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            Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.” Religion is quotations; Easter is knowing. Religion is too often arguing; like arguing whether Jesus was physically raised from the dead, or spiritually raised, or whisked away by his disciples to an undisclosed location, or left on the cross for the dogs – or even whether anything happened at all. People like to argue about that. Writer John Updike scolds us in an early poem where he says:

                                    Make no mistake: if He rose at all
                                    it was as His body;
                                    if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the
                                    molecules reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
                                    the Church will fall.

Sounds like he is telling us what to believe. But Easter is not about belief. It is about knowing. It is about knowing God. How do we do that? “Be still and know that I am God.” Nothing says this better than the old African-American spiritual.

Hush, hush, somebody’s calling my name
Hush, hush, somebody’s calling my name
Hush, hush, somebody’s calling my name
Oh my Lord, Oh my Lord, What shall I do?

It sounds like Jesus; somebody’s calling my name
It sounds like Jesus; somebody’s calling my name
It sounds like Jesus; somebody’s calling my name
Oh my Lord, Oh my Lord, What shall I do?

Faith is to be still and to know God. Religion is about knowing something at second-hand, even third-hand. In the Western world we seem determined to ask, “What do you believe?” In the East they ask, “Do you know God?” Hush and listen. Job argued. Then he listened. God spoke. Then Job said, “I know that my redeemer liveth.”

            Look at it this way. When you think about what you believe, you are already at least two steps removed from God. The heart of faith is knowing God, listening to God, awakening to God. Then, there is the experience of being aware of God. That is something else – experience is emotions, feelings, joy, fear, the stirring of the senses. Experiences come and go. But they are one step back from God. Then there is thinking - that is, thinking about the experience of what it feels like to be aware of God. Thinking means doctrine, dogma, theology, philosophy, creeds. What it all means. Thinking is about agreement - not knowing. Thinking is two steps removed from God. If we can’t agree we argue. Arguing about creeds and dogma is what we do best in the west. It is also what we fight religious wars over. A differing belief is a handy excuse for hating your neighbor. But it has nothing to do with knowing God. Belief cannot explain God’s presence. Nothing can explain the Resurrection of Jesus. No person of faith. No gospel book. No church. It’s the other way around. Only the Resurrection can explain our faith, our gospel books, and our church.

            The early Christians were people who had come alive and knew it. Peter, in the story from the Book of Acts, repeatedly talks about becoming witnesses to what you have witnessed. Give witness to what you know. What did they know? Peter says, well we “ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.” They knew that for sure.

            And, importantly, to awake to God is to come alive to the whole of reality. Certain memories stay with you. When I was in the sixth grade at Barrington Road Elementary School, our high school staged a production of the musical “Oklahoma” with an all-student, cast, orchestra, and crew in the high school auditorium. It was pretty good. It was the first time I had ever been to a live musical. I’ll never forget it. Why? Because somehow I came alive in a way that was totally new to me. The singers, the colors of the costumes, the percussion section of the orchestra, the dancing. I seemed to be saying to myself, “This is real. Something is really happening here. Could I do that? It’s living. And I’m alive, too!”

            Years later, I sat in a struggling little church in East Harlem where I worked as a student minister, singing in the choir. It was Easter Sunday, and we sang the old hymn

                                    Up from the grave He arose,
                                    With a mighty triumph o’er His foes,
                                    He arose a Victor from the dark domain,
                                    And He lives forever, with His saints to reign.
                                    He arose! He arose!
                                    Hallelujah! Christ arose!

And in that moment I knew - and I knew that I knew. And it was that very same sense of being alive. Not just simply believing in the Resurrection, but meeting him who arose. And he was there. He was in us and among us. He ate and drank with us as we ate and drank with one another. The church didn’t begin because people decided to believe in the doctrine of the Resurrection (or any other doctrine). The church began when people met the Risen Christ, and awoke to the amazement, terror, and joy that he was the Jesus they knew. And then they wondered, “What in the world happened?” Their answer is the Gospel.

            To meet the Risen Christ is to come alive to the whole of reality. And to meet the Risen Christ is to come alive to the power of symbols. Symbols provide transforming ways to know God, because somehow God participates in them. For example, one of the continuing symbols during Lent here at this church is the symbol of the stone. We have asked you each Sunday come forward and place a stone on that pile there – as a symbol of the brokenness you feel when you are not reconciled with another person or God or yourself - as a symbol of what a burden that is, and your yearning to be free of it. In the second book of Dante’s Divine Comedy, Purgatorio, Dante and his guide, Virgil, newly arrived from Inferno, are starting their winding climb up and around the spiral tower devoted to those who still have a chance of being delivered from their sins. The first sinners they encounter make up a long procession of people bent over in great pain and exhaustion, with huge slabs of stone strapped to their backs. What was their sin? Pride. They are the proud – proud of their privilege, their talent, their power. Today we would say ego, self-centeredness, me-first, control, money, muscle. Why is pride such a deadly sin and such a heavy burden? Because our pride stands between us and God. If knowing God is being aware of God, focus on self must go. Ego must be effaced. We cannot listen for the voice of God if we are talking to ourselves all the time. Saying to ourselves, “Watch out! Be careful! Don’t do that, it’s too dangerous. Don’t trust him. He’s out to get you. I’ll show them.” On and on. How can we listen to God if we are doing that all the time? Self-preoccupation is a burden, a huge heavy stone to bear on our backs. So hush. Hush and listen. Somebody’s calling your name. This Lent we said, “Come forward and place a stone here. Let that stone stand for your ego, your self-centeredness. Let that stone stand for how you are punishing yourself at this moment. Let go of it.”

            Do we slough off the stone on our own? Does it depend on us? Do we experience reconciliation by figuring out what to do to be reconciled – to God and neighbor? In some ways, I suppose. Certainly that must be our intention. But really the good news of Easter is that knowing God is enough. Coming alive to God is enough. What saves the sheep is knowing the shepherd’s voice. What saves a lost baby emperor penguin is knowing its mother’s voice. That is enough. Hush. Listen for God’s voice. Being awake is enough. And God lifts the stone from our back. God rolls away the stone from the tomb. The symbol of the stone is transformed. I love Matthew’s version of Easter morning – unlike those of Mark, Luke, and John – the women arrive at the tomb at the very moment of the Resurrection. Matthew says that an angel came down and rolled the stone away and then sat on it. I love that! So much for the stone slabs that oppress us, imprison us, and torture us. It’s like the angel turned the hateful stone slab into lawn furniture. He lounged on it.

            What an amazingly rich symbol the stone is. When the gospel writers tried to describe who Jesus was, they said, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” People in this world who think they are the cornerstones are the prideful, the powerful, the arrogant. The world rejects the humble, the powerless, the oppressed – those wrongfully betrayed, arrested, tortured, and executed. But it is they who become the true cornerstones. Their love holds everything together. In them, Jesus is alive.

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