Alleluia!
Christ is Risen!”
“He
is risen, indeed, Alleluia!”
Yes,
that is the message of this great day, as has been repeated for centuries since
that first Easter morning since the women first stumbled upon the empty tomb.
Christ
is risen…unless, as it happens, you are attending worship at Acomb Parish
Church in North Yorkshire, England, this year. The on-line news source The Daily Dot reports that members of
that congregation ordered large banners to attract worshippers and announce the
Easter message to the town without carefully proofreading the final order. Instead
of having signs that proclaimed that message that was first proclaimed at the
empty tomb, the news that forever changed the world, the parish ended up with
large banners that say, in large red letters, “Chris is Risen.” Able to laugh
at themselves, they posted the unusable signs to their Facebook page. As you
can imagine, the comments they received were equally funny. One person wrote,
“No need to make a song and dance about it.” A person named Chris responded, “I
have risen every morning so far. I plan to continue. Thank you for your
support.” And yet another commenter went with the typo theme and wrote, ‘Thank
the lard.’”[1]
Chris
is risen….Christ is risen…what exactly is the message of this day? What
precisely did occur at that tomb outside of Jerusalem so many years ago? Are we
any better about communicating and articulating what this event means, what
this news involves? It’s not just Acomb Parish who has had a difficult time
getting the message across. Are we surprised to learn, in fact, that the first
ever Easter banner is chalked up as nothing but a verbal typo? The women—those
dutiful, faithful women, discharging the dirty work of tending to the dead—show
up at the tomb only to find it empty and return to tell the other disciples only
to have it dismissed as nothing but an idle tale. “Surely you’ve left out a
letter or something,” reply the eleven and the rest, scoffing.
 |
| "The Women at the Tomb" Il Baciccio (1685) |
Women,
typically treated as second-class citizens in that day and age, had actually
been integral in Jesus’ ministry from the very start. Luke has told us that at
least once already, earlier in his gospel. They worked alongside him and
probably even served as leaders in this growing community of faith, but this
bit of news is too much for anyone to grab hold of. The men do not believe
their report, and you can guarantee that if there had been social media in that
day and age, they would have had a heyday with what the women said. “Christ is
risen? Whatever your sign is supposed to say, you’d better it re-ordered right
now before people think you’re silly.”
Yes,
whatever the message of today is, it’s been struggling to catch on since the
start. Whether we’re drawn to its promise, intrigued, or defiantly hopeful in
its gift and joy; whether we’re suspicious of it, or even downright doubtful, it’s
somewhat comforting to know that people have been wondering about it since the
beginning. Even Peter, fresh off his night of denying any association with his
Lord, who runs right to the tomb to proofread the women’s message, does not
appear to make sense of or even believe what has happened. We only hear that he
is amazed.
And,
to be accurate, the confusion about the resurrection’s message goes back even
farther than Peter’s discovery and the women’s report. There is apparently
major misunderstanding and mistaken motives right from the start, when the
women first show up at the tomb. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” ask
the two mysterious visitors whom the women bump into at the tomb. The original
language is even a little more provocative: “Why are you seeking among the dead
the one who lives? He is not here, but has risen.”
To
be sure, all four gospel writers report some confusion and disorientation that
first Easter morning. It’s understandable. Dead bodies are not supposed to get
out and walk out of their grave. But Luke is the only one who includes this
sense of “You should have known!” a sense of “Didn’t you proofread anything,
women and disciples? Jesus told you it would be like this all along…that he
would come to Jerusalem and suffer and be crucified at the hands of sinners and
then rise on the third day?”
The
news of the resurrection, then, begins with a missed up message, a misprinted
banner. Christ’s followers are looking in the wrong places. And they don’t even
realize what they’re looking for. Life has been promised. Suffering will be defeated.
Death itself will die. This is the kind of God they believe in, the particular
God who has called them into service, but they’ve continued along like none of
it has ever happened or mattered.
It
is God who delights in overcoming the insurmountable, the God who miraculously embraces
the runaway son, who doggedly seeks out the lost sheep, who works through the
compassion of a despised Samaritan. It is the God who whips up dinner for five
thousand with a handful of ingredients, the God who arrives for dinner at the
tax-collector’s house, the God who restores the leper, long invisible, to his
community, the God who began this journey of overturning the power of death in,
of all places, a manger! Such a long track record he has, ladies! And
gentlemen! Things would be no different with that cross. Now tell me again, “Why
do you seek among the dead the one who lives???”
And
that’s right where I think all of us can jump right in this morning. My fear is
not that we get the message wrong, that the words are misspelled or misplaced
on the resurrection banners we wave with our lives, that we misrepresent what
this day means. My fear is that we’re so surrounded by death today that we
forget to look for the God who lives. There are a lot of things about culture,
about world events, about the direction of things in these times in which
people feel don’t have a future. We see so much decay and degeneration that it’s
all we begin to look for. It’s all our eyes are trained to see, all our hearts
are trained to trust. But God specializes in living! The God who has formed and
made each of us has a long track record of surprising with mercy, with love,
with life.
Last
week an amateur metal-detectorist in Denmark got off work early and decided to
go looking for treasure, as was his hobby. Lo and behold, he ended up
unearthing a gold crucifix dating back to the tenth century, startling and
amazing archaeologists and causing the historians to re-write the history
books, all of whom had no idea that Christianity had arrived in Denmark that
early. Says Dennis Holm, who made the discovery, “[Ever] since I cleared the
mud and found the jewelry, I have not been able to think of anything else.”[2]
Sisters
and brothers, believe it or not, some people are still looking amidst the
terrorism, amidst the hospitalization, amidst the fear in their hearts, wanting
to believe there is a God who can clear away the mud of this messy world and
bring about the living from among the dead. It may seem like an idle tale, but it
will forever change the way they think. And you, shiny treasures of gold, have
gotten the message, despite the obstacles of understanding: “He is not here. He is risen. Remember how
he told you?”
So…figure
out a way to say it, to be amazed by it.
Make
your sign and live it.
With
the Spirit’s help, you can. You will.
Christ
is risen! Absolutely appropriate to go ahead and make a song and dance about
it. Thank the lard.
The Reverend Phillip W.
Martin, Jr.
[1] “Easter
Church Banner Declares that ‘Chris is Risen.’” The Daily Dot. Gabe Bergado. http://www.dailydot.com/lol/easter-sign-typo-chris/
[2]
“Ancient Crucifix discovered by amateur treasure hunter” in Christianity Today.
Florence Taylor, March 18, 2016
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/ancient.crucifix.discovered.by.amateur.treasure.hunter.may.change.christian.history/82154.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment