SERMONS

Mark 16:1-8
The Reverend Angela L. Ying
Bethany United Church of Christ
Easter Sunday, April 12, 2009

Do you ever get behind on anything?

Truth to tell, I do all the time.

No matter how well prepared, organized and planned I am, I still find it hard to keep up, to keep on the move.

It is as if in life with God, things seem to keep on moving, even when I want or insist things stay still.

Why is that in Life?

It was very early on the first day of the week, when the women went to the tomb. They had seen it all. The suffering, the crucifixion, the death and even burial of Jesus. And like most competent and over functioning women — they were, for the most part, well prepared. Though they had fallen behind in bringing the spices during the Sabbath, the women had it planned out. They had things under control.

And yet, they worried. Do you know a wise woman who does not have a good reason to worry?

The women worried and said to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us?” Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council that had condemned Jesus to death, had found compassion in his heart and had taken Jesus’ body and wrapped it in linens and laid it in the tomb, safely and securely placing a large stone in front of the tomb.

The women, at least three, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had witnessed it all.

As they got closer to the tomb, they looked up? I wonder why.

Had they not lost all hope?

But when they looked up, they did not see what they had expected. They saw the very large stone that had enclosed the tomb rolled back. The stone had been rolled away.

Now, I do not know about you, but having heard enough strange and scary ghost stories, this is where I would have made a fast exit.

As the disciples who had all fled in fear, this would have been where I hit my limit. For I am not sure I would have waited to see what was lurking inside the open tomb.

Would you?

Strangely enough, the faithful women enter the tomb. They are curious and courageous enough to get to the bottom of things, and to see what is going on.

But none of their best laid plans are carried out as they think.

The women are amazed to see a heavenly messenger sitting on the right side of where the dead Jesus was suppose to be, but no longer was. And the messenger said, “Do not be amazed.” Or in some translations, “Do not be alarmed.”

Now when someone, even a voice from heaven tells me not to be amazed or alarmed – you can bet – I will immediately be amazed and alarmed. No question. Someone tell me, “Angela, I want you to be calm, not to get upset, for I do not want you to be alarmed” — is a sure cue for me to be alarmed!

The unexpected messenger in the open and empty tomb not only tells the women “Do not be amazed”, but brings three other important messages of Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified:

He is risen

He is not here

He is going ahead of you to Galilee – and there you will see him,

as he told you.

And then the gospel on this Easter day does an unusual thing – instead of having the women, who have been faithful through thick and thin, who have known exactly what to do even under the most dire of circumstances – instead of having them go joyfully skipping off to tell the disciples and Peter, the very disciple who had denied Jesus, what they had just seen ….

The scripture says: “And they went out and fled from the tomb for trembling, astonishment and being scared out of their wits had come upon them. And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

What happened?

How could this be?

How could they fail? They can’t fail – not the women.

If the faithful women who had seen Jesus through it all — fail, what hope is there for us?

Why … this is hardly a sufficient ending.

And yet, the gospel ends abruptly. In the original language, the gospel ends with the Greek word, gar – which is the word “for”.

For? How can the gospel end with the word “for”? For … for what?

The gospel leaves you and me in the middle of a sentence.

The gospel stands open-ended.

Scholars have attempted to figure out why Mark would end the gospel in this way. Unlike the other three gospels, Matthew, Luke and John, this gospel of the Easter story gives us no closure — only a messenger with a message. How very strange.

I’m like – what? How am I supposed to preach on a text like this? No ending? No closure? No happily ever after?

Harvey Cox, professor at Harvard says “…growing up means learning to live with unsatisfying and incomplete endings. The stories (of the gospel) remain vivid because they refuse to cater to our craving for tidy completion.” (from “When Jesus Came to Harvard”)

It dawns on me that Easter, when a new day dawns, is not about me getting closure. Easter is not even about the women and their attempts to get it done right while falling behind.

Easter is not about Pilate who specifically ordered the guards to make the tomb “as secure as you can.”

Maybe, Easter is how we live in the in-between times of fear and great joy — of hope and not knowing. When we do not have or know the answers.

Perhaps, Easter is when we dare to go and meet the God on the move who cannot wait to see us. Where the transforming message of Easter is that when the God on the move sees us — we change — we change in order to keep up with God.

But change is difficult. As the faithful man who every year looked forward to going to the annual state fair – to the “All you can eat strawberries booth”. All you can eat strawberries for 99 cents.

Every year without exception the man would go to his familiar all you can eat strawberry booth, where it always stood. Strawberry ice cream, strawberry sundaes, strawberry shortcake.

With the seasonal changes in weather, that year, he was a bit worried that this year the booth would not be there.

But when he arose and went early in the morning to the fair, he was relieved to find his familiar booth right where it had always been — his all you can eat strawberry booth.

As he approached the familiar “All you can eat strawberry booth”, he noticed a small asterisk by the word “strawberries.”

“This year … prunes will be substituted for strawberries!”

In the book of Proverbs, we read “The fear (awe) of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10)

Perhaps, this is what the women experienced that first Easter morning.

They had seen the cross with their own eyes. They had experienced first hand the betrayal, the denial, the fleeing, the abandonment, the suffering, the crucifixion, the pain, the death.

After all this, they simply wanted some kind of closure. It had already been too much to bear. Once you see death, a part of you dies with the dead.

I can see why they would flee and be afraid.

After all this – if Christ is alive —

You have to come face to face with all the pain again.

You have to relive the fact that you loved and loved deeply.

You have to face the fears that you have held on to for years – that you tried to bury and hide, tried to push away, to keep down in order to keep going.

And only after you dare to do so — can you let go, let God and begin to let the God on the move see you, again.

It takes awhile, sometimes a lifetime; to experience the unspeakable joy Jesus Christ gives. To find the courage to know this is FOR REAL. And that God really wants to see you.

Everything is turned upside down

Everything is turned inside out

Everything keeps on the move, even when we want it to stay still.

For in our grieving and letting the pain out – releasing it, giving it away, handing it over to the God on the move — You have to let yourself be vulnerable.

Only then, can you begin to hear the good news — and to move from deep pain to deep joy, from deep fear to deep love towards the God on the move.

I remember one of the loneliest and lowest times in my life. It was shortly after John and I moved to Seattle.

I had no idea what I was doing here.

He had his naturopathic medical school, his friends, his colleagues, his books.

As a newlywed that had followed him from Princeton, leaving my own career, I needed to find an apartment, a job, a life.

I happened to run into a pastor who had shared with me that there was a possibility to work with him. For weeks and months, I held on to that and what little hope I had. Temping, waitressing, just barely getting by – waiting for that interview.

About the same time I was waiting for that interview with the UCC church I mentioned earlier, two other offers had come up. I was so sure that things would work out for this first church that when I was actually offered the other two church positions in Presbyterian churches, I boldly turned both of them down.

When it came time for the interview, I had it all planned out.

But after five minutes of sitting with the search committee, everything changed. God said “No”. Everything I did. Everything I said. Nothing.

To be sure that I knew God said this was dead – the interview went on for another 50 minutes. The door was not only closed. It was bolted shut. I went home and wept.

I phoned my elder sister for comfort. She listened attentively to me as I walked through the entire interview with her. After which, she said, “I would not have called you either — sounds to me like you were interviewing for the head of staff position not the associate one they offered.”

The chance to serve in the United Church of Christ was dead – and I knew how I would deal with it.

When I was able to get my feet back on the ground, to forget the pastor and put what had happened years ago behind me, to go on with my life as if nothing had happened, and to find myself working as an executive in a high paying office as a bureaucrat in the Presbyterian Church — a chance to start a new UCC church in south Seattle came.

I hate when that happens.

You are good and dead. Done with it. And then the God on the move sees you and comes along and tells you — it is not done – it is wide open!

The name of the new church? Bethany – named after Jesus raising imperfect, human, now more humble than before Lazarus from, you guessed it, from the dead.

As the women at the tomb, I was left without words.

For let me confess, that sometimes, given the choice of God’s love —holding to the grief, the disappointment, the bitterness and resentment is so much easier…

It gives me closure

It is done

I have it under control and it cannot come back to haunt me

But with Easter

The living God,

The risen Christ,

It is open ended

Unexpected

Out of control

Boo sa sa — when you do not have the words – use a different language!

With Easter, the God on the move cannot be contained and kept down.

With Easter, God breaks from the very system that we thought had God beat and vindicates the victims of the unjust and powerful.

With Easter, God gives us a second chance to experience God’s unspeakable love.

With Easter, God is on the move and goes ahead of us to meet us. To see you, again!

And that – my friends, is scary stuff.

For the gospel is not for those who have it all together

The gospel is for those who have loved and lost

The gospel is for those take a chance and were let down

The gospel is for those who risk and experience disappointment

The gospel is for those who take a leap of faith and come up short on their own.

It is for those who have been on the outskirts, the fringe, the margins, who have been left behind or feel they do not fit in.

It is for those who have seen death unjustly, who can only hope that a just God will vindicate and break down the walls of racism, oppression, violence, injustice and hate.

The gospel turns the listener into a disciple. The good news turns the outsider into an insider in the house of God.

As one author expresses, “If there is no resurrection, we might as well pack up and go home; there is truly no reason to be here. But if there is a resurrection from the dead, if Christ is alive, then all heaven breaks loose.”

And you and I are no longer safe, we are in great danger of being loved — loved by the God who is on the move and who sees you.

Do we dare experience the joy, the unspeakable joy?

To risk the pain of deep love all over again to see God

To find the courage to move from Good Friday to Easter

To move from our fears to God’s indescribable and unending love

To say “Yes” to God.

Truth to tell, I am not surprised that the women are left without words – too afraid to utter anything to anyone.

But I wonder, who then will go and carry the message of the risen Christ if the women do not? Is there anyone else who has heard Jesus’ preaching, seen his healings, watched his crucifixion and burial, and listened to the wondrous announcement of the resurrection?

Could it be that you and I, the hearers and listeners of the good news, are intended to carry the message?

Could it be that Christ goes ahead of us and will see us again on our home turf, in our homes, at our workplaces, at the corner of Beacon and Graham and to the ends of the earth?

Author and poet Howard Thurman writes:

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it – because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

The women will find their voices and they will give witness — as will Peter and the other disciples. Will you?

Christ is risen. Christ is not here. Christ is going before you – there, out there, you will see God.

And that is the grace and the hope of Easter – The God on the move sees you as you are when you dare to go.

It has been exactly two years, the week of Easter, since I was run off the road on my bicycle by an SUV, going to visit a church family, leaving me with a broken foot.

I have not been on a bicycle since.

But this past week, on the first beautiful sunny day in Seattle in weeks, my husband and daughter, without my permission, got their bicycles ready for a journey.

“Are you coming?” they both said to me.

“I don’t know.” I couldn’t decide. I had not prepared for this.

Without hesitation, the two of them hopped right on their bicycles, joyful and playful, as if they had nothing to lose.

And there I was.

Why didn’t they wait for me to get over my fears? Didn’t they know how hard this was for me? Could they give me more time to process or at least feel sorry for myself?

How I just wanted to stay where I was, play it safe and not take the risk.

They had not waited.

Why had they gone ahead of me?

I do not know how long it took me to realize that they were not coming back to the place where I was.

By now, they were probably far from where I was — for they were not looking to the past story or the ending — they were looking to a new story and a new beginning.

They were going ahead …

With no one around, I stood there by my bicycle.

“Well, what do you think? Should I go?” Strangely enough, the bike had no answer.

And then the words from the gospel hit me, amidst my fears — “Jesus is going ahead of you  — there you will see him.”

In other words, I could hold on to the past in great fear. Or, I could go with God and trust that no matter how rocky or steep the road of life ahead, no matter how many stumbles, false starts, failures or falls — the God on the move sees me, when I dare to go, and go where LIFE IS.

Was this the word of grace the women at the empty tomb had heard?

He is not here! He is going ahead — there, out there in the world, is where you will see him.

I slowly got on my bicycle, with fear and trembling.

The seat felt different. The wheels felt strange.

But after awhile, it was good — not safe — good.

And as I began to go — to catch up with the God of life who is always on the move, I could see just around the corner, John and Anne — there to continue the journey.

A reminder, once again, by the grace of God, that in LIFE with the Resurrected Christ, there is always the GOD on the move, who sees you!

Thanks be to God!