Sacred Surprises!
By Pastor Marcia M. Sietstra
Easter,
I Cor. 15:3-8
Luke 24:1-16, 28-32
Today I want to talk about sacred surprises,
but first a little story. It was Easter Sunday and the service had just begun.
The choir started the processional, singing ‘Up from the Grave He Arose’ while
marching in perfect step down the center aisle to the front of the church. The
last woman was wearing shoes with very slender high heels. Without a thought
for her fancy heels, she stepped onto the grating that covered the hot air
outlet in the middle of the aisle. Suddenly the heel of one shoe sank into the
hole in the register grate. In a flash she realized her predicament. Not
wishing to hold up the whole processional, without missing a step, she slipped
her foot out of the shoe and continued marching down the aisle. No one even
noticed, except for the man right behind her. He spotted the situation and
without losing a step, reached down and quickly pulled up her shoe, but the
entire grate came with it! Surprised, but still singing, the man kept on going
down the aisle, holding in his hand the grate with the shoe attached,
Everything still moved like clockwork. Still in tune and still in step, the
next man in line stepped into the opening and disappeared from sight. The
service took on a special meaning that Sunday, for just as the choir ended with
‘Alleluia! Christ arose!’ a voice shouted from under the church, ‘I hope all of
you are out of the way ‘cause I’m coming out now!’
(1001 Humorous illustrations)
Easter surprises here’s one for real, a true story. A pastor I know told
about running into an old friend she hadn’t seen for awhile. The pastor knew
this man’s wife had died about two years earlier, at the age of 50 from a
sudden heart attack. So she asked the man, ‘How’s it been for you?’
He answered, ‘It’s just this spring, right
about now, that I am beginning to feel vaguely happy again.’ Those who have
lost loved ones know what he meant, how it feels as though you will never be
happy again when death changes your world. How it is to journey through lonely
days that feel empty of meaning, let alone joy. But then there comes a day when
you discover you can smile again you are surprised to find that you can still
enjoy life. God has a way of healing the human heart from terrible losses.
Healing is one of God’s sacred surprises; it comes along with the realization
that love never dies, even though people do.
It is no coincidence that the early church
leaders timed Easter to occur in the springtime, recognizing the deeply
metaphorical symbols of new life that our creator orchestrates for us every
spring. The barrenness of the winter landscape, stark branches and brown fields
stripped of grain, gives way to vibrant green springtime and the buds and baby
animals marking new life. It assures us that we can endure through silent,
empty seasons as well, that what often looks like death usually really isn’t;
that even death gives way to new life, albeit changed. A stalk of grain dies
and a new shoot is born, and with it a seed of resiliency is planted in our
souls. This is one of the deep, archetypal truths we recognize in the Easter
story.
I believe that the Easter story contains more
than one universal truth. And the older I get, the more I think the Easter
story is about life here and now at least as much, maybe more, than it is about
an afterlife when we die. Many of us were taught that the only meaning Easter
could possibly have was that Jesus’ body was resuscitated, brought back from
the dead, proving God’s power over death and assuring that we, too, can be
resurrected after we die. Perhaps that is exactly what happened, and perhaps that
is the central meaning. Certainly anything is possible with God.
But there is emerging among theologians in
this century, a very strong emphasis on the resurrection stories as metaphors
developed by the early church to describe their surprising experiences of Jesus
after Easter! Just as we use symbols of springtime to explain the newness of
life that comes to us even after painful losses, so the early church may have
used symbols to explain their experience of Jesus’ presence, even after his
death. Let me take a few moments to explain.
Look at the earliest description of Jesus’
appearance, which are found not in the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke & John,
but in Paul’s writings, e.g. I Corinthians. The funny thing about the New
Testament is that the books aren’t in the order in which they were written. All
the books written by Paul were written between the years 50 and 64 (20-34 years
after Jesus death). Paul never describes an empty tomb but he does describe a
deeply felt spiritual presence of Christ.
Paul died around the year 64, and the first
of the gospels wasn’t written until the 70’s, so Paul never read a gospel.
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have widely varying accounts of the tomb and
Jesus’ appearances. One writer says two women went to the tomb, another says a
group of women, another says Peter. One says the stone was already rolled away,
another says there was an earthquake that rolled it away; one version has one
angel, another version has two angels. It’s not surprising to find so many
differences in the details, because the writers wrote 50 years or more after
Jesus’ death. The stories had been circulating orally all those years. When
Mark wrote the first gospel, he ended it with the women discovering an empty
tomb; there were no appearances by Jesus in the original ending of Mark.
Matthew was the first to say that Jesus’ physical body was reconstituted (Mt.
28:9). Luke suggests Jesus’ corpse walked, talked and even ate fish (Lk. 24:42-43), yet, when seen on the road to Emmaus by his
disciples, was not recognized. In John, the latest gospel and the one most full
of poetic language, the resurrected Christ appears like a ghost (John
Here’s the question I think begs asking:
Could it be that all of these writers are trying to describe the indescribable?
Something utterly amazing changed these people. The presence of Jesus was felt
so strongly that it turned a bunch of sniveling, cowardly disciples into
courageous, fiery evangelists. What his followers discovered after the
crucifixion was that his impact was still upon them. His presence outlived his
earthly life, because where two or three of them were gathered, his power
pressed them toward the same goals he had given them. As they looked back on
how he had forgiven his oppressors from the cross, and his willingness to die
rather than take back what he had claimed about a God of love, they began to
understand the critical lessons he had taught them: love your neighbor, forgive
your enemy, trust God even in the face of death. They
began to get it! Have you ever had a sudden realization like that, when you
recognize something absolutely true and wonderful? Jesus had been right about
God, that God does not allow injustice or even death itself to have the final word.
The good he had done lived on and empowered them, and they tried to find a way
to explain it. I can imagine them exclaiming, Now I
see him as he really wanted me to see him!
There’s growing diversity in how Christians
interpret the Easter story. Some believe these accounts are factual, literate
truth. Others see them as deeply symbolic, as ways to describe a profound
spiritual experience. To me, the important truth for us today is the same
either way: we too can experience the presence of Christ’s spirit in our lives,
surprising us with hope again and again in life.
When we work for justice in the world, the
spirit of Christ is there! When a person emerges from the tomb of depression
with the help of a caring therapist, the spirit of Christ is there. Just a few
years ago, the day after we had Homer Lyon’s funeral here, we baptized his new
great grandchild, giving witness to the cycle of death and life the spirit of
Christ was here. When two boys, like Jacob and
Wherever we discover that love is stronger
than death, you can bet Jesus Christ is present and being vindicated again. It
is God’s message to us saying, Jesus was right love is the greatest strength
there is, and the powers of evil and hate could not overpower him nor should
they overpower you.
I close today by wishing you many little
Easters in the coming year. May Christ appear to you in sacred surprises of
goodness and new life. I challenge you to keep living
Jesus’ ethics of peace and justice, even when we work against all the odds. It
is absolutely reasonable to work for a better world despite war and evil,
knowing that love is not a weakness but God’s strength. May you recognize
Christ in all that gives life to your spirit it may be as you watch the setting
sun some evening, or as a child wraps their arms around your neck, maybe even
as you watch baby ducks waddling across the lawn. It
may be in the dying breath of someone you love but will be asked to give back
to God for the final healing, trusting that the God who gives us such
startling, sacred surprises in life can be trusted to surprise us in death too.
In my office I have a framed quote about
death that says something about what it’s like to trust the God whom Jesus
trusted. It says: I believe that when I walk to the edge of all the light I
have and take that step into the darkness of the unknown, one of two things
will happen. There will be something solid for me to stand on or I shall be
taught to fly! Thanks be to God for sacred surprises,
for hope, for Easter. Amen.