-
Contact Info
- Office Hours
- M-Th 8:30 - 3
- Closed Friday
- Telephone
- (503)640-1775
- Address
- 168 NE 8th
- Hillsboro, OR 97124
- Directions
-
Email
- General Info
- Office
- Spire
- Webmaster
- Gwen Drake
- Pastor
- Christine Webb
- Family Ministries
- Coordinator
- Lefty Schultz
- Visitation Pastor
- Laura Lillegard
- Office Manager
- David Walters
- Music Minister
- Youth E-mail
- Youth Ministry
- Oregon-Idaho UMC
- Main UMC Website
- Boy Scout Tr #240
Sermon - April 8th, 2007
Easter Moments
Rev. Gwen Drake
Scripture: John 20:1-20
I like Anne Lamott’s way of describing what happens in her life in her book Traveling Mercies. She wrote: “Broken things have been on my mind lately because too much has broken in my life this year and in the lives of the people I love—hearts, health, confidence.
“Beside the big brokenness, I’ve noticed all sorts of really dumb things breaking lately, too. I’ve had a dozen calls from friends reporting broken cars, water heaters, a window, even a finger. So I’ve been on the lookout for something wonderful to happen, because of this story I heard recently: Carolyn Myss, the medical intuitive who writes and lectures about why people don’t heal, flew to Russia a few years ago to give some lectures. Everything that could go wrong did – flights were cancelled or overbooked, connections missed, her reserved room at the hotel given to someone else. She kept trying to be a good sport, but finally, two mornings later, on the train to her conference on healing she began to whine at the man sitting beside her about how infuriating her journey had been thus far.
“It turned out that this man worked for the Dalai Lama. And he said—gently—that they believe when a lot of things start going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely that is trying to get itself born – and that this something needs for you to be distracted so that it can be born as perfectly as possible.”
That first Easter morning everything was breaking in the life of those who loved Jesus. All the disciples saw when they got to the tomb was two piles of old clothes. Mary didn’t even see that much. She was too distraught, too distracted. The moment she saw the door to the tomb standing wide open, she ran to tell Simon Peter and the other disciples that Jesus’ body had been stolen. They raced back to the tomb ahead of her and found that she was right, at least about his body being gone.
Only why would grave robbers leave the clothes behind? Without going inside, the beloved disciple could see the linen wrappings all lying in a heap. When Peter went inside, he saw more. The cloth that had been on Jesus’ head was rolled up neatly in a place by itself. Odd, that someone should go to all the trouble of rolling it up.
None of it was making sense to them, the Gospel of John says, because no one who was there that morning understood the Scriptures, that Jesus must rise from the dead. Still, when the beloved disciple followed Peter inside the tomb and saw the clothes lying there, he believed. Believed what? John does not say. He simply believed, and without another word to each other he and Peter returned to their homes.
The rest of the story belongs to Mary Magdalene. She was the one who saw the angels. She was the one who saw the risen Lord, who had found himself some clothes incidentally…maybe an extra set of work clothes down by the fertilizer and rakes. Peter and the beloved disciple saw none of this. They saw nothing but a vacant tomb with two piles of clothes in it. They saw nothing but emptiness and absence. And on that basis at least one of them believed, although neither of them understood.
Any way you look at this story, it is a mighty fragile beginning for a religion that has lasted almost 2,000 years. Yet, that is where so many of us continue to focus our energy: on that tomb, on that morning, on what did or did not happen there and how to explain it to those who do not happen to believe it like we do.
No one can say what happened IN the tomb because no one was there. There were no witnesses. It was between Jesus and God. They all arrived after the fact. Two of them saw clothes. One of them saw angels. Most of them saw nothing at all because they were still in bed that morning, but as it turned out that did not matter because the empty tomb was not the point. Jesus was not there. He could have stayed put, I guess, but he didn’t. He had outgrown his tomb, which was much too small a focus for the resurrection. The risen one had people to see and things to do. The living one’s business was among the living, to whom he appeared not once but four more times in the Gospel of John. Every time he came to his friends they became stronger, wiser, kinder, bolder. Every time he came to them, they became more like him. And that’s what the resurrection is about—it’s not about what happened in the tomb—that was entirely between Jesus and God.
The resurrection is about the disciples. The resurrection is about us. It is about a life that is available to us now, something we can participate in. It’s not about believing or not believing. It’s about what the appearance of the risen Christ points to. It’s about what we do with the resurrection. It is so much more than a leap of faith to belief. It is a stepping stone to new life! It’s about learning to practice resurrection. It’s about learning to live.
We all have Easter moments if we just look around. And if it seems like to you that more things are breaking than being resurrected in your life then start looking for that big, lovely thing in your life that is about to be born. The best line I know for explaining Easter is out of the movie “Shakespeare in Love.” When the people ask, how the play Will Shakespeare is writing was going to end, the producer’s consistent reply was, “I don’t know, it’s a mystery.” What a great line, not only for Easter, but for our lives—“I don’t know, it’s a mystery!”
We journey through life, wounded at times. Resurrection is when we do not stop living because we are wounded. We move through the pain, with the wounds, into new life, scars and all. It’s about a day when some wonderful piece of us that we thought was long dead and buried suddenly re-appears in our lives, maybe in a different form, maybe in a similar form. We recognize it. We know its energy and its power. It surprises us. It gives us a new lease on life. This is what resurrection is about. It’s not about what we believe, it’s about what we experience.
Maybe you have been wanting to experience resurrection lately. Where’s my resurrection, God? You ask. My holy week has been way too long. Where’s the resurrection?
Mary was as wounded as anyone about Jesus. She just stood outside the tomb and wept. She wasn’t even looking for a resurrection; she was looking for a body. “Why are you weeping?” the angel asked her. “Why are you weeping?” the man dressed in gardener’s clothes asked. “They took my Lord. Tell me where he is so I can care for him.” And then it happened.
For Mary and for the rest of us, Easter began the moment the gardener said, “Mary,” and she knew who he was. That is where the miracle happened and goes on happening—not in the tomb but in the encounter with the living Christ. In the end, that is the only evidence we have to offer those who ask us, how we can possibly believe. Because we live, that is why. Because we have found, to our surprise, that we are not alone. Because we never know where Christ will turn up next. Where’s our resurrection? It’s here, now, whenever you encounter the risen, living Christ.
It happened when I was having a personal meltdown; lots of things breaking. I called my sister in Idaho who listened on the phone and responded, “Do you want me to come for a few days?” And she came, to be present, just to be with me. Resurrection happens every time we encounter the risen, living Christ. A friend calls out of the blue, you want to have coffee? And it’s just what you need. You share stories and tears and laugh so loud that strangers look at you. You walk out of the coffee shop lighter, with energy, feeling much better. Resurrection happens every time we encounter the risen, living Christ. A friend says, “I’m going to call you every day and check on you.” And they do. Resurrection happens every time we encounter the risen, living Christ.
Life happens and life goes on. But the Easter message is about the presence of the living Christ in our relationships with each other, in our reaching out, in our being there, in encouraging one another. And that’s what we are called to do for one another. That’s what I mean by practicing resurrection: going where God nudges us to go, bringing the very real presence of the risen, living Christ to someone who feels like life is breaking apart. Bringing each other Easter moments.
There are hundreds of Easter moments—signs and tokens of the promises of Easter. Sure, life is far from perfect—but life is good, life is beautiful. Resurrection is happening all around us if we have “eyes to see and ears to hear,” even when bleakness stands very close.
Here is one thing that might help you find your resurrection. Never get so focused on the empty tomb that you forget to speak to the gardener…. Or a lonely person, or that person standing in line to get food at the food bank, or a child—you may encounter the risen, living Christ in them and they may encounter the risen, living Christ in you. That’s where resurrection is today. In us.
Amen.