| "Last Friday afternoon, when a darkness as thick as night had come over the whole land, Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. Then very early this morning, as light from the rising sun cracked the darkness and lifted the gloom of night, three women set out for the rock-cut tomb in which Jesus had been buried, in order belatedly to anoint his body with aromatic spices. These were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome. At the tomb, the women found, to their amazement, that the large disk-shaped stone covering the entrance was already rolled away and that the doorway lay wide open! Alarmed, but made less timid by a ray of sunlight piercing the darkened chamber, they stepped inside, where, off to the right, an eerie gleam of brightness caught their eyes. Startled, they quickly discerned there on the rock-cut bench lining the wall a white, luminescent garment, draping a mysterious figure-a figure that definitely was not Jesus's corpse, for it was sitting upright! A shadowy face began to take form above the garment as the women's eyes adjusted to the dim interior, a face that most resembled a young man's. The women drew back in fear, but the figure responded: "Do not be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who has been crucified. [Well, h]e has been raised; he is not here." "He has been raised; he is not here." This brief sentence, spoken by a mysterious figure, constitutes the climax of Mark's narrative of the resurrection, for subsequent to this assurance that the tomb is indeed empty the original Gospel of Mark offers us no account whatsoever of an appearance by the risen Christ to any of his followers. But through this choice of endings, which has struck many as strange, Mark succeeds in depicting Jesus's first followers as being ever so similar to us. For they, like us, are asked to accept the proclamation, "He has been raised; he is not here!" strictly as a matter of faith-without the benefit of a confirming first-hand vision of the risen Christ. They, like us, are offered not the brilliant illumination of Christ's full, risen glory but just this ray of promise-a ray whose light is nonetheless sufficient to crack the darkness of human grief and despair. So we can identify with Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome. For we, too, have not seen Jesus but have only heard the mysterious announcement, "He has been raised; he is not here!" And, oh yes, like us, these women do not immediately trust in what are really rather unbelievable words! Indeed, Mark tells us that when the strange figure goes on to command them to tell the other disciples that the risen Jesus will be going ahead of them back up to Galilee and that they should proceed directly there-well, at that point the three women are seized by such amazement and terror that they flee the tomb and say nothing to … The last sentence of the original Gospel of Mark goes unfinished. It simply trails off into an ellipsis, into a dot-dot-dot, the way my own narrative has just done. Why an unfinished story? Well, because although the women's journey of faith started, like so many of ours, in amazement and terror and with tied tongues, it didn't end there, as the early Christians knew so very well. For the fact that some forty years after this event-at-the-tomb people throughout the Roman Empire had come to know of Christ's resurrection-that fact was evidence enough that, in the end, the ray of light offered to these women by the words of the mysterious figure had indeed had the power to crack the darkness of their grief and despair and fear so that soon after this event the women were able to untie their tongues and begin to proclaim the good news of Easter, "He has been raised; he is not here." And for billions of other persons since then, the light of these words has also proved sufficient for cracking the gloom-filled night of human existence! You see, these words proclaim the truth that all the tenderness and beauty, all the justice and love that we have seen die on Friday and at many other times in our lives-all this goodness cannot be kept forever suppressed. For the light of Christ has already begun to dispel the darkness, and, in God's own time, the good will vanquish the evil. You see, on the cross, "death seemed to have brought down a curtain of darkness forever.… But God wasn't finished yet!" (Mary Harris Todd, The Abingdon Women's Preaching Annual: Series 2, Year A, p. 117) The curtain was torn in two. Jesus's tomb was emptied. And because Jesus has been raised, new life is available to us. "Our future is alive! For whether we can see him or not, Jesus is alive." (Ibid.) What seemed on Friday to be the defeat of God's love can be seen by the light of Sunday to be its triumph after all. Yes, God's love has the power to overcome all the forces of death in this world. For as that mysterious young man said at the tomb, "He has been raised; he is not here." The light of Christ has cracked the darkness of the valley of the shadow of death. And because Jesus's tomb is empty, we know that the forces of death so widespread in our world do not have the final word. Because Jesus has been raised, we know it is God, and not death, that has the ultimate power. He has been raised! And from now on in this sermon, let's do something very much like what we did at the beginning of our service. So whenever I say, "He has been raised!" please shout back, "Christ has been raised indeed!" Let's try it: He has been raised! ["Christ has been raised indeed!"] He has been raised! ["Christ has been raised indeed!"], in order that Christ may be an undying presence in our lives. During the last little while, many people here have received bad news-whether it was from the IRS or-to be far more serious-an employer, a military liaison, a doctor, a spouse or lover or friend, a newspaper or television report of one current event or another. During the last little while, many of us have had hope crucified and have experienced the darkness of depression. Well, the way out of such darkness comes by moving ahead, by pressing on to our figurative "Galilee" in the certain hope that there we will indeed experience the light and power of the risen Christ, who has gone on ahead. (Cf. Craig Barnes in The Christian Century, March 13-20, 2002, p. 16.) For through such a certain hope, we can cope. He has been raised! ["Christ has been raised indeed!"] Any of you who watch the TV show "Judging Amy" know that last Tuesday, bad news came to Maxine Gray-the sixty-something widowed social worker played by Tyne Daly. Maxine's joie de vie, her joy in life, had been rekindled by the love between her and her fiancé Jared Duff. The bad news that came to her was that he whom she intended to marry this very weekend had just died during a business trip in far-off China. As often happens following a death like this, everyone stays home from work and school, but no one has anything sensible to say; everybody cooks, but nobody's hungry; there's much to do, but helpers seem just to get in the way. Then Maxine arranges and conducts a memorial service for Jared. It is as totally non-religious and secular as Hollywood writers can invent. Yet Maxine's eulogy includes this concept: the concept that the best way for her to sense a continuing relationship with her departed fiancé is to strive to be the best person he knew she can be. And as I was watching I said to myself, "That idea can also describe our relationship to the risen Christ. For the surest way for us to sense a continuing relationship with the risen Christ is to strive to be the best person Christ knows we can be." You see, Easter comes to us not only as a promise that life is more powerful than death-a promise that gives us the hope by which to cope-but it also comes as a call to participate with Christ here and now in transforming Earth from a Good Friday world, into an Easter world, from a place of death in all the forms Jesus experienced it-hatred, denial, betrayal, miscarriage of justice, torture, violence, hunger, thirst, mockery, dying-Easter comes as a call to participate with God in transforming Earth from a place of death in all those forms into a place of life, into a place of peace and universal well-being. He has been raised! ["Christ has been raised indeed!"], so that we, by God's grace, may become champions of life over death and may work to bring the light of peace and well-being to places like Iraq, the Holy Land, Kashmir, and the Korean peninsula. He has been raised! ["Christ has been raised indeed!"], so that we, by God's grace, may become champions of life over death and may help create light from the One Great Hour of Sharing and from other sources, light to end poverty and hunger-here at home, in New York City and the rest of the U.S.A., and also abroad, in places like Iraq, and India, and many African countries. He has been raised! ["Christ has been raised indeed!"], so that we, by God's grace, may become champions of life over death and may help to create the kind of light-filled world where infant deaths no longer occur, where poverty and despair no longer exist, where prosperity and well-being are the rule, where old enemies become new friends, and where violence surrenders to peacemaking, He has been raised! ["Christ has been raised indeed!"], so that we, by God's grace, may be converted from loyalty to any person, policy, system, or institution that diminishes or breaks or crucifies another-converted from that to loyalty to the risen Christ alone. Today, as we experience the bread and cup of Christ's living presence, may we allow God to transform us into an Easter people, so that, by God's grace, we may become twice the persons we were so recently as Good Friday! And as we approach the table of the risen Christ, let us once again proclaim together the words of our Easter faith: He has been raised! ["Christ has been raised indeed!"] Hallelujah! Let us pray: Amen |
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