Loading...Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia!
I think it’s great fun that Easter Sunday this year is also April Fool’s Day.
It’s the Great Divine Joke!
You could even imagine Mary, Mary, and Salome,
talking together as they walk toward the tomb,
“Who’s going to roll that big stone away for us?”
and then when they get there and the stone was already pushed aside,
confusion, surprise, wondering if they’ve been duped.....
“Is this a joke?!?”
Or, in answer to the question during a children’s sermon on Easter Sunday several years ago, “What did Jesus say after He came out of the grave?”
one little girl piped up “Tah-dah!”
The Great Divine April Fool’s Joke: “Tah-dah!”
Alleluia! Christ is risen.
Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia.
Indeed. Christ is risen. Death isn’t the end.
Corruption, conspiracy, oppression, injustice, and
evil do not have the last word.
We have this life,
this hope
today and every day.
Resurrection promise.
Yet, you might be confused by the gospel story from Mark this morning.
Where are the two angels in white?
Where are the guards who’ve collapsed like “dead men”?
Where is Jesus?
And, where’s the telling of the story?!?
The only witnesses we have run away in fear!
You might be thinking, “Hunh? The story just... stops!”
There’s no denouement and wrap up. There’s no ending.
Is this part of the joke?
So, what happens next?!?
What do the women do?
And, if they ran away in fear and amazement
and didn’t say anything to anyone, then how did WE end up here?
Obviously there’s more to this story.
There has to be.
But you wouldn’t know it by reading Mark’s story.
Well, you wouldn’t know it if you think that Mark’s Gospel
is a self-contained document or treatise;
something to pull out once a year (or every three years!)
to re-assure yourselves that, yep! God’s done it again!
There IS more to the story!
These three women who’d been standing by the cross during the crucifixion –
with all the heat, despair, and terror –
rested on the Sabbath day.
Then they came back to the burial place to honor Jesus and care for his body.
They came back with the mindset that all was lost,
but at least they could do the proper burial rites.
There is the emptiness. The emptiness of the tomb.
It feels like the joke is on THEM – the faithful, the friends, the believers.
Emptiness instead of life; despair instead of hope.
Well, it’s not totally an empty grave;
there is a messenger there, he’s a bit like an office assistant:
“Sorry, Jesus isn’t here. You have a meeting with him?
No. Not according to his calendar. That meeting isn’t here.
It’s in Galilee. Go there.”
There is confusion.
They are befuddled.
They are amazed
distressed
alarmed
fearful.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
All of these feelings aren’t that far-fetched.
We’ve probably all shown up for something
– an event, a class; in my case a flight – and it’s not there.
(For me, the plane had left already; I forgot all about the time change!)
There is confusion. The gears in our heads don’t change.
It doesn’t make sense. There is alarm, or even fear.
(I thought, “I have to get on a plane! I have church tomorrow!)
But, this messenger – this office assistant type – tells us more:
“Jesus went on ahead already to the meeting place, to Galilee
where it all began and
where most of the work, learning, ministry, and life happened.”
Go back.
The message from the messenger sends us back to the beginning place:
Mark’s Gospel ends by hitting the “replay” button
sending us to “the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ.”
The story doesn’t end with a nice, neat wrap-up session where the great detective –
Hercule Poirot, Ben Matlock, or Jessica Fletcher –
tells us how the story concludes.
Rather, the story is open-ended.
The story invites us to be a part of it.
The events draw us in so that we’re involved
and so that they change us and part of God’s life for the world.
The story is part of the Great Divine Joke,
that we are now written in and get to be a part of it all!
This Easter story is a story that is still being written.
It is still being lived.
It is still unfolding.
Mark’s Gospel doesn’t end....
Rather, it opens up a whole new chapter,
a whole new way of life.
A whole new way of life for us.
A whole new way of life for you.
Life that is not bound up with fear.
Life that is not limited by our own limitations.
Life that perseveres even in the face of pain and grief.
Life that, indeed, overcomes death.
The Easter story is a story that is still being written.
The resurrection of Jesus is not a fait accompli;
it’s not a one-and-done event;
it’s not a “put that one on the shelf” as though God checked something off a bucket list.
This resurrection life for the world continues.
This resurrection life for you is always unfolding.
This resurrection life has become a way of life.
~~~~~~~~~~~
What happens next in the story?
You don’t need to read it as if it’s a book with an ending.
You don’t need to go back to the tomb,
or run away in fear, distress, alarm;
or even wait until you die to find out.
The joke is NOT on you!!
You are invited to be in the story of the risen Christ in your everyday life.
You are invited to live with hope as you connect with neighbors and friends.
We are invited to share compassion with strangers and enemies.
We are invited to show grace to our families and to ourselves.
We are invited to be a part of the reconciliation needed so desperately in our communities, society, and world.
Look around!
You will find the risen Christ all around
•in all the communities and peoples in which we’re deeply rooted, and
•in the beloved people of God whom we do not yet know.
Look around!
The risen Christ is in the waters of baptism
those splashed over Deb and Josie last night
and those we wade through in as we remember our own baptisms.
Look around!
The risen Christ is here at this Table in our meal of bread and wine:
Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.
Look around!
The risen Christ is here in this place in your life and in your neighbor.
The risen Christ is in the world
from Galilee to Five Mile to West Central to the Colbert
to Comstock to Spokane Valley
to Parkland, Florida to Ghouta, Syria
and everything in between.
The risen Christ goes before us to all places we go
... and the story continues.
And the Great Divine Jokester laughs with great joy!
Amen
