Easter Day C
April 4, 2010
Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
1 Corinthians 15:19-26
John 20:1-18
A mother likes to hear from her grown children every so often to know they’re okay. Some of them are good at that. Some aren’t. I once got so frustrated with one of mine I called him and left him a voicemail message: “Son, if you’re not dead, you better call your Mama….. today!” He did call later that day but I missed it. So he left me a message. In an exuberant voice, he said, “Hey Mom, I’m ALIVE!!” I would rather have talked to him in person. But in lieu of that, a vibrant proclamation that he was alive did put my mind at ease.
Easter is a day to talk about life. Christians are never more alive than when we gather together on Easter Sunday to remember and celebrate our Lord’s resurrection. Have you ever wondered how people actually can feel more alive on one day and less alive on another? Or what it is that helps us feel the life that’s in us more on some days than on others.
It’s not just the health in our bodies and our minds that helps us feel alive. (Although that does have a lot to do with it.) There is more to feeling alive than good health alone. We feel more alive when we’re in love, when we know we are loved and that our lives matter to someone. Sometimes accomplishments make us feel more alive. Seeing something through from beginning to end makes us feel fruitful and therefore more alive. And if we have something to hope for and hope in, we feel more alive. St. Paul mentioned hope in the portion of his letter we heard read this morning.“If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”
Paul is saying there is something more to hope for than that all goes well for us in this life on earth. The hope that is ours as Christians is a hope that transcends our earthly existence. Through Christ’s death and resurrection we can now hope in life beyond death for ourselves and for those we love.
To hope in or for anything is always an investment, but not always the same investment. I might say I hope it doesn’t rain today. But I haven’t invested so much hope in the possibility of a sunny day that the whole day is ruined if it brings rain instead. If I say I hope our house in Cotter sells soon (believe me I say that all the time) I have more hope invested because I’m hoping in a future beyond today – a better future when we aren’t paying for two houses since we only need one. When I say I hope someone I love is cured of an illness or delivered from persistent pain I have even more hope invested. In a better future for my loved one, but because my heart is involved in their well-being it’s a better future for me too.
Mary Magdalene and the disciples had hoped Jesus was God’s Messiah for the whole people of God including generations yet to come. They loved their people and they loved their Jesus. Their hearts were deeply involved. Their hope in Jesus was a huge investment. Then they witnessed his crucifixion and death. Their hope died with him. No doubt the day they followed his lifeless body to the tomb they felt less alive than ever.
The first Easter Sunday Mary went to the tomb hoping she could find a way to move the stone and see the lifeless body of her Lord. As it turns out, the stone isn’t a problem but there is no lifeless body of Jesus in the tomb.
When Peter and the beloved disciple (who is John the evangelist) get to the tomb they go in, see the burial cloths of Jesus lying there, but no Jesus. Now they might not have dared to invest too much hope in his resurrection. But they left the tomb with a glimmer of hope in the possibility that he had been raised from death to life like Lazarus was. It was a small investment of hope but surely they felt more alive that day than they did two days before.
Mary’s hope is not quickened that easily. She looks in the tomb and sees two angels there. She’s still crying for Jesus. Then Jesus himself appears right behind her. He asks her why she is crying. Mary thinks he’s the gardener and starts pleading with him to tell her where her Lord is. Then Jesus calls her name and she recognizes his voice. Suddenly a new hope is quickened in Mary. She is more alive than ever when she runs to the other disciples proclaiming, “I have seen the Lord!”
We feel more alive with something to hope for; someone to hope in.
The house in Cotter that I mentioned while a go is in an air community. Most the people who live there are pilots who have small planes in hangars attached to or near their houses. That particular community was mostly started by a retired dentist from Iowa. He bought a bunch of land and eventually sold it to other retired pilots. They put in a runway and the community was born.
The dentist and his wife showed impeccable hospitality to the members of the community. They opened their hangar every afternoon for happy hour. They were Lutherans. They could do that.
One exceptionally windy Sunday after Easter, I was finishing a weekend at Camp Mitchell. My husband, Kevin was out of town too. The dentist and his wife, like most of the pilots in the neighborhood, had been in Florida over the weekend. They all flew home that Sunday. On Monday morning I went to the computer and pulled up the local newspaper. There was a headline about a plane crash Sunday afternoon. Two people were killed. It was the dentist and his wife. Some of the life went out of me when I read those words.
The plane actually went down less than 300 yards from our driveway. After the initial shock and grief, I felt an overwhelming urge to walk down there. I wanted to touch the earth where the plane went down and say my prayers. As soon as the road was opened I did that.
In contrast to the mighty wind that ruled the day before, it was completely calm that day. It was almost like the wind stood perfectly still in reverence to what happened there. I couldn’t believe how much of the earth was charred on both sides of the road. I walked to one side and stood there a while breathing in the weight of that tragedy. Then I walked over to the other side where most of the debris was. My eyes surveyed the space for a minute or two. Then I squatted down close to the blackened earth and put my hands flat on the ashes. Immediately I was overwhelmed and awestruck. I started to cry but I didn’t feel sad. The tears were refreshing. I’ve touched enough holy things and experienced the presence of God enough times to know exactly how it feels to me. I get chicken skin, (as a former parishioner describes it) and I feel as light as a feather on the inside. I knew in my soul that God was there at that very spot with them when that plane went down. Right then everything I ever believed or hoped for about God’s love for us; how God holds our souls in life and in death; everything I’ve been preaching and talking and thinking about all these years was validated in such a powerful way that I will never forget it. In that intimate encounter with the place where death had been my hope in Christ was made new and I felt more alive than ever.
The hope that is in us as Christians is when we are united with Christ in baptism our souls are in the hand of God forever. Not just while we live on the earth. Hope in Christ is stronger than death because he overpowered death. When it comes to our hope in Christ we, Christians are all in, thoroughly invested. And it is the greatest, most valuable investment we can ever make in this life. We are more alive on Easter because with every remembrance of our Lord’s resurrection our hope in Christ is reborn and we are filled from the inside out with life that never ends.
With our souls fully enlivened with the hope of the resurrection we boldly make our Easter proclamation: Alleluia Christ is risen!
Copyright. 2010. The Reverend Pamela S. Morgan
