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I am proud to stand in The Gap with you, especially today.

Today is Easter Sunday, or Resurrection Sunday.

Like a lot of holidays (holy days) it has some strangeness to it!  Bunnies, and eggs, and chocolates and lilies.  And the whole hunting for eggs, just strikes me as funny.  It is a cultural thing.  And it is an opportunity for fun and beauty and color.  I am so thankful that we no longer hide real eggs.  Finding them with the mower in mid-May…ugh!

But I do love a day like today.  It is good to have a whole Sunday devoted to this story.

Resurrection is about More. 

I know you probably have characters, people, in the Bible that intrigue you.

Today, I just want to put Peter in the story for you.  Peter is impetuous.  I can relate to that.  Sometimes I can be plain-spoken.  I have no poker-face.  Sometimes I am quick to speak.  I listen.  I process quickly (usually).  Then I talk.  Last Sunday, I told your preacher (again) how much I appreciate him.  For as long as I have known him, he has been quiet, reflective, careful.  When he preaches, he opens pathways.  He does not put his fingers in your wounds.  Sometimes, I am not so careful.  I sometimes don’t have his finesse.  I have such respect for him.  He is not like Peter.  Peter blurts.  We could give examples, but I think you can trust me on that.  In the week before Resurrection Sunday, Peter struggled. It was a big failure.  Three times he denied Jesus. (Do you know that The Gospel of Mark is Peter’s report? This is Peter confessing….) It is a great relief that the story does not end here.  There is More.

You were with Jesus, the man from Nazareth.  Peter says, “I do not know or understand what you are talking about.”

This man is one of them. But again he denied it.

Certainly you are one of them; for you are a Galilean.  And Peter responds, cursing, and swearing an oath, “I do not know this man you are talking about.”

And he broke down and wept bitterly. 

Peter confesses.  And on some level, I just know how he feels.

Hang on to this.

  • Have you ever had one of those life-changing moments?  A couple from Nacogdoches got a call that their son was in a car wreck.  They are a year and a half into such a difficult season.  Their son, Ryan was hurt.  He has not woken from the crash, yet.  His parents pray. They spend all of their time and energy, all that they can spend, on their son, Ryan. They are praying for him to wake up.  They are praying that he will not only wake up, but that he will be healed.  They know it is asking a lot.  But they know others who have been hurt as badly who have made it to the other side.  They pray in hope.  They are looking for a resurrection (anastasis – to stand again)
  • I know that is dramatic.  There are more ordinary moments of resurrection, too.  I love grace.  But, I also know dis-grace. Let me tell you about two women.  One, after fourteen years of marriage, was dumped by her husband for another man.  She is working through her reaction.  She had a hysterectomy.  The doctor nicked her bladder.  She also had a terrible auto accident, with broken bones and more.  Her life was a wreck.  How would she respond? As she was deciding how she was going to respond, she was thinking about another woman that she knew, a woman who responded poorly.  After twenty-two years, her husband’s leaving was still the dominating story of her life.  She could not let go.  She could not find resurrection.  Her world shrunk to the very size of a Martini glass.   
  • And you have these stories in your life.  Before this happened, life was one way.  After this happened, nothing is really the same.  It could be your own sin.  It could be your own lostness.  Being lost is lacking direction.  To be lost is to be on the wrong path.  To be lost may even be the failure to know that you are on the wrong road.  Where are you going?  What are you doing?  How are you going to spend your life, your energy? 
  • Resurrection can be what happens right here in this kind of wandering.  The light dawns.  We decide.  We choose.  This, THIS is who I am and THIS is what I am doing.
  •  Do we all have a resurrection story to tell?

On a Good Friday, on a God’s Friday, there was a cross.  It is at the crux.  It is the turning point.  What difference does it make to you that Jesus died?  Is it just a story?  Or is there an impact?  Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.  If Jesus died for all of your sins, then you do not have to be ruined by them.  And remember that it was the sins of the world.  Could that be true?

But that is only a part of the good news story of God for us.  There is More.

Early on a Sunday morning something happened.    

Here is the story according to Mark.

Let’s overhear…

Mark 16:1-8 (NRSV) When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him.  2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb.  3 They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?”  4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.  5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed.  6 But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him.  7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”  8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.  

ImageJesus died. 

There was no doubt about the fact.  He had been nailed to the cross.  His side had been pierced (perhaps his heart was pierced).  They took his body down from the cross. 

Isaiah 53:5 (NRSV) Wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.

For Our Transgressions.   Made Us Whole.   We Are healed.  Right?

Jesus was dead.  He had said, “It is finished.”  But the disciples are filled with grief.  They don’t feel whole or healed.   Not yet.

             

But then, after the Sabbath of the Passover, as early as possible on the First Day (a work day), three women come to the tomb, to the place where Jesus’ body had been laid.  They came with spices to treat the body (which had already been taken care of on Friday!). 

Disarray.  The powerful (Joe and Nick) were not telling the ordinary folk what they had done. Mary of Magdala was one who had been delivered of seven demons (16:9).  Salome was the mother of the sons of Zebedee the fisherman (James and John, Matthew 27:56).

Death is disorganizing. 

Death is disorderly.

Death stings.

O Death, where is your sting?  (1 Cor. 15:55)

Everywhere.  Since you asked.  Just about everywhere.  Indeed.  (Annie Dillard – The Living)

Everything within us tells us that death is a permanent fixture of life, that it is the ordinary path.  If we evaluate based on past experience, we will all die. 

Our days are numbered.

Mary, and Mary, and Salome have come to love and to serve in their sorrow.

They were concerned, as they walked along, about the heavy stone sealing the tomb. 

The three of them were not going to be able to move it.  “What will we do?”  I wonder.  They could have said to themselves, there is no point in going!  There is a stone!  There is an obstacle.  (You do know that there is ALWAYS an obstacle, right?)  They were concerned, but they came. 

When they arrived at the tomb, the stone was already rolled away.  How about that!!?

There, they saw an angel dressed in white robes, who knew what they were up to.

He comforts them…or astonishes them!

  1. Don’t be alarmed (angels always say that!). Fear not!
  2. You are seeking Jesus of Nazareth.  I love the specifics!  The one crucified.
  3. He has been raised! What do you suppose their reaction was?
  4. He is not here.
  5. Come and see.  Want to look??  I would!!

He commissions them. 

  1. Go tell.
  2. Go tell Peter, specifically.  Go tell Peter that he really is not ruined.  A three-time denial is not too much for God to overcome!  You will see Jesus!
  3. Go to Galilee.  He is going ahead of you to Galilee. To Galilee?
  4. No “gotcha” back in Jerusalem!  Can you imagine Jesus making another triumphal entry into Jerusalem?  That is what many of us would have done.  We would have come back and said, “Thought you got me, didn’t you!”
  5. There you will Seehim. 
    1. Eating breakfast on the beach.
    2. Building a fire.

 

What is Easter about?  (Comfort and Commission)

Mark 16:8 (NRSV) So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

What an odd way to end a story!

But somehow the realism is striking.

We seldom “get it” right away.

As we asked about the death of Jesus, “What difference does it make?”

The grave is not the end. Death does not have the last word.

There is something going on, on the other side of death.

I am not ruined, and there is More. 

More life, More adventure, and a great deal More love. 

We are free to give our lives away.

Free to live the adventure of life without fear.

Free to remain in the challenge of a difficult circumstance.

Free to forgive, and let go, because that is the story that we live.

Because for those who believe, those who covenant with God, there is More life on the other side of death.

A Dying Story (From Tom Long)

“She told me last fall that her father had died over the summer.  It was a hard last week because her father had a stroke and lost his power of speech.  ‘And you know how hard that would be for my daddy,’ she said. ‘He loved to talk.  But in his last few days, he couldn’t speak.  I will never forget, my sisters and my brother were gathered in his hospital room on the last day of his life and we were feeling the pain of his struggle as he tried to communicate with us.  Finally he motioned toward my brother as if to say, Get me a glass of water.  My brother went over to the sink and filled the glass with water and brought it to my father.  But he wouldn’t drink it.  He motioned as if to say to my brother, You drink it.  So my brother took a sip.  Then my father made a motion, Give it to your sister.  He handed the glass to my sister.  And then he motioned to pass it to me.  Suddenly my brother said, Oh my! He is serving communion!

      “In the moment, we knew that neither death, nor life, nor powers, nor principalities, nor anything else in all creation could separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.”

      The father was saying, with his dying actions, there is more for me, and more for you who wait.

There is more and death does not win! That is why we celebrate. And this is how we comfort.  And this is what we have to say. You are not ruined.  There is MORE. More love. More goodness. More LIFE.