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April 8, 2007 Early Service Rev. Steve Gehlert It's been officially Spring for over three weeks. Underneath the snow, the world's awakening after months of winter slumber. Grass is turning green, flowers are blooming, pushing up out of the ground, or busting out of tree branches, painting the landscape with colors we've longed to see. Birds have begun their songs, and the bees their carpentry, as if making nature's Easter music. The church's most important holy day coincides with the renewal of creation. This connection between springtime and Easter seems so natural that, unless we're vigilant, we succumb to thinking that resurrection is as natural as grass coming up green, eggs cracking open to reveal chicks, or butterflies crawling out of cocoons. As beautiful as this coincidence is, there is something deceptive about it, and we need to remember that there's nothing about resurrection that's natural. The Gospel writers have their own ways of making this point. Mark writes that when the women go to the tomb to anoint Jesus' body with spices they discover the impossible - the stone has been rolled away and an angel is sitting where Jesus should've been lying stiff and cold. They flee in "terror and amazement." Matthew adds as earthquake, and an angel that frightens the guards until they shake and become like dead men. John gives us a mystified Mary Magdalene encountering someone she assumes is the gardener but who turns out to be Jesus, who when she calls him by a familiar name, says, "Do not hold on to me," as if to suggest now, after the resurrection, everything is oriented not toward what's familiar, but toward a new thing that is about to happen. Luke suggests something I hadn't noticed before. Unlike those of the other Gospel writers, his account is peppered with the word but. After describing Jesus' death and burial, he says "but." But on the first day of the week at early dawn, Luke says, they came to the tomb with the spices that they had prepared. In Luke - in only twelve verses - this abrupt, challenging conjunction but shows up six times. It's as if Luke is grabbing us by the lapels, stopping us in our tracks and forcing us to understand that no matter what we've heard, we haven't heard the whole story yet. So he begins that story in a curious way, with this challenging conjunction. But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb . . . What is Luke up to with this stubborn, defiant conjunction? Luke knows that there's another storyteller loose in the world, one who tempted Jesus in the wilderness with twisted, half-truths, one who preaches a half-gospel of Good Friday that can't get past the hopeless finality of the crucifixion, one who's been in charge, and had everybody's ear, who's ruled and shaped our assumptions of how life is, how we ought to live, what we ought to trust, and what we ought to live for. That other storyteller is still trying to promote everything about our world that denies life, that's cynical, oppressive and tyrannical and survives best on a diet of our passivity. That storyteller is persuasive and eager to subvert resurrection faith with premature certainties about the way things are—so we'll be persuaded that there was never an Easter at all, not in any way that shapes our hopes, our trusts, what we live and die for. Yes, that other storyteller is very persuasive. Telling us nothing much matters but being cool, having a good time, not putting ourselves out. Telling us that we, ourselves, are the end all, be all, of every-thing, that we should live to be able to do what we want and not do what we don't want. Telling us that life is about acquiring more for ourselves, regardless of what it means for relationships with others, or what it does to the world. Telling us that there's nothing in this world worthy of our awe and reverence, or of our sacrifice. So, why show that anything matters, anything moves you? Why not be cool and above it all? So, why give anything of myself to express commitment, love, or care; why give time, talent, energy, or money? Why think that anyone deserves thanks and praise? Why, indeed, when the other story teller's does such a good job telling us that everything, even what we call worship, should be about me getting something for myself, affirmation, good feelings. This story teller wants to deceive us even about worship, wants to tell us it's not about God at all, but about us, about therapy, or at least a pick-me-up, for us. That's what the deceiver wants, for us to accept those self-centered assumptions, turn from God, to live for ourselves, and then find ourselves alone. But. . . But God doesn't let the deciever be the only voice in the world. God cried out to Abraham, Moses, and all the prophets. God shouted in that baby's cry at Bethlehem, God spoke in the teachings of Jesus, and today God's voice is raised again. "This is the way the world is," says the other voice, "there's nothing there to count on but yourself, so go for it, get all you can, however you can; don't waste your time or energy or money on sappy faith or soft compassion." Yeh, this other voice spoke with supreme confidence on Good Friday, thought the opponent had been done away with, silenced forever, that his would be the only voice from then on. But. . .. But then, on the 3rd morning, this morning, God's voice cries out through an empty tomb. But. . .it's not over yet. In fact, it's just beginning, my reign of love has just begun. The other voice says death always has the final say. "But," says God, "Jesus is risen!" The other voice says, " Live in fear of what life can do to you." "But," says God, "now you don't have to be afraid, now you can dare to live for God and others." Easter is a gigantic "but" to everything the world wants to tell us. When I was in high school my buddy Randy invited me to a Good Friday service at the Baptist Church he attended. Well, it was quite a different experience. I was amazed at how effectively the pastor got people loosened up enough to shout an occasional "Amen." But what I loved most was what he said after he finished reading the crucifixion story. It wasn't the usual "This ends the reading of God's Holy Word." but, "May God bless you, and may God protect you from the enemy who would try to steal the Word from you." "The enemy who'd try to steal the word from you!" Luke is worried about that enemy in his Easter text. As I see the busy-ness and consumerism, the callousness to the needs of others and ready use of violence of our times, I worry about that enemy too, that other storyteller who is so very effective at trying to steal the Easter word from us. But . . . if Jesus really rose from the dead, that means that he's loose in the world with power to raise us up from whatever is dragging us down - power to complete what we can't finish by ourselves. It means that the story of hopeless finality that that other storyteller is peddling is, in the end, nothing but Friday talk. So we're here for Resurrection Day, when what gets proclaimed from the empty tomb is a rebuttal so dramatic, so unnatural that it receives and absorbs every ounce of cynicism and apathy, selfishness and hatred, that the world can dish out. Then it continues on with this announcement: "But on the first day of the week, at early dawn. . . the men in dazzling clothes said to them, 'Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.'" The gospel, as Karl Barth once put it, "is not a natural therefore but a miraculous nevertheless." Perhaps it is in truth a defiant conjunction itself, which, if we can dare to speak it until it speaks us, will enable us to faithfully follow the humble, loving steps of the one who is present with us today - with us when we make our baptismal promises, with us at table when we share communion with friends and enemies, and across the landscape of the whole world - one who is not dead but. . . |
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