Show Me Your Resurrection [Easter 2021]
The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson
John 20:1-18
Show Me Your Resurrection
Easter
first happened in a cemetery. Not under
the sparkling sunlight of a spring morning.
Not on the stunning verdant hills of a fantasy. Not in a field of pastel tulips. Not tangled in a prolonged cellophane
celebration. Easter happened in a
cemetery. Surrounded by death. Incubated by stubborn shadows. Carried in a broken heart. Greeted quite unexpectedly by a woman who no
longer dreamed dreams.
Mary
Magdelene:
About
women, no one can know. There are some,
Like this one, whose pain is a locked sepulchre;
Their pain is buried in them, there is no fleeing
From it and no casting it off …
… Deep calls unto deep, a grave for a grave,
A carcass drawing a carcass in that unhappy
morning;
Three days was this one in a grave, in a world
that died
In the cry in the afternoon. It is finished,
The cry that drew blood from her like the barb of
a sword.
It is finished. Finished. Mary fell from the hill
To the emptiness of the last Easter …
A world without a living Christ, the horrifying
Sabbath of creation,
The abyss of the hundred thousand centuries and
their end,
Mary lay down in the grave of the trembling
universe.
… All the flowers of memory withered except the
rain of blood
… God was extinguished,
In the dying together, in the burying together…”[1]
So
writes Welsh poet Saunders Lewis.
Of
course Easter happens in a cemetery, where the dying and the burying happens. That is where Easter is needed.
The Easter
story is, of course, the story of Jesus risen from the dead. But it is also the story of the ways in which
that resurrection raises the dead. Though
there was breath in her lungs and blood in her heart, Mary died with Jesus –
because violence is never an isolated incident; there is always collateral
damage; it spreads like a disease. But Mary
came back to life with him too. In a
cemetery, in the midst of death, there is this life. And Mary was brave enough to see more than
emptiness in the empty tomb.
“Christ
is risen.” That is what we say. We keep saying, year after year, because it
is still true. But also because we need
it to be true. Not just back then, but
now. The Easter story is the ancient
story of Jesus risen from the dead. But
it is also the story of the ways in which that resurrection raises the dead. Still.
Today.
A Zen
Master once said to a Trappist Monk, “You know, I like your Christianity, but I
would not like it without the resurrection.
Show me your resurrection.”[2]
Show me your resurrection. Easter as simply a static story we pull out
each year with the plastic eggs, or a rote theological concept that we mumble
but never truly experience, is nothing more than an empty tomb. The empty tomb is something but it is not the
point. The point is the Risen Christ
whispering you back to life. The point
is the living Jesus giving you back the ability to dream, giving you a courage that
shouts Alleluia at the grave, giving you an ever living reason to hope. That Easter Jesus, that Jesus who finds you
in your despair, who sneaks up on you when you need him the most, is why you
can show this world your resurrection.
Mary
Magdalene was a brave, bold woman. She
had the courage to be the first citizen of the Easter world to show her
resurrection, to walk her tear-stained cheeks into a locked room of downcast
disciples, who knew nothing but the empty tomb, who had not yet experienced
resurrection life, and testify: “I have seen the Lord!”
It
was a stunningly audacious statement given the circumstances. She journeyed to the graveyard to visit a
corpse. She found the body missing. Before she ever spoke a word about
resurrection, she told a story of grave robbers. And as that bad situation grew worse, she
lingered to weep while the boys went home.
But then
Easter happened, in a cemetery, where the dying and the burying happen. Because that was where Easter was needed.
And
it is still needed – maybe now more than ever.
In this Good Friday world, in this world in which the dying and the
burying happens. In this pandemic
world. In this world in which despair
holds a place of prominence, we need a Church that has experienced Easter, who
has felt the breath of the Risen Christ, a people who have heard the voice of Jesus
say their name. We need Christians who
are brave enough, bold enough, to show their resurrection.
We do
not have to settle for a Good Friday world. We do not have to accept the death and
violence, the nightmares and the despair.
We do not have to resign ourselves to mass shootings, to teen suicides,
to the plague of addiction, to shelter in place drills in kindergarten
classrooms, to conspiracies and partisan discord, to racism and hateful
prejudice. Those things are all too
real, but they are not the reality God wants for us or for this world.
And that
is the miracle of Easter: Easter happens in this world, with these
heartaches. Easter happens in the shadow
of the cross. It happens in the
cemetery. It is watered by the tears of
despair. It does not deny the reality of
pain and death; Easter defies pain and death.
It is the sun that scatters the clouds.
It is a dream so much truer than any nightmare.
The
Easter God is daring us to dream that impossible dream. To believe that impossible dreams can come
true. In this world. On Earth as in Heaven. The Easter God is calling us to listen for the
voice of the Risen Christ, still whispering resurrection, still speaking forth new
life, in this world. Jesus is still
telling that ancient and eternal story – a story in which love wins, and life
is stronger than death, and hope is never in vain.
To
show your resurrection is to die and live with that story, that Easter
story. It is the story that means to
transform your life and spill from your lips.
Be brave enough to see more than emptiness in that empty tomb; be daring
enough to dream impossible dreams. And
then be foolish enough to live as if those dreams will come true, in this
world, in Jesus’ name.
A Zen
Master once said to a Trappist Monk, “You know, I like your Christianity, but I
would not like it without the resurrection.
Show me your resurrection.”
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