Just two days before, Jesus had been crucified, and had died, and was placed in a tomb. The disciples did the only thing they could think of, which was to go home. Go home to their families, to their routines, to some kind of normalcy. To some kind of safety. Perhaps they thought it was all over. That with the death of Jesus died the ministry, the prophecy, the miracles, and teaching. Mary may have gone home, but something drew her back to the tomb. Our gospel lesson doesn’t say, but it was written 60 or 70 years after all this had happened. It’s hard to imagine the writer even being alive when all this happened. But Mary couldn’t sleep. Restless like many of us when we lose someone we love, she went to the last place she saw Jesus. Like those of us who visit the graves of our loved ones, perhaps she sought comfort in that final resting place. It would have been quiet. Like our cemeteries are quiet. The gospel tells us that when she got to the tomb, the stone that covered the opening had been rolled away. Was she frightened? Was she heartbroken? Was she angry? She went and told Peter, and another disciple many think was John, that someone had removed Jesus’ body. Peter and John ran as fast as they could to see for themselves. John got there first, and looked in. Peter arrived, and he went in. Peter was the first to see the linen wrappings that had been used as a shroud, lying there, no longer covering Jesus. John found the courage to go in, and when he saw the empty tomb, he believed. Having run to the tomb, and after finding it empty, Peter and John didn’t know what else to do, so they went home again. But Mary stayed. And when she took her turn looking into the tomb, she saw two angels, sitting where Jesus had been place. They asked her why she was weeping, and she told them, that someone had taken Jesus away, and she did not know where he was. And in that moment of confession, in that split second of saying she did not know where he had been laid, he appeared. Not recognizing him, she mistook him for the caretaker of the tombs. In their brief exchange, Mary recognizes Jesus when he speaks her name. Of all the disciples, of all those whom he loved, Jesus chose to reveal his resurrected self first to Mary Magdalene. Not Peter, not John, not Martha or Lazarus, but Mary. The one who came to the tomb for comfort, the one who stayed around long enough to meet Jesus. Mary didn’t just peer into the empty tomb and go home. She stayed, in the midst of her mourning, in the midst of her sadness, in the midst of her fears, she stayed. What courage, what faith. What strength and conviction. And because Mary had remained, Jesus trusted her to share the news with the others. It was left to Mary to go back to the disciples, and tell them the truth about Jesus: that he lives. That death could not contain him. If you had to pick one of the characters from this story, who do you think you would be? John? Peter? Mary? John heard that Jesus was gone, and he ran as fast as he could to get to the tomb. He even outran Peter. But when he got there, his courage failed and he didn’t go in. Peter wasn’t as fast as John, but when he did arrive at the tomb, he had the courage to go in and see for himself what had happened. Mary was there first, saw that the stone had been rolled away, and was the first to tell the disciples that something wasn’t right. Mary was the first to see Jesus, to recognize him, and was the first to tell the others that Jesus had risen. Speedy, but fearful, like John, slower, but with more courage, like Peter or present to receive the newly risen Christ in the midst of deep sadness and fear, like Mary… Each of us must peer into the empty tombs of our lives from time to time. We all have dark and empty places, where something important used to be. Sometimes we get there in a hurry, but we don’t want to look in. Sometimes we finally get there, and take a deep breath and look in. Rarely, are we waiting outside that empty tomb, and rarely, because we are in the right place at the right time, do we meet Jesus there. Empty tombs. What empty tombs? A lost job. A lost relationship. A death of a loved one. An addiction. An illness. Maybe even an empty church sanctuary. The list goes on, and each one of us has countless empty tombs littering our horizon. And if we are honest, if we take a sober look at the way we encounter our empty tombs, we’d probably have to say that we’re more like John or Peter in the way we treat them: we look in briefly, maybe receive some insight, and go home. This is where the cycle of death and rebirth, of crucifixion and resurrection can be found in our lives. It’s hard to find the courage or the strength to hang around such a vivid and painful reminder of loss as an empty tomb. But with our gospel lesson this morning, we now know that if we wait outside the empty tomb, facing our fears, peering into the unknown, like Mary did, the truth will appear to us. We might not recognize it at first. We might think the truth is something else, but being in the right place at the right time isn’t just dumb luck, it’s sometimes just sheer perseverance! The disciples didn’t know what else to do. It didn’t make sense to just hang around the tomb, much less an empty one. That seems like most of us: who wants to hang around an empty tomb, being reminded of all that pain and suffering? The loss, the emptiness? Nobody I know. But when we can, and when we do, the reward is nothing less than a miracle: facing our fears, confronting our worries and anxieties, we can know the truth: all is not lost. Because Jesus lives, we live also. Because Jesus triumphed over death, our sins are forgiven. Our fears relieved. Our faults and shortcomings accepted without judgment. The message Jesus gave Mary was profound. And it has profound implications for the way we live our lives: Jesus told Mary not to cling to the ‘old’ Jesus, the old ways. That with his ascension to be with God, he was a ‘new’ Jesus. But oh how we love to cling to the old ways! Even in the face of evidence that God does new things, in new ways, every day, aren’t we mostly convinced in some way or another that the old ways are the best ways? It’s human nature. We cling to the old Jesus as if that’s the only Jesus there is. We try and keep him close to us for comfort, but the truth is that he will have to ascend to heaven sometime, and clinging to the old Jesus won’t bring us any relief from our fears and worries. So while many of us would have to confess a similarity to John or Peter when it comes to peering into the empty tombs of our lives, many of us are just like Mary when it comes to clinging to the old Jesus, the one who walked with us before his ascension. The message for Mary was clear: don’t cling to the Jesus you knew before, and go and tell the others what you now know. And that message is for us, here, today: The Easter message of hope, of rebirth and new life resides in the new Christ, the newly risen Christ, not the old Jesus. The Easter message of new life resides in the new Christ, the newly risen Christ, not the old Jesus. The powerful Easter message of forgiveness resides in the new Christ, the newly risen Christ, not the old Jesus. This is not easy to understand: if we have enough courage to hang around the empty tombs of our lives long enough to meet Jesus, the message we get is difficult to follow: don’t cling to the old ways, it’s the newly resurrected Jesus that we must follow, the new way, the new life, the new covenant. God is creating new ways for us to worship, new ways to celebrate, new ways to care for and love our neighbors, and honor the risen Christ: we must not cling to the old Jesus, or the old ways if we wish to move on, or even live on. Whether we know it or not, we all have many empty tombs in our lives. I would hope that we could each look at one today, or maybe this week. Look into one empty tomb that has been bothering us, one empty tomb where we buried something important that has died, and wait around it long enough to encounter Jesus. Even if he doesn’t tap us on the shoulder, we know the message he’ll give us: don’t cling to the old understanding, living the new life means letting go, letting go of the old grudge, letting go of the past hurts, or the gnawing fears, or the crippling anxiety. Mary had it right. Peter and John had to wait just a little longer before Jesus came to them in person. But ultimately, he came to them, just like the others, just like he’ll come to us, too. And his message will be the same: look to live in the new life, look to live in the new covenant, look to honor the risen Christ, not by clinging to the Jesus who lived among us, but by obeying the one who triumphed over death, who secured our forgiveness by sacrificing his life for us. Hope, new life in Christ, forgiveness. Easter gifts for us, and all the Easter people. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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Today is Pentecost, often referred to as the ‘Birthday of the Church’. When we celebrate it, we get to relive, and in some ways, experience the mystery and the power of the Holy Spirit.
The text tells us that that many of those gathered were amazed and astonished, perplexed even at what was happening. Others thought that the group was drunk on wine. The image of the Holy Spirit resting on the faithful, like tongues of fire, is mysterious enough, but add in the group’s ability to understand each other regardless of their native language, and the mysterious becomes miraculous. There aren’t too many sightings of the Holy Spirit these days, at least, not like this. No blaring headlines or breaking news segments to tell us that a group of people were overcome by the Holy Spirit for a time, and suddenly could understand each other regardless of their language. I’m sure the Holy Spirit is upon us at times: many can sense the presence, even without the tongues of fire, just as many sense the absence of the Spirit. Last year, I preached about Pentecost, and I suggested that one universal way to let others know we care is to use our smiles. Quoting David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Paul Kantner, from the song Wooden Ships, I suggested that ‘if you smile at me, I will understand, ‘cuz that is something everybody everywhere does in the same language’. In looking back over the last year, however, I’m starting to get the sense that a smile might not be enough. I may not have been wrong, but what I know now is that a smile, a universal sign of sister- and brotherhood isn’t enough. The world as we know it needs something a lot stronger than a smile between strangers. Given the kind of violence and hate the world has witnessed in the last year, a smile for a neighbor, or a stranger, or even an enemy isn’t even a band-aid on the wounds inflicted by the forces of evil. Some of you know that I was in Buffalo in the aftermath of the racist killings at the Tops Market on the eastside, to support the pastors of those communities, and to support the work of the wider church seeking to help in any way possible. I met the United Church of Christ Associate General Minister for Justice and the Local Church, Rev. Traci Blackmon there, and together, we visited the site, now a memorial to those who lost their lives, attended prayer vigils, and a free concert for the families of the slain. We also established a working group of pastors in the area who will receive resources from the United Church of Christ Neighbors in Need fund to try and address some of the systemic ills that plague areas like the East-side of Buffalo. In giving some remarks at one of the prayer vigils, Rev. Blackmon told us, and I paraphrase here, ‘there is a lot of hate in the world, so we’re going to have to love the hell out of this place!’ So there it is: a smile isn’t going to cut it in these hateful and violent times. Smile is nice, non-threatening, but under-powered for what we need. What we are going to do, is find a way to love the hell out this place, because love is so much more powerful than hate, and so much more powerful than what a smile suggests. In the short-term, we need to love every family touched by violence. Love them as they mourn, and as they heal, as best as they are able. But we can’t stop there. We’re also going to have to love the hell out of those who would use violence to achieve their goals. More on that in a bit. In order to maximize our resources, in order to bring extravagant, unconditional, and universal love to bear upon the hate in this world, we have to start close to home. And by close to home, I mean that we have to be able to love ourselves first, before we can love others. By loving the people God created us to be, we can build a strong love foundation. So if any of us struggle with not being able to love ourselves, I say this: if God loves us, can we find it in ourselves to love ourselves too? And if so, then we can turn our love to those closest to us. Our family, and friends. Letting them know we love them may seem redundant, but really, who doesn’t love to hear that they are loved? Once we become accustomed to telling others we love them, we can also work on showing them. How do our actions coincide with our words? Can we be doing more to bring them in alignment? If our actions don’t broadcast our love, then we’re not doing it right, and we have to go back to the beginning. And once our actions match our love for others, it’s time to start spreading that love around, to neighbors, to strangers, to anyone who is in need. In the context of our worshiping community, that means remembering to always have our mission aligned with our love. If someone were to ask who we love, we can show them our mission work, and say our aim is to love the hell out this place. If we have come to a place where we love ourselves as individuals, and we love those closest to us, and we love our neighbors, and our actions match our love, then it will be time to really dig deep. You probably already know where I’m going with this, don’t you? One of the more challenging things Jesus asks us to do is to love our enemies. No matter how you define enemy, literal or symbolic, our journey as faithful children of God includes loving our enemies. Loving those who mean to do harm, those who hate others because of the color of their skin, or because of who they love, or because of what they believe. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, but we can’t hate the hate out of others, we can only love the hate out of them. Here’s the thing: we have to love the hell out of those who would use violence to express their self-hatred, we have love the hell out of those who would use violence to express their racism, their hetero-sexism, their ableism, whatever their misguided philosophy or manifesto. In order to love the hell out of this place, we will have to bring our resources to bear in order to get help for those who hate. And, we’re going to have to love them enough to keep the weapons of destruction out of their hands. Our collective resolve as a country, as a group of communities, can’t be based on hatred for the violence done in the name of racism or any other ‘ism’, it’s going to have to be based on love for others. I alluded to this in the Sacred Seeds earlier, but in our love for others, can we please find a way to love our children, to love the vulnerable, even if it means that we sacrifice some of our freedoms? How many of us here, in person or online, really need an assault weapon and high capacity magazine? I’m not looking to get into an argument about how this is a slippery slope on the right to bear arms, I’ve already made up my mind about this: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. How many of us are in a well regulated militia? Military or law enforcement? Those are the people who get to keep and bear arms. Not 18 year olds who are barely old enough to vote, much less have access to assault weapons and Kevlar vests. Can we love enough to bring our resources to bear on this issue? Can we find the resolve to not only love potential perpetrators out of their hate, their self-hatred, and their hate of others, but can we also love our children enough to prevent potential perpetrators from having access to efficient weapons designed and manufactured for only one purpose: to kill? I think we can. It starts with being able to love ourselves as God has made us, with all of our shortcomings, with all of our foibles. And it continues with our love of our family and close friends, and continues still with our love of neighbor and love of stranger. The ultimate test of our use of universal love, the love we remember on Pentecost Sunday, is our ability to love our enemies, to love the world God created so much, that we are willing to sacrifice heard-earned resources, and maybe even some of constitutionally guaranteed rights in order to make the world a safer place. If there was a time when a simple smile signified acceptance, gentleness, and safety, well and good. But I believe that we need something stronger than acceptance, gentleness, and safety in these times: we need love. We need extravagant, assertive, insistent, unwavering, and unconditional love, because it’s only with these gifts that we will be able to love the hell out of this place. Let’s get started. Amen. |
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