"Do
not be alarmed," he said. Why shouldn't they be alarmed? Why shouldn't
they be terrified? I would be. You would be. We're always afraid when
we think something terrible has happened or is about to happen, and
the women who come to the tomb on Easter morning are no exception.
Let's
reconstruct the scene: Jesus had died an agonizing death on the cross
the Friday before. I'm still not quite sure why the Church calls it
"Good Friday" because nothing about the story is obviously
good. It is a story of betrayal, dirty politics, terrible pain, cruel
violence. Sounds familiar. Nonetheless, while the Disciples fled from
the scene because they were afraid that by association they could be
crucified too, the women, these women in our story this morning, looked
on from a distance-the same women Mark tells us in his gospel who had
followed Jesus from Galilee and who had cared for him, had provided
for him. These two Marys and Salome saw where Jesus was buried because
it was their intention to care for him in death as they had cared for
him in life. But when Jesus died it was the Sabbath, and Jewish law
prohibited the anointing of the dead until the Sabbath was over. And
so it was early on Sunday when they arrived with the necessary spices
wondering whom they might enlist to roll the great stone away from the
mouth of his tomb.
The first
surprise they have is seeing that the stone had already been rolled
back. The second surprise, however, was complete bewilderment because
the body of Jesus was not there. Instead, they see a young man dressed
in a white robe (Mark doesn't say it outright, but implies it's an angel
because he gives the women a message and that's one of the things angels
do), and that's where we left off when I began the sermon: "Do
not be alarmed," he said.
But why
shouldn't they? Had someone stolen the body of Jesus? Did Joseph of
Arimathea renege after deciding he didn't want Jesus placed in his tomb
after all? I mean, what would you think? But then the angel says, "You
are looking for Jesus but he is not here because he has been raised
from the dead. And so you should tell his other disciples and Peter
in particular that he's going to meet you back home, back in Galilee."
So what do they do? They do what any sane person would. They tear out
of there and pay not the slightest attention to the angel's assurance
and message because they are in fact terrified and they won't tell a
soul about it, at least not then.
There
are lots of these "Be not afraid" episodes in the Bible. Remember
the angel's advice to the shepherds when Jesus was born: "Be not
afraid. I bring you glad tidings of great joy." And then this quote
"Be not afraid" from the angel which is then repeated by the
risen Christ when the disciples encounter him for the first time. "Be
not afraid," he said.
There
is a certain pattern of fear that emerges from the stories of the gospels
to which the antidote is faith. The women and the other disciples have
every reason to be afraid until that fear is replaced by faith that
God has done something wonderful in the resurrection of Jesus-that as
he died and was raised so will we die and be raised, the faith we have
that we shall be forever safe.
Today,
you and I, like those disciples, have every reason to be a fearful people.
The injustice and the cruelty and the violence and the hatred that resulted
in Christ's crucifixion are around us on every side. You know the litany
as well as I do, whether it's the war in Iraq or the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, or terrorism of every stripe and variety, or a terrible economy,
or physical and emotional addictions, or whatever. Those are the biggies,
but there are also more garden varieties: getting into the college of
our choice, the other driver out there on the road, the smaller neuroses
of life, am I dressed properly, or would anybody care?
Years
before these past few decades, the Twentieth Century was called "The
Age of Anxiety." Thomas Hardy wrote in 1924,
After
two thousand years of Mass
We've got as far as poison gas.
But the
angel and Jesus meant it when they said, "Don't be afraid."
They meant it because Christ's resurrection was God's answer to a sinful
and broken and fearful world that God will not abandon us, that life,
not death, is the final answer. As overwhelming as those televised images
of war are, and as overwhelming as the despair Jesus' disciples felt
on Good Friday, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is ultimately
that victory God intends for the whole of the created order and all
of us as a part of that order God loves so much. Moreover, the Resurrection
has a human face. It is to be understood, not just at the end of time
but resurrection right now, resurrection in your life and in my life.
Let me
tell you again the story of my friend Dorothy who leads a life of resurrection
despite all the odds. I first met Dorothy when I was a young curate,
barely out of seminary, when she called me to see if the church could
help her because she was the mother of five children who had suffered
at the hands of an abusive father, a husband who had also abused Dorothy.
She had already gotten a restraining order against her husband's ever
having contact with her or her children while she tried to find some
way to support her family. Dorothy had no education, no skills to speak
of, and she had a cleft palate, which made it hard to always understand
her, but she was tenacious when it came to the safekeeping of her family.
Until she could find a job she had to go on Welfare and even after finding
work as a cleaning woman in the local nursing home, she had to rely
on Welfare and the support of her friends. Dorothy didn't have much
going for her, but she did have faith, and I'll get to that in just
a minute.
Along
the way as one by one her children became independent, all except Bruce
who had disabilities which would always make him dependent upon Dorothy,
Dorothy managed to pay back all of the welfare she had received despite
a heart condition and periods of time when she was laid off from work.
It's thirty years later now, and Dorothy and I keep in touch from time
to time, and I am invariably the stronger as she shares with me how
good God has been to her. Last year she called to tell me she was moving
to South Carolina but also that she had Diabetes and was diagnosed with
Alzheimer's disease. Last week she called me to say that she'd arrived
and that she was in a wonderful new trailer, more than enough room for
Dorothy and Bruce, but that her Social Security barely covers the mortgage,
"but Bruce is working and we'll do OK." Her Alzheimer's disease
is frustrating because while she can still drive, she has to have Bruce
with her to give her directions. She said, "I don't blame it on
God, but I do ask him 'why' from time to time."
Her son-in-law
in South Carolina is a Baptist minister, but Dorothy told me that the
only people who go to his church is his family. She did ask him why
they don't have Communion in his church, but his answer was unsatisfactory.
She said, "Ned, I told him I'd teach him about Holy Communion,
that I know all about it."
If I need
any evidence of the Resurrection, all I have to do is give Dorothy a
call. I'm sure all of you have seen the Resurrection in a human face.
If not in a Dorothy, then in the face of someone who has loved you unconditionally,
in the face of someone who has encouraged you, in the face of someone
who has cared for you, in the face of someone who has prayed for you.
We can't always see God's hand at work in the world in which we live,
in events which are too big for us to know the implications and the
outcomes, but I can see the hand of God in Dorothy's face, I can see
it in Bev's face, I can see it in Elizabeth and Marnie, and I can see
it in your faces. I thank God for that because it means that Christ's
resurrection is right here, right now, and forever. Amen.
