Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
March 31, 2002, Easter Sunday
Psalm 118: 1-2;14-24
Matthew 28: 1-10
William Willimon is the chaplain at Duke University. I suspect that in recent days he has spent a great deal of time counseling and comforting disconsolate Duke basketball fans – no ‘final four’ this year (the women made it, but then they were defeated as well). But along with that important work, he has also been doing some thinking about our Easter text from the Gospel of Matthew. Reflecting on the Sunday morning visit of the women to Jesus’ tomb, he writes, “The women came out to the cemetery to write one more chapter in the long sad story of death’s ascendancy, one more episode of how the good always get it in the end. This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper of resignation at death’s dark victory.
“And then the earth heaved, an angel appeared, the stone was rolled away, Caesar’s soldiers shook. The angel plopped himself down on the stone in one final act of impudent defiance of death and said to the women, ‘Don’t be afraid. You’re looking for Jesus? He isn’t here.’ Then that angel turned to the soldiers and said, ‘You, be afraid. Be very afraid. Everything your world is built on is being shaken.’ That morning, nobody went back the same.”
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if such a thing could happen in our worship service today? Imagine a headline in tomorrow’s Press Democrat: “Hundreds of People Worshipped at The Community Church of Sebastopol on Easter Sunday Morning and Nobody Went Back the Same.” Maybe it will happen. Maybe we and our world will be changed by our Easter worship. Right! And maybe I’ll sprout wings and fly around this sanctuary! Even the preacher doesn’t really believe that we are going to be changed by this Easter Sunday. Such is the power that the power of the world, the power of death, has over me.
We hear the wonderful Easter music, hear the Easter word spoken, hear the great Easter affirmation of life triumphant over death…. but then Monday will come, and neither we nor our world will really be all that different: Palestinians and Israelis still slaughtering each other, big money still in charge in Washington, old griefs still hurting, old angers still festering, old anxieties still keeping us up at night. Such is the power the world, that death, has over us. Day after day it tells us that once a stone is rolled against the door of a tomb, that stone remains. Easter is a nice story and all that, but you don’t really expect new life, do you? What you see is what you get so you had best make the most of it. Don’t expect too much because all the assets are frozen. Things will stay pretty much the way they are.
Charlie Brown and Lucy are out one night, gazing at the stars. Charlie Brown is in a reflective mood. “You know what I think?” he says, “I think there must be a tiny star out there that is my star. And as I am alone here on earth among millions of people, that tiny star is out there alone among millions and millions of stars. Does that make any sense, Lucy? Do you think it means anything?”
“Certainly!” she replies, “It means you’re cracking up, Charlie Brown!”
Good old Lucy – always the voice of the pre-Easter, or perhaps the no-Easter, world. Don’t dream too much, Charlie Brown, don’t hope too much; don’t believe too much… you will only be disappointed. Get real. There truly is nothing new under the sun. Tombs always stay closed.
Or do they? Just what is real? Since the terrible events of September 11th, there have been many calls to return to normal, to return to ‘business as usual.’ I’m sure I’ve said that myself more than a few times, ‘Let’s just try to get back to normal.’ But then I read an article by professor and preacher, Barbara Brown Taylor, in which she suggested that perhaps we shouldn’t be so quick about getting back to normal. In her words, “The stunning tragedies of September 11th, have brought with them equally stunning clarity about what matters most and what does not. Every time I hear a challenge to return to normal my heart skips a beat. I do not want to go back to the way things were. I want the kids at college to keep stripping the newspaper rack clean. Before 9/11 most of them did not even know what the Taliban were. Now they not only know how many different kinds of Muslims there are in the world; they also know more than they ever did about U.S. policy in the Middle East. I don’t want them to go back to normal conversations about the comparative virtues of their car stereos or the best party prospects for Saturday night.
“I want people in my community to keep up the conversations we started while we were waiting in line to give blood. Before 9/11 many of us had never talked with someone from Mexico, or Laos, or Vietnam, even though we live in the same county and our children attend the same schools. Now we know that goodwill cuts across cultural lines and that ‘God Bless America’ includes newer immigrants as well as older ones. I don’t what to go back to normal traffic patterns that allow us to steer clear of one another so that we have no reason to speak.”
She concludes, “Our whole country has been in the hospital, wide-awake to the questions of where we go from here. As we contemplate our discharge, among the many options open to us, I hope that returning to normal is the last thing on our lists.”
She is really talking about Easter...the power of Easter. There has been an earthquake; the stone is rolled away; God has shaken off the officially sanctioned world. All bets are off. The facts of life and death are turned on their heads. Nothing is secure and fixed anymore. Jesus is raised. God is loose in the world, and here’s a frightening thought – perhaps even in our own hearts.
I mentioned earlier that it is easier, certainly easier for this preacher, to believe that nothing has really changed, that we haven’t really changed. I mean, if Jesus has been defeated -- crucified, dead and buried -- then everything we suspected about the world is true. If we choose to refuse the truth of resurrection, then we can go back to business as usual. Sure it might involve the same old crippling identities, the same old quarrels and old hurts, the same old patterns of war and hate and greed…but, hey, at least we know how to deal with them, we are used to them…all the old ways of death.
In the 1950’s, in China, there was a devastating earthquake. As a result of the quake, a huge boulder was dislodged from a mountain thus exposing a great cache of wonderful artifacts from a thousand years ago. You might say that a new world suddenly became visible.
In like manner, on that first Easter morning, when the stone was rolled away and the earth shook, we got our first glimpse of a new world, a world where death doesn’t have the last word, a world where injustice is made right and innocent suffering is vindicated, where the meek do inherit the earth and where among the poor the bread is blessed and broken and everyone has enough, a world where mercy turns even enemies into brothers and sisters and causes weapons of war to rust and corrode or, better yet, be transformed into farm implements. Are we ready for such a bright new world?
Preaching professor, Thomas Long, tells this story: “Many years ago, a friend told me that his young son was a great fan of both Captain Kangaroo and Mister Rogers. The boy faithfully watched both of their television shows. One day it was announced that Captain Kangaroo would be paying a visit to Mister Rogers. The boy was ecstatic. Every morning he would ask, ‘Is it today that Captain Kangaroo will be on Mister Rogers?’ Finally the much-anticipated day arrived. The whole family gathered around the television. And there they were…Mister Rogers and Captain Kangaroo together. The boy watched for a minute, but then, surprisingly, got up and left the room. Puzzled, his father followed him and asked, ‘What is it, son? Is anything wrong?’
“’It’s too good,’ the boy replied, ‘It’s just too good.’”
Maybe that’s it. Maybe that is why this preacher resists change; resists believing Easter can really make a difference. Maybe the news of the empty tomb, the news of Jesus’ victory, the news of the dawning of a new world is just too good to be true, too good to believe, too good to assimilate all at once. Maybe that is why I resist. Again, I know my old world so well. I’ve learned to adjust, to make do.
Ah, but something’s afoot here… call it a resurrection conspiracy. New life is conspiring against the old and it wants to know, are we in or out, are we going to join or not? Do we dare permit in our horizon new healing power, new surging possibility, new ways of peace in an armed and fearful world. Yes, a resurrection conspiracy.
A final story – I’ve shared it with you before. Charles Blondin, a Frenchman, was one of the world’s greatest tightrope walkers. A century and a half ago, he crossed Niagara on a tightrope. After his walk, the year was 1859, he asked an onlooker, “Do you believe that I can carry a man on my back across Niagara?” Than man, breathless with enthusiasm, replied that he believed he could. “Then, said Blondin, “Will you be the man?”
The year is not 1859, not even 30 A.D. But the risen Christ comes to us still and asks, ‘Will you be the one? Is the resurrection conspiracy for you? For I can raise up anyone from death to life and I can do it right now! Will you be the one?”
Return to Top of Page The Resurrection Conspiracy