Acts 10: 34, 37-43 + Psalm 118 + 1 Corinthians 5: 6-8 + John 20: 1-9
April 8, 2012
Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK
The world in which this Easter is celebrated has problems with resurrection. It has problems with anything transcendent: anything it can’t see, buy, control, or understand. This life is all there is. You only go around once. Grab all you can for the thrill of it. Enthralled and entertained by skills of indulgence talk of heaven and the suggestion that there is something beyond this life seems oddly out of place and to some inappropriate. We want to make good sense of our faith as Christians especially to those who think our beliefs are outdated. But our discourse and conversation is hardly ever about forgiveness, redemption, heaven and hell. If someone would ask us about our church or our faith, we might start talking about how friendly it is, how beautiful the church is, how wonderful the choir, or how big the gym and inclusive the programs might be from softball and soccer to quilting and healthy living.
To think, talk, and act this way leaves us on a collision course with what we are really doing in here in worship Sunday after Sunday. If we ever give serious thought to the reality we claim is taking place in this assembly around this altar, we might run for cover, or cover it up. There is something more astounding and profound happening here beyond warm fellowship. There is something more profound going on here than stirring music and crafted thought-provoking homilies. The act of our liturgy is more significant than this homily or their music. The act of our liturgy is more significant than this building, it’s style or decor, but that fact does not seem to be sinking in or widly believed for let something go wrong or something more interesting come along, leaves us to count the missing.
What we do here is about our salvation and our destiny or it is nothing it all. It is the pledge of eternal forgiveness. Communion is not mere bread for earthly bodies. Quite the contrary, it is nutrition for transformed bodies. It is what sustains pilgrims on their way out of and beyond this life. We eat this body of Christ who has died and risen so that we might die and rise.
We celebrate Easter with Eucharist because this is the promise of an eternal banquet. We celebrate Easter with Eucharist because on the night before He died he asked us to do this in memory of him. We celebrate Easter with Eucharist because he said: “Unless you eat flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you shall not have life in you.” We celebrate Eucharist because every celebration of Eucharist is Easter for those who are celebrating and proclaiming the death of the Lord until he comes in glory.
We are a people who believe that there is more than meets the eye. There is more than the earth in all its might, more than our projects and exploits in all their splendor, and therefore, there is more to us than what we can buy and consume just as there is more on this altar than bread and wine. There is more to that empty tomb than met the eye of those who looked into it. They found nothing. Not only did they fail to find the Body of Christ, they did not find death either which is what they expected. So that discovery was a surprise; it did not fit in to their expectations and it changed everything. That empty tomb was more empty of death than it was of Christ. What they failed to find was death in a tomb. It isn’t there anymore.
There is a little detail in John’s gospel that feeds our imagination and faith. It is the matter of those folded up cloths. Unlike Lazarus, who comes forth from his tomb wrapped in burial cloths that needed to be untied so he could go free, the burial cloths of Jesus are left behind. They are folded up neatly, not ripped and left in haste by anyone who might take the body. Jesus comes forth from that tomb in a totally new kind of life, leaving behind the rags of his old life.
That woman, Mary Magdalene and Peter are slow to believe. The other disciple, the one Jesus loved the Gospel says, saw and believed. What did he see, or what does “seeing” really mean? The other disciple with Peter was a man of love which always allows us to see what others do not see. True Resurrection faith does not arise from seeing and believing in an empty tomb but from meeting God in the Scriptures and knowing that God is love. As long as there is love, there will be life. As long as there is love, there will be forgiveness. Those who love Jesus Christ are drawn to mourn his death, only to learn that he lives with them in a way that trascends their hopes because there is always more than meets the eye. There is more to us all than what others can see. Say “Amen” to that someone!
This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad!