What Is Resurrection

Preaching Notes

Easter B.2015

Mark 16:1-8

What is resurrection?

What does it mean to proclaim the words Christ has risen! Christ has risen indeed!

The answer to that question is not easy.Perhaps the answer you expect from me is to say that that it simply means that Jesus, who was hung on a cross and died, came back to life.And that is certainly one important way to answer the question, “What is resurrection?”

But there are other dimensions to resurrection, because the Easter proclamation isn’t just about Jesus. It is also about us.

This morning we read Mark’s account of what happened after Jesus died on the cross.Mark’s version of the story is quite different from the other gospel writers. For example, when compared to the Matthew, Luke, and John, it seems like the Gospel of Mark ends rather abruptly.

Most scholars believe that the original manuscript of Mark’s gospel did not include versus 9-30. Because of this most Bibles contain a notation that the additional verses were added later. So if we agree with the scholars and believe that verses 9-30 were added later, then Mark’s gospel ends with the final verse in today’s reading:

And having gone out they fled from the tomb, for trembling and amazement seized them, and they told no one anything, for they were afraid(Mark 16:8).

It is an unusual and abrupt ending because not only does it end with the women being so afraid that they tell no one about the empty tomb they have discovered, but also there is no recorded appearance of the risen Lord.

According to Mark, when the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, go to the tomb to anoint the body of their crucified friend and teacher. On the way to the tomb they worry aloud about how they will get the large stone, which is blocking the entrance, out of the way so they can get in and prepare the body for burial. But when they arrive at the tomb they discover, much to their surprise, the stone has been rolled away. Then, when they go inside the cave where the body of Jesus had been laid, they encounter some kind of mystical, angelic creature who tells them that Jesus has risen and is headed to Galilee to meet up with the disciples.

Mark says that this encounter frightens the women so much that they run away and don’t tell anyone what happened to them.And that’s where the earliest version of Mark’s gospel ends.It’s kind of nice because it doesn’t contain any preconceived notion of what it means to encounter the risen Lord. Rather, the Gospel writer leaves everything wide open for interpretation.

I find Mark’s original ending refreshing because for me, resurrection is really hard to understand, much less explain. I appreciate that he doesn’t try towrap everything up in a neat little package for us.He simply shows us an empty tomb, and he leaves us feeling a little uncomfortable. His shorter ending closes with the women, and with us, feeling a sense of disbelief and even a little fear in the midst of our joy. He just leaves us standing there, on our own, to grapple with the power of God demonstrated in this entirely new way.

There can be no doubt that dying and rising again is a very powerful thing.

It is too powerful, really, to put into words. But, alas, we must try. We must try to put words around something that is beyond words. And so the three words that I am framing my own thoughts around as I consider Easter this year are wonder,hope, andcolor.

Wonder

Resurrection is the joy of knowing that something we thought was lost to us has been found. It is the unspeakable gratitude we feel when we know that someone or something that was sick or broken has been healed. It is the thankfulness we feel when we have been forgiven and offered another chance by someone we have hurt. It is witnessing with wonder when someone we love comes back to life.

Haven’t we all known that kind of wonder?Haven’t we experienced it ourselves? Why, I feel it every single morning when I wake up and see the tenderlove in my husband’s eyes as he looks at me, and experience the exuberant joyof our two dogs when I return home after traveling. I experience the wonder of resurrection when I am able to spend sacred time with cherished friends, and when I witness the incredible bond between my parents after fifty-five years of marriage.

It makes me so grateful for the wonder of life and love in this world.

So that’s a dimension of resurrection that we should celebrate on Easter morning: thewonder ofsimply being alive to experience the joy of God’s grace and love at work in the world.

Hope

Resurrection is also about hope.Hope comes in many forms. The grace of God comes to us at unexpected moments and in unexpected ways, just as it did to the women at the tomb. Sometimes grace is overwhelming, and even a little frightening. Sometimeswe encounter such profound grace that we don’t know quite how to respond.

We’ve all had those experiences, have we not?

We call them the God-incidences, thin places, epiphanies, revelations. They are those unfathomable moments when the distance between us and the risen Lord seems suddenly not very far. Somethinginexplicable happens, andwe can literally feel the certain, though indescribable presence of the Spirit walking with us, reassuring us, calling us forth out of grief and into life, if only for a moment.

They are moments of odd surprise, and they come in dreams, and memories, and encounters with the holy. They can appear unexpectedly as a result ofgoing through a box of momentos or pictures at a vulnerable time and catch us completely off guard. They can come when we witness a birth, and they can come when we witness a death.

They can come in the sunlight breaking through the clouds at a certain slant, or the flutter of a butterfly against the blue sky, or in the sound of the woodpecker at work in a tree, or in a rainbow suddenly appearing on a gray, rainy day.They can come when someone shows us the world in a new way, or shows us something about the world that we’ve never seen before.

These moments also come, as Jesus promised, in the telling of the old, old story. They come in the making of covenant by water and the Spirit, and in the breaking of the bread and the pouring of wine. They are the signs, the moments of assurance, in which we find ourselves literally overwhelmed by God’s grace.

Hope. Surely this too is a dimension of resurrection.

Color

Finally, resurrection is about coming back to life in a completely new and unexpected way. I think about the movie the Wizard of Oz, and that scene where after being hit by the tornado, which was shown in black and white, suddenly Dorothy wakes up to a world in full Technicolor.

This too is a dimension of resurrection. It is like when the world goes from black and white to full color.

Many years ago I went through a difficult divorce. It was very hard, and as the process dragged on and on I became quite depressed. It was as if I couldn’t remember when my world had any color.Everything in my life seemed gloomy and gray.

I remember one particular day I was having lunch with my friend Stephanie and I asked herif I had always been that way. I asked her if she could remember a time when I wasn’t sad. Because I felt like I had been sad for so long that I couldn’t recall ever feeling joyful.She told methat I had not always been sad. She remembered when I was happy and filled with joy and life. And she assured me that some day my pain would pass.

I don’t know exactly when it happened, but slowly the veil of depression began to lift. It wasn’t sudden, like in the Wizard of Oz, but gradually my world began to be filled with color again.

If that isn’t a good image of what resurrection means, then I don’t know what is.

The gray skies turn blue again. After a long winter warmer days return. Spring comes, the grass turns green, the trees put forth buds, and the flowers begin to bloom in all the incredible colors of God’s creation.

Sad times pass. The sun shines in the sky and life comes back in spectacular Technicolor. Over and over and over, God’s beautiful world is resurrected to glorious new life.

Let us all give God praise and thanks for the wonder, hope, and color of resurrection this day! Let us give thanks for resurrection in all its glorious dimensions and forms.

Butterflies have emerged out of the darkness of their chrysalis and we stand in awe and wonder!
Christ is risen!
The burdens that we carry have been lifted!
Christ is risen!
Hope is alive!
Christ is risen!
The world is awash in light and color and warmth!
Christ is risen!
Life has overcome the sting of death!
Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!

Acts 10:34-43

This text serves to remind us that for Peter, and for all of us, proclaiming the resurrection is at the very center of what it means to be a Christian. Peter simply tells it like it is. He tells the story of Jesus Christ without assuming that the people who are there to hear it know anything at all. We would do well to follow in his example and remind people of the whole story as we prepare to preach on Easter. There may very well be folks sitting in our pews who have never heard the “old, old” story before so be sure to follow Peter’s lead and tell it!

First Corinthians 15:1-11

This is Paul’s “Easter Sermon,” if you will. Here in his letter to the Corinthians Paul recounts briefly but thoroughly the tradition through which the people in the church in Corinth came to receive the good news that Christ died for their sins and then rose again in final glory. He then reminds them that they stand as the present-day witnesses to the life-giving truth of Jesus Christ and calls upon them to proclaim what they have come to believe.

The people sitting in your church on Easter morning stand at the end of the very same line that the women, and then Cephas and the twelve, and the more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, and James, and the apostles, and Paul, and the people from the congregation in Corinth, and all the people who have proclaimed Christ as their savior between the writing of the letter and its being read on Easter morning in the Year of our Lord 2015.

It is the very same line! You and your people just stand further on down the line than Paul or the people to whom he was writing in Corinth.

When I read this passage I can’t help but picture in my mind some of the longest lines I’ve waited in down through the years. Because I spend a lot of time on the road, I think about lines of traffic that are backed up for miles, especially those cases in which I have found myself in the fortunate position of being headed in the other direction.

You know what that’s like: you are driving along and you see the traffic incident on the other side of the interstate. Immediately you begin to see the line of cars and trucks forming behind it. As you continue to drive along for miles and miles and miles you see on the other side all of those cars and trucks just sitting there, not moving, stuck. And you can imagine their drivers inside wondering how far it is going to be until theypass whatever it is that has caused the back up. You imagine them sitting there, not knowing, and not being able to see ahead very far ahead.

Meanwhile, you, while driving in the other direction, think to yourself, “Gosh, those people are going to be stuck for hours!” And you think this even while knowing that your poor fellow drivers on the other side have no idea what is ahead of them. Finally, you come to the end of the line and you see the last cars just coming upon it, and you think, “Turn around! Don’t get in line! You’ll be there forever!” But of course, you only think this, and you can’t really do anything to communicate to your fellow unfortunate travelers the truth of their situation. You can see that they stand at the end of a very long line and can’t seeahead, nor can they even see how many cars and trucks are behind them after a few minutes. But from your vantage point you can see it all, start to finish.

The people in your congregation are in the middle of one of those lines. They are in the line that began with the first witnesses to the resurrection. They can’t see very far ahead. They can only see the people who have walked immediately before them and who personally passed the faith on to them. They are grateful for the saints who have shown them the face of Christ in their lives, but they certainly cannot see all of the saints who have gone before them. They can only see a short distance ahead, a few generations if they are lucky, of the saints whose ways have informed and shaped their lives.

Likewise, they can’t see very far behind, for after only a short while the line behind them has grown past the distance of what they can see.

Nonetheless, just like the Corinthians, they are in the line, each one of them, and unlike the traveler in my story on the other side of the road just passing by, those who are in the line have not only the ability to communicate with those ahead of them and behind them, but the responsibility to pass along the information to the next generation.

What information are they to pass along? Simply the truth, as Paul puts it: the grace of God has been with them, and following Jesus has formed and transformed their lives. They have the responsibility to witness to their gratitude.And even though they don’t know what lies ahead and they can’t see very far behind, they have the responsibility to share with others how the journey has been made more precious with Christ beside them.

And so they take their place in line like Cephas and the twelve, and the more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, and James, and the apostles, and Paul, and the people in Corinth, and they share God’s love and grace with the people they meet during their lifetime, and in doing so, the grace God has shown them is not in vain.