I am sick and tired of dying and death. A 17-year-old girl driving home from a hockey match. A husband of but 2 ½ years. Four more twenty-somethings in Iraq…where does it end? And then this young man in the Middle East, a political prisoner who was humiliated and tortured. Thirty-three years old. He died, too. I am sick to death of it all, aren’t you?
“Now wait a minute, Ned, you can’t fool me. That last person was Jesus, wasn’t it? Jesus was 33, more or less, when he died. Wasn’t he just as much a political liability for the Romans? We know he was tortured and Jerusalem is as Middle East as it gets.” And you know what, you are absolutely right. I was thinking of Jesus and his dying and death 2,000 years ago, and I’m just as sick to death about that.
Don’t you think the women who came to the tomb early that Sunday morning were of the same mind? Mark identifies them as Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome. Like our world, their world was filled with violence and innocent suffering. Crucifixion was a favorite Roman choice of execution, and Jesus certainly wasn’t the first to be crucified in that hotbed of sedition that Jerusalem represented. The women were sick to death of it all and now it had gotten personal. These three women were Jesus’ friends. They knew better than anyone else how tragic his death was. They had come to the tomb to anoint his body, part of death’s loving ritual for the pious Jew. They were tired, they were depressed, they were mind-numbingly sad. And then the angel appeared to help them see a new thing.
A friend of mine recently saw an angel who helped him see a new thing. His name is Jim Kowalski and he is the Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, the largest cathedral in the world, a massive church in Morningside Heights adjacent to Columbia University. As many of you know, St. John’s is often called “St. John’s the Unfinished.” Despite the vibrancy and scope of its extraordinary ministry which welcomes hundreds of thousands of people every year to its worship and programs and outreach, a visitor cannot fail to notice that the building itself is, well, unfinished. When Jim went there to be Dean, he realized what a daunting task he faced not only in raising some $200 million to complete the Cathedral, but to stabilize the Cathedral’s finances before they could even think to attract capital donors. To top it off, there had been a devastating fire in one of the Cathedral’s transepts that would require some 20s and 30s of millions of dollars in interior restoration. That work has now begun and he wrote this to his friends,
Recently, I climbed up to the very top of the Cathedral, and I found myself in awe at the sight of great beauty. The restoration was underway, and the giant scaffolding was in place. Up we climbed, way above the top tier of stained glass windows. Up to the very roof. There, hundreds of feet above the sight of worshipers or visitors we found an angel. It was the face of a serene and beautiful angel, carved long ago by sculptors in the Cathedral’s earliest days—far above, far away from where anyone would visit. And as I looked beyond her in the dim light, I realized that she was not alone. She was but one of a heavenly host. I found that just a wonderful inspiration—that in our glorious (but as yet unfinished and unrestored) building, high above us, there are angels—ever praying for us, ever interceding with God for us—permanent and very beautiful.
Jim had an experience I would liken to that of the women on that Easter morning who saw an angel in Jesus’ tomb. He was looking at the Cathedral in a new way, from a new perspective. He could remember that out of the devastation of the terrible fire, out of decades of work begun but then unfinished, that God was ultimately to be trusted, that a new thing could happen to bring hope and faith.
That’s what happened to the women on Easter morning. They came upon an angel unexpectedly, St. Mark simply describes him as a young man dressed in a white robe. The angel tells them that Jesus is not here, that Jesus is risen. They came to the tomb expecting to find death. And don’t we all? But the angel helped them to see a new thing, that death had been conquered, that death had been defeated, that life is God’s final answer. To be sure, the women’s first reaction was fear. As yet, how could they understand, really understand, what God had accomplished? They would, in time, come to that full knowledge of the revelation as Paul describes it, “Now we are looking through a glass darkly, then face to face.” Their “face to face” with Jesus would follow, but for now the messenger was an angel, a kind, beautiful angel sent from God to help them see a new thing.
Every one of us here today brings with us some knowledge, some experience, some feeling about death: something very near, something very distant, but something inescapable. And so this story, this Easter story, has to do not just with those women or the rest of Jesus’ disciples, as if a piece of Christian history to be trotted out once a year and embellished with trumpets and flowers. It has rather to do with you and me today, this very hour, this very minute, as vital as the next breath we take. And it has to do with the 17-year-old who was killed on her way home from a hockey match, with the husband of but 2 ½ years, with those four twenty-somethings who died in Iraq. And moreover, because death is so pervasive, so all-encompassing, Christ’s resurrection is huge. There’s nothing sentimental or sweet about our claim that Christ has been raised, and because Christ has been raised we shall be raised. Paul says if there is no resurrection we are fools and most be pitied. I would add that without the Resurrection life is meaningless, random, a victory for the Devil.
But that angel comes to our tomb and says that Christ has been raised, that life has meaning and possibilities we can barely imagine. Despite every bit of evidence to the contrary, Christians are those who dare to say, “Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia.” We dare to say it in the face of every cynic, every doubter, every bit of hesitation even in our own hearts, because we are sick and tired of dying and death, and so, thank God, is God.
And so to those friends of the 17-year-old, to the wife of her husband of but 2 ½ years, and to the families of the four twenty-somethings, and to everyone here, the angel who appears at the tomb of Jesus is showing you, is showing us a new thing.
Through the veil of our tears
the Risen Christ will begin to reveal himself
and we will find rest and comfort for our souls.
