Easter Day, April 24, 2011 Matthew 28: 8-10
It was probably the greatest understatement of all time. Jesus greeted those women on the road, not with some exalted phrase of overpowering majesty, Hail or Stand back, but with the very common greeting which people used all the time, which means rejoice, but in its usage had more the the flavor of a “hi.” Yet it is just right. Given its setting, it is like a small daub of bright color, in an otherwise dark canvas of great purportions. But with all the dark colors, it doesn’t have to be large or overpowering to stand out, our eye cannot help but see and rejoice in it.
Of course for us to appreciate this greeting, we have to be aware of the immense and forboding darkness which preceded it. We might go back to the last word which had come from the mouth of Jesus. It was essentially, “Why?” “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?’ Jesus spoke those words from the cross in the moments before he died; in those moments when darkness colored everything and the earth trembled at what was happening. Those words echo all the other whys that well up from human history into a mighty roar which seems to shout down any statement of faith. From David who composed the Psalm that Jesus was quoting down through the history of all those who suffer in concentration and refugee camps, courts of law, medical centers and houses that now stand empty. Each of us probably has a darkness which we battle and from which comes that cry of confusion and agony, “Why, God?” Why does my child suffer, why does nobody call or ask about me, why is it so hard to find happiness, to just get by, why does evil flourish and the good suffer? There is no answer in that moment, and he breathes his last.
Then on the third day, at the first hint of light, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary come to the tomb, the earth trembles again, perhaps an aftershock of what happened on Friday, but then an angel, then the stone rolled away, and the angel sits on it. In bright light of majesty and power the soldiers who guarded the dead man become themselves like dead men in fear. Then the angel addresses the women and given what they have just seen they can only hear it in majestic tones. “Now don’t you be afraid, you seek Jesus, the man crucified, he is not here he has risen, just as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Now go quickly, tell his disciples, “he has been raised from the dead and look he is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there. Look I have told you.” They run in fear and joy. That is what we wish the experience of Easter to be. Power, that outshouts the roar of evil and death. The louder the better, the more people the more real.
But then they meet Jesus and the trappings of power are nowhere to be seen; just Jesus as they had known him, just Jesus saying “Hi” or literally “rejoice.” It is the understatement of all time. But it has great power because in the face of all that had gone wrong, in the face of the torture and death, life goes on, Jesus is there, with a friendly greeting. I think of those understated moments from our lives. A coach barks at his players to get into their practice, because they are all huddled around a player who had been seriously injured and is tenderly back among them. After they all scatter to do their workout the coach says, “Good to have you back.” Or a mother takes comfort in that her sick child has begun to eat again without being coaxed. Or two workers at odds with each other begin to go over a spread sheet, when one asks the other if he would mind looking at the numbers. Or a wife simply reaches out and takes her husbands hand. . To people who have experienced the darkness, the understatement holds great power.
When you stop to think about it, God communicate more by understatement than by overstatement. The life of Jesus is the greatest of all understatements, coming as an ordinary man, who can be thrown to the ground, nailed to the cross and die. His simply being alive says all that needs to be said. Similarly our sacraments are understatements with their simplicity yet profound meaning. Sometimes we want to dress them up to make them more “spiritual” but Jesus gave a simple command to baptize and to eat and drink in remembrance of him. There is power there because Jesus is there.
A part of that understatement is the fact that Jesus tells the women, “Go and tell my brothers.” Not “disciples” as the angel said, but brothers. Oh, how that one word, carries a message of forgiveness and grace. I can’t help but think that as those who had betrayed him, fled from him, failed him heard that word, it spoke volumes of grace. Yet it was just one word, an ordinary, every-day word, a word like “Hi” but in that word they were forgiven and began to live again.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Sermon Lent 5
Lent 5, April 10, 2011 John 11:
Courtney Strain died of brain cancer last summer at the age of 25. In the months before she died she met weekly with a hospice worker Suzanne Doyle. In those meetings she revealed one constant frustration, feeling like an outcast. People didn’t know what to say, so they said nothing at all. “You know I’m thinking Courtney, that you can be a teacher,” Suzanne said, “ You know what dying people need and I’m wondering if we can’t come up with some sort of a teaching tool. The tool they came up with was a simple guide they called, “What you Can Do When a Friend (Like Me) Faces the End of Life.” Some things Courtney wrote. “Hallmark doesn’t fix it all or say it best.. Write a letter or send an e-mail. Talk to me when I’m strong enough to sit and laugh or cry with you. Don’t pretend everything is going to be OK . Don’t abandon me at my most vulnerable times. Sit and pray with me. Don’t just pray for me. Instead of asking, “What can I do for you? Offer some concrete suggestions- Like bringing a meal or a treat, Just because I’m dying doesn’t mean I’m any less capable of being your friend.”
The story of the raising of Lazarus is really a story about friendship. As Cortuney implied when death comes around it has a way of sucking the life out of friendships. It is in viewing this story in terms of friendship, that I find ways to connect to it and apply it. A friend who is there in our need, is a friend indeed. The friendship is between Jesus and Martha, Mary and Lazarus. It is plain to hear in the message the sisters send to Jesus. “Lord he whom you love is ill.” Notice the order of the words. It doesn’t begin with a frantic call such as we might phrase some of our prayers. Lord, we’re in a heap of trouble here, Lord we’re really needing your help, Lord Lazarus is ill. The need gets first place. Instead what we hear is that the friendship is first in their minds. “Lord the one whom you love…” So front and center is this friendship, that the Gospel writer feels compelled to add the comment that Jesus really did love Martha, May and Lazarus, and his delay should not be seen in any other way that in that love.
We see that friendship in Martha’s going out to meet Jesus on the road before he even reaches Bethany. In her remorse, that if only Jesus had been there. In her slightly hopeful “But even now I know God will give you whatever you ask.” But then she begins to lose her focus when Jesus says, your brother will live again. She shifts from Jesus a true friend, to some general principle or belief that there is life after death. Jesus keeps drawing her back to the bond of friendship to himself. “I am the resurrection and the life. Who ever believes in me even though they die they shall live.” Martha isn’t alone in loosing her focus on Jesus. especially in the face of death. It is one of the great challenges of the faith. Listen to what people say when a loved one has died. They talk about life after death as some inevitable certainty, much like gravity or the law of thermodynamics. They talk about the person who has died and what that person meant to them. What I find strangely absent, is any mention of Jesus. Can they also say, “Lord the one whom you love…” Do they live in a friendship with Jesus?
That friendship is underlined in the story by Jesus’ tears at the tomb. So much so that the bystanders comment, “See how much he loved him.” At a minimum we should remember, and if we don’t our friends should remind us by being present with us, “he carries our sorrows,…. He weeps with those who weep.” This is our point of application, that we be the embodiment of Christ for those who live with the stench of death. It may be as Courtney longed for, faithful friends for the dying. It may be faithful friends when I’m unemployed, or when I’m at loose ends as to what my life is for, or when life is becoming unraveled because of broken marriage, or friendship. All those times when we don’t know what to say, and so we withdraw. In withdrawing we imply that our Christian faith is cowered into hiding in the face of life’s struggles. If nothing else, Jesus is a faithful friend who shows up.
How often have you not found as I have in my ministry that showing up in those challenging places, actually blesses me. As I face with them these challenges, my stammering words draw us back to Jesus, where our focus should be. The wonder is that often I have the privilege of witnessing their power in giving faith and life to the person in the bed. I leave having come to a new appreciation of believing in the resurrection from the dead.
But more than that, he who opened the eyes of the blind, does more than prevent this man from dying, he opens the tomb of the dead. This goes beyond what friends can do, but it shows that with Jesus it’s not only showing up but bringing to life. This bond of friendship will not be broken, not because I cling to him so firmly, but because he clings to me. So strong is his friendship that even death cannot break it. That is a friend indeed!
Courtney Strain died of brain cancer last summer at the age of 25. In the months before she died she met weekly with a hospice worker Suzanne Doyle. In those meetings she revealed one constant frustration, feeling like an outcast. People didn’t know what to say, so they said nothing at all. “You know I’m thinking Courtney, that you can be a teacher,” Suzanne said, “ You know what dying people need and I’m wondering if we can’t come up with some sort of a teaching tool. The tool they came up with was a simple guide they called, “What you Can Do When a Friend (Like Me) Faces the End of Life.” Some things Courtney wrote. “Hallmark doesn’t fix it all or say it best.. Write a letter or send an e-mail. Talk to me when I’m strong enough to sit and laugh or cry with you. Don’t pretend everything is going to be OK . Don’t abandon me at my most vulnerable times. Sit and pray with me. Don’t just pray for me. Instead of asking, “What can I do for you? Offer some concrete suggestions- Like bringing a meal or a treat, Just because I’m dying doesn’t mean I’m any less capable of being your friend.”
The story of the raising of Lazarus is really a story about friendship. As Cortuney implied when death comes around it has a way of sucking the life out of friendships. It is in viewing this story in terms of friendship, that I find ways to connect to it and apply it. A friend who is there in our need, is a friend indeed. The friendship is between Jesus and Martha, Mary and Lazarus. It is plain to hear in the message the sisters send to Jesus. “Lord he whom you love is ill.” Notice the order of the words. It doesn’t begin with a frantic call such as we might phrase some of our prayers. Lord, we’re in a heap of trouble here, Lord we’re really needing your help, Lord Lazarus is ill. The need gets first place. Instead what we hear is that the friendship is first in their minds. “Lord the one whom you love…” So front and center is this friendship, that the Gospel writer feels compelled to add the comment that Jesus really did love Martha, May and Lazarus, and his delay should not be seen in any other way that in that love.
We see that friendship in Martha’s going out to meet Jesus on the road before he even reaches Bethany. In her remorse, that if only Jesus had been there. In her slightly hopeful “But even now I know God will give you whatever you ask.” But then she begins to lose her focus when Jesus says, your brother will live again. She shifts from Jesus a true friend, to some general principle or belief that there is life after death. Jesus keeps drawing her back to the bond of friendship to himself. “I am the resurrection and the life. Who ever believes in me even though they die they shall live.” Martha isn’t alone in loosing her focus on Jesus. especially in the face of death. It is one of the great challenges of the faith. Listen to what people say when a loved one has died. They talk about life after death as some inevitable certainty, much like gravity or the law of thermodynamics. They talk about the person who has died and what that person meant to them. What I find strangely absent, is any mention of Jesus. Can they also say, “Lord the one whom you love…” Do they live in a friendship with Jesus?
That friendship is underlined in the story by Jesus’ tears at the tomb. So much so that the bystanders comment, “See how much he loved him.” At a minimum we should remember, and if we don’t our friends should remind us by being present with us, “he carries our sorrows,…. He weeps with those who weep.” This is our point of application, that we be the embodiment of Christ for those who live with the stench of death. It may be as Courtney longed for, faithful friends for the dying. It may be faithful friends when I’m unemployed, or when I’m at loose ends as to what my life is for, or when life is becoming unraveled because of broken marriage, or friendship. All those times when we don’t know what to say, and so we withdraw. In withdrawing we imply that our Christian faith is cowered into hiding in the face of life’s struggles. If nothing else, Jesus is a faithful friend who shows up.
How often have you not found as I have in my ministry that showing up in those challenging places, actually blesses me. As I face with them these challenges, my stammering words draw us back to Jesus, where our focus should be. The wonder is that often I have the privilege of witnessing their power in giving faith and life to the person in the bed. I leave having come to a new appreciation of believing in the resurrection from the dead.
But more than that, he who opened the eyes of the blind, does more than prevent this man from dying, he opens the tomb of the dead. This goes beyond what friends can do, but it shows that with Jesus it’s not only showing up but bringing to life. This bond of friendship will not be broken, not because I cling to him so firmly, but because he clings to me. So strong is his friendship that even death cannot break it. That is a friend indeed!
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