Comments for Jim

Easter Sunday, April 4, 1999

Rev. James A.Todhunter

"SOMETHING HAPPENS"

JEREMIAH 31:1-6 COLOSSIANS 3:1-4 MATTHEW 28:1-10

What actually happened that first Easter morning? Was Jesus physically raised from the dead? Did his body remain (hidden or stolen?) and his spirit live on? Was the resurrection in internal psychological experience of those first witnesses? Or was the resurrection the symbolic or literary expression of the historical fact that Jesus lives in the movement that survived his personal death? Of course, by the scientific and empirical standards of our own impoverished age, we don’t know and we cannot know. Nothing can be proved. However, we can say, I believe, that something happened. Something amazing and unexpected, whatever it was, happened, that changed the lives of Jesus’ followers, and then, the whole course of world history. Something happened. We cannot look to the gospels to explain the resurrection. But, on the other hand, only the resurrection, whatever happened, can explain the gospels, and ultimately the fact that you and I are here this morning.

But it is not enough to say, "something happened." What really matters is for us to say, with all our hearts, souls, and minds, that "something happens." Look at Matthew’s account of the resurrection. Of course, all the gospel accounts differ from one another in significant features, just as eyewitness accounts today of some event presented by assorted bystanders differ. But I am struck as I examine Matthew that there is one big difference between what he says and the other three, Mark, Luke and John. In these three the women who come to the tomb, expecting to anoint Jesus’ body, find the stone rolled away and the tomb empty. That is, whatever happened, had already happened. In Matthew’s version, the women arrive, and suddenly, it all happens. The earth shakes beneath them; an angel, descending from heaven like a thunderbolt, rolls the stone away, and then sits on it! (What a funny touch. Like Gene Kelly) For those first witnesses, they did not come upon a strange scene, leaving it to them to figure out what had happened (rather like us looking back and trying to figure it out). For them they found themselves in the midst of something that was happening - happening to them.

Whatever resurrection is, it is not just something that happened; it is something that happens. Let us identify with the experience of these women. What does it feel like to have the ground shake beneath you? Have you ever been in an earthquake? What does it feel like to have lightning strike right next to you? What does it feel like to have the laws of nature inexplicably bent and twisted before your eyes? What feelings do you associate with these occurrences? How about terror? Dread? Even humor? And isn’t it interesting that not once, but twice, the women are urged to "Fear not!" First, by the angel, and second by Jesus himself. When resurrection happens, and your whole world, inward and outward, is shaken from top to bottom, fear not, for God will be with you.

Why was what happened to these women such a shock? Apart from the stunning special effects, what happened was unexpected. Yes, Jesus had told everyone, disciples and foes alike, that something would happen. He told them that on the third day the Son of Man would be raised from the dead. They had heard it but somehow not believed it. What they believed was their own experience. Who can blame them for that? What was their experience? Well, what is your experience of the world? "When you’re dead, you’re dead. The only thing you can count on is death and taxes. Good guys finish last. It takes your whole life to figure things out and get where you want, and then you die. The grim reaper gets everybody in the end. Why do bad things happen to good people? History teaches that the war-makers win out over the peace-lovers every time: it’s the martial Spartans over the civilized Athenians. History belongs to the Ghengis Khans and Slobodan Milosevics. The fire power of Caesar wins out over the self-sacrificing love of Jesus every time." A grim history, but am I getting it right or not?

Of course, you and I don’t live on quite so cosmic a scale. We are appalled by the suffering presented by the genocide in Kosovo. The pain of hundreds of thousands of people seems inconceivable to us. But yet what moves us are the individual tales of human loss. Husband and wife torn apart; fathers shot dead before their children’s eyes; people herded onto trains like cattle; and now three U. S. Soldiers taken captive; people with real names: Ramirez, Stone, Gonzales. It is the tales of individual suffering that move us. C. S. Lewis says in his classic book THE PROBLEM OF PAIN, that you can’t really understand suffering any better by taking the pain of one person and multiplying it exponentially. You are still left with the reality that nothing exceeds the suffering that just one individual person is capable of.

As I reflect on the resurrection accounts, I am struck that resurrection is inseparable from the experience of personal loss. The resurrection took place in the context of grief. Resurrection happened in a setting in which a variety of people were dealing with loss: the mother’s loss of a beloved son; the loss of your dear and loyal friend; the loss of a wise and compassionate teacher; the loss of a trusted leader; the loss of the one person you deemed utterly irreplaceable; the loss of that friend that held you in special esteem above all others; even the loss of a comrade that you yourself turned on at the very end and betrayed. These women at the tomb represent those of us who grieve the loss of our most profound relationships.

I believe that how each of us deals with the loss of a personal loved one is a kind of window into how we understand resurrection. We each grieve differently, in terms of duration and intensity. We have learned this at our church since the Rev. Joey Noble’s death. I know of noone who has not experienced grief. Many remain in grief. But amid all our stress on honoring a mourning process, on getting our feelings out, on dealing with anger and depression, hopelessness and hope, we, especially we as Christians, must never lose sight of the central truth of our faith - and that is, something happens. Something happens that reverses that dire litany of gloom that I recited a few moments ago. What happens? Resurrection happens. Resurrection is not just feeling better after awhile; resurrection is not just getting over the hurt of loss; resurrection is not just finally recognizing that it is time to move on. Resurrection is that earth-shaking, mind-bending, inwardly shattering experience that enables to regain the relationship with the beloved. It is not just the end of a process; it is an act of God. The grieving women met Jesus again, as the Risen Christ. Here I am not simply talking about the hope of reunion with loved ones who have gone on, souls reunited in heaven after we die. I would never rule that out. Jesus himself said "I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am, you may be also." But don’t limit that to heaven after death. Jesus said "Where I am you may be also" and I believe he meant right here, too.

Resurrection is what happens when we recover our loved ones. Grief must be honored because the depth of grief indicates the depth of our encounter with the reality of death. Death is real. The tomb is real. The grave gobbles up life. Grief means you must let go of the beloved. Even in the resurrection, Jesus says to Mary Magdelene at the Tomb, "Do not hold onto me." We really cannot hold onto those we have lost. But resurrection means that when you have finally and fully let go, you are promised that you will have them back. And it happens. And it is astonishing and earth shaking and very, very frightening.

When we speak of bodily resurrection, I don’t believe that means resuscitated physical bodies. It is, I believe, the Bible’s way of saying that we regain our loved ones in the fullness of their essential reality. We get them back in their truth and eternal presence. We get them back, not defined by the last illness that ravaged them, but defined by the spirit they brought to their final battle. We get them back not as children barely realizing their potential, or as old folks past their prime: we get them back in the fullness of what God intended for them. We get them back somehow in their transcendent authenticity; a deep, intuitive, immeasurable reality.

And, let me add, we get them back together with what they stood for. When those women regained their friend Jesus, they regained the message of Jesus. They regained a person who said and did a great deal in his life. They received with him all that he said and did, all that he stood for. Since he lived anew, his cause lived anew as well.

To say that in the resurrection something happens, is to say that something happens not just to our loved ones, but something happens to us. We are reunited with them, but, just as importantly, we are reunited with ourselves. Death is not just something that awaits us; death is something that lives daily in us, fighting against the life in us. When resurrection happens, we are raised within ourselves, to ourselves. When resurrection happens, we discover ourselves as God intended us to be. When resurrection happens we are amazed and shaken and disoriented by the goodness we discover in our own hearts. What good news! I think this is what Paul means when he says that we are raised with Christ.

What happens? In the resurrection, we choose the good we are free to reject. To live in the created image of God is to embrace the freedom God gives us and to choose God. The power of death within us prevented us from choosing the good. With the defeat of the power of death, we are free to choose who we will be. Paul says, in Colossians, do what you are free to do. It's as simple now as choosing what you will wear today.

You are free to choose to be the person God intends you to be. We are free to choose to become the families God yearns for us to be, the true training ground for love. We are free to choose to be the community God calls us to be, a people where peace and justice and tolerance rule. And we are free to choose to become the church that God wants us to be, the leaven which enriches self and family and community.

And it happens. Something does happen at Easter and at each Easter moment in our lives. For in those moments we are reunited with those we love and miss the most. We are reunited with the very best within ourselves. And we are reunited with the God who says to us through it all "Fear not, I will be with you." AMEN.

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