Easter Sunday

April 4, 2010

"The Rest of the Story"

Reverend Michael D. Powell

 Mark 16:1-8  

 

            Christ is Risen!  He is risen indeed.  But, so what?  Terrorists are still bombing subways.  Vigilante militias and hate mongers are still plotting revolution. Haiti is still in ruins and our military is still bogged down in two wars.  The sad litany of woe could go on and on.  What difference does it make to you that Christ is risen? What difference does it make to the world? Why are you here this morning?  What hopes, dreams and desires do you have?  Easter is a celebration of the foundational event in Christian history.  In 1 Corinthians 15:14 Paul writes:  “If Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain.” And yet, let’s be honest, there’s no way we can wrap our rational minds around resurrection. We are not here because we understand.  We’re here because we don’t understand.

 

                Although a physical resurrection of the earthly body of Jesus is what most traditional Christians think of when they hear the term resurrection, that’s not what the Apostle Paul describes.  His accounts of the risen Christ (and remember, these accounts were written before even the earliest of the gospel resurrection stories) speak of a spiritual body, not a physical body. In Corinthians he writes:  But someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?’ What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.  49Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will* also bear the image of the man of heaven. 50 Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 53For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled.

‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.

5Where, O death, is your victory?

Where, O death, is your sting?’”

 

            Paul encountered the risen Christ in a vision, not in the flesh, and for many modern Christians that’s more comprehensible.  But, the belief in a physical resurrection is early and widespread, and has been depicted by artists both ancient and modern, of all cultures.  The trick is depicting something so mystical, otherworldly and supernatural using only the images and means we have available to us in the natural world.  It’s a huge challenge and artists have attempted it with varying degrees of success. Here are a few paintings of how various artists have imagined the resurrection.  The first is a naturalistic painting from Africa, and another naturalistic depiction from China, and another more abstract, modernist painting, by He Qi (pronounced huh-chee) a prominent Chinese painter.

 

 

            And, just three more: Matthias Grunweld’s Resurrection was painted in 1510 with a supernatural, golden aura of light surrounding the risen Christ.  This piece is interesting because it’s actually the inner part of an altarpiece in the sanctuary of St. Anthony’s Monastery.  On the outside, when the doors are closed, there is a dark and foreboding painting of a twisted and bloody, crucified Jesus.  But when the wings of the altarpiece are opened, you’re dazzled by a blaze of golden light.  The drama of this light is especially obvious against the drama of the dark night sky, intended to convey the message that Christ brings light into a darkened world.  A serene and enigmatic Jesus hovers over the stricken soldiers, weightless in his ethereal body.  The wounds in his hands are raised, the only reminders of the crucifixion.  When it comes to pure physicality, Rubens’ 1611 depiction of the resurrection is unsurpassed.   Rubens contributed more than any other Flemish master to the formation of the Baroque style of the seventeenth century.  His works are vivid, dramatic, and frankly sensual, glorying in the beauty of the human form.  They are colorful, generous, voluptuous, expansive – all the qualities of the best Baroque art and music.  The commentary on this painting reads: “There is nothing ethereal and otherworldly here, but a male human body in all its beauty.  A god in fact, and a triumphant one at that.”  And, finally, here’s Rembrandt’s version.  It’s hard to imagine anything more different than Ruben’s physicality.  Here Christ is pure light, radiating out from the darkness of the tomb.  It’s a theological statement, rather than a physical one. 

                               

                  Rembrandt van Rijn, The Resurrection, Bible Art:Resurrection of Christ

 

            Well, even though none of us really understands resurrection and we may very well disagree about what actually happened on that first Easter, still, we’re here!  A cynic would say we’re here out of habit or nostalgia, simply because it’s expected of us to please some family member, or because of sentimental feelings left over from childhood. Some of that is undoubtedly true, but I believe there’s more to the story than that, and it’s the rest of the story I’m interested in. 

 

            I believe there’s a part of you that’s here hoping and praying for some spiritual, eternal, unchanging truth (call it resurrection or whatever floats your hope!) a Truth with a capital T that transcends the raw physicality, the political, economic and military limitations, the nightmarish terrors, human injustices, ongoing pain and constant contradictions of this material world.  I suspect that most of us would welcome some moment of comfort, some glimpse of inspiration, some word of understanding that somehow makes the rest of the week, the rest of the year, perhaps the rest of your life make some kind of sense and have some kind of purpose.  There’s a part of us that is dissatisfied with the answers we’ve been given.  There’s a part of us that’s here because, as C.S. Lewis once said, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”  We may not understand the resurrection, but there’s a part of us that longs to experience it.

 

            And so we look to our Bibles.  The first Gospel account of the resurrection is found in Mark 16:1- 8 and, if you’re looking for explanations, you’re going to be disappointed. After having taken 5 chapters to tell us about the betrayal, crucifixion and burial of Jesus, Marks sums up the whole resurrection story in 8 short verses. 

 

            Jesus has been crucified and laid in the tomb without the proper anointing, so three women who have known and loved Jesus come to the tomb, hoping for the opportunity to wash and anoint his body.  But they are shocked to find the stone rolled away.  They enter and behold a young man dressed in white.  They were terrified! 

 

            Let’s just stay with that terror for a moment.  It’s a very natural, a very worldly and human fear of the unknown.  The tomb is open and empty, so the story goes, and the presence of this mysterious man in white introduces the first unworldly, inhuman, supernatural element to the story.  Up until now we have no trouble understanding.  We know the feeling of grief.  We understand the feeling of loss.  We’ve experienced the feeling of fear.  But now something new and supernatural, something we may not have experienced enters the story.  Now is when the questions begin.  Who is this, and what’s happening?

 

            Of course, we know the “right answer!”  He’s an angel, a messenger from God.  But that’s a statement of faith, not a rational answer.  The rational part of us has been taught that angels are mythological creatures, products of an unscientific mind.  If you’re rational, you don’t listen to angels.  I like the way comedian, Lily Tomlin, puts:  “Why is it when we talk to God we are said to be praying, and when God talks to us we are said to be schizophrenic?”  But there is a part of us that hopes beyond hope, and longs to believe even as we pray, “Lord, help my unbelief.”  That’s the part of us that C.S. Lewis says was made for another world, and that part of us doesn’t want reality to be limited by our rational, scientific mind. That part of us knows that the universe is more mysterious and more spiritual than our scientific rationality.  That’s the part of us that may not even believe in angels, but still wants to hear what they have to say.  Here’s what the angelic messenger from God said to them, and is still saying to us: “Christ is Risen!”  In those three brief and deceptively simple words there is a powerful and transcendent word of hope. 

 

            What the empty tomb means is that even when you offer God your worst, God, out of infinite love and compassion, in an act of pure grace, responds with God’s best.  And that changes everything!  The story of Easter is that “God so loved the world,” - that once upon a time, when that which was worst in human nature sought to render the incarnate love and goodness of God lifeless and powerless, still - it wasn’t the end of the story! Even today, when a part of us denies the hope, betrays the beauty, kills the joy and seeks to crucify the confidence of a spiritual life with God that is offered through Jesus Christ, even when that kind of pain and sorrow, regret and grief happens in your life, the good news is that it isn’t the end of the story! 

 

            God is not limited and God is not thwarted by the human evils we commit.  Our sins, our mistakes, our betrayals, our human failures are not the end of the story.  God will find another way for the story to go on.  Love and justice, truth and goodness, healing, life and joy, forgiveness and grace will win out.  There isn’t anything in all creation that can stop God from working for good in us. 

 

            The angel says, “Go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”  Notice how Peter is singled out.  You remember Peter; he’s the one who had denied his Lord three times.  He receives a special word of comfort, of promise and hope here.  What that means is that there is nothing that you have ever done, thought or said, no personal failure, no past denial, and no physical death that can ever separate you from the love of Christ - if you truly seek the grace of his resurrection.  It is ours for the asking when we seek him in the Galilee of our own daily lives.  Galilee is a metaphor.  It’s right here, Salem, Oregon, where we live and work.  Christ is being resurrected right here and right now, or Christ is not resurrected at all. 

 

            And that, basically, is the way Mark ends his account of the resurrection, with the disciples hearing the promise that they will experience the presence of the risen Christ in their daily lives.  Oh, if you look in your Bible you’ll notice that the story goes on, but even the strictest Biblical literalists admit that the earliest manuscripts stopped at this point.  Later religious editors added a few verses in an effort to tidy things up, and I can understand that.  They were probably preachers, and well-intentioned preachers like to wrap things up in a good conclusion that solves all the riddles and answers all the questions.  But Mark didn’t do that.  He leaves us hanging. 

 

            Perhaps it was his way of saying that the true ending hasn’t been written yet, that you and I are going to have to do that for ourselves. The resurrection is not just about something that happened to one man two thousand years ago. There’s an old saying that puts it this way:  “He is not yet the Christ ‘til he be the Christ in you.”

 

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            Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  But that’s just the beginning. You’ll have to finish the story for yourself.  May Christ be your shalom.  Amen.