The Church of the Ascension
Easter Day, March 23, 2008

In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  AMEN.

I really tried to write an Easter sermon that made no mention of the fact that we are in the midst of a big transition.  It felt so dishonest that I couldn’t pull it off; the words just would not come.  So when the writer’s block reached panic time, I gave up and decided to get honest.  When the church resorts to speaking in church-ease that is anything but real, we – or at least I – get into big trouble.   Among the many things Jesus taught us about life, the requirement to live authentically and consciously stands out.  Unwilling to countenance pretense, again and again he called his disciples to speak the truth, an act itself which he claimed would set them free.

We have had a several deaths in our community in the last couple of weeks; I am about the leave the parish after a number of years of living with you in the strange and privileged intimacy that priests are so generously afforded.  And all of that, the physical separation from people we loved but see no longer and the uncertainty and newness of change however it is to come comprise a huge part of my consciousness on this beautiful Easter morning. On a day as important in our lives as Easter, to ignore these realities would be ridiculous, not unlike that annoying television commercial about retirement planning in which the 800 pound gorilla in the room is not acknowledged.

The truth is, my brothers and sisters, we know something about Good Fridays; in fact, we have lived through some of them lately.  And if today, the Feast of the Resurrection, means anything at all, and I believe that it does, it means that our living through the Good Fridays of our lives does not overwhelm us.   When Mary Magdalene and the other Mary rose on that morning, they made the conscious choice that what happened on Friday was not to be the end of the story.  Not knowing at all where the day was going, they simply set out to do the next right thing.  In that sense, in that faithful step to do something, they were already living in the hope of the resurrection.  In Mark’s gospel, we read that the women came to the tomb to anoint his body with spices and ointments.  Matthew says only that they went “to see the tomb.”  I prefer the latter; it is so unadorned.  But whatever the particular details, Magdalene and Mary wanted to get as close as they could to where Jesus had last been seen.  The earthquake that morning, which had made the earth move under their feet, was a slight shimmer when compared to how knowing him had rocked their lives and touched their hearts.  Nothing that wonderful could end in death and destruction.  Whether beyond their imagination or not, resurrection had to occur for without it the remainder of their lives was unthinkable.

Two thousand years later it is still true: life without resurrection is not life at all.  Despite all efforts to make it one, resurrection is not a doctrine, not a concept about which we believe either correctly or incorrectly.  Oh, I suppose for some it is; for some what one believes about the resurrection is the mother lode doctrine upon which all else hangs, the great litmus test of whether we are in or out.  For me, it is a reality of which I am sometimes so poignantly aware that even breathing is hard, the hope of it taking away my breath.  At other times my awareness of it is mostly a memory.  But bright or barely visible, it is a reality that allows us to live in a world that is desperately more like Good Friday than Easter, not lifting us out of the world but empowering us to live in the world more fully, more lovingly, more effectively.  Christ did not leave the world but remains in it to empower us to transform it. 

Resurrection is like morning to me.  On some primal and perhaps neurotic level, I am always surprised that I have awakened; and so I love waking up and seeing the coming of new light, the gentle mist of the night ended.    One of my favorite psalms says that “weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.”  How wonderfully true that is.  Resurrection means that the night is never so dark that the morning does not follow it.  Nothing can extinguish the light of Christ in us; no power can separate us from that light.  We can get hurt or be killed; we can get sick and even die; but nothing will ever put out the light of the resurrection.  

Knowing that truth about resurrection gives us the power and courage to take on the world.  Tucked away in the Good Friday liturgy, which is so dark and sad, there is a surprisingly triumphant prayer that seems almost out of place and is easily missed.  In it we pray, “Let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made.”

Those are revolutionary words!  Talk about shaking up the status quo!  The powers thought they had put an end to the unexpected and unacceptable outbreak of compassion and justice that flowed from Jesus and caught like wild fire.  Not so, the resurrection proved them wrong once and for all.  A simple tomb could not confine a love so great as that.  It burst free, and its power is given to all who want to participate in bringing the realm of God on earth. 

It is a power that still exists in this world and in our hearts. Resurrection never ends.  Even when we know that all that is to be is not yet, resurrection continues.  Resurrection means that a new order is coming in this world, that everything is being turned upside down, and that people like us, ordinary believers, will have the strength to stand against the powers that be.  Resurrection means that deaths and changes will never overwhelm us for we are on the Way – on the Way with the One who was not held in death. 

When Jesus told Magdalene and Mary to “Go and tell my brothers to meet me in Galilee”, the Greek word he used for “go” is different from the usual connotation of “to go.”  He chose a word that literally means “to lead one’s life, to continue on one’s journey, to follow after the teacher.”  The message was clear to them: life is not ended; the way has just been begun; go, keep on doing what you are doing, keep going where you are going; follow the teacher.”  Resurrection is about continuing in the future what has begun in the past.  All that has been is a part of who we are; the resurrection sends us forth to follow the way – the way that has brought and continues to bring us through the grim reality of Good Friday to the joy of this morning. 

In the name of God:  AMEN.