April 15, 2001
Rev. Eugene Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
EASTER SUNDAY
Luke
24:1-35
Rev. Phil
Anderson, former pastor of this church, tells the story of an Army veteran who
was wounded in Vietnam. He had been on permanent disability, receiving
benefits. Then he received an official notification from the government
informing him of his own death. Needless to say, this information came as
somewhat of a shock. He wrote the government a letter in which he stated that
as best he could tell, he was still very much alive, and therefore, would like
to keep receiving his benefits. The letter did no good. Basically he was told,
“Sorry, but you are still dead.” So he tried calling various government
agencies. The phone calls failed to change the situation.
Finally, as a
last resort, the angry and still very much alive veteran contacted a local
television station which ran a human interest story about his situation. During
the interview, the reporter asked him how he felt about the whole ordeal. The
veteran replied, “I feel quite frustrated about it. Have you ever tried to
prove that you’re alive?”
An interesting
Easter question. It’s not hard to imagine Jesus saying much the same thing.
The Romans had signed off on him. It was easy enough getting rid of this
troublemaker. The crowds had witnessed his execution. The coroner had
pronounced him dead. He had been placed in a tomb, although executed criminals
were usually left to rot on the cross as a warning to others. And his closest
friends, terrified for their own lives, deeply disappointed at the seeming
failure of Jesus’ mission, and consumed with grief, were in hiding or on the
run. And so we hear these sad words, spoken by the disciples on the Emmaus
Road, “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel…We had hoped, had
hoped so much, but obviously our hopes were in vain. He is dead and our hopes
have died with him. We must have been fools ever to believe in him and his
promises.” Have you ever tried to prove that you’re alive?
Jesus, dead or
alive? Certainly an important question on that first Easter. It remains an
important question today. Or does it? There are many people who wonder if it
even matters. Jesus, dead or alive, what difference does it really make? We
still have his teachings, still have his example, still have all those good
stories. Maybe the memory of the historical Jesus is all we need.
An article in
the local paper said that NASA scientists using the orbiting Chandra X-ray
observatory have been able to peer more deeply across space and time than ever
before. One thing they have found is an abundance of black holes, perhaps as
many as 300 million. Black hole - a collapsed mass in space so dense that
nothing can escape its gravitational field, not even light And it will greedily
consume any matter which comes too close. Two physicists, Charles Townes and
Reinhard Genzel, have even proposed that at the very heart of our galaxy, the
Milky Way, there lurks a massive black hole. At the core of the galaxy, not
light but darkness, indeed everything collapsing into darkness.
A friend calls
in tears. On his way to co-lead a conference, he passed a horrific wreck on the
highway. Two autos reduced to twisted pieces of metal. When he arrived at the
conference, his co-leader was not there, no one had heard from her The
conference began, she was still not there. She’s never late. He recalled the
wreck. Something was wrong, very wrong. A phone call is made to the highway
patrol. His call is returned, not by the CHP, but by the county coroner. His
co-worker, a young woman, 25 years old, has been killed in that accident. Later
we learned that there was another fatality. The other fatality was the
daughter-in-law of one of our United Church of Christ ministers. Everything
collapsing into darkness. Does it, the dense darkness, have the last word?
A friend of our
church community learns that a nephew’s leukemia is no longer in remission and
doctors aren’t sure they can stop it. He is twelve years old. A woman tells me
that she still feels lost, can’t sleep, can’t eat, now several months after her
husband’s death. Will healing ever begin? My mother tells me the same thing,
and it’s been five grief-stained years since the death of my sister. And for
me, too, the sleepless nights still come. So many black holes, not only out
there at the heart of our galaxy, but also in here, deep in our own hearts. And
I don’t know about you, but there are those moments, often late at night when
I’m alone with my thoughts, when I wonder…does it, the dense darkness, have the
last word? Words of a Mark Knopfler song come to mind: “Sometimes you’re the
windshield, sometimes you’re the bug; sometimes you’re the Louisville slugger,
sometimes you’re the ball; sometimes it all comes together, sometimes you’re
going to lose it all.” So often I feel like the bug. Where is the hope? Where
is the light? I seem unable to generate it within myself. I wish I could, but
I can’t. Where do I turn?
“Why do you look
for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen…When he was at the
table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then
their eyes were opened and they recognized him…” Is it just an idle tale?
Most of you have
probably never heard of Dr. Matthew Lukwiya of Uganda. He was a hero in last
year’s effort to contain the highly infectious and a terrifyingly deadly Ebóla
virus, and he lost his own life in the process. Lukwiya was the medical doctor
in charge of St. Mary’s Hospital, a Catholic mission hospital in Gula, in the
poor northern sector of Uganda. Lukwiya, described as a deeply-religious man
who was devoted to the hospital and always an inspiration to his staff, was a
brilliant doctor, could easily have made a career for himself outside of
Africa. But he only wanted to return to his country and work at St. Mary’s.
When Ebóla broke
out in northern Uganda last November, St. Mary’s was at the center of the
response. Twelve health-care workers died from the virus, which causes massive
internal hemorrhaging. Lukwiya was faced with a panicked staff and the prospect
that his beloved hospital would be forced to shut down. By persuasion and the
power of his own example, he was able to keep the staff working. And by
isolating patients in the hospital and imposing strict procedures for their
care, he was able to contain the epidemic. Yet in an impulsive gesture that
violated his own guidelines, he neglected to put on a face shield before caring
for a coughing and bleeding patient. He was infected, and died two weeks later.
Lukwiya’s
actions speak more powerfully than any words about selflessness and love of
neighbor. But he also left behind some words, important words that need to be
shared. Explaining his philosophy of care, he said, “It is our vocation to save
life. It involves risk, but when we serve with love, that is when the risk does
not matter so much. When we believe our mission is to save lives, we have got
to do our work.” “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here…”
But he is in St. Mary’s Hospital in Uganda, where even in the face of a
terrifying disease, there is light, not darkness, at the center. “When we serve
with love, the risk does not matter so much.” For Dr. Lukwiya, a man of deep
Christian conviction, Jesus was so much more than simply a nice memory.
I think of one
of our church members, literally two hours before her death. I was there with
her, holding her hand, and I asked her, “Are you ready for the next part of your
journey?” A little smile came to her face. She nodded and said, “I know that
the Lord will be there.” And you know what, he was…he is. So much more than a
memory. Light, not darkness, at the center.
New Testament
scholar, Marcus Borg, reflects on the meaning of Easter with these words: “I
see the central meaning of Easter to be in one sense, very simple: The
followers of Jesus continued to experience him after his death, but in a
radically new way. They no longer experienced him as a figure of flesh and
blood, but as a spiritual reality. They no longer experienced him as limited by
time and space, but could experience him anywhere. This kind of experience has
gone on ever since…This Jesus is a figure of the present and not just the past.
This is the truth and ground of Easter…Emmaus happens again and again.”
I like that. It
just isn’t enough for me to speak of Jesus as a great teacher, as an inspiring
memory, like Ghandi or Martin Luther King, Jr. It isn’t enough for me to say
that Jesus lives on in the hearts and lives of his followers. I need a
presence, a reality alive and with me, now, I need to know that there is light,
not darkness, at the center. That is the affirmation I make this day.
How do you prove
that you are alive? Proof of Easter? I think of frightened and defeated
disciples returning to Jerusalem and forming a church - literally risking their
lives in the process. What - or who - could have changed them so dramatically
and so quickly? Something must have happened. I think of a doctor in a
backwater town in Uganda, risking and eventually giving his life to save
others. I think of a dying woman, smiling at the end and sharing with me her
faith. What - or who - enabled them to do that?
“And their eyes
were opened and they recognized him.” That is where the miracle happened and
goes on happening - not in the empty tomb but in our encounter with the living
Lord, here and now. In the end, that is the only evidence we have to offer
those who ask us how we can possibly believe. Because we live, that is why.
Because we have found, often to our surprise, that we are not alone. Because we
never know where he will turn up next, bringing light out of the darkness.
John Alfred
Brashear was one of the great scientists of the 20th century. Back
of his home was a small hill to which he and his wife would walk each evening to
study the stars. Eventually, the two of them were buried on that hill beneath a
simple inscription: “We have loved the stars too much to fear the night.”
That, my friends, is Easter!