The Day of Resurrection
The Rev. Nigel Taber-Hamilton, Rector
Today is a day of celebration - in fact, for us as Christians, it is THE day of celebration! Alleluia, Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!
On fact value what we celebrate is straightforward - Jesus is risen from death. Yet while the words of the gospels seem simple in their reporting of this day they're really trying to express in literal terms what is beyond the ability of words to describe - that which is so profoundly deep within us, so deeply embedded in All-That-Is. At this moment mere words simply fail us.
Yet we are here. We are here, I think, because we've all glimpsed something of the elusive truth - something of the promise. Otherwise we wouldn't be here. Something draws us, something just beyond our ability to name.
This day is not only about celebration, however - today comes with some risk, some danger to it - for beyond the simple re-stating of events it is clear that resurrection means a great deal more than just a resuscitated corpse. All the gospels tell us in recounting this event that God is making all things new, including us, and that sort of change can be frightening. And, too, there's also the risk, the danger that our encounter with this week and this day will change us - that we'll be different people on the other side: different to others, and different to ourselves. Our God is a dangerous God, not safe at all.
Of course, it's fairly easy to avoid the risk, to side-step the danger, and think of resurrection as a sort of "happy-clappy-lets-all-be-good-chums-and-have-a-good-time-here-in-church" sort of experience - and then go away from here as if nothing has changed for us, for each other, or for our world. It's easy to avoid the risk if we think of resurrection only as a not-now-but-hopefully-later sort of thing.
The meaning of this day only really comes home to us if it is seen in the context of the week that preceded it. The Church saw the wisdom of this, not only in celebrating this week as "Holy" but also in identifying the celebration of resurrection as intimately - unbreakably - linked to the days that preceded it - "The Great Three Days" - and so developed its Easter Liturgy around the entire period.
It is called the Triduum - the one celebration that beings on Maundy Thursday, continues suspended but unbroken to Good Friday, and then again until the Pascha, the Christian Passover, the Day of Resurrection.
And when people stopped coming to the Holy Week services the Church added the recounting of the entire passion narrative to the celebration of Palm Sunday - forcing us all to deal with the events of the intervening week.
The events of the intervening week are not pleasant. In fact, they're downright nasty. The journey through that time is one of hardship, pain, and genuine suffering. I think this is why many of us would rather skip it - it reminds us too much of the realities of our world, where Might seems to triumph, and only the good die young. It reminds us too much of the realities of our own lives and our own failures - our personal tragedies and those of the people we love.
But if we're willing to take that Holy Week journey then when we arrive at this day it will carry new meaning for us, it will help transform who we are and how we understand ourselves and each other.
So here's my invitation to you - let's together take another look - briefly - at three days of this week: Holy Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday - that are particularly telling for us.
On Holy Wednesday, Mark's gospel (the earliest we have) reminds us that Judas decided to betray Jesus. We remember that betrayal. To be a "Judas" has, down the ages, is to be condemned as the worst sort of betrayer of human beings.
But we forget, or overlook, that, for Mark, all the disciples failed Jesus, not just one. Judas' failure was just more spectacular, but really, in the final analysis, no different than the failure of all the other disciples who all, in the end, abandoned Jesus in his moment of need and fled. Only one person on that Wednesday - the woman with the alabaster jar, who wanted to anoint Jesus' body for burial - really understood, what true discipleship involved, and who was, therefore, for Mark the first disciple, the first true believer, the first Christian. But the rest? Failures! All of them.
We are often those failed disciples - sometimes we're even Judas: outwardly confident that our words and actions support those we love, but inwardly insecure in the private knowledge that there are more times than we'd like when our lives are lived in the failures rather than the successes of our interpersonal relationships...that we live more often among the desolate ruins of those relational "houses built on sand" rather than inside the solid walls of the emotional houses built on rock.
This day proclaims God's forgiving love among those guilt-filled ruins.
This day promises the strength of God to create the beloved community, a community that is not perfect by a long shot, but is willing to forgive, and embrace and share.
On Maundy Thursday the psalmist repeated the Israelites' plaintiff cry - "Can God set a table in the wilderness?" as they stumbled, seemingly lost, in the wilderness, fearing their own deaths in that barren, desolate place.
We are often those Israelites, outwardly confident that we know where we are and where we are going but also inwardly insecure in the private knowledge that there are more times than we'd like when we stumble about in our own personal and communal wildernesses. There are too many moments when - amid the ruin of our hopes - we allow the fear of our own deaths to overwhelm the promise of lives lived to their fullness in the moment. And we live in that insecurity so much that all too often we end up focusing on the mirages beyond our reach rather than seek to live by God's good and gracious waterside.
This day proclaims God's gracious love amid the lonely, desolate ruins of our hopes and dreams.
This day promises us that our hopes will not be in vain, that trust is more powerful than doubt, that - in the words of the gospel - we need not fear, because love defeats it.
On Good Friday we hear of the disciples fleeing, and even Peter - the Rock - being unwilling to enter Caiaphas' house and support Jesus. Instead, in that eternal scene of human betrayal he simply stays outside, warming his hands by the fire, and, ultimately, denying he knew Jesus three times, with oaths: "Damn it to hell, I don't know the man!".
We are often Peter, standing outside of the hard places of our lives - outwardly confident, yet ultimately insecure in the private knowledge that by our own inaction and fear we all too easily betray those we love and the things we care about; that our lives are lived more in the abandonments and petty betrayals than we would hope, that we find ourselves - again - standing amid the ruins of our lives rather than in the strong, secure embrace of those we love.
This day proclaims God's embracing love amid those lonely, empty ruins.
This day promises us that if we can admit our imperfections we will also be able to open ourselves to each other and to God - that real relationship, meaningful, compassionate relationship is possible if we will just let go and trust.
All the Gospel writers pose us a question on this day - Luke voices it best when he describes the figure in white's question to the women at the empty tomb's doorway. It becomes the question for all of us this day, the dangerous question, the risky question ... perhaps the only question that - on this day - will demand of us that we face the full significance of living within the true meaning of resurrection:
"Why do you seek the living among the dead?"
If we will not recognize how we continue to live sealed off amid the ruins - continue to live with so much of our lives buried, entombed, hidden away - then this day will not hold a great deal for us.
For the real gift of this day is not that the ruins will disappear, not that the pain will go away, not that everything will be and will remain wonderful, but that love comes to us amid the ruins of our lives - and it is a love that lasts, a love that will sustain us on our journey home to God.
Yes, this day is about love amid the ruins - love when all around you is desolate and empty, love as a community of light in a darkening world, love, love, love
But we have to be willing to roll away the stones that seal away our hearts and our minds from the fullness of life that is in God, or we will have only the ruins and not the love.
May this day be the first day for you, the day when you roll away your stone. Amen.
|
