ALL MANNER OF THING SHALL BE WELL April 8, 2012, Easter/The Resurrection of the Lord John 20: 1-18 Michael L. Lindvall, The Brick Presbyterian Church in the City of New York Theme: The Resurrection promises that all manner of thing shall be well. God of Life, we come to church on Easter morning and let the old words of hope fall again on our ears. Like the lilies before us, may we open our hearts to hear them afresh. We do not ask that these words be emptied of their mystery, only that we might stand under their wonder, even if we can never quite understand them. And now may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen. I begin by setting before you a hypothetical scene that I ve offered you before. I repeat it because it encapsulates what may be the single greatest question of life. This is the scene: Imagine, if you will, a child awakening in the dark of the night, terrified at some dream, frightened of some phantom hiding in the bedroom closet. Imagine that the little one s mother rushes into the bedroom and scoops the child into her arms and sits in a rocking chair. She wipes sweaty locks off her frightened child's forehead, caresses his hair, rocks her gently. Then she whispers the words that a billion mothers have whispered to their children since the beginning of time, Hush now, there's nothing to be afraid of. Everything is going to be alright. (1) This scene raises a question. Is the mother really telling the truth to her child? It may true that there s nothing to be afraid just now, but is it true that everything is going to be alright? You could frame this great question in Christian terms, couch it in the story of Jesus Christ like this: How does the story of Jesus really end? Did it actually end on that hill named Calvary? Did it end in a tomb? Was its narrative dénouement merely death come too soon? Is the climax of the story that god-awe-full crucifixion, an event that was definitively not an example of everything being alright. Of course, if the cross was the end of the story, Easter is cheery myth, - 1 -
something that the disciples made up. And if the cross were the end, that mother is in fact lying to her child. Or, as people of faith dare to trust, does the story end three days later in an enigmatic event Scripture names Resurrection. This climax says that by the power of God, life actually does trump death. This ending promises that justice, compassion, love and good ultimately triumph. In this understanding, the Easter event is grounded in an actual historical reality, even if this Easter act of God still be a mystery beyond mortal ken. If this ending, the Easter ending, be true, the mother is telling the truth to her child. This is the great, cosmic choice that stands eternally before each of us, indeed before all humanity: Do you think the mother telling her child the truth? Do you think the story of Jesus Christ ends with the tragedy of Good Friday or with the new life promised in Easter? Do you believe that ultimate reality is death or life, evil or good, hate or love? The curious title of this sermon is drawn from the writing of a remarkable woman, a Medieval English mystic named Julian of Norwich. Julian lived from 1342 to 1416, years that witnessed both the horrors of a peasants revolt and the Black Death. When she was only 31, Julian suffered a severe illness and thought herself on her deathbed. In the throes of all this war, plague, and illness she experienced a series of intense visions of Jesus Christ. Julian later wrote a book about her experiences called The Revelations of Divine Love. It s a remarkable piece of work. Remarkable because it s probably the first book written in English by a woman. But even more remarkable because Julian s theology is so startlingly fresh. It focuses on human compassion and joy in a time that was fixated by law and duty. In an age that usually imagined a God of stringent judgment and ready punishment, Julian imagined a God of perfect mercy, all love, no wrath. She even dared to speak of Christ as mother. Julian said that God had directly intimated to her the words from which today s sermon title are drawn. All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. - 2 -
Julian s words might have been lost in the Middle Ages had not poet T. S. Eliot picked them up and used them in his poem, Little Gidding, the fourth of the Four Quatrains, perhaps his finest work. Little Gidding was written when Eliot was himself seriously ill. It was written in the middle of the Blitz, that horrific Battle of Britain, days when death and suffering seemed to rule England. Eliot portrayed these cross-shaped realities starkly in the poem, but he did not end it there. He next referenced Julian of Norwich s 600-year-old words. Eliot alluded to the cross, but for him man of faith that he was the cross was not the last word. The next line of the poem reads, And all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well But here s a question people in our skeptical world inevitably ask. How do you know? How do you know for sure? How do you know the mother is telling the truth? How do you know that the end of the story is Easter and not Good Friday? How do you know that the ultimate realities are life, good, and love? How do you know that all manner of thing shall be well? Well, I trust the witness of the Bible and its clear testimony to the resurrection. I trust what Mary Magdalene and Peter saw. But at the end of the day, they saw it. I was not there. You were not there. I am inclined to believe that Julian of Norwich experienced some intimation of the divine. But it was her experience, not yours or mine. I trust a poet like Eliot to discern deep truth, but in the end, it s his insight, not mine, not yours. So the contemporary question is always this: How can I know for myself? How can you know for yourself, personally know it? I have an Easter clue for you this morning, a little clue that points toward a solid answer to this insistent question about first-hand-knowing. My clue is hidden in a story On April 16, 1999, two mathematical physicists engaged in a high-profile public debate at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. Both were highly respected scientists. The subject was science and religion. On one side was Steven Weinberg, an atheist who once famously said, the more the world seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless. - 3 -
On the other side was Sir John Polkinghorne. Also a mathematician and physicist, Polkinghorne is famous for his role in developing the theory of quarks, the smallest particles in the universe, smaller even than the electrons and protons and neutrons inside atoms. Polkinghorne is also a deeply committed Christian. He believes that scientific inquiry can support not prove, but support belief in a loving God and a universe that actually does have a point. A famous intersection in their debate that night unfolded when Weinberg said this: We (meaning, we scientists ) don t believe in quarks because we can see them. We believe in quarks because all the theories that have quarks in them work. Weinberg was acknowledging the fact that quarks, which most all scientists believe in, cannot actually be observed. You can t see them, or even strictly speaking prove they exist. Nevertheless, if you believe in these unseen quarks, all sorts of things make sense. This, of course, was exactly parallel to Polkinghorne s point about religious faith. People of faith believe in God, they trust in the reality of the Resurrection, not because they can see God for themselves or can definitively prove Easter; rather they believe because, when you believe, all sorts of things make sense. Just as theories that include quarks make more sense to physicists than theories that don t. theories that include the resurrection make more sense to Christians than those that don t. (2) The truth of God, the veracity of Jesus resurrection, become for us personally true in and through living your life in a way that trusts them to be true. You take the famous leap of faith, and by taking it you come to see not through the eyes, but through life itself that when you trust in God, your life starts to make sense. You have not seen God with your eyes; you were not there to see that the first Easter any more than scientists have seen quarks. Yet, just as they believe in unseen quarks and find it makes sense of things, we trust in the unseen Living God, because believing in God makes sense of things. I end by setting before you that hypothetical that opened this sermon, but slightly revised. Imagine, if you will, a child awakening in the dark of the night, terrified at some dream, frightened of some phantom hiding in the bedroom closet. Imagine - 4 -
this time that you are this little one. Your mother, Christ, rushes into the room and scoops you into her arms and sits in a rocking chair. She wipes sweaty locks off your frightened child's forehead, caresses your hair, rocks you gently. Then Christ whispers to you the words that a billion mothers have whispered to their children since the beginning of time, Hush now, there's nothing to be afraid of. Everything is going to be alright. All manner of thing will be well. Is she telling the truth? With every ounce of my being, I trust that he is. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 1. I am indebted to Richard John Neuhaus from whom I first heard the question couched in this guise. I believe he may have had it from sociologist Peter Berger. 2. Dean Nelson and Karl Giberson, Quantum Leap: How John Polkinghorne Found God in Science and Religion, Lion UK, 2011, page 93. - 5 -