We Stoop Down to Rise Up

SSJE

What are you all doing here this morning?

Waiting in the dark, watching, looking, longing; being drenched in holy water and smeared with chrism; sweating under heavy silk vestments…

What are we hoping to find here this morning?

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ, of course.

But what is that?

Is it a poignant metaphor, a beautiful idea, a sophisticated allegory, or a universal archetype?

The Resurrection will not fit into any of these boxes,
however lovely.

Metaphor, idea, allegory, archetype
will inevitably shape any language we use to describe it.

But The Resurrection is the naked Reality to which they point,
the white beam of light passing through the prism,
refracting its rainbow of color.

The Resurrection is the parent: they are her children.

Metaphor, idea, allegory, archetype:
these can plant a seed,
point us in the right direction,
inspire art and music and culture,
or give us ground to stand on for a time
but they cannot save us from the grave.

They do not add up to Easter hope.

Only our trust in a living person
who has died our death
who has opened and emptied our hell
who breathes our name
in the cold morning air —
only that trust prepares us to sing into the mouth of the grave,
Alleluia.

This we have come to believe. This we hold fast, this we cherish, this is the Light by which we see the world, one another, ourselves, and our God. We: the fragile, pilgrim church, bearing the Paschal flame.

Eastertide is a season that invites our varied responses to the many facets of one Resurrection truth. This truth cannot be received in an instant like the flipping of a light switch, the opening of a curtain, or the jangling of a bell. We are swept up in the turning of a cosmic tide, from sorrow to joy, but it is a joy so wondrous and so strange that the Church gives us fifty days, and a lifetime of Eastertides, to receive the mystery.

This Easter morning we have heard Luke’s account of this Mystery. Dawn rises on the first day of the week, and we behold an empty tomb: an absence that calls for interpretation. Luke presents us with three responses of those closest to Jesus: the women who had come with him from Galilee; the eleven apostles; and Peter.

The women “who had come with him from Galilee” are there first. They are there with a concrete task. There had not been time before the Sabbath began to complete the full preparation of Jesus’ body for burial, and so they arrive with aromatic ointments to anoint the dead body of their Teacher. Significantly, the women went into the tomb, and “two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them.” Though these are angelic messengers, their appearance recalls the Transfiguration, when Moses and Elijah stood beside Jesus in glory, speaking of his death and resurrection. But rather than Peter, James, and John, who were present at that moment, it is now Jesus’ female disciples.

While some have argued or assumed that Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them could not have been initiated into Jesus’ teachings about the kingdom in the way his male disciples had, Luke’s gospel provides evidence to the contrary.

At the prompting of the angelic messengers, “they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and all the rest.” To remember the words of Jesus, they must have received them from Jesus. What is more, they do not remain silent in fear (as in Mark’s gospel); nor is it a directive from an angel or the risen Lord himself that prompts them to tell the eleven (as in Matthew’s gospel). In Luke, these faithful women at the tomb go to tell the eleven and the rest of their own volition. It is as if they cannot not share this wondrous experience.

Then, there is the response of the eleven apostles – who have not gone into the tomb themselves, not even visited yet, but receive the report from their sisters. “But these words seemed to them an idle tale (literally nonsense or delirium) and they did not believe them.” The reality of the Resurrection will break through to the eleven, but not on Easter morning.

Finally, there is the response of Peter. Something clearly touches, animates, captivates Peter in what the women at the tomb have shared. Peter gets up, he stands again, the same word for resurrection. He runs to the tomb. Though he does not go into the tomb, he does stoop down and look in through the low door, to see the linen cloths by themselves. Then Peter goes home, amazed, marveling within himself at what had happened. Peter does not yet believe, but the makings of belief have ignited in Peter’s heart.

Peter stands again as the risen Jesus has. He also stoops down, not only to look into the tomb, but he bends in humility by swallowing his pride just enough to consider that the words of the women may be true. It is an opening just small enough for the risen Christ to enter in.

With which of these responses do you most identify this Easter morning?

When I was undergoing clinical pastoral education training in a hospital, there were plenty of interactions that went something like this:

“Hi, I’m Keith – I’m a chaplain from the spiritual care department. May I come in? Would you like to talk?”

And I’d hear:

“Not interested!” Or sometimes, “Can you bring me someone who can actually help?” In other words, “Idle tales! Nonsense! Delirium!”

I did seem to have a knack for working with older white men whose spirituality was a good bit like Peter’s at the empty tomb. Amid the crisis of illness or dying, these were men responding to unfinished business: the business of attending to the amazement within themselves that God may yet be real; that with God, impossible life may yet spring out of diminishment and death; and that it is not yet too late to respond to that reality in love and in faith.

But then there were the patients in whom I knew, beyond a doubt, I had witnessed the crucified-and-risen Jesus. These were people who remembered the words of Jesus; knew his ways from the inside; had anointed his dead body with their own hands. They had already died and risen with him many times. Frankly, the vast majority of these were women of color, most of them dying, but upheld by a spiritual vitality that could only come from God. As I left their presence, they would press my palm with withered fingers exclaiming, “God bless you, young man! Praise him! Today is the day to do the work of Jesus! If you forget that, you come right back here tomorrow!” And if I had even one of those conversations, I could face an entire week of “Not interested!”

This Easter, whose witness to the reality of the Resurrection do you most need to hear?

If the world discounts the value or the truth of your gospel; your basic worth and dignity; if you receive subtle or not-so-subtle messages that discount your spiritual authority because of your gender, your race, your age, the ways your body expresses love or your brain accomplishes tasks, the witness you most need to hear may be your own: Christ crucified-and-risen in your own life, your own flesh, your own heart. Listen to it this Eastertide, and then please, ask yourself how you can share it with the rest of us.

If you find that power, privilege, abundant competence, or high visibility have marked your life, ask how these defining experiences may subtly shape your experience of the Easter message. In the way of Jesus, the message of God’s victory is first made plain to those who are “strangers to success and power as the world defines them” – and to those who have stooped down and looked into the empty tomb alongside them.

In either case, you are probably intimately familiar with suffering and even death.

The Resurrection does not take these experiences from us. You know this. I know this. It does not exempt us from the suffering that is the lot of every human being, the suffering that was the lot of Jesus in sharing our humanity. The Resurrection is the unbreakable pledge that our suffering can become like his.

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is, in the words of Rowan Williams,
“the open door that exists in the heart of every situation because of God’s freedom.”
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Word made Flesh, neutralizes the power of every cave or cage or hospital bed and fills them with the raw potential for good and glory.

Death presents to the world a final door that is locked and sealed forever. The crucified-and-risen Christ has wrenched that door from its hinges, so that we may pass through it, as he did, into the heart of God.

Beginning today. Beginning now.

Alleluia, Christ is Risen. Amen.