Easter Sermon, "He Goes on Ahead" Mk 16

“So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

Well dear friends, what kind of crazy ending is this? Were you listening to how things ended here in this Gospel called Mark? What a way to finish reporting about the greatest event in all of creation, in all of history! They were terrorized and amazed, and as they left that place where the tomb of Jesus was, they kept their mouths shut. They zipped their lips. They told no one.

This is a non-ending. If you’ve been in your Bible enough to know something about the other three accounts of the Resurrection, you’d maybe notice that they tell the story with a lot more climax, a much better ending. None of this stuff about running away terrified!

John, for example, says that Mary Magdalene hangs back once the women find the tomb empty. She lingers in the garden, weeping. All of a sudden she’s approached by a man she thinks is the gardener. They strike up a conversation and Mary accuses him of taking away the body of Christ. But then Christ makes a connection with her by speaking her name, his words heal a broken bond, and she suddenly realizes that she’s in the presence of the resurrected Jesus!

What a great way to end the story! What joy! What celebration. Mary becomes the first evangelist and begins to spread the word. But here, we’re left fidgeting with these final words, and this very last word, “afraid.”

It would be like both glass slippers breaking before Cinderella got a chance to be united with the Prince. It would be like telling a fishing story about the big one - the one that got away! It’s like telling about a game-winning free throw, that missed!

What a downer.

Backing up a bit, three women who were close companions to Jesus throughout his life, had come to serve him, even after his death. To do their quiet work together. They were prepared to go into that tomb, find his body, and then gently and carefully place the spices on him and around him, to preserve his body and to show him their respect. What tender moments those would have been. Things related to death are so sterile today, but they sure weren’t back then! Those spices were meant to keep away the smell of death. To overpower the stench.

How solemn it must have been. And sad. What could those ladies, those followers of Jesus, say to one another to comfort the other? Were they talking together about things that Jesus had said while he was still alive? Were they remembering the times when he had healed someone, or even brought someone miraculously back from the dead? What were they talking about? Or were they silent this morning? The memory of their Lord on the cross was too fresh, too raw.

As they were walking, the thought hits them, that the tomb will certainly have a large stone at the opening, and there was no way even all three of them working together were going to be able to move it, not even an inch.

I finally saw a picture of a tomb from around the time of Christ. It showed one that was probably more elaborate than the one that housed Jesus, but it could have been similar enough. The stone I saw was shaped like a big tractor wheel, and the entrance to the tomb was like a trench that was just wide enough for the stone to be rolled into it. The trench was like a ramp leading downward, and so when the stone was rolled in place I would not be surprised if it even keeps water out. It was that tight.

No wonder these women wondered about the stone.

This is the point where the surprises begin to happen.

Each of the girls in the Aalgaard house have taken their turns waking us up at night. I have to admit they’ve learned that it’s a lot easier to wake Dawn than me! They’ve learned to walk as silent as cats, and when they get to our bed, all they have to do is stand there, and pretty soon we’re stirred from sleep because somehow we can tell that there’s a kid right in front of our faces, not saying a word, but staring at us!

Our peaceful night is interrupted by a set of two little eyes.

We think that the little world of our room is one way, but in fact there’s something else going on.

And in that unpredictable moment the very first response is fear.

This is what these women are experiencing this morning. What would they expect to see, or hear when coming to the tomb of their Lord? Well, I guess the answer is nothing. They don’t expect anything out of the ordinary at all. And if I were there I would hope it were so uneventful that I could just go home afterward and get on with my life, living with my grief.

So the first surprise is that the stone isn’t where it should be. Something’s not right.

The next surprise is one for me, and maybe for you too. The women drum up the courage to enter that tomb, not knowing what they would find. Would you go into a tomb after the entrance has been disturbed? You’d almost expect to see yellow police tape.

The next surprise is that the tomb isn’t full of the silence that accompanies death. They expected the only sound to be the shuffling of their own feet, and the sound of their own breathing. But there was another form of life there, a man in white robes, watching them and getting ready to make an announcement to them that they thought they would never hear.

The next surprise is what this man said. “Don’t be alarmed. You’re looking for Jesus of Nazareth, the one who was crucified. He’s been raised. He isn’t here. They laid him there. He’s not there anymore, is he?”

Those spices are useless now. They have no purpose. Now, they’ve just gone from such grief to actual terror. These words have just rocked their world!

But now, hearing the words of the man in white robes, something else is about to happen. Another surprise. As Jesus said earlier, the disciples are told to go on to Galilee, to the homeland of Jesus and Peter and other disciples, and they will see him there.

Jesus is going ahead of the disciples, into the next great part of the story of God’s mission in the world. If we were to look further ahead, and hear about the way the Christian movement took off, we would hear of a phenomenon that spread like wildfire. Hundreds of people at a time calling Jesus their Lord, going through the waters of baptism, believing in him and shaping their own lives to be like his.

People like Paul, who got knocked off his own self-prescribed path and took on a new vocation. Instead of jailing and killing Christians, he made more of them by giving them the Gospel, lots and lots more Christians, because he had been grabbed by the grace of God through Jesus. And Jesus had gone ahead into each of those communities, preparing the hearts and minds of those who would hear about this crucified and risen teacher from Galilee, Jesus, God in the flesh.

And so the Easter message today, is that Jesus is going ahead of us too. Jesus is going ahead of you, dear people of God, preparing a path, preparing a place to stay, getting your future ready for you, even preparing people for your encounter with them, because you bear your faith in you. I don’t know exactly what Jesus is doing ahead of you. I’m not in your tomorrow. Only God can be there.

But if I’ve come to learn a thing or two about this risen man named Jesus, then I can confess right now, that Jesus does in fact go ahead of us, creating new things with precise detail.

When I decided to take this call and serve you as your pastor, I didn’t know any of you. And it goes both directions. I’m sure you were wondering how this was all going to go, having me as your pastor. I was wondering that too as I was plodding along trying to learn names and traditions.

It didn’t take too long for me to begin to realize however, that this is the call for me. And now with these words from Mark bouncing around in my head, I can say confidently that Jesus must have gone ahead of me and my family, to this place called Ontario.

Jesus went ahead of me, creating new friendships and then placing them in our lives.
Even when I think of the homes we’ve lived in, I know that the Lord had gone ahead and found the right places.

It was Jesus who planted the idea of Mission Builders in our heads, mine and yours.
It was Jesus who tapped your heart and asked you to release some of your savings and investments so that we could expand into new space.

It was Jesus who went on ahead of this whole community in 2005, seeing the need of hungry people to simply have enough to eat. And it was Jesus who brought the right people to the table, so that more tables in our area could have something on them.

It was Jesus who went on ahead of those who were planning the Boys and Girls Club here in town. It was Jesus who made the way more smooth.

When we ask God to bless our learning together, and our times of fellowship, and our whole congregation, we’re asking Jesus to go ahead of us.

I proclaim that he is going on ahead of you. Making rough edges smooth and perhaps even making smooth edges rough.

And people of St. Paul, this same Lord, now raised from the dead, is going ahead of us. We’ll send a bunch of kids to Bible Camp. We’ll be busting at the seams with Vacation Bible School. We’ll have a summer meal program for neighborhood kids in July. We’re going to have an art camp. We’re going to collect backpacks again for kids in need. We’ll continue with a quilting ministry, with music and worship, with Financial Peace University. And Jesus in ahead of us, free from the bonds of sin and death, and the fear of death, accomplishing his mission as he keeps calling us and those around us.

And so in your own life, as you continue to walk in faith as a follower of Jesus, there will be times when you notice that the Lord has done something marvelous for you, or with you. That’s the time to say, “Jesus must have gone ahead of me. Because I met him there, even though I didn’t recognize him.”

Amen.

Good Friday Sermon Thoughts

From John 12: “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains a single grain. But if it dies, it bears much fruit."

Frank Thomas wrote about congregations and change. The title of the book is “Spiritual Maturity”. Sounds like an unattainable goal! Actually he wrote about the Christian life of individuals and how that relates to congregational life. One insight of his was that the only thing that really brings about change in a person, is pain. Real pain.

Think about it. Pain comes in many forms. There is the physical pain that comes with an illness, or a treatment for an illness (just think of how difficult it is to go through chemotherapy, or walking again after a knee replacement). Pain tells the body to stop what it’s doing, and to do something else!

In a sense it goes back to that word of wisdom about how children learn what the word “hot” means. The stove-top is hot. Curious children will learn as soon as their fingers brush across those coils, what the word hot means. From that point on, that word has a very different and deeper meaning. In fact, it changes reality for the kid, this time for the better.

There is the pain of the death of someone you love. Many people talk about a pain they can feel in their chest when they grieve someone’s death. And now, with that pain, there is a very different outlook not only on life, but on the way those who remain even see themselves. Pain involves the loss of something, whether it’s health, happiness, or even a certain way of interpreting the world.

My grandma hoarded buttons. You see, she quilted. And when she cut apart old clothing for blankets she would toss the buttons into a deep cookie tin. That’s something I’m sure I teased her about when I was too young to know better. But she had managed to live through the emotional pain of the Great Depression, doing her part providing for a family of six, and that experience changed her. Gave her new habits that she never grew away from. Grandma saved every little item, thinking about how to use it someday for something else.

Christians could so easily be accused of being part of a feel-good religion. And there’s a lot to feel good about. When you get involved with a congregation like St. Paul I hope you make some friends. I hope that when you come on Sundays, you get to catch up on what’s been going on in each other’s lives throughout the week. That feels good.

I hope that when you’re sick, or when you’re alone in your home, or when you have a new baby, there are offers from your congregation, offers to help out, to baby-sit, to simply have a conversation in order to ward off loneliness, keep isolation at bay, to bring meals to you until you are healed. All that feels good.

And our Bibles are the source of incredibly rich and wise words for how to live in this world. There’s a lot of good advice in the Bible, we can even call it moral teaching, and we would have a more peaceful and happy community if more of us would take those teachings seriously, rely on one another and be willing to be relied upon.

All of those things are great marks of the Christian life, of the body of Christ, of the living, active Spirit of God who is deeply and lovingly involved with the smallest details of our lives. Jesus comes to us every day saying “I forgive you,” and “the life I’m giving you is better than the life you have to manage on your own,” and “I’m bringing about a new creation, and you’re involved with that.”

But on this night, the New Creation is so far away. The Gospel reading finished with these four little words, “they laid Jesus there.”

They laid his body in a freshly dug hole in the ground. They placed him in a garden, they planted him like a single grain of wheat. He had died before the two others who were crucified that day. His legs didn’t have to be broken by the soldiers. He had already given up his spirit.

The only teaching he’s doing now is that his life has been poured out entirely, painfully. No words of wisdom about how to hold our temper, how to love one another, how to parent our children, or even how to forgive someone or seek forgiveness. The one who last night had bent down and washed feet is now a lifeless body. Soon tonight we’ll have the words of a hymn, “love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be”.

Jesus died about 2,000 years ago, on a hill about 7,000 miles away. He spoke a language other than English. His skin was darker than most of ours. It feels far away and long ago, because it is.

But the good news is that he died for you. This was the worst day of his life, but the best day of yours. Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains a single grain. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. The pain of the cross is on your behalf! This single act of love is how God loves the world, how God loves you. His pain puts you and me on a different direction in life. Through all of this, God is saying to us today, “all that you were, all that you are, I am covering over with love, forgiveness and new life, because of my Son, the Word made flesh.”

Naked Chancel

After the Maundy Thursday service, we worked together to strip the altar and clear away everything removable from the chancel.

As we were leaving, Fern said, "It looks so forlorn."

Exactly. It looks like we're packing up the church and getting ready to hit the trail. Like the Israelites of long ago, who were commanded to eat lamb with a walking stick in one hand.

"Travelin' Shoes", Maundy Thursday 2009 (Exodus 12, John 13)

“You shall eat (the lamb) with your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly, you shall gobble it. It is the passover of the Lord.”

Who says God’s timing is slower than ours? That we wish God would get on with it already, that God would accomplish that which is promised, or even that for which we pray? Is watching God work really like watching grass grow, or watching paint dry? Is God so slow to act that we wonder if God maybe isn’t so concerned with this world and most especially with us? We hear that God is slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, but what about when it comes to giving us a blessing? What about when it comes to giving us direction in life? Or healing our sickness?

What we hear tonight in Exodus is something very different from that. We hear that God is going to act swiftly, and that the terrible last plague is going to come like an evening breeze, out of no-where, and that it is going to be silent. Unless you make a certain mark on your front door, people of Israel, the oldest child in your family will die.

Get ready, people of God! Roast the lamb that I command you to get. Roast it will all its innards still there. And eat it all in the same night. If there’s anything left over, throw it away in the morning. This is a meal eaten in haste. It’s a meal that’s meant to be inhaled, (like the way I eat breakfast most mornings) not savored. In fact, says God, I want you to eat one-handed, with your other hand holding your walking stick.

So when God is ready to make a move, and this a very dramatic and invasive move, God wants the people to be ready to get outta Dodge whenever God says, Go.
There’s an old Gospel song called Travelin’ Shoes.

Death came knockin’ on that sinner’s door... Said old sinner are you ready to go? He said no no no no no no no because I ain’t got on my travelin’ shoes, ain’t paid my dues.

God is saying today to the Israelites, gird up your loins, in other words, bend down, grab past you ankles to the back hem of your robes, and bunch it all up so you can run! Run at a sprint if you have to! Run and get out of that place of slavery. Don’t you mind how it looks, your mission is to not be here anymore, but to be in a new place, in a place that I will show you, says God.

Could they have had unfinished business? Could there have been more packing to do? Could it be they wanted to take more time putting on those travelin’ shoes? But there was going to be no extra time to get things packed in an orderly way. No time to tie up loose ends. God was going to open the door of that jail cell, and he was about to do it sooner than later.

Sometimes it’s better to have a whole lot of change all at once than to have a little change, a little at a time. God was about to create a new nation of people. God was about to define a particular family of earth with a promise, with God’s own Word, with God’s direct involvement. God was getting his hands dirty with the particular story of a particular people, in a particular place in time.

Those travelin’ shoes had to last, because God was going to lead them up and down, hither and yon, on a serpentine path to a new land. And those travelin’ shoes that the people wear are not the reward for faithful living, for pious praying, for righteous singing. They are a sign that God has begun pulling, pushing and walking alongside them, creating a new people by doing so.

That Gospel song tries with all its might to get the Christian and even the non-Christian ready for meeting their own end. It’s a “if you die tonight where are you headed” kind of song. It’s a “come to Jesus” song that really makes the singer and the hearer want to check their own spiritual health, to ask themselves the deep question of whether they have the right shoes for that final hike up the mountain to see their Lord.

Oh yes, this is something I wonder about. Did I think about Jesus enough today? Do I thank him enough for what he’s done for me? Am I courageous enough to speak about my Lord in the home and in my neighbor’s yard? Do I have a strong enough, a deep enough, a solid enough foundation of faith so that I will last on that last day and be welcomed into the arms of my Savior? If I ever prayed the sinner’s prayer I don’t remember. Since I can’t remember, then I guess I better pray it again and see if it sticks this time. See if I can time-stamp my rebirth as a child of God.

Or is there more that I can do? Maybe spending a few more minutes in prayer, maybe reading a bit more out of my Bible?

This conscience of mine can run as fast as an Israelite through the Red Sea. Do I have my travelin’ shoes on? Do you?

But now, when we come to Jesus, that is to say the words of Jesus and the story of his last night in this world, he is not on a stump somewhere, or in a pulpit, or on a soapbox preaching to us and stirring us up to be fervent in faith. Tonight, he’s not girding up his loins, but he’s instead taking off his outer robe and putting on a towel, nearly naked.

And he’s bending down to us. He’s removing our socks and shoes. He’s taking the water and pouring it over our feet. In fact, he’s taking off our travelin’ shoes because he is the end of our journey. Jesus is the end of our journey. Even before it really got started, Jesus is anointing us with simple water, anointing us with his love for us. Anointing us as sinners, christening us as dirty-footed people, and it is he who brings us back to him. While we sit.

Parker Palmer is a writer and teacher who was for a time in the bottom-most territory of a severe depression. He wanted to end his own life but couldn’t find the energy to do it. He had already been quite successful. And so people would show up and try to pull him out of his funk. Here’s how he put it.

People would say 'You're so successful, and you've written so well.' And that would leave me feeling more depressed, because I would feel, 'I've just defrauded another person who, if they really knew what a schmuck I was, would cast me into the darkness where I already am.'

There was this one friend who came to me, after asking permission to do so, every afternoon about four o'clock, sat me down in a chair in the living room, took off my shoes and socks and massaged my feet. He hardly ever said anything. He was a Quaker elder. And yet out of his intuitive sense, from time to time would say a very brief word like, 'I can feel your struggle today,' or farther down the road, 'I feel that you're a little stronger at this moment, and I'm glad for that.'

But beyond that, he wouldn’t say hardly anything. He would give no advice. He would simply report from time to time what he was sort of intuiting about my condition. Somehow he found the one place in my body, namely the soles of my feet, where I could experience some sort of connection to another human being. And the act of massaging just, you know, in a way that I really don't have words for, kept me connected with the human race.

But in this act, where Jesus comes to his own followers, those whom he loved to the end (as John puts ), we are much more than connected with the human race. The human race just goes in circles, heading for the grave. As Christ removes our travelin’ shoes and serves us, we are connected with our creator, who has decided that no amount of dirt, no sin, no depression, no illness, no abuse is so dirty as to stick to our feet forever, for Jesus is the one who in his own body makes all things new, who in his own death declares to you, “you have arrived, and you are holy.”