|
|
A Sermon by
Cynthia Bauleke
Go and Tell
Mark 16:1-8 If you are a visitor, or have not been here for awhile, I would like to tell
you that what you see here today is typical, an ordinary Sunday. The crowds, the
music, the tulips are not typical, this is not a typical Sunday. This is Easter,
quite out of the ordinary for us. This Sunday when we celebrate the resurrection is not only the greatest day
of the church year; it is also the only one that is set by the moon. Easter
falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the spring
equinox. As complicated as that sounds, it makes ancient sense, since this means
Easter coincides with the greening of the earth, at least in the northern
hemisphere. Christ is risen and the whole world comes to life. Sap rises in
dormant trees which burst forth in blossom, spring peepers start their peeping,
and flowers spill their sweet smell on the air. The connection is a joyous one,
guaranteed to renew our faith in the creative power of God. Yet this can be misleading, because spring is entirely natural. Buy a
daffodil bulb in the fall and it looks like nothing in your hands - a small
onion, perhaps, with its thin skin and scraggly roots. If you have any
experience with bulbs, however, that does not worry you. You know once you plant
the bulb in the ground all you have to do is wait. In springtime the daffodil
will escape the earth and explode with color, a yellow butterfly of a blossom
shedding its cocoon. As miraculous as it is, it is completely natural. Resurrection, on the other hand, is entirely unnatural. When a human being
goes into the ground, that is all there is. You do not wait around for the
person to reappear so you can pick up where you left off- not this side of the
grave, anyway. You say good-by. You pay your respects and you go on with your
life as best you can. That is all the women were doing that morning - paying their respects, going
to the tomb to convince themselves it was true, that their beloved Jesus was
dead. By Jewish law, they had to wait until after the Sabbath, so in the first
light of morning, of the first day of the week, they were looking at the dawn
through eyes still swollen and red from the day of tears just past. They had
that hollow feeling that comes with a great loss. The ache had become a physical
thing. They were just going through the motions that morning, minds dulled
beyond thought: staving off a return of the tears, a return of the pain, by
refusing to awaken the monster of grief in their own minds. They ate nothing. They put on the clothes of mourning that they expected to
carry them through the rest of their days. Silently they prepared the spices and
the oil needed to care for the body of their beloved. And then, not daring to
even look into one another’s eyes, they set off. Three women gliding ghostlike
through the empty streets of the gray dawn, making no sound, no murmur, to
dispel the trance of silent mourning that moved through the streets around them.
They were each determined not to remember yet how much they had loved him.
They were each resolute that they would not think of how their spirits had lit
up whenever he spoke. They were each sure that they could keep the image of that
precious face out of their minds until they reached the tomb. The face they had
last seen on Friday, twisted in pain, eyes blank with despair, had already
invaded their dreams. But now they watched the stones beneath their feet, they
fingered the hems of their scarves, they counted the cracks in the walls to try
to keep the pain in check. The task of anointing the body loomed in their minds as a grace and a terror.
They needed something to do with their grief, so they seized this opportunity to
clean up the mess as one last act of devotion, the chance to lovingly care for
Jesus’ body once more. Even if the flesh they would caress was cold and
beginning to have an odor about it. Yet they each trembled at the thought. Could
they bear it? Could they do it? Would it be a moment of healing devotion, or
would it only provoke more grief? At least they had something to do, somewhere
to go, some focus for that grief. Seeing to the practical arrangements would be
their respite from the abyss of a lonely future. And so they worried about who
would roll back the heavy stone. They focused their minds on this simple detail.
They held the aching at bay with this simple problem. . ... As they reached the tomb, to their astonishment, they find the heavy stone
rolled away. And before their weeping, round eyes, a stranger is sitting there
pointing further into the tomb and nobody, NO BODY is there. The tomb is empty.
The tomb is empty and they are stricken with terror. They are appalled. Jesus
should be here and be dead. In spite of all Jesus had told them, they expected
to find his body. Instead, the tomb is empty. We know there are all kinds of empty. All kinds. An empty sky when you're
hoping for a picnic and an empty sky when you're parched for rain. There's an
empty stomach when you’re struggling with a diet. And there's empty when you're
struggling with no food. There's an empty calendar when you have way too much to do and you're longing
for a break from a busy schedule. And there's empty when you have nothing to do,
no plans, and the days just stretch out and on and on into what seems like
nothingness. And then there is an empty room when you know somebody you love is on their
way home. And there is a whole other kind of empty when you know they are not. There are all kinds of empty and really an empty tomb, that doesn't sound
like a good one. The women were seized with terror. Who wouldn't be? And yet when the stranger points, and clearly this stranger is a holy
presence, when on that early morning so long ago, the stranger points further
into the tomb, crying out not in sorrow but in triumph, "The tomb is empty!" A
cry of victory, not loss. A declaration of love. Not horror. "Go and tell . . .
the tomb is empty." The women are terrified by the emptiness. They would have known what to do if
death had been there, that would have been natural and they would have known how
to care for the dead. But what do you do with an empty tomb? Mark says it was both awful and full of awe for them. New life is
frightening. It is unnatural. To expect a sealed tomb and find one with an
angel, to hunt the past and discover the future, to seek a corpse and find -
well nothing - none of this is natural. And so we are told they said nothing to
anyone. I suspect this is not unusual when confronted with the power of God.
Wouldn’t our fear get in the way as well? The silence of the women is
understandable, they were afraid. Perhaps this is why the resurrection story of Mark is so compelling with its
honesty and simplicity. A story of grief, fear, and broken hearts, without a
happy ending in sight. In the end, we are left with holy silence. There are no
special appearances, no gentle conversations, no risen bodies, and no ghosts
haunting the streets. Only a stone rolled away, a stranger, an empty cave – and
a promise, a promise that Jesus goes ahead of them into Galilee, followed by
silence. Yet we know something happened to those women; they were not stuck in that
place forever. Although resurrection was the end of life as they knew it, it was
not the end of the story, it was the beginning of something new. Sometime, in
the awful silence, they began to move, to run, to go from the tomb. The very
fact Mark’s gospel exists is testimony to the eloquence of the women who somehow
gathered up their courage to go and tell. You know they did, because here we are
with the story told and retold and passed on as a living treasure from friend to
friend, from sister to brother, from father to daughter. Told and retold, until
now here we are and we know what they saw. The tomb was empty. Christ is risen!
Jesus goes ahead of us and we will see the risen Christ. "Go," says the angel to
the two Marys, to Salome, and to us, "Go and tell." Resurrection is profoundly disturbing, particularly for those of us who may
have found a comfortable niche for ourselves in the world as it is, and suspect
that God’s new future may reverse not only the lot of dispossessed, but our own
as well. To live in the place and time of God’s "future-present" is to trust our
well being to the One who raises the dead and spreads a feast for one and all.
Yet in spite of this, resurrection means that even generations of defeat
haven’t ended the tale. All the forces of greed and ambition and lust for power
haven’t stopped the flow of this story of love. It has survived even the
narrowness and divisions and incompetence of the church. All the power and death
and prejudice of this world have never blocked its path. And so it goes on. Down
through the years the resurrected Spirit of Christ comes. . . here, now, to us.
We may be filled with fear, numbed by grief, terrorized by violence, filled with
questions that cannot be answered. We too may want to run away from the mystery
and the power of this day. Yet, the rest of the story is ours, and with the help
of God, it will be the story of our response, our courage, our faith, our
telling of Christ’s love with our lives. Resurrection means the faith that challenged the status quo and cried out for
justice, is not dead, but can live on in us. It means that the love that reached
out to those who were oppressed and excluded and downtrodden, is not dead, but
can live and work in us. It means the voice that lifted up a cry for those whose
voices had never been heard, is not silenced, but can cry again in us. It means
that the dream that embraced all people in one human family is not dead, but can
still take hold of our lives and live in us. Death is natural. Loss is natural. Grief is natural. But that stone rolled
away reveals a highly unnatural truth. By the light of this day, God has planted
a seed of life in us that cannot be killed, and if we can remember this then
there is nothing we cannot do: move mountains, banish fear, love our enemies,
change the world. Mark leaves us to write the rest of the story. Mark leaves us to find the
risen Christ and discover the power of God’s new life. Mark leaves us to wrestle
with our fears and to choose between life and death. Our Christ is going before
us, and we are called to go and tell. How do we respond? How do we follow? Is
this our resurrection as well? Together, let us be the rest of the story. The
tomb is empty, the risen Christ is among us. Alleluia! Christ is risen indeed! |