Sometimes You Can See it Coming

The Holy Gospel According to St. Matthew, the 28th Chapter

After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

Sometimes… you can see it coming.  I was scrolling through Facebook recently and came across a video.  The video was stopped on the first frame, so there was no way to KNOW what was going to happen, but you could pretty much see it coming.  In that first, frozen, frame there was a train station on one side of the shot and the tracks on the other side.  It had snowed the night before… quite a bit, by the looks of it, and there were a couple of feet of snow drifted over the tracks.  

Off in the distance in this first, frozen, frame… down the tracks a bit, there was a train.  So, now you’ve got all the pieces to this puzzle.  People on the platform, a ton of snow on the tracks, a train on the way and the video going viral on Facebook.  Sometimes you can see how the pieces of the puzzle fit together, sometimes you know how the video is going to end… sometimes you can see it coming.  Sure enough, you push play and the train barrels through the station, not planning to stop, but plowing the snow from the night before and all that snow from the tracks gets plowed up and showered all over the people waiting at the station!  Sometimes, you can see how the puzzle will come together… sometimes, you can see it coming.  

Sometimes though… you can’t. Sometimes… you can’t see how the pieces fit together and you can’t see it coming.  Jesus, the one these disciples had been following now for three years, had been crucified.  He had talked about the Kingdom of God coming near… the world working in a new way where everyone had enough… enough food, enough shelter, enough dignity, enough self worth, enough purpose, enough meaning and having enough would make life abundant!  That was one piece of the picture… one piece of the puzzle.  But he hadn’t just TALKED about that stuff, he had made that stuff HAPPEN.  Healing the sick, feeding the hungry, giving sight to the blind and even raising the dead!  That was another piece to the puzzle.  But then there was Good Friday.  A horribly different piece of the puzzle… Jesus crucified.  He was dead and no one saw how THAT horribly final, tragic and unchangeable piece of the puzzle would fit together with Jesus’s actions that SHOWED the Kingdom of God was coming with the promise of abundant life.  There was NO WAY those pieces of that puzzle would EVER fit together.  They simply could NOT see Easter coming.  

It’s interesting though how the different disciples handled that impossible puzzle when it was placed in front of them.  The pieces were all there… Jesus’ promise of abundant life… Jesus’ actions that brought about abundant life… and then Jesus’s death on the cross.  The guys… Matthew, James, John and the rest of the guys… they ran off at the crucifixion and hid, figuring they were very likely the next ones to hang on a cross.  They took a look at those pieces of that impossible puzzle, threw up their hands and went home.  

The women though… Mary and the other Mary… they didn’t run off.  They stayed to the end and then, even though there was ABSOLUTELY NO WAY those puzzle pieces would EVER be put together, they came back to the tomb on Sunday.  They didn’t see the Resurrection coming any more than the guys did, but they also didn’t throw up their hands and go home.  Instead of running away, they chose to take a step toward the next faithful thing… go to the tomb and take care of Jesus’ body.  

They KNEW, just like the guys did, that the pieces of the puzzle they had would NEVER go together.  Jesus’ promise for life, his actions to bring about life and his horrible death were like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and a 747!  Things that just did NOT fit together!  But the women remained engaged anyway, turning the pieces this way and that way, around and around… even though there was NO WAY they could see them going together, they kept the puzzle pieces turning.  

Mary and the other Mary, stuck with the puzzle… so they were there when God gave them the piece to the puzzle they were missing.  The resurrection.  It was the piece that made that impossible puzzle come together and they NEVER saw it coming.  They stuck with the puzzle, turning it and working with it until the piece they needed was given to them by God.  

You and I… we’re faced with puzzles in our lives and in our world and in our church all the time.  Sometimes we can see how they go together way down the track.  But sometimes we just can’t!  When we’re faced with those impossible puzzles… disease, cancer, the death of a spouse or a child or a parent, impossible personal finances… impossible church finances, job changes, moving, transitions, having to start again… When we get handed the pieces to a puzzle that are impossible to put together… not just LOOK really hard to put together, but are literally IMPOSSIBLE to put together… what do we do?  

Well, you could handle it like James, John, Matthew and the guys.  Throw up your hands, give up on the puzzle, and run off.  That’s clearly one option… But you might handle it like Mary and the other Mary.  In spite of KNOWING that the pieces you have don’t fit together, you could choose to put one foot in front of the other and do the next faithful thing and the next faithful thing and then the next faithful thing… turning those puzzle pieces and watching for God to do something you’ll never see coming.  

Easter teaches us that we don’t have all the pieces.  That there are unexpected pieces yet to come… Pieces that we can’t even IMAGINE and could NEVER see coming.  May we choose to be like Mary and the other Mary.  May we keep turning the pieces… Keep stepping toward the next faithful thing and the next… turning the pieces until God does something unexpected that we could NEVER see coming. Because with God, it turns out there is no such thing as an impossible puzzle.  Amen.