Sermons

Walking in Your Footsteps

Easter Sunday

John Wilkinson                            Third Presbyterian Church
April 16, 2006                               Mark 16:1-8

Why are you here? That may be an odd welcome, but it is an interesting question. And, it is a question that seems to be producing a whole new set of answers.

In eras past, we came to church on Easter morning because it was the thing to do and the place to be seen. Whether we came every Sunday or every once in a great while, we were certainly here on this day. But that has changed as cultural dictates have changed.

In fact, a reporter posed the question to me this week: “Do your regular attenders get cranky or judgmental toward the Easter-only attenders?” I cannot presume to speak for you. Perhaps you are cranky or judgmental, or even cranky and judgmental. But I replied, “Heavens, no!” I replied that we are grateful and delighted whenever anyone shows up here. And further, if there is only one day to show up, this day seems to be a pretty good choice.

So we are here now for reasons other than cultural ones, perhaps. In a recent study, University of Pittsburgh researchers reported that regular religious attendance can help people live longer, adding two to three years to life expectancy. On another front, a report of a 10 year medical study suggested that prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, and that patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications, perhaps because of the expectations the prayers created. (New York Times, Online edition, March 31, 2006)

I am not sure what to do with these studies. More church, less prayer. Some of you may be praying for that, anyway. So you may be here to increase your life expectancy. We cannot guarantee that, I do not think. We can guarantee a different life, a transformed life. That’s a roundabout welcome to all of you, to all of us – long-time member, newcomer, visitor, guest. We are delighted that we have found each other on any day, but particularly this day. And we do very much hope that if you are interested in learning more about us, interested, even, in pursuing the notion of church membership, that you will speak to one of us and visit us again. There is a great deal that goes on here that begins to answer the question why you are here, and a great many wonderful people with whom you may share the journey. So welcome.

In point of fact, I believe we are here because of the story. So let us hear it, from Mark’s gospel: (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. 2And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6But 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. 7But 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.” 8So 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.” This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

There is something about this story. And there is something about the person at the center of the story. Like clockwork, the newsweeklies have positioned Jesus on the front pages in this holy season. University of Chicago professor Margaret Mitchell writes: “Before noon last Friday, April 7, we were presented with a trinity of mass media stories about ancient Christianity: a "lost gospel" of Judas appeared on the front page of the New York Times; a British court decided Dan Brown (author of The DaVinci Code) did not plagiarize from (a previous work); and James Tabor appeared on "Good Morning America" to reveal that he may have new information about the family tomb of Jesus.”

As interesting as the “Gospel of Judas” is, Professor Mitchell writes, filled with religious imagination and cosmic speculation, it “does not give us new historical information about the actual events circa 30 CE (the Christian, or Common, era), when Jesus of Nazareth was crucified under Roman order.” (“What Is Truth in Recent Claims about Christian Origins?” Sightings, 4/13/06)

There is something about the story, and the person at the center of the story, that draws us in, that makes the culture curious.

About that story. Mark’s version is spare and lean, light on details. What we 21st century seekers want to know most fervently – how did it happen? – is not explained at all. The three women who go to the tomb to care for the body wonder what they will do when they get there. They see a young man in a white robe, who apparently reads the look on their faces and responds with great understatement – don’t be afraid. He tells them that Jesus is not here, but has been raised, and has gone to Galilee. That’s as close as we get to a resurrection narrative.

Frederick Buechner writes that “It has always struck me as remarkable that when the writers of the four Gospels come to the important part of the story they have to tell, they tell it in whispers… It was the most extraordinary thing they believed had ever happened, and yet they tell it so quietly that you have to lean close to be sure what they are telling.” (“The Secret in the Dark,” from Secrets in the Dark, pages 252-253)

There is something about the story. New Testament scholars fuss over the manner in which Mark’s account abruptly ends. Some think it is intentionally so; others think that something must be missing. Is it finished or unfinished? The ending draws us in and leads us forward. It is now not simply a story, or the story. It is our story. “Do not be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here.” Notice that the one at the center of the story appears nowhere here. Jesus is elsewhere, ahead of us. Theologically and culturally, Jesus remains at the center, and yet our understanding remains elusive.

There is something about him. A new string of secular books seeks to interpret his life through the lens of American life while a new string of religious books seek to unpack the mystery. Stephen Prothero’s American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon, attempts “to see how Americans of all stripes have cast the man from Nazareth in their own image.” (Page 7) Perhaps we do that, though I believe we do more than that. Prothero detects four images of Christ in American life: enlightened sage; sweet savior; manly redeemer; and, of course, superstar. All are worth pondering, particularly in juxtaposition to the story we’ve just shared.

Historian Richard Wightman Fox poses a similar question a bit differently: how each society, in each new generation, embodies Jesus differently. In Jesus in America: Personal Savior, Cultural Hero, National Obsession, Fox reminds us that Jesus’ incarnation as a human means that each moment and each human “grasps him anew.” (Page 11)

That would be true today. In this city this very morning, African-American Baptist congregations and Hispanic Catholic congregations and evangelical congregations and progressive congregations and big congregations and small congregations experience this human one and his story differently. Even though we cannot shed our cultural skin, but we do seek meaning beyond our own lives and experiences.

Theologian Douglas John Hall writes that “It takes more than social conditioning to make people Christians in any genuine and lasting sense of the term.” (Why Christian?, page 15) Hall asserts that “Christianity came into existence only when and because some people believed that Jesus ‘puts us into touch with God’ in a unique and decisive way…that Jesus (was)…the one through whom the deepest longings of life are met and responded to.”

I believe that. I believe that the truth of this story and the one at its center transcends every moment in history even as it speaks to every moment in history.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, the book of Hebrews reminds. I believe that. But that sameness is not an ossified rendering designed only for museum viewing, or a restricted doctrinal articulation that leaves no room for freedom and doubt.

Remember that the tomb was empty and he was gone when the three women showed up. This same Jesus who will not be constrained by death will not be constrained by any narrow understanding – or, rather, his universal witness of hope and justice and redemption plays itself out in the drama of each life, each place, each moment.

Theologian Leanne Van Dyk recounts our efforts. At times we have portrayed Jesus as a disappointed, failed prophet. Or a wild revolutionary with political ambitions. Or a musty, romantic, Jesus meek and mild. Or a philosopher, a wise sage. Albert Schweitzer’s formulation was of Jesus as “a stranger and an enigma,” but Van Dyk believes we answer the question even better when we ask not who Jesus was, but who he is, and how he is calling us to be. (Believing in Jesus Christ, page 27-29)

Yet we miss the point if we stop here, if our focus remains on Jesus alone. For to return continually to Jesus is to return continually to the story, God's story of creation and redemption and reconciliation. Jesus is the key plotline, but the story itself takes us to a new place.

If our deepest longings are met here, if we find meaning and hope in this story, then our challenge on this resurrection Sunday is not about how we form this story to our lives, but rather about:

· How we form our lives to this story.
· How we form our lives to the vision of the kingdom of God, with its counter-cultural credo and topsy-turvy ethics of justice over oppression and peace over violence.
· How we form our lives to the radical nature of his humble life and ignominious death and rejection by all and even his followers.
· How we form our lives to the promise of love, that God loved the world so much, that the greatest of these is love, that we should love one another as God has loved us.

At the end of Mark’s spare telling of the story, we learn that the three women flee from the tomb, for “terror and amazement” had seized them. That seems about right. This is not a story to make us feel comfortable, nor is the one at its center a purveyor of good feelings. Terror and amazement. Good Friday and Easter. Life itself.

William Sloane Coffin – Presbyterian minister, Yale chaplain, pastor of Riverside Church, peace activist, icon, the strong voice of our tradition for a generation or more. Coffin died Wednesday night. I was privileged to squire him around our college campus some 20 plus years ago and to hear him preach at Riverside Church. One time Coffin said that “Scripture is not around for anyone's protection, just for everyone's unending support.”

That seems to be the message on this resurrection Sunday, which offers us a real-life combination platter of terror and amazement. The good news of this day does not inoculate us from bad things; from broken relationships or disappointing work situations, from illness or loneliness or anxiety. It certainly does not inoculate the world from bad things happening, our bomb-exploding, war-making, barrier-building world. Terror and amazement.

Coffin lost a son, Alexander, to a senseless car crash at the age of 24. Ten days later he preached this: “Finally I know that when Alex beat me to the grave, the finish line was not Boston Harbor in the middle of the night. If a week ago last Monday, a lamp went out, it was because, for him at least, the Dawn had come.”

That is what I, and we, believe this day. That though we flee from the empty tomb because terror and amazement seize us, we flee not into despair, or hopelessness, or death. We flee into the promise of reconciliation and light and love and life. That is why we are here. And that is we how, and why, we go from here, into that promise, into all the world. Christ is risen indeed. Amen.