the tomb telling no one.
But remember that there were others who were witness to the teachings and healings and embracing hospitality of Jesus. There were others who were witnesses to his arrest and crucifixion. And there were others who are now standing beside the empty tomb hearing the words of the young man, “He has been raised. He is not here.” As we come to the last verse and contemplate the ending that seems so unfinished, worrying that the story of Jesus ends in mute fear and wondering where to go from here, suddenly scales can fall from our eyes. “Go tell his disciples that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”
Who are his disciples? Mary and Salome, Peter and John…yes, but also us! And where is Galilee—north of Jerusalem, but also in Lee and Great Barrington, Springfield and Austin. Mark seeks to reveal another dimension of the Easter faith. The story lives in us. How will we witness to the risen Christ as disciples? Will others know what God looks like once we are finished?
I find Mark’s account of the resurrection to be particularly inviting. Rather than carefully defining this event that is at the very heart of our faith, it opens up to us the opportunity to go back, read, pray and reflect on the story that points to the fact that there is no ending to the process of discovering what it is to be turned around and renewed through trust in the risen Jesus and the infinite love that has been breathed into the world. The story is not finished, the chapter does not end. Jesus is ahead of us and will meet us where we are in our own lives.
This story is the very heart of our faith. It is the cornerstone of our journey as disciples. But it is not a simple one. I can no more explain to you the resurrection than I can perform a successful open heart surgery. But I can witness that God’s raising Jesus from death is a source of joy, wonder, hope and celebration. The moving of the stone from the tomb and the resurrection of Jesus breaks open the final barrier between God and God’s people. The resurrection is the expression of God’s faithfulness to Jesus and to all God’s children. Henri Nouwen, says, “Through the resurrection, God has said to Jesus, ‘You are indeed my beloved son, and my love is everlasting,’ and to us God has said, “You indeed are my beloved children, and my love is everlasting.’ The resurrection is God’s way of revealing to us that what belongs to God will never go to waste. What belongs to God will never get lost.”[1] We can trust in God who created us and continues to create us anew through all times.
We come here this morning as a part of our search for joy. We seek and we hope for our lives to be joyful and filled with possibilities for goodness. We want to greet each morning with wonder, and rest in peace when we go to bed at night. We want to feel that our life is worthwhile. This desire is just a glimpse of a fact of life that is so profound.
As Christians we believe that this call for joy in us is God calling us to God’s very self. And in this story of the resurrection we hear God telling us that nothing—worry or misery, or contempt, or even violence will separate us from God’s love. In this story of resurrection, we hear and are invited to give our heart to the belief that God overcame the worst imaginable violence visited on him—that he overwhelmed the murder of His beloved Son,—not by retaliation by inflicting more violence– but with a love that passes all understanding; through the power of eternal life, offering to us the love he gave us from the beginning.
If we can trust in this—if we can find in faith the willingness to give our hearts to this—Christ will come to us and abide in us forever. We will find our lives filled with joy because the risen Jesus is with us. We will be able to face our fears because Jesus has overcome what we dread most—abandonment, betrayal, suffering, death. The reward of our faith is an expansiveness of life in Christ, who comes to us wherever we are, in whatever condition we find ourselves, no matter where life leads us, despite all our actions to push God away—Christ abides in us, bringing us life that never ends. As we come to embrace this Jesus who is love we breathe love in, and we breathe love out. It is always present. It is never exhausted, always expanding. No love we give or receive is ever wasted or reduced to nothingness. Love never dies.
And with this faith we are called to be resurrection people. God-bearers who spread hope and love, infused with the fullness of grace. We are called to share this never ending, never failing love into the world. We may recognize the amazement, trauma, ecstasy and even the muteness of the women in seeking to share the good news we receive this day. But even in our silence, God speaks overflowing love into our lives that can spill over into those we meet in the world. As Karl Barth said, “God doesn’t convince us to believe by arguments, rather God persuades by giving us joy, he gives us joy by being beautiful.”
Always he goes before us. Always he calls us forward to a new appearance in the Galilee of our daily lives—where he will meet us, just as he promised.
Mark invites us to be witnesses to the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God. Whenever we touch a hand, provide welcome to a guest, offer food or clothing or shelter to someone in need, whenever we sit beside a friend, share our gifts so that another may experience joy, –we are witnesses to the reality that Christ lives—that love has triumphed over death—that love never dies. The resurrection reveals that we are called to a deeper, fuller experience of what it means to be alive.
Today you are invited as you are every Sunday to come and celebrate—to come and receive the love that was poured out for all—to come to the table of the feast of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And on this day, I invite you to receive the truth that is the second half of the one that you received on Ash Wednesday.
Today with the fragrant oil of Chrism that is used as we are baptized into the life giving love of God in Jesus Christ, I will seal you into the life that proclaims:
Remember that love is stronger than death
And to that love you shall return”
On this day, the three women at the empty tomb can be our guides for telling the story and speaking words of faith. Between the women’s experience at the tomb and Mark’s writing, these three did speak—or we wouldn’t know the story. But they gave us a great gift in opening a space for us to enter into the good news. Whatever they said to the disciples, their witness was shaped by trauma and ecstasy. The testimony that grew from their silence invites us all open our eyes to our own experience of the Risen Lord, our own encounter with the love that lives.
Mark’s gospel gives us a crucial role to play. We are now invited—in fact it is our call as Christians to proclaim through our lives the good news.
On this day we proclaim that—Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! We proclaim that life abounds, that life endures, that life is infinitely and eternally good, that love triumphs over death, and that life and love will overflow the bounds of every attempt to reject it or end it. How will we witness to this truth of life and love? Will others know what God looks like once we are finished?
[1] Henri, J. M. Nouwen. Our greatest gift: A meditation on dying and caring. New York: HarperColllins Publisher, 1994.