Easter 3, April 14, 2013 Page 1 of 5 V is for Victory: Victory over Grief Biblical Text: John 20:10-18 Dr. Michael F. Gardner, Senior Pastor Old Mission United Methodist Church, Fairway, Kansas According to the Bible, when Mary went to the tomb on the first Easter, the angel asked, Why do you look for the living among the dead? (Luke 24:5) Long before I came to be your pastor, knew much about the Bible, went to seminary, or was even interested in doing so, I understood that question. We all do. It really is not so much a religious question as it is a human one. And it applies to so many areas of our lives. We post on Facebook, long after our team loses, complaining that the refs got it wrong that it really was a foul instead of a held ball. Just sayin. We file our taxes and think of all the things we could have done with that money instead of sending it Uncle Sam. Or maybe that s just me. We try to shake off getting passed over for promotion, a business deal that went wrong, or a career that didn t happen - but we can t quite move on. We long for love from someone who didn t or can t or won t return it - and we wonder what we did wrong or we ask Why? The hurts and regrets of a divorce, or the death of a parent or spouse or fiancé or child linger for years in the secret places of our hearts. We look for life in all the wrong places places which don t lead us to life and God says, Why do you seek the living among the dead. God is able to lead us to victory over our grieving, our regrets, but it is not easy. It never comes without facing our grief and passing through what St. John of the Cross and Søren Kierkegaard called, the dark night of the soul. At least it has been so for me. My father died when I was just eighteen. And my world fell apart. Within a year, I left the small town of Troy, Kansas, quit college, enlisted in the Army, got married and moved far, far away. But there was one thing I didn t do.
Easter 3, April 14, 2013 Page 2 of 5 I never went back to my father s grave. I avoided cemeteries and funerals at all costs. We each deal with grief in our own way. I ran away from mine. It took me years to see that I was carrying my grief with me. Nearly a decade later, God began to do a work of healing in my heart. After a long season of running away from God, and my grief, and my call to ministry, I was appointed to a little Church on the outskirts of Kansas City. And right across the street was a cemetery. So much for my plan to avoid cemeteries and funerals for the rest of my life! My first Sunday there, as I was greeting people on the Church porch after the service, I watched a lovely little lady walk across the street and linger a long time at one of the graves. One of the members said, That s Retha. Her husband, George, died about a year ago, and I think she needs you. She needed me? Lord have mercy! Here I was, a new pastor, who had never conducted a funeral, and who had been avoiding cemeteries for a decade, who had unresolved grief in my own life, and she needed me? I wanted to run away. But I didn t. She asked to see me, and of course I agreed. I held her hand as she cried, and as she shared her grief. And I felt the tears on my cheeks as I prayed with her. And God began to heal her broken heart and mine as well. In many ways that s why I m here today. Grief is real. So are fear, and doubt, and despair, and broken relationships, and all the other reasons we seek for a word of life together. Easter Sunday was glorious! But in these two weeks, the world and our lives have not magically been transformed into the Kingdom of God! And here we are like we are every Sunday - looking for Jesus - like the disciples, like Mary in our text today. In his sermon, The Seeing Heart, Frederick Buechner says: I don t know of any story in the Bible that is easier to imagine ourselves into than this one. 1 And it s true 1 The Seeing Heart, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, by Frederic Buechner. Copyright 2006, HarperOne.
Easter 3, April 14, 2013 Page 3 of 5 There s not one of us here today who hasn t gone through at least one period in our life when we ve whispered in the secret places of your soul: Is it really true? Is there hope? Is there something more? Are you there? Well there is Good News. There is. As I began the series, V is for Victory on Easter, I drew our attention to the verse in Romans 8:37, where Paul writes, In all these things we are more than conquerors. Despite death, or doubt, or despair, or grief, or fear - we are more than victorious. Ephesians 3:20 says: God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to His power that works in us. 2 I love the way Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message. God is able to do more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! 3 The problem is even if we know those things that kind of faith does not come easy. No message of springtime will do, although we are glad it s here. No don t worry, be happy message will reach deep enough to help. Will Willimon says, In so much of mainline Christianity we splash in a shallow pool. We offer admonition, advice, and encouragement, but many times it s not much different than people could hear anywhere else. 4 That s what I came to say today. Let s get out of the shallow end of the pool! Let s deal with something real. Unless we do why are we here? On every Sunday of our lives including today, we carry our grief, brokenness, doubt and despair and fear with us. And we come seeking a word from God. We come seeking Jesus, whether we know it or not - just as certainly as those who came to the tomb on the first Easter. And here s the Good News - He comes looking for us. He always comes. Look at the Text in John 20:10-18. Verse ten tells us that the disciples went back to their homes, just like we do every Sunday. But not everyone did. 2 Ephesians 3:20. Paraphrased by the author from the King James Version. 3 Ephesians 3:20, The Message, Copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson 4 William Willimon, One Day God Will Finally Get What God Wants, 30 Good Minutes #5213, January 4, 2009.
Easter 3, April 14, 2013 Page 4 of 5 Look at verse eleven through thirteen, Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. And they asked her, Woman, why are you crying? (John 20:11-13) 5 In verse fifteen, she hears a voice speak but at first does not recognize it as Jesus. He also says Woman, why are you crying? For a long time, I thought Jesus was scolding Mary, Why are you crying? Sort of like Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own when he said Are you crying? There s no crying in baseball! There s no crying in baseball! My dad always put it this way. Men don t cry. But he was wrong. We all cry. Sometimes in public, sometimes in private, but we all cry. I ve always been grateful he didn t put it the way some others have heard it. You quit that crying or I ll give you something to cry about. But there is none of that here in the text. Do you see? Jesus didn t reject Mary s grief. He met her right in the midst of it. Look at verse sixteen. Jesus simply spoke her name. With tenderness and compassion, he came to her. And he called to her gently, saying, Mary. And as she heard it, the text tells us, She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher). 6 She wanted to crumple in his arms and just hold on to him forever. But he said, in effect, Don t hold on to me. There are others who are still suffering, still crying, still hurting. Go and tell them. 7 And she did. The text says Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things. 8 She told them. That s what we are to do. We are to tell His story. And ours. 5 John 20: 11-13. New International Version. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica 6 Ibid, John 20:16 7 John 20: 17, paraphrased by the author. 8 Op. Cit. John 20:18, New International Version.
Easter 3, April 14, 2013 Page 5 of 5 Along the way of faith, we can pass though the dark night of the soul with the help of God and others. We can face our grief rather than run away from it. We can turn from our regrets over the past toward the future. We can stop dwelling on what happened or didn t and learn to let it go. We can stop looking for life in places that lead us the other direction. We can stop looking for the living among the dead. And here s the deal. There a mile south of Troy, Kansas where my father and mother are buried is just a marker on the journey of life for them. They are not there, but live in the presence of God. And there in the churchyard of the first Church I ever served, where from Civil War days the bodies of the dead have been laid to rest, there are just gravestones the lives they lived to the glory of God are their true memorials. And there in those places, and by an empty tomb in Jerusalem, and here where we gather today, and wherever you go when you leave from here - Jesus is. That s the Good News. He shows up. Not just when you re on top of the world, when everything is all happy and clappy. But where you are however you are even when you are paralyzed by grief or fear. And the Good News is he loves you and me. Tears, failures, doubts, grief and sins and all. And if we listen with our heart, He calls us each by name. As surely as he said, Mary, long ago, He is calling your name today. Let us pray.