The Gratitude Found In the Endings

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Easter Sunday Sermon

Matthew 28:1-10
April 24, 2011
Easter Sunday

After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene
and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great
earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and
rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and
his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became
like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know
that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has
been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly
and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is
going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message
for you.” So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to
tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they
came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to
them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they
will see me.”

From what I understand, the writer Ernest Hemingway once said that “life
breaks everyone,” at some point or another, and I don’t know if truer words
have really ever been spoken. I think the genius of the Christian faith, when
all of the varnish and the layers and layers of stuff that doesn’t really matter
is stripped away, the genius of the Christian faith is that it tells the truth
about the way life really is, and never attempts to sugarcoat reality, it never
asks us to pretend that life is not what it is at times, and what it is, at times,
is difficult. Holy Week, the week leading up to Easter Sunday, is one in which
the events that lead up to Jesus’ crucifixion, are retold in services strewn
throughout the week, and in some Christians traditions, there is a service on
almost every night of the week. We Congregationalists and members of the
United Church of Christ, have never had that tradition—we simply have never
had the stamina, I don’t think—but there is something to the idea of
watching the drama unfold, day by day, until it reaches its seeming climax on
Friday, when the Christ is ultimately crucified, finally done away with it, it
seems. What you get to see is how human the events really were, the
misunderstandings taking place between Jesus and the temple officials, the
ruthless efficiency of the Romans, the scheming, the willingness to throw a
sheep to wolves in order to seemingly save the herd—but you also get to see
goodness of human beings, their great love for each other, even if imperfect,
the promises we make with all our hearts, which we cannot always keep, the
forgiveness given for even the deepest betrayal and abandonment, and even,
even the kindness of strangers, with a man carrying Jesus’ cross for part of
the way up that unholy hill. You and I, we get to see it all, the shadow and
light of humanity, of real life, and nothing is glossed over, betrayals are not
cleaned up, the messiness is all there—you and I, we get to see how life even
breaks the son of God, and we recognize in that broken body they carted off
that unholy hill thousands of years ago, we recognize in him our own story
where life has broken us. Also, in that moment of recognition, that at
different times in our own lives we were like that broken Christ, we
understand that we have been told the truth about the way life really is—that
sometimes life can break us in half.

I have always treasured the truth, even the ugly truth, and I am a Christian
because, this grand Christian story, it tells me the truth about the life I’ve
lived, the world in which my friends and family have their being—it tells me
like it is. And what I mean by that is simply what we experienced in Holy
Week, that things can badly wrong, that crucifixions happen to good people,
people who don’t deserve it, and that good people, well-meaning people can
make promises they cannot keep, that they can betray those they love, for
nothing, for silver, and that dreams, dream can easily become a nightmare, if
the one whom you’ve invested your hope doesn’t live up to those
expectations, like so many did with Jesus. My complaint lately about the
direction of the contemporary church is that it does not trust its members to
handle the truth, the difficulties, the paradoxes, the contradictions, found at
the very heart of our faith, and so we get fed a diet of candy bars and pop in
our churches, while being told that it we’ve just been fed a filet mignon. In a
word of wisdom that I shared in the early part of Lent, a rabbi once advised
this: “Everyone must have two pockets, so that he can reach into one or the
other, according to his needs. In his right pocket are to be the words: “For
my sake was the world created,” and in his left: “I am earth and ashes.”
(Kurtz and Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection 60) Both are true about
us human beings, and yet so often we only reach into one pocket or the
other, not understanding there is a reason we have two pockets, two truths
which live in wonderful tension with each other—and adult with child-like faith
knows that, we know that in our better moments.

And so, the truth of it is that we are earth and ashes, that life breaks us,
that there will be moments of crucifixion, weeks like Holy Week where pain
and cruelty feel like they will overwhelm us, and do us in, and we will
seemingly be no more, that such a moment was not survivable. But, wait,
wait, that is only half the story—in that other pocket is another truth, the
truth that comes after crucifixion, that we are not ONLY broken, and that
even this crucifixion, this horror, this pain, this devastation, can be survived,
and that we too will rise. On Good Friday, I received an email devotional
written by the Rev. Lillian Daniels, one of our UCC ministers, and a portion of
it went like this:

In the weeks after the earthquake in Japan, more than 2,000 swept up on
the shoreline in Miyagi. Exhausted rescue workers were shocked at the
horror of so much loss of life, but on that very same day, Time magazine
reported this incident:

"More accustomed to hearing the crunching of rubble and the sloshing of
mud than sounds of life, they dismissed the baby's cry as a mistake. Until
they heard it again. They made their way to a pile of debris and carefully
removed fragments of wood and slate, shattered glass and rock. And then
they saw her: a 4-month-old baby girl in a pink woolen bear suit. A tidal
wave literally swept the baby from her parents' arms when it hit their home
on March 11. 'Her discovery has put a new energy into the search,' a civil
defense official told a local news crew. 'We will listen, look and dig with even
more diligence after this.'" (Still Speaking Devotional April 22, 2010 Lillian
Daniels)

Many of you were here last Easter when our own beloved Chuck Chronister
passed away about an hour before our worship service here, driving him and
Karen here to the church so that Karen could begin her ushering duties. I
asked Karen if she would mind if I shared a bit of that story here, and she
graciously said yes, and I asked for that gift because if there was ever a
moment when crucifixion, pain and loss, collided with resurrection, with
stories of hope, it was that day. I know for Karen, Easter will never be the
same, and for many of us, it will always be a shadow on this day, and in this
church. And yet, just watching Karen this past year, going through that first
year without Chuck, through the first year milestones that come and go, I’ve
just been in wonder of her strength, and in wonder of God’s goodness to
her, in that slow work of resurrection God has been doing in her life. That
doesn’t mean that resurrection is instantaneous, it doesn’t mean that we
come of our graves, our pain, our hurt, our disappointment, our failures,
without scares, without wounds—I mean, if Christ didn’t escape the tomb,
the grave, without scars—remember his hands, his side, how the wounds
remained?—then why would we think we ever would? And yet, it happens,
resurrection happens, and it keeps happening, even in the most painful
tragedies, even in the horrific wreckage wrought by tsunamis.

But, you know, if you’re in the midst of that grave at that moment, it’s hard
to hear Christ’s words calling us forth out of that tomb, and frankly, you and
I, we can sometimes doubt whether resurrection ever really takes place or
not. I know I’ve spoken words of resurrection and not always believed them
myself, because I couldn’t imagine how I or someone else could ever walk out
of this or that particular grave. I know ministers are expected to have uber
faith, rock solid faith, but we doubt too, we wonder too, if resurrection can
happen in certain places, in certain moments. And so I am thankful for the
people that believed for me, had faith for me, when I had not faith to share,
no belief to speak. That is why friends and church and community matter—
that when we cannot ourselves believe in the truth of resurrection, that on
the other side of crucifixion is the empty grave, when we find ourselves stuck
on Friday, Good Friday, it’s good to know that others believe for us, have
faith for us, that Sunday is coming, that Easter is right around corner.

This past week a movie was released based on Ayn Rand’s novel, Atlas
Shrugged. Now, I never read Atlas Shrugged but I read Rand’s other novel,
The Fountainhead, when I was seventeen, and I was taken with her
philosophy, like a lot of young people, something she called objectivism, but
which is really a philosophy that can be easily summed up in a couple
sentences, like these: I’ve got mine, so you’re on your own baby; I’m on
board the boat, and I’m pulling up the ladder! At seventeen, this full-
throated individualistic philosophy was awfully attractive—I mean, at that age,
you’re trying to find out who you are and how you fit in with the rest of the
world, and you want to believe you can do it and do it on your own. But I
quickly, quickly moved on, and by college I mostly rolled my eyes at her
ideas—that you don’t need anyone, and should never give help or seek help
from anyone. She was a fierce of advocate of laissez fare capitalism at its
most brutal, and so she was against Medicare and Social Security, and
anything that helped out others, including religious charities—she despised
the church and was strident atheist. And yet, late in life, when her fortune
had been depleted, when her wealthy disciples were few, and she began
having major health problems, she was convinced by one of her remaining
disciples to enroll herself into Medicare and Social Security so that she could
get basic medical care, care she could no longer afford. Sometimes in this life
you need help, help from others, help from the government…and sometimes
you need others to believe that resurrection is possible, even if you can’t
believe it yourself, even if you don’t have any faith left. That is the great
thing about church, when it‘s at its best: it can be a place full of people who
believe for you when you can no longer believe for yourself, a people to hope
for you when all hope seems to be lost. And so when you can’t believe that
life can come from the grave, I’ll believe for you, and when I have no faith,
you will hold faith for me. Ayn Rand was wrong about many, many things,
but she was most wrong when she thought she could do it alone—I mean,
we do need each other, as a culture, as a people, as a town, a family, and a
church. And in the life of faith, I need you and you need me to believe in the
power of resurrection when we find we can’t believe that truth on our own.

And yet, that may not be enough, right? Having me believe for you, or you
believe me, may not be enough. I mean, if I tell you not to be afraid, like the
angels do in our story here, that there is more to the story, well, what would
I know about YOUR crucifixion, YOUR grave? We ministers spend a lot of
time trying to offer comforting words to others, but I have to tell there are
times when it’s hard to say anything, it’s difficult to know what to say,
without it sounding shallow or trite or what is expected from us minister
types. I mean, what real authority do I have to offer those words, and what
I would really know of the suffering of this one before me, of their pain, their
sorrow? Why believe me when I tell you not to be afraid, that this isn’t the
end of the story, that, sure, it’s Friday, but Sunday’s comin’? What I say
may be true, but it’s not the words that really matter but the source of
those words: Soren Kierkegaard illustrated the difference by observing that
when a theological student says, “There is eternal life,” and God’s own Son
says, “There is eternal life,” the words maybe the same and equally true, but
there is a critical difference: only one assurance is said with authority.
(Copenhaver, Feasting on the Word, Year A, V 2, p 351). In our story of
resurrection today, it is the angels, the very messengers of God, the
spokespeople of God, who say the words, “Do not be afraid; I know that you
are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been
raised. And so if you have no faith that Sunday is here, that Easter is here,
that resurrection is here, and if the faith of your friends and family and
church is not enough to hold you up, to get you through Friday to this day,
to Sunday, then I point to the One who is to believed, the source, the One
who speaks through these angels, and who tells us that Christ is not here,
that he is risen, and so too, we will rise again. Amen.