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April 8, 2007 10:30 Service Rev. Steve Gehlert What kind of Sabbath had Mary passed the day before? Surely not a day of holy rest and renewal. More likely, she spent her Sabbath in a hell-fury of grief and recriminations against the Romans, against the Sanhedrin, against the very Creator of the universe. And perhaps against Jesus himself. Could you not wait with me one hour, you said. Could you not walk one more mile? We said. One more mile and you would have been safely in the desert. You let it happen. You and your Abba. For us, that'd be the end of it, modern people that we are. We modern people have convinced ourselves that nothing is real except what we can see, taste, and touch. They'd seen him dead. Reminds me of a grocery store clerk last week. I was thumbing through the bananas, for my morning cereal. I have specific banana needs you see: ripe enough to use the next morning, but not so ripe that they'll go bad by the end of the week. None of them seemed to fill the bill. So I asked, "Do you have any more bananas?" His reply was, "What you see is all there is, take it or leave it." That's pretty much a summary of how we see life, isn't it. You look at the world. There are lots of things that don't seem right. Lots of things about the world displease us. But we say to ourselves, "Well, what we see is all there is! Guess we have to take it or leave it." Most of us learn to take it, as it is. We take the world, asking only for a way to make our way in it, and because we think that what we see is all there is, we think that we have to do that on our own. We think that we have to live with ourselves as the center of our own little personal universe. Given those two assumptions: what you see is all there is; so what you better do is live for yourself, we would have stayed in bed that Sunday morning. Why get up? Jesus was dead? So, now it's up to me to take care of myself, stay safe, not risk giving myself away for such foolishness ever again. That's what Mary could've done, stopped there, stayed in bed. She certainly knew "what she'd seen." Therefore, she could deduce what to expect. Nothing! Jesus had lived out his noble ideas, refused to fight for them, given himself up, and gotten himself crucified. He'd failed, a dead leader of a movement whose members had abandoned him, scattered, and were hiding in fear. That was reality. Take it or leave it! And with death, there's not much choice but to take it, take it and grieve. But, Mary didn't stop there, didn't stay in bed. Early in the morning, while it was still dark, she went to the tomb. For what purpose? With what hope? None! Mary expected nothing. Yet, alone, in danger, she enters the thundering absence of the one she loves, and by so doing, puts herself where revelation finds her ready, ready for something beyond imagining. What is loss, after all, but an experience of love? If you didn't love, there'd be no loss. Absence is a kind of presence, a longing that makes what we miss about the loved one all the more real. Love! Love and the mourning, emptiness, and devotion that flow from it, drove Mary to the tomb with her myrrh. Not to expect a miracle, but to express love for the one who died, to be there for him. Mary's love piercing the darkness, raises a question for us. Can we love that much? Love enough to truly grieve? Love enough to risk danger and darkness? Love enough to give ourselves when there's no promise of any return? Love enough to go with her, go with her into the dangerous darkness, to wait with her with our offering - the bitter myrrh of tears and grief. Go with her during this dark hour, to find that the absence becomes real presence. When Mary arrived at the tomb she saw that the stone that covered the entrance had been rolled away, and that the tomb was empty, she immediately saw what had happened. Obviously someone had stolen the body of Jesus and she did not know where they had put him. Even when the angels appear and ask her why she is weeping, Mary still says that someone has stolen the body of Jesus. It is not until Jesus himself appears to Mary and calls her by name that she begins to see. Even then, she at first thinks that the risen Christ is a gardener. Mary just can't get out of her mind that she is at a cemetery, a place of death and loss. She can't refocus her eyes, even when Jesus speaks to her. What does it take to see what's there? Really there! It's not enough to say, "What you see is what you get." Our perception's inadequate, so easily shaped by our assumptions and expectations, our seemingly solidly based assumptions and expectations that nothing can overcome the power of death. What enables us to see differently? What can grab us, turn our eyes the right way, and help us focus? For Mary, it was love. Love for the crucified Jesus, who came to her in love, as she'd come to him, in love, expecting nothing. He didn't leave her to her own devices. He didn't expect her to build upon her experience, or rely on her misperceptions. He came to her, spoke to her. He turned her gaze away from what was expected to what was being revealed. Faithful in the midst of the unknowable, Love calls her by name: Mary! Mary, it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who calls you by name. She recognizes her beloved in the calling of her name. And she can respond: "Rabboni! (Teacher)," Saying not only who he was to her, but who he is now and will be for her and for us, the teacher, the one who shows us a new way of seeing life, God, and ourselves, the one who will show us, the real truth. Maybe that's why we call Christianity a revealed religion. You can't see it until it's revealed, given to you, until you experience the gift of the presence of the Risen Christ, and get your eyes opened. That's Easter! Love being given, overcoming everything. Overcoming death. Overcoming even our inability to see that death had been overcome. Love coming to us to help us see and receive the gift. What happened in this place of darkness? Thomas Merton says, Love gives an experience, a taste of what we've not seen and aren't yet able to see. Love opens us to and presents us with this treasure, love enters the darkness. There in the darkness, lays hands upon us, shows us and gives us the gift. Love impelled Mary into the dark and love met her there. That's how it's to be for us. When love leads us into disappointment, pain, and danger, or simply to do what we may not want or need to do, love will meet us there. Maybe not just like Mary's Easter, but over the abysses and deserts of life. Do you want the gift of Easter life and faith? Remember Mary and her love. Look into your heart. What's there? How open is it to caring, to grieving, to giving, with no expectation of reward? That's the kind of heart that Jesus came to in garden, called by name, and gifted with joy and hope. Easter - an extraordinary encounter that bestows a supreme gift upon us - God's future! Like an icon, Mary reveals God's intention for us all: that we move from cynical self-absorption, to the risky-ness of love, love that'll mean pain and grief, but will open us to the power that raised Jesus to life, and can raise us beyond empty self-seeking to the joy of living for God and others. Like Mary, we're called 1st to love enough to get out of bed to carry our myrrh to the tomb, and then, confronted with the joyous good news, to become message bearers, to shout to all the world, "He is risen! |
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