It's Easter. Where's Jesus?

Mark 16:1-8

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

In this version of the Easter story you’ve got two Marys, one Salome, two angels… and… um… that’s it.  It’s not like I’m an expert on this whole Bible Thing but… aren’t we missing someone?  It IS Easter Sunday, right?  Yup, lilies, bigger than usual group of people, bonnets.  Yup, it is IS IN FACT Easter.  And Easter IS about Jesus being raised from the dead, right?  Yeah.  So where’s our guy?  Where’s the headliner?  Where is Jesus!?  He’s not there!  You can look again if you want to, it says, “they entered the tomb, they saw a young man blah, blah, blah.  Young man says “Do not be alarmed” Classic.  (Angels always say “don’t be afraid” right after they show up out of nowhere and scare the POO out of you.)  “You’re looking for Jesus” he says.  Yeah, we are too to be honest here.  “He’s been raised, HE’S NOT HERE.”

No Jesus.  That is how Mark’s Gospel ends.  Not just this story, either.  That’s how the WHOLE GOSPEL ends.  What do you think of that ending?  Does it just seem wrong?  You’re not alone, years after Mark wrote it this way, so many people hated it so much they wrote a new ending for Mark’s Gospel.  One with Jesus in it!  They put that NEW ONE in the Bible and told Mark to just deal with it!  

But here’s what I’ve been wondering as I’ve thought about this text and Easter Sunday.  What if Mark was trying to tell us something important by ending his Gospel that way?  What if he wasn’t just a bad writer, terrible at endings, got distracted with a new project or whatever.  What if he was trying to DO SOMETHING with this ending?  What could he have been trying to do?  What could he have been trying to tell us?  

I think it’s worth another look.  So here’s how Mark's Gospel ends, “‘Go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.’ So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”  Could it be that Mark was trying to tell us that our job is to just GO?  Go, even when nothing really makes much sense?  Go, even when you are seized with terror?  Go, and tell the story even when you don’t really have all the pieces of the story figured out?  Go, even when you’re tongue tied and don’t know what to say?  Go, even when you have absolutely, not even a tiny inkling of how this story is going to end?  Is Mark telling us for Easter… to Go?  

I still don’t necessarily like this ending, but you have to admit, it sounds a WHOLE LOT like life, doesn’t it?  How often do we GO into the world ONLY when the world makes complete sense?  Yeah, pretty much never… especially this year!  How often do we just have to GO without everything figured out?  How often do we get up in the morning, creak and groan out of bed and have absolutely no idea… not even a tiny inkling, about how that day will end… and we're expected to GO anyway?  Just pretty much every day, I’d say.  

So could it be that Mark was not simply bad at his writing job, but that he wanted to tell you and me that as Christians, we’re not to wait until its all figured out.  It never will be.  We’re not to wait until we’re not scared.  We will always be afraid.  We’re not to wait until the world makes sense, because the world ain’t gonna make ANY sense ANY TIME SOON!

Instead, what we are supposed to do is follow Jesus.  His first stop apparently was in Galilee, but Galilee wasn’t the final destination… in fact, I think Mark was trying to tell us there IS no final destination when it comes to following Jesus because following requires the followers to always keep moving!

That’s us.  We’re the followers.  The followers of Jesus and we’re called to follow EVEN when the world makes no sense, even when we’re terrified, even when we can’t even talk we’re so scared.  We’re called to GO!  That’s the message I think Mark was trying to give us by writing the Easter story this way.  

So let's GO!  Going together makes it a little easier.  So, Go and bring God’s love to the world.  Go and surround the broken with compassion.  Go, even though its terrifying and stand up for the widow and the orphan, the immigrant and the refugee.  Go, and find that little way that you, yourself can inject kindness into your small corner of the world.  Go, even when people tell you it won’t make any difference.  GO.  Jesus, it seems, is already out there ahead of you… out there ahead of all of us… all we've got left to do now, is to Go.  Amen.  

God Goes First

Mark 16:1-8

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

It has been A LOT so far, hasn’t it?  That’s why I want to make sure that in all that we’ve seen and heard and experienced tonight, we haven’t lost the take home message for tonight, which is “God Goes First”.  We saw that in the stories tonight.  In the Creation story, God Goes First, loving all of creation into being and declaring it not just good but VERY GOOD.  After people were created, they were invited to live in response to what God had done, but in the Creation story, God Goes First.  

After the flood, God places the Divine War Bow in the sky with the business end pointed in God’s direction.  “May this go off and shoot me” God is saying, “if I ever try to fix the world ever again through retribution.”  So again after the flood, God Goes First.  Then in the Exodus, God Goes first.  Bringing the people out of Slavery through the Red Sea.  God does this up front, without conditions.   Later, of course,  God invites them to respond to that gift by entering into a covenant built on growing healthy, mutual relationships with God and each other, but DOING the covenant didn’t get God to act.  In Exodus God Goes First.  Then in Isaiah God offers, cajoles, and sells for FREE through the prophet’s words what humanity needs up front and without condition.  God Goes First.  Then in the last story we see Rack, Shack, and Bennie leaning WITH THEIR LIVES into the promise they had FIRST received from God, that God would take care of them.  They were able to do that because God had Gone First. 

 

Now with the lights turned on and alleluias sung, we see it once again in the Resurrection.  God Has Gone First.  With the Resurrection, it wasn’t anyone’s faith that raised Jesus.  Everyone had given up!  Run off!  One even ran off without his drawers!  If Jesus’ resurrection had depended on the people then or even us people now, Jesus would still be in that tomb!  It is ONLY because God Goes First that Jesus is raised from the Dead.  It is only because God Goes First that death no longer has the last word.  It is only because God Goes First that light shines in the darkness!  

So tonight we celebrate and give thanks, because through all of time and space God Goes First.  We celebrate that with stories.   We celebrate with Baptism… Baptism where God Goes First, grabbing hold of us up front, promising to love us unconditionally, forever, no matter what. We celebrate with the Eucharist where all are invited to God’s Table for no other reason than that God wants to share this meal with us! 

God Goes First.  We’re invited to respond to what God has done first, sure.  We’ve even been gifted some really good tips for how to respond in healthy ways.  Jesus spent his life telling us with his words and showing us with his life the Way to respond… but the take home message for tonight remains.  God Goes First and will not undo what God has done, is doing, or promises yet to do, regardless of how we respond.  God Goes First.  Thanks be to God.  Amen. 

Like Endless Waves on a Beach

John 12:20-33

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.

“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

Do you remember way back at the very beginning of John’s Gospel when Mary came up to Jesus at the Wedding in Cana and told her son to fix the “out of wine” situation?  In that moment Jesus told his mom, “My hour has NOT yet come.”  (Then of course he turned water into wine because not even Jesus tells his mom “no”.)  Well, here we are, three years later in Jesus’ ministry and it turns out that now… NOW, is when Jesus’ hour HAS actually come.  

This was the moment.  The “judgement” of the world.  Not a guilty or innocent kind of judgement.  Not a who’s in and who’s out sort of judgement.  But the kind of judgement that comes from the Greek word “krisis” which is where we get our word, you guessed it, crisis.  This was a crisis for the world.  The moment the world would completely change.  That change would create an opportunity for everyone to walk out of the darkness and become the light... to go from death into life.  That change would also create an opportunity to bring down the powerful and lift up the lowly… to fill the hungry with good things… to scatter the proud… and send the rich away empty.  This was the time that outsiders would be turned into insiders… the time for the world to return to what God created it to be.  

The “Judgement” that the world was going to return to the way God created it to be sounded GREAT to some, but sounded like a horrible crisis to others.  People threatened with the loss of power back then, were just like people threatened with the loss of power today...  and they would do ANYTHING for things not to change.  Greeks included as equal to Jews?  Women to have control of their own bodies?  People of all sexual and gender identities being brought from the outside to the inside?  Borders opened for brown people?  Widows and orphans set on their own two feet?  Debt forgiven?  That much change to the way things have always been is dangerous!  An opportunity for those who had been forgotten, sure, but dangerous for those who have always been in charge. 

Jesus, of course, was the very center of this moment; this opportunity for the lowly and forgotten and this mortal danger for the rich and proud.  This moment was THE moment to which everything in John’s Gospel had pointed and this moment, the moment of opportunity and crisis, was inextricably woven into the moment of his death and resurrection.  That would be the moment the world would be turned upside down… the moment death ceased to have the last word… the moment of infinite opportunity for some and the moment of terrible crisis for others.  THIS was the moment.  

But this moment would not just be a one and done thing.  This moment would then ripple out from there in infinite waves impacting every time and every place from that moment on into eternity.  For those of you who are deeply into Greek grammar… and who among us isn’t, really?  There’s a special Greek verb tense used here that indicates that an action in the past is still affecting the present and will continue to affect the future… forever.  It’s called the Perfect Tense.  So THAT moment was to be THE PERFECT moment in which God turned the world upside down, but like the perfect moment of a stone being dropped into an infinitely large pond.  The ripples from that moment would continue to change the world… to change us… even here… even today.  Today, right here and right now, the changes that began in that moment way back then continue to wash into each of our moments like waves upon a beach.  And just like waves upon a beach, to some they feel like gentle, healing ripples, while to others they feel like world ending tidal waves.  

ALL OF THAT crisis and opportunity is what those Greeks walked into all those years ago.  They knew the dangers of seeing Jesus… the earth shaker, the world changer.  They knew who Jesus was making uncomfortable and angry.  But as outsiders they also knew that in Jesus they had the opportunity to be transformed… to be lifted up to be Children of God… to be accepted unconditionally into a community of faith… to be wrapped up in God’s love and surrounded with God's peace... a peace which passes all understanding… to not just walk in God’s light but to become part of God’s light that shines into the world's darkness.

Those same ripples, from that same moment, are here today, lapping up onto this very moment and they ask us the same question they asked the Greeks.  Will you join with Jesus in this moment… will you join with the earth shaker, the tidal wave maker, the God’s Kingdom bringer and continue to transform the world?  Will you join with the One who says, “when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw ALL people to myself” and insist, along with Jesus, that ALL really does mean ALL and that a few or even a bunch just isn’t enough and that only ALL people and ALL of creation will do?  

Because THAT is Christianity!  Joining with Jesus to change the world into a world ruled by radically inclusive love and unlimited compassion, and working on that project endlessly, incessantly, interminably, on and on, tirelessly, perpetually, relentlessly, like the waves of the ocean work on thousand foot high cliffs of stone.  THAT is what those Greeks came to see Jesus about that day.  May we too have the courage of those Greeks to want to see Jesus.  Amen. 

You Keep Using That Word

 John 3:14-21

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

“Whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”  “Everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” “Those who believe in him are not condemned.”  “Those who do not believe are condemned already because they have not believed.”  “Believing,” it would seem, is REALLY important to this Gospel lesson.  Pretty much the key to it, if we’re being honest, but what Jesus meant by “believing” 2000 years ago turns out to be very different than what most folks think “believing” means now.  Marcus Borg, who was a Biblical scholar, professor and author wrote, “Being Christian is not very much about believing, in the sense of 'believing the right things', even though the notion that it is about believing a set of teachings or doctrines is widespread. That is a relatively recent distortion of Christianity.”

It seems that the change in the meaning of “Believing” happened during the Reformation and in the wake of the Enlightenment.  In the reformation churches divided over doctrine and which doctrine you “believed,” up here in your head, put you either in the right or in the wrong.  Then, when the scientific discoveries of Enlightenment called into question things like the earth being at the center of the universe, what you “believed” about that, up here in your head, again determined right or wrong.  This was where the idea of biblical literalism began and before long “believing” had turned into “believing the right things" including that the Bible was literally true and science was wrong.  The stakes of what you “Believed” up here in your head could not be higher… it was literally heaven or hell.  

But that was not what Jesus meant when he talked about believing.  So, what did he mean?  Borg says that to Jesus, believing meant something like the English word “beloving.”  When Jesus said “BELIEVE” Jesus envisioned you and I having a relationship with God and Jesus characterized by fidelity, devotion, and loyalty.  A steadfast, trustworthy allegiance with God and Jesus.  That connection would be ardent, dependable, reliable, and true.  When Jesus talked about “Believing” he wasn’t talking about what we do up here (point to head).  He was talking about TO what or TO Whom we give this in here (our heart).  

In a few minutes we’ll profess our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed.  The Latin word “credo” is most often translated into English as “I believe” but that word’s roots tell us it would better translate as “I give my heart to.”  Borg says that even though the creed includes "a list of central Christian convictions… saying the creed does not mean, “‘I believe the following affirmations to be literally true.’ Rather, it means ‘I give my heart to God’ – and then it tells us who that is... The creator of heaven and earth, of all that is.  I give my heart to Jesus – and who’s that?” Well, it was the one born of the virgin Mary... and so on.    

Christianity, it turns out, is not about “believing the right things in our heads.”  Simply “believing the right things” doesn't change us but Christianity is about a transformation of our entire being that shapes the way we see the world, shapes the way we enter into relationships in the world, and shapes the way we live in the world so that what Paul wrote becomes more and more true each day, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”  

Believing isn’t a head thing.  Its a heart thing.  Believing isn’t about thinking… it’s about passion!  A PASSION to be closer to God.  A PASSION for Jesus.  NOT a Passion for the Bible, or a doctrine, or a theology… all which may (or may not) point to Jesus.  It is a passion for Jesus, the person, and a passion for living this life as Jesus lived this life.  

And HOW did Jesus live this life?  With compassion and love, never with hate or division.  With his hands and his feet, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, casting out demons, challenging oppression, standing up to an abusive economic system, raising the dead, weeping with those who mourned.  It is our devotion to that person and our emulation of that person’s way of living in this world… THAT is what Jesus meant by BELIEVING all those years ago.  THAT is what it means to be a Christian.

“Whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”  In other words, whoever devotes their lives to living as he did will experience life as God intended it to be!  “Everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  In other words, a devoted connection to Jesus is something that transcends this earthly life. “Those who believe in him are not condemned and those who do not believe are condemned already.”  In other words, those whose hearts are molded after Jesus’ heart are even now experiencing abundant life, while the rest have yet to begin living at all.  

For God so loved the world that he sent his only Son, so that everyone could see a person living this life the way God created it to be lived and attach ourselves to that person as a guide to help get us through this thing called life.  Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might see that the WAY out of the hole humanity had dug for itself wasn’t hard, wasn’t impossible, and wasn’t just for a select few people, but was right there in front of everyone, given to them as a free gift… and that WAY'S name, is Jesus.  Amen.