EASTER 2018 Real Life in Jesus Name Texts: John 20:1-18 Preached: 4/1/18 John 20:30-31 What is real life? Are you in it? Do you know real life in Jesus name? Or is real life something less spiritual? Some would say that real life is doing what needs to be done Going to the grocery store, making meals, washing the dishes, taking out the garbage, going to work, paying the bills, doing your homework, filing your taxes, mowing the lawn (ahh, we ll be doing that again), taking care of family while any one of these tasks can be rewarding or even enjoyable, they can all seem a drudgery, a long list of chores. Sometimes circumstances require us to put those normal things aside in order to attend to something pressing. This was the case for Mary Magdalene. She was pulled out of her routine, her normal drudgery, to attend to a further drudgery, a difficult and painful drudgery the drudgery of grief. That s where the resurrection story begins, and Mary Magdalene plays a central role. She watched her friend and mentor be executed in a gruesome spectacle called crucifixion. She watched Jesus suffer and finally take his last breath on the cross. It s been three days. She is a faithful disciple, seeking to do what is right. She must attend to the body. She must honor her own need to grieve. She sets out for the cemetery early while it s still dark. Mary begins the story with both of her feet in the old world, living the old life. She is first surprised by what she finds at Jesus tomb and then even more surprised by who finds her. She makes three parallel statements first to the two male disciples,
then to the two angels in the tomb, and finally to one she assumes is the gardener (but who we know is actually the risen Christ.) In all of these encounters she is pre-occupied with the body of Jesus. Even though she discovers the tomb empty, the stone sealing it rolled aside, rather than inspiring her faith, instead it causes her anxiety and consternation. What has become of the corpse? She had ventured out so early to begin the slow, painful process of coming to grips with the absence of Jesus. Her tears are right on the surface. The cemetery is an appropriate place to grieve. But the disturbed scene disrupts what she is about and only creates fear and frustration. She intuits that someone has taken Jesus body. What other possibility could there be? When faced with an open, empty tomb, Mary functions reasonably. Her grief does not cloud her rational faculties. She arrives at the only conclusion a person in her (or our) right mind can arrive at. Dead bodies do not simply disappear. Someone has to move them. In a world of cause and effect, of established rules as to what can happen and how, in a closed structure that allows only for the old and familiar to recur, Mary s logic is right on target. Find the body, wherever it has been taken, and get on with grieving. The two disciples have the same experience and come to the same conclusion. They run to tell their comrades the body is gone. They will not meet their risen Lord until later but Mary s old closed world (and ours) is quickly broken open when Jesus calls her name, right there in the cemetery. Something illogical, impossible, unbelievable heretofore unnatural, takes place. The One who was certified dead and buried greets Mary. The established rules as to what can happen and how are overthrown. The old plausibility structure is left in shambles. It is a new day a new world. Mary is introduced to a new life so are we. Hearing her name spoken by Jesus familiar voice brings a transformation of her grief and the opening of a new world not just for Mary, but for all of us who seek Jesus. What she eventually announces to the disciples changes everything I have seen the Lord. Because Jesus rose from the dead transformation is no longer a pipedream, no longer unbelievable, no longer impossible, no longer unnatural.
I have seen the Lord. He is risen He is risen indeed. We know the stories of what Jesus said and did. We know the signs he performed, many signs, recorded in the pages of scripture. But there were many more signs, not written down, and many more that we ourselves have witnessed, evidence of the presence of the risen Christ. This day we rejoice in the Good News of Jesus resurrection we renew our belief in the transforming power of God through Christ and we claim again the real life available to us in Jesus name! real life amidst the everyday chores and duties, real life that transforms simple tasks, gives meaning and purpose even when they seem like drudgery. ` I was surprised to learn that Artist Vincent Van Gogh was a man of Easter faith and even did some preaching. He said once that he was interested in painting "not blossoms, but blossoming." If God is a painter, which is surely true, God holds the same interest the interest in transformation from bud to flower, from bulb to bursting forth, from branch to blossom...really, the blossoming. Winston Churchill is another famous person with Easter faith. Before he died, Churchill planned his own funeral, which took place in London, Saint Paul's Cathedral. He included many of the great hymns of the church and used the eloquent Anglican liturgy. At his direction, a bugler, positioned high in the dome of Saint Paul's, intoned, after the benediction, the sound of 'Taps,' the universal signal that says the day is over. "But then came the most dramatic turn: As Churchill had instructed, as soon as 'Taps' was finished, another bugler, placed on the other side of the great dome, played the notes of 'Reveille' - 'It's time to get up. It's time to get up. It's time to get up in the morning.' That was Churchill's testimony on his own life and for the end of history, the last note will not be 'Taps,' it will be 'Reveille. A wise man once said, What the caterpillar calls the end, God calls a butterfly. The butterfly has long been a symbol of Jesus resurrection, a real-life depiction of the Easter transformation, from ugliness and death to beauty and new life.
Resurrection is built right into the fabric of creation, reminding us that God is making all things new through Christ that real life is always offered in Jesus name. If you have found yourself in drudgery in these fading days of winter I remind you that spring is coming that creation is in the process of blossoming. There are hints, even now, reminders to us, that Christ is risen. Butterflies will soon be emerging from their chrysalis tombs. The butterfly pictured here is a Monarch. What makes this species so amazing is that they are rarely alone. In fact, monarchs are known for their near miraculous migration. It is spectacular enough that they travel from Mexico where they winter to Canada where they summer. But what is even more remarkable, is that these tiny symbols of the resurrection take three generations to make the round trip. No one generation makes the whole trip, each successive generation making a different trip than the previous one. How do they know? One generation passes away before the next is born. Yet they get the message and know where to go. Do they leave tiny Post-It Notes, stuck to the inside of each Chrysalis? Somehow they pass on the Good News of the Journey they leave instructions for real life, each one learning the true calling, each one committed to the way. How can we, ourselves, be symbols of the resurrection? How are we passing on the Good News of real life in Jesus name? How are we embracing that real life for ourselves?
Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa in 1994. It was an amazing transformation, since he had spent many years in prison during the racist policy of Apartheid. In his inaugural address, Mandela spoke about how fearful we are about living a real life. Mandela asserted that: "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us. It's in everyone, and, as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."