Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
April 8, 2007 Easter Sunday
John 20: 11-18
“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark…” This is how Easter always begins, in the darkness, wondering if the light will ever come. While it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to a tomb because earlier in the week, Jesus had been killed. With his death, her hope had died, entombed just like his body. Earlier in the week…darkness.
Earlier this week, an elderly couple received a phone call from a son who lives far away. He said he was sorry, but it looked like he would not be able to come for an Easter visit after all. So much to do. “The grandkids say hello.” They assured him it was all right, that they understood. But when they hung up the phone they didn’t dare look at each other.
Earlier this week a woman was called into her supervisor’s office. She was told what a good job she has been doing, but times are hard for the company and they were going to have to let her go. She cleaned out her desk, packing away her hopes for finally getting a little ahead in life, and wondering what she would tell her kids.
Earlier this week, someone received terrible news from a physician. Earlier this week, someone heard the words, “I don’t love you anymore.” Earlier this week….so many found themselves in darkness, hope entombed, wondering if the dawn would ever come.
We all have those times, times when we can identify with Mary, standing outside the tomb where her hopes and dreams have been buried. We all have those times when, with Charlie Brown, we say, “Life is difficult, so I’ve developed a new philosophy. I only dread one day at a time!” We have those times when we can identify with Robert Duvall in the film, Tender Mercies, when he says, “I never trusted happiness.” That seems to be a genetic trait in the Nelson family.
In the darkness on the first day of the week, Mary knows that feeling. We all know that feeling of standing in a dark place where hope cannot be seen.
And in those moments it is tempting to think back to better days, happier times. “Ah the way Glen Miller played, songs that made the hit parade, guys like us we had it made, those were the days.” If only I could turn the clock back – before aging, before illness, before sadness and grief, before an angry and hurtful word was spoken, before anxiety and worry over money, job, family and all my many responsibilities. If only. No doubt Mary, as she made her way to the tomb in the darkness, thought back to better days, the hopeful days, when Jesus was in Galilee; when enthusiastic crowds followed and it seemed there would be no stopping him. Ahh, those were the days. If only they could go back. I once heard nostalgia described as a form of despair. We yearn for the past in those moments when it seems there is no future, that our best days are behind us. In the darkness, Mary Magdalene, Peter and all the rest, knew where their future was. It was dead and gone, locked in a tomb. If only they could go back. Trouble is, Easter is all about going forward. Any Mary is about to discover that.
At the tomb, when Mary realizes that the person she thought was the gardener is actually the risen Lord, out of indescribable joy she lunges to embrace him. But he stops her, saying “Do not hold on to me.”
Now at this point, I believe, John could have used some help telling his story. The one who was dead is alive. He has returned to Mary and all of them. What we need here is a long and tearful and joyful group hug, right? Let’s get Mary and bring in Peter and all the disciples. Let’s find Jesus’ mother, and add her to the picture. We have this dramatic moment, but John seems to have lost all sense of drama. All Jesus says is, “Don’t hold on to me.” What does he mean by that?
Do you recall the scene in Disney’s, The Lion King, when the wise old baboon, Rafiki, hits Simba, the young lion, over the head with his walking stick? BAM! Simba cries out, “Ow…why did you do that?” “It doesn’t matter,” replies Rafiki, “it was in the past.” He is trying to get Simba, who has been running from his past, who has been trapped in his past, to embrace a new future.
And I think that is what is happening between Jesus and Mary – she is all about the past, he is all about the future. In wanting to cling to the risen Jesus, she wants to cling to the way we were, to the Jesus she has missed and wants to get back. Mary wants things to return to what she remembers as normal and familiar. But that was then, and Jesus won’t stay there. Because of Easter there can be no return to what was safe and comfortable and normal. The only way out of the darkness is to move ahead. As one of my favorite authors, Barbara Brown Taylor, writes, “The only thing we cannot do is hold on to him. He has asked us please not to do that, because he knows that all in all, we would rather keep him with us, keep him where we are than let him take us where he is going. Better we should let him hold on to us. Better we should let him take us into the white hot presence of God, who is not behind us but who is ahead of us, every step of the way.”
Every year it is tempting for me to try to come up with the definitive definition and explanation of Easter, something to erase all doubts, all questions. But every year, usually about five o’clock on Saturday, (not really, well, at least not usually) I decide that is not the most helpful approach. Because Easter really isn’t about explanations. Easter isn’t about proofs. My experience is that those who search for proofs of Easter, who yearn for some compelling evidence, are almost always looking in the wrong place. I feel about them as I do about those who lavish so much attention on the Shroud of Turin, or who climb Mt. Ararat in search of a weathered remnant of Noah’s ark, or for that matter, who produce high-priced documentaries on the discovery of the bones of Jesus. I see them all as futile gestures. To suppose one might find evidence for power of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection in a shroud or piece of bone or in some trinket, is to divert us from the true meaning of Easter. It puts our focus on the past. But Easter is all about the future. As one of my mentors in ministry, Bill Nelson, has said, “The emphasis of Easter is not on what happened to Jesus – I don’t think we’ll ever know exactly – but on what must now happen in the lives of his followers. We talk so much about his new life, but what about ours?”
I think of the old story about the mom who said, as she dropped her young son off at his very first swimming lesson, “Now don’t you go near the water until you’ve learned how to swim!” I don’t think that is how it works when learning how to swim. That’s not the way life works. And it is certainly not how we find out about Easter.
As one colleague has said, “Don’t get so focused on the empty tomb that you forget to talk to the gardener. Because when the gardener says, “Mary!” and she recognizes who it is, that’s when Easter begins, that’s the miracle. The miracle that goes on happening, our encounter with the living Lord.” We can talk about learning how to swim, or we can get in the water and swim. We can talk about Jesus and Easter, or we can begin to live Easter lives right now.
Nelson again: “Easter is an attitude! Is your life at a dead end? Not if you believe in the God of Easter, with whom are endless possibilities. Have you gotten your life all fouled up? You can go on, if you believe in the God who, on Easter Sunday, said, ‘I can make all things new.’ For someone in the throes of divorce, or touched by the heartbreak of death, or bogged down in middle-age doldrums, and even at the perimeter of this life, Easter comes as a see-it-through attitude which says, ‘Because Christ lives, I can live also.”
I wish I could tell you that when I go home today after these Easter services, and after my nap, that I will never again be touched by darkness – never be depressed again, never feel hopeless again, never be afraid to trust happiness again. I wish I could say that. But I can’t. Because I know those times will come when the old world will close in on me, frustrate and wound me, and the hope of this day will seem but a memory.
And yet, even as I say that, I also want to affirm this. Deep in my heart I believe. I believe that because of this day, because of this Easter, everything has changed. After resurrection things do not return to normal. A risen savior is now on the loose – Jesus is at large – and he knows our names. And although everything may look the same, same old town, same old people, same old problems, everything has changed. Yes, the darkness is still going to get a hold of me, but it won’t get me. Because I now know, I know, that on the other side of the darkest day, there is a radiant sunrise; that by the light of this day God has planted a seed of life in me and you which cannot be killed. So dare to be ready for anything.
As Peter Gomes, the chaplain of Harvard University writes, “Because Jesus lives we too may live, with as much time as God gives us. Christ goes before us blazing a path for us to follow, and where Christ has gone, we need not fear. Christ went to the cross, we need not fear the cross. Christ went to the grave, we need not fear the grave. Christ has gone into the future, we need not fear the future. Christ inhabits life, we need not fear life. Because he lives, so too, may we. Life begins, my friends, when we discover this truth for ourselves, and act upon it and dare to live it.”
And so, the great Easter question is not if Christ is alive, but rather, are you?