This is
the way the world ends.
This
is the way the world ends.
This
is the way the world ends.
Not
with a bang, but with a whimper.
Those often quoted lines from T.S.
Eliot’s poem the Hollow Men were
written to describe what many encountered as the reality of post-WWI Europe
where hope seemed lost and the possibilities of the future bleak.
In
retrospect, I imagine that they capture what must have felt that first Good
Friday. The day when the one confessed
as the King of the Jews, the Son of God, God incarnate died upon the cross; the
day when it seemed that once and for all the powers of the world had conquered
the hope of God.
There
on calvary’s hill, God in the person of Jesus Christ lowered his head and died
and with him the hope of the Jesus movement that had grown around his message
of hope for all and peace in God’s creation.
That
was how their world would end.
Not
with a bang, but with a whimper.
Or
so they thought.
Theologians
have, for centuries, debated why Christ would die so submissively or, more
importantly, why God would allow it to happen.
I claim no special insight to that question other than to say that
whatever the reason for the quiet submission of Good Friday and the silence of
Holy Saturday, the world is filled to overflowing this morning with the joy of resurrection.
Though we have done our best to
domesticate and tame Easter- to strip it of its shocking, awe-inspiring,
reason-defying mystical nature- one thing remains true; this day is no whimper marking
the end of the world.
It
is, instead, a holy disruption; a reversal of fortune for all of creation
through the providential work of God.
Death has become life, despair has become jubilation and for we who just
48 hours before were crying, “crucify him, crucify him,” Christ is risen
indeed. Alleluia!
According to our reading from Matthew
this morning, Easter comes not with the softness of an Easter bunny or the
benign gentility of Easter dresses and seersucker suits, but with the shock and
awe of an earthquake.
The
biblical account of Easter is not a story designed to give us a peaceful easy
feeling before we head to the family brunch, it is dramatic and frightening and
awe inspiring.
Consider Matthew’s account of that
morning.
To
begin with, in the fading darkness before dawn, an angel descends from heaven
and alone rolls the stone away perching himself on top of it as if to say,
“what do you think of that!” This was
no chubby cheeked angel, this was the brute force of the Lord descended into
the world rolling the stone away to reveal what God has done.
When the earth shook and the angel
rolled the stone away, the soldiers who were keeping guard to make sure that no
one stole the body were speechless. In
fact, the Greek in Matthew’s gospel says that the ones keeping guard, “were
quaked and became as if dead.”
If nothing else, God knows how to get
our attention.
Into the midst of this scene of
dramatic encounter come the women. Mark
says there were three, Matthew two, what is certain is that in the wake of the
agony and horror of Good Friday, it was the women counted among his disciples
who showed up that day. They were coming
to tend to the body of Jesus when they saw what was happening and looked on in
wonder.
By now God had their undivided
attention.
As they stood there astonished, the
women are addressed by the angel. These
are the first words spoken to the first of the faithful to reach the empty
tomb. This is the theological equivalent
of Neil Armstrong’s “one small step for man” moment and the moment does not
disappoint.
In
the few words the angel utters resides the fundamental message of Easter.
He does not say, “alleluia!”
He does not say, “he is risen, he is
risen indeed.”
He says, “do not be afraid.”
Do not be afraid. Those are the first words uttered in the
wake of the resurrection of Christ.
Do not be afraid.
Notice he does not say “have no fear”
he says “do not be afraid.”
That is the first and the last message
of Easter. Do not be afraid.
In that moment, in those words, life
begins anew. It is a wake-up call when
God gets our attention and for many of us it takes an earthquake to wake us
from our dreamy slumber.
Life begins when we hear
and we see
and we are no longer
afraid.
It certainly happened that day for Mary
Magdelene and the other named Mary. God
had their undivided attention and in that moment gave them new life.
It is never the end of the story when
we encounter God in moments like these.
Do not be afraid, those first words of Easter morning, are only part of
the story. They are the words that
prepared the women and prepare us for what comes next.
The angel says to them, “go and tell.”
The promises and revelations of God are
never things to be held in private. They
are the spiritual inheritance of all God’s children so when we know, we
tell. So the angel tells the women to go
and tell. To loose their feet from the
place they are momentarily bound in fear and go with courage to tell of this
miraculous thing that has happened.
Now it is easy to romanticize the women
and act as if in that instant they acted with faith and hope and love and
without hesitation went forthwith and spread the Word never knowing fear or
doubt again. You would think that experiencing an early
morning earthquake caused by an angel rolling an enormous stone away from the
tomb of your friend only to have that angel tell you that God has raised that
friend from the dead would be enough to get you moving and telling. For some of us, even an earthquake does not
get the whole job done.
Evidently God thought they had to be
told a second time.
After
the angel says to them, “go. Tell.” They are met on the road by yet a second
messenger from God, the risen Jesus himself, who tells them to do the very same
thing.
Go
and tell.
What
happened to the women that day- what happens to us when we hear God’s call to
go and tell- is no simple thing. So God
persists even in the face of our persistent spiritual deafness and blindness.
Like the women, we too often have to be
told more than once and even then we often do not hear.
There is an old story about a preacher
from who found himself at home as the waters of the Pearl River began to
rise. A man in a canoe came by and said,
“preacher, get in. I’ll take you to
higher ground.” The preacher declines
and says, “no. The lord will take care
of me.” A second man comes by in a
rowboat, by now the water is up to the second floor windows, and he says to the
preacher, “preacher, get in. I’ll take you to higher ground.” Again, the preacher declines saying,
“no. the Lord will take care of
me.” Finally with the waters within
inches of the peak of the roof, the preacher is holding on to the chimney when
a helicopter comes with a rope lowered down and a voice shouts, “preacher take
the rope, we’ll take you to higher ground.”
Again the preacher declines.
Finally the preacher finds himself at heaven’s gate and he looks at St.
Peter and says, “I don’t understand. I
gave my life as a preacher, why didn’t the lord save me.” St. Peter replies and says, “we sent two
boats and a helicopter, what more did you want?”
Sometimes, no matter how many times we
hear, we do not really hear.
Year after year we hear this same story
of resurrection, of hope, of promise, and we hear this call from God, “do not
be afraid. Go and tell.” And still, we so easily go out from this
place and return to our fearful living. Silent in the face of a world that
desperately needs a witness.
Perhaps part of the reason it is so
hard to truly bear the Easter message without fear is that we are surrounded by
voices in the world telling us that the only thing we have to fear is not being
afraid.
We
are surrounded by a chorus of voices telling us that the promise that we have
nothing to fear in this world because Christ is risen, he is risen indeed is
just a dead letter.
Yet, and still here we are back again
for an other Easter morning flowering the cross, singing our hymns, shouting
our Alleluias, and declaring that he is risen, he is risen indeed.
As
we have in years past and will continue to do in years to come, the church stubbornly
clings to the message that despite the world’s proclamations to the contrary,
peace
and justice,
hope
and promise,
life
itself rules supreme because the tomb of death has been emptied and Christ has
risen.
And
because that is true, because death has been defeated, we need not be
afraid.
That is what Matthew wants us to see so
we too might live.
He
wants us to see that we do not need to wait in order to live. Resurrection living starts right here right
now in the shadow of the rolled away stone.
Life
begins when we are able to take hold of the fear and doubt that have been given
to us and run with them. That is the
truest meaning of Easter. It is that day
when fear and joy, the odd couple of the human spirit, enable us, despite the
one and because of the other, to get on with the serious and glorious business
of living and loving.
Life, true Easter life, begins when we
recognize that we do not have to die to live.
Life in the spirit of resurrection is not simply the quantity of time we
have on this earth, it is the quality of the time we share. So it was for the women and the men of that
first Easter. It was not about how long
they would live after that miraculous morning but how they would live. It was about how they were empowered and
transformed by the risen Lord to live lives in hope and promise and without
weight of their fears bearing down on them.
Life began for them when they stopped
being afraid both of what they did know and what they did not know. Life began for them when they could dare to
believe the risen Christ, the living, walking, talking Christ made a difference
in their lives; and life began for them when they believed this to be true even
if they could neither explain it nor understand it.
Do not be afraid.
These are the empowering words of
Easter. Freedom from fear is the victory
of the resurrection- not merely freedom from death but freedom from the
paralyzing force of fear; from the voices of the world that seek to draw us
away from the promises of Christ and deter us from bearing witness to Christ’s
command to, “go and tell.” Our Easter
freedom charges us to stand in the face of those forces in the world and, in
the words of our closing hymn today, “Tell its grim demonic chorus: ‘Christ is
risen! Get you gone!’”
So, my friends, do not be afraid.
The stone is rolled away.
Do not be afraid.
Death is no more.
Do not be afraid.
Hope is alive.
Do
not be afraid, but go and tell.
For
Christ is risen.
He
is risen indeed.
Alleluia,
alleluia. Amen.
Let us pray, Glory be to
you, God, our strength and our redeemer.
The vacant cross and the empty tomb vindicate your claim that the love
which suffers is the love which saves.
So fill your people with joy nad your Church with celebration that the
world may know that your holy Son Jesus is not a dead hero we commemorate but
the living Lord we worship, to whom with you and the Holy Spirit, we give our
praise forever and ever. Amen.[i]
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