Year C
Isaiah 65:17-25
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
Acts 10:34-43
Luke 24:1-12
May the words of my mouth O God\u2026 speak your truth\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Gospels are silent\u2026 about what happened after Jesus’ body was wrapped in a linen cloth\u2026 and placed in Joseph of Arimethea’s rock-hewn tomb\u2026 the women who had come from Galilee on Friday saw the tomb\u2026 and saw just where and just how his body had been laid\u2026 but because the Sabbath was beginning\u2026 they returned so they could prepare the spices and ointments they’d use after the Sabbath ended\u2026 and from sunset on Friday until Sunday morning\u2026 they rested according to the commandment\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They saw with their own eyes where Jesus’ body had been placed\u2026 but when they returned on the first day of the week\u2026 perhaps recalling the first day of creation\u2026 the stone was rolled away from the entrance\u2026 and when they went in\u2026 they didn’t find his body\u2026 there was an empty space where Jesus was supposed to be\u2026 a void\u2026 and in that Sabbath silence\u2026 just like in the same moment in Genesis\u2026 God created something new\u2026 out of irrepressible and unconditional love\u2026 and even though the four Gospels’ accounts of the discovery of the empty tomb\u2026 are significantly different from each other\u2026 it doesn’t really matter that the testimony of witnesses can’t agree on the number of women\u2026 the number of angels\u2026 the timing of the tomb’s opening\u2026 the appearance or absence of Jesus\u2026 or in the message which was given to be conveyed\u2026 it doesn’t really matter\u2026 because all of the accounts tell the same story of life out of death\u2026 and yet… even in their differences\u2026 they hint at what today’s two men in dazzling clothes asked the women\u2026 with their faces low bowed to the ground\u2026 perhaps even touching the dust… Why do you look for the living among the dead<\/em>\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Gospel is silent about what happened next\u2026 but I’m aware of some interesting questions\u2026 the text says\u2026 the men said<\/em>\u2026 so did the two men speak in unison\u2026 when did the women stand back up\u2026 after that first question\u2026 or not until the two men stopped speaking\u2026 were the women able to look on the angel’s faces\u2026 when and how did the two angels depart\u2026 did the women talk among themselves before they left\u2026 were any of them overwhelmed by the presence of the holy\u2026 like Peter may have been during the Transfiguration\u2026 and did they acknowledge to each other that they probably wouldn’t be believed\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n And they weren’t\u2026 their words seemed an idle tale\u2026 but still\u2026 after hearing the women’s testimony\u2026 Peter got up and ran to the tomb\u2026 stooped down\u2026 looked in\u2026 and saw the linen cloths by themselves\u2026 you see\u2026 even when we do believe what someone tells us\u2026 even when they describe an event in such detail that we know they couldn’t possibly have made it up\u2026 credibility can still be strained\u2026 and it may be\u2026 that even if a man had come back\u2026 and told the apostles what the women told them\u2026 Peter would still have gone\u2026 he just must have been one of those people who had to see it for himself\u2026 because when we experience something with our five senses\u2026 it becomes real in a different way\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just three days ago\u2026 we returned to communion in two kinds\u2026 for two years\u2026 we have abstained from the chalice citing an abundance of caution\u2026 and while our theology strongly affirms\u2026 is adamant\u2026 that when we receive in one kind\u2026 we receive the benefits of both kinds\u2026 because Christ is contained fully in each\u2026 even when we believe fully that we lose nothing by receiving bread alone\u2026 we all know\u2026 it’s just not the same\u2026 we want to drink deeply of that which gives life\u2026 we want our spiritual thirsts to be quenched with Christ’s life giving love\u2026 so we’re reassured that we’re forgiven our sin\u2026 reassured that we have been united with Christ in a resurrection like his\u2026 reassured that we’re not alone in resisting evil\u2026 the problem with Easter is that once we celebrate\u2026 here\u2026 Christ’s victory over sin\u2026 death\u2026 and the devil\u2026 we go back out into a world where sin\u2026 death\u2026 and the evil are still stark realities\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n We are still navigating deep political divisions\u2026 horrific evil being perpetrated on Ukrainian civilians and catastrophic destruction of property\u2026 regular mass shootings in this country\u2026 and police shootings in our own city\u2026 laws aimed at making it more difficult for some groups of people to vote\u2026 a new Don’t Say Gay law in Florida\u2026 an emerging COVID variant which may set us back\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n And so for me\u2026 and for many others I know\u2026 our Easter celebrations may be a bit muted this year\u2026 our iron-clad faith remains in tact\u2026 but the grace through which we slosh\u2026 may be tainted with fatigue\u2026 with trauma and grief\u2026 with us feeling hesitant to tell our tale\u2026 for fear of not being believed\u2026 it may feel a little bit like receiving communion in only one kind\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I wonder too\u2026 how many of us continue to search for life in the midst of death\u2026 Pastor Nancy Claire Pittman wrote\u2026 we may want to tend the corpses of long dead ideas and ideals\u2026 we may cling to former visions of ourselves and our churches\u2026 as if they might come back to life so long as we hold onto them\u2026 we may grasp our loved ones too tightly\u2026 refusing to allow them to change\u2026 to become bigger\u2026 or smarter\u2026 or stronger\u2026 we may choose to stay with what we know in our hearts to be dead\u2026 because it is safe\u2026 that’s why the words of these unworldly messengers remind us to stop hanging onto the dead\u2026 and to move into new life\u2026 that the Holy One dwells\u2026 wherever new life bursts forth\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n And even though\u2026 even if\u2026 our experience of Easter is muted somewhat this year\u2026 because of everything going on around us\u2026 I’m confident that most people from two-thousand years ago would think we’ve got it made in the shade\u2026 that the challenges we face would seem like nothing compared to their daily struggles\u2026 but even more so\u2026 Christ’s resurrection and promise of eternal life\u2026 would be like going from face down in the dust\u2026 to having robes put around us\u2026 and sandals put on our feet\u2026 and rings placed on our fingers\u2026 because we were dead\u2026 and have now been found alive\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an essay entitled Return to Tipasa\u2026 the French novelist Albert Camus\u2026 responding to his own life\u2019s adversities\u2026 wrote\u2026 In the middle of winter\u2026 I at last discovered that there was in me… an invincible summer<\/em>\u2026 this invincibility is Emmanuel\u2026 God with us\u2026 it is\u2026 as Thomas Merton wrote\u2026 a point at the center of our being of pure truth\u2026 a spark which belongs entirely to God\u2026 it is like a pure diamond\u2026 blazing with the invisible light of heaven\u2026 and it is this light of heaven\u2026 which gives us hope\u2026 and makes joyous our Easter celebrations\u2026 not because of our experience here and now\u2026 but because of how incomprehensibly glorious our experience will be\u2026 when the fearful finality of our deaths really do\u2026 turn out to be just idle tales\u2026 and for that we say Happy Easter\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Year C Isaiah 65:17-25 Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 Acts 10:34-43 Luke 24:1-12 May the words of my mouth O God\u2026 speak your truth\u2026 The Gospels are silent\u2026 about what happened after Jesus’ body was wrapped in a linen cloth\u2026 and placed in Joseph of Arimethea’s rock-hewn tomb\u2026 the women who had come from Galilee on Friday saw the tomb\u2026 and saw just where and just how his body had been laid\u2026 but because the Sabbath was beginning\u2026 they returned so they could prepare the spices and ointments they’d use after the Sabbath ended\u2026 and from sunset on Friday until Sunday morning\u2026 they rested according to the commandment\u2026 They saw with their own eyes where Jesus’ body had been placed\u2026 but when they returned on the first day of the week\u2026 perhaps recalling the first day of creation\u2026 the stone was rolled away from the entrance\u2026 and when they went in\u2026 they didn’t find his body\u2026 there was an empty space where Jesus was supposed to be\u2026 a void\u2026 and in that Sabbath silence\u2026 just like in the same moment in Genesis\u2026 God created something new\u2026 out of irrepressible and unconditional love\u2026 and even though the four Gospels’ accounts of the discovery of the empty tomb\u2026 are significantly different from each other\u2026 it doesn’t really matter that the testimony of witnesses can’t agree on the number of women\u2026 the number of angels\u2026 the timing of the tomb’s opening\u2026 the appearance or absence of Jesus\u2026 or in the message which was given to be conveyed\u2026 it doesn’t really matter\u2026 because all of the accounts tell the same story of life out of death\u2026 and yet… even in their differences\u2026 they hint at what today’s two men in dazzling clothes asked the women\u2026 with their faces low bowed to the ground\u2026 perhaps even touching the dust… Why do you look for the living among the dead\u2026 The Gospel is silent about what happened next\u2026 but I’m aware of some interesting questions\u2026 the text says\u2026 the men said\u2026 so did the two men speak in unison\u2026 when did the women stand back up\u2026 after that first question\u2026 or not until the two men stopped speaking\u2026 were the women able to look on the angel’s faces\u2026 when and how did the two angels depart\u2026 did the women talk among themselves before they left\u2026 were any of them overwhelmed by the presence of the holy\u2026 like Peter may have been during the Transfiguration\u2026 and did they acknowledge to each other that they probably wouldn’t be believed\u2026 And they weren’t\u2026 their words seemed an idle tale\u2026 but still\u2026 after hearing the women’s testimony\u2026 Peter got up and ran to the tomb\u2026 stooped down\u2026 looked in\u2026 and saw the linen cloths by themselves\u2026 you see\u2026 even when we do believe what someone tells us\u2026 even when they describe an event in such detail that we know they couldn’t possibly have made it up\u2026 credibility can still be strained\u2026 and it may be\u2026 that even if a man had come back\u2026 and told the apostles what the women told them\u2026 Peter would still have gone\u2026 he just must have been one of those people who had to see it for himself\u2026 because when we experience something with our five senses\u2026 it becomes real in a different way\u2026 Just three days ago\u2026 we returned to communion in two kinds\u2026 for two years\u2026 we have abstained from the chalice citing an abundance of caution\u2026 and while our theology strongly affirms\u2026 is adamant\u2026 that when we receive in one kind\u2026 we receive the benefits of both kinds\u2026 because Christ is contained fully in each\u2026 even when we believe fully that we lose nothing by receiving bread alone\u2026 we all know\u2026 it’s just not the same\u2026 we want to drink deeply of that which gives life\u2026 we want our spiritual thirsts to be quenched with Christ’s life giving love\u2026 so we’re reassured that we’re forgiven our sin\u2026 reassured that we have been united with Christ in a resurrection like his\u2026 reassured that we’re not alone in resisting evil\u2026 the problem with Easter is that once we celebrate\u2026 here\u2026 Christ’s victory over sin\u2026 death\u2026 and the devil\u2026 we go back out into a world where sin\u2026 death\u2026 and the evil are still stark realities\u2026 We are still navigating deep political divisions\u2026 horrific evil being perpetrated on Ukrainian civilians and catastrophic destruction of property\u2026 regular mass shootings in this country\u2026 and police shootings in our own city\u2026 laws aimed at making it more difficult for some groups of people to vote\u2026 a new Don’t Say Gay law in Florida\u2026 an emerging COVID variant which may set us back\u2026 And so for me\u2026 and for many others I know\u2026 our Easter celebrations may be a bit muted this year\u2026 our iron-clad faith remains in tact\u2026 but the grace through which we slosh\u2026 may be tainted with fatigue\u2026 with trauma and grief\u2026 with us feeling hesitant to tell our tale\u2026 for fear of not being believed\u2026 it may feel a little bit like receiving communion in only one kind\u2026 But I wonder too\u2026 how many of us continue to search for life in the midst of death\u2026 Pastor Nancy Claire Pittman wrote\u2026 we may want to tend the corpses of long dead ideas and ideals\u2026 we may cling to former visions of ourselves and our churches\u2026 as if they might come back to life so long as we hold onto them\u2026 we may grasp our loved ones too tightly\u2026 refusing to allow them to change\u2026 to become bigger\u2026 or smarter\u2026 or stronger\u2026 we may choose to stay with what we know in our hearts to be dead\u2026 because it is safe\u2026 that’s why the words of these unworldly messengers remind us to stop hanging onto the dead\u2026 and to move into new life\u2026 that the Holy One dwells\u2026 wherever new life bursts forth\u2026 And even though\u2026 even if\u2026 our experience of Easter is muted somewhat this year\u2026 because of everything going on around us\u2026 I’m confident that most people from two-thousand years ago would think we’ve 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