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Imagine: You are one of the women.
Images flash through your mind as you stumble towards the tomb of the man you loved,
the one you called “Rabbi,”
the one you believed was Messiah,
Son of David, the One from God.
All the stories (which seemed so simple)
All the predictions (which seemed so dire)
And then,
--the parade into Jerusalem, “Hosanna, Hosanna”
--The Passover meal with the weird refrain,
“Is it I, Lord?” “Is it I?”
--that horrible moment in the Garden of Gethsemane
When soldiers appeared brought by one of your
own
--and then,
Arrest,
and Trials,
and Beating,
and Mocking,
and finally the sentence of death,
hung on a cross
--And the last image,
his lifeless body
in a tomb provided by one of the followers,
Seeing that HUGE stone shut the entrance.
And now, at the first opportunity, you are going to anoint the body with spices, to wash it, and wrap it lovingly, for its long entombment.
The one who promised so much life is dead.
The dreams that you dared to dream about your land, and yourself, are shattered.
And you are going to do what has to be done, what can be done, in the wake of catastrophe.
But look.
The stone is rolled away.
And there is someone who tells you “He is raised. He is not here. Tell the others. Go to Galilee as he said and you will see him.”
I think we all understand the shock. The disbelief. Maybe even the terror and amazement. The questions:
What just happened?
Who was that young man?
Where is Jesus’ body?
Where is Jesus?
Raised?
Raised from the dead?
We will see him?
Who is this Jesus?
What’s going on?
It’s a cliff hanger all right. And we turn the page, to start the next chapter, and it’s blank—blank—blank—The end.
No wonder some monk or teller, early on, appended the story with resurrection appearances. For if they told no one for fear, how did we get to hear the story? SOMEONE had to tell.
Exactly. And that someone is YOU, ME, anyone who hears the story--
It’s a catchy narrative device. Most of the earliest hearers would have heard the gospel, not read it. It sends you out of the “performance” bursting to talk to someone about it. But this year, I began to think about the power and truthfulness of Mark’s original ending. Resurrection annihilates anything we thought we knew about natural order. It doesn’t make sense. It is unbelievable. Or more accurately, it is only believable by those who believe.
Resurrection disturbs our knowing how things are going to turn out. Resurrection discloses the truly awesome power of God—a God who has torn open the heavens at Jesus’ baptism—a God who has thundered “This is my beloved”—a God who Jesus called a very personal name, “Abba”—a God who through Jesus asked much of those who would follow, even to lose their life.
Resurrection makes all the talk, reality. Resurrection changes the course of history. And Resurrection takes the ball out of our hands. If we ever had any doubt about who was in charge—resurrection answers that question—it is GOD.
The more I thought about it, the more sense it made to react with terror and amazement, and the impulse to run away and forget all about it. This happening isn’t just a one day event. You can’t pop the cork on resurrection celebration today and go back to “life as usual” tomorrow.
And yet we do.
We are like the women at the end of Mark’s gospel. It may not be terror or amazement. It may not be fear. It may just be busyness, or feeling small, or thinking it doesn’t matter. But we don’t say anything to anyone either.
So what now? What now for the women? What now for us?
Some of this musing was triggered by Brian Blount’s new book called “Invasion of the Dead: Preaching Resurrection.” He described resurrection in terms that made it scary, and immediate, and important. I want you to experience a little of his argument:
“Resurrection is a weapon. It is not vindication for a life, wrongly terminated. It is reinstigation for a battle, rightly fought. It is not the anticlimax that shadows God’s crowning achievement on the cross. It is the shot that reignites a fiery engagement between forces claiming lordship over creation. It is not about a man. It is about a war.
Resurrection is a weapon. Indeed, in the cosmic conflict where the Almighty and Creator God, who has no equal, is found inexplicably engaged by the forces of satanic Sin and hellish Death, resurrection is the weapon. The stakes are nothing less than life and its complete and eternal loss. To win, God must detonate a force as ferocious for life as God’s enemies are vicious for death…” (from Chapter 1)
It seems incongruous to be using combat terminology on this day that is supposedly so joyous—with our Easter clothes and our Easter eggs and our Easter meals. But maybe that is just another way of saying nothing to anyone—because what happened on Easter is so momentous, so life-altering (if we allow it), that it does leave us speechless. And we try to contain the blow back by throwing a party, by moving on quickly, by getting on with life.
I invite all of us to resist that urge this year.
We can dwell in the silence following resurrection for a little while.
We can leave space and time and room for the enormity of God’s power, and God’s grace, and God’s love, to seep into our bones and our hearts, and our minds.
We can stop trying to control everything in an attempt to mask that we are not in control.
We can begin to glimpse what it might mean to have resurrection front and center in our lives.
We can trust that we will not be destroyed by being so close to ground zero.
And We can do what the young man suggested.
Tell the story.
Continue on the journey.
And we will see Jesus.
For He is risen, He is risen indeed!
Alleluia! Amen.
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