Crazy Talk

Luke 24:1-12 (Isaiah 65:17-25)

All over again today, the world is turning upside down and inside out.

 

God’s chosen is not supposed to die a shameful, premature death.

Jesus’ friends have been devastated by that for days.

But even more than that, dead people are not supposed to disappear out of their graves.

And if that happens, calling it good news is upside down, inside out, and backward.

Crazy talk.

 

But that’s just how Magdalen and Mary and Joanna and their friends are talking this morning. Telling other disciples that not only is their rabbi, their teacher, leader and friend, gone from us into death, but now he’s gone from his tomb. And some unnaturally shiny people there said that this is what was supposed to happen. That Jesus told us he’d rise again – and he has. And that it’s good…
(But he’s disappeared. No one has seen him. He’s just…gone.)

 

I find it curious that the fresh and first experience of resurrection is of utter disorientation and uncertainty.

Comfort, joy, healing, celebration all come later. But the first experience of resurrection is one of being tumbled upside down, the world turning inside out.

It’s the experience of impossibility.

Of disbelief.

 

Of an “idle tale”, as the gospel says today.

Or, better translated, as “delirious nonsense”.

Crazy talk.

 

Because believing that someone you know personally

– someone who you love, who you are grieving, who was real and human and tangible and also definitely dead –

is now, in fact, alive again is, in all honesty, nuts.

It’s hard enough to wrap yourself around his sudden death.

But death happens. You’ve seen that.

But to believe that the dead rise again – whole and holy and healthy, not zombies – and that you knew this was going to happen because he told you he would – is crazy. Foolish. Nuts.

 

But…

why not be nuts, if it gives you everything?

 

To believe in – to put our trust in – the literal resurrection of Jesus is difficult for many of us living in a world built on the ideals of scientific proof.

 

To believe in – to trust in and hope for – a truly holy, just, generous, trustworthy humanity and a world full of the glory of God, as Jesus invites us to, is radical, and challenging – and really, kind of nuts, given the world of commercialism, self-interest, and competition most of us navigate every day.

 

To believe in literal, instant miracles is to constantly bruise ourselves on the scorn of others, or on the grinding, inefficient normal processes of healing what’s broken, feeding the hungry, or saving others – or saving ourselves from ourselves.

 

But why not take a little risk, or a big leap, of faith?

Why not be a little foolish, a little crazy, when it gets you impossible joy?

When “crazy” is just another name for life so vivid, bright, and full it can’t be dimmed or contained by the grind of daily news and work?

When “foolish” is just another name for fierce and unquenchable hope and an unbounded sense of possibility?

When “crazy” is, in fact, just plain overwhelming love, and belovedness?

 

I think Peter wants to take that risk, in our story today.

He risks being a little crazy, taking the unbelievable word of his friends on trust enough, at least, to run to the tomb, and let the emptiness there leave him amazed. And probably grasping for hope, longing for the impossible he couldn’t begin to imagine an hour before.

 

I think Mary, and Joanna, and Magdalen and the other women do take that risk.

They know they are going to sound crazy, when they go to the other disciples and tell their story of an empty tomb, of glowing otherworldly messengers who insist that the impossible is reality: “He is risen.” Who remember what Jesus has indeed been telling them all for years, since Galilee, and know it is absurd and unbelievable, and share it anyway, because they need their friends to know, and believe.

 

You and I, here and now, live in a world where the story of Jesus’ resurrection, his vivid, healthy, holy life emerging vibrant from the grave, is a familiar story. Taken for granted; at least as a story, whether or not it’s believed by many.

 

For the most part, here and now we don’t sound delirious when we say that what we celebrate today is the Son of God defeating death, rising from the grave, making all things new. It’s a story we can tell to our children confidently, as a joyful occasion to thank God and eat chocolate.

(Frankly, trying to explain how neon-colored, sugar-crusted, bunnies and chicks shaped out of marshmallow express the joy of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead might be more delirious to someone who hasn’t seen it in every grocery store for weeks, even though that absurdity is well established in our current context.)

 

What’s risky, what’s a bit crazy, or foolish, for us, this Easter Day and season, is to believe it matters, here and now.

To believe that since Jesus left that dim and cool cave-tomb alive and better-than-well two thousand years ago can still change your life, and mine, and the very everyday, familiar world we live in.

 

To believe – to trust – that although our own graves may not open after our funerals, that we already live where the power of death cannot hurt or defeat us, and so live free of the fears that keep us small, and quiet – or angry and aggressive.

 

To believe – to put our hope and trust in – the promise that the world not only can be, but will be, different than it’s always been. That – in spite of all the evidence to the contrary in the news or our own lives right now – as God keeps “making all things new”, humanity can be fundamentally and thoroughly holy, and healing, peace-building, generous and just, trustworthy and joyful.

So that we can be free to live joyfully, generously, honestly, hopefully, in all life’s circumstances, without fear that the world will destroy our joy, hope, and peace.

 

To believe, to trust with all our hearts, that the love of God is more powerful than any other force in the universe.

More powerful than our own griefs and greeds;

more powerful than the boss or the media;

more powerful than hatred or fear around us or within us;

more powerful than death itself.

 

So that, wrapped in that love, filled with that love, inspired with that love, we know we can never be separated from God, no matter what.

Even when it seems like Jesus is gone.

Like love is gone.

 

To believe we are free, always, everywhere, to live as God’s best-beloved. And thus to actually become free to love without fear, and without limit, and with extravagant, holy, foolish joy.

 

Crazy talk.

I know.

 

But why not be crazy, foolish – and free?

Why not embrace the absurd, the impossible – and live beyond every limit?

Why not be a little bit delirious – and infinitely loved?

 

Jesus, after all, was crazy enough to walk the earth in the form of generous, trustworthy, peace-building, wonder-making humanity.

Crazy enough to tell us that we could be that, too.

Crazy enough to die for that faith, and trust, and love.

Crazy enough to leave the tomb, to beckon us onward, to set us in the middle of impossible stories, and see what happens next.

 

Shouldn’t you and I – just for Easter, or for always – choose to believe these foolish tales?

And be just a little bit, very joyfully, crazy, too?

Layer by Layer

John 20:1-18; Genesis 1:1-2:2; Exodus 14:10-31, 15:20-21; Isaiah 55:1-11; Zephaniah 3:14-20

Centuries ago, and tonight, Jesus’ resurrection unfolds slowly, in half-revelations, stages and hiccups.

 

As the darkness starts to fade into dawn, Mary of Magdala stops and stares at the stone rolled away from the entrance of Jesus’ tomb.

Sees the darkness behind the stone and feels her loss.

They’ve taken him away, she tells Peter and the other disciple.

She sees part of the truth. A clue, but not the answer.

 

Peter and the other race to see for themselves, and see… emptiness.

They see more of the truth – that the disappearance of Jesus probably wasn’t grave robbers – the neatly folded wrappings suggesting gentle care.

The other disciple believes…something. Not everything, but something.

An answer, but not the answer.

 

Mary, weeping, seeks more.

Peers into the tomb, and sees angels.

Sees the divine hand at work, but still the absence of Jesus.

An answer: the presence of God has replaced the presence of death.
But mostly the question still: where is Jesus?

 

Finds someone who should know, who calls her by name, and then, finally,

finally,

she is found.

Jesus is here, alive, vivid, so real.

And at last, the fullness of life and love and salvation are here and now.

The mystery solved, the answer joyful and fulfilled.

And Jesus insists that there is more to come.

 

Similarly – and quite differently! – our liturgy of resurrection tonight refuses to leap straight into the bright Alleluias, but folds and unfolds the facets of God’s salvation like an origami shape.

 

In the darkness (the almost darkness) an ancient chant invokes the benefits and power of Jesus’ resurrection over a fire and a candle.

 

Back, then, to The Beginning – the day-by-day unfolding of the creative power of God – and the clue to the story of salvation (from before we needed salvation) that you and I and all of humanity is made in the image of God.

 

Then the water parts, the power of God reshapes nature and physics for a daring escape, a mighty rescue. A promise of truth that God will not let us be lost to any force on earth. But not yet our whole truth.

 

Isaiah sings God’s invitation and command to dive into abundance, to share all the overflowing gifts of God. Zephaniah calls us to sing in celebration of the victory God is bringing.

The hand of God is upon us now…and we are still waiting for Jesus.

 

Until at last the lights flash bright, the bells ring, the Easter joy bursts forth in full.

And we have arrived at the celebration of resurrection.

Jesus has risen, death is defeated, we here and now are freed from all that separates us from God.

And Jesus tells us (our liturgy tells us!), there is more to come.

 

Tonight, just like that morning long ago in Jerusalem, revelation, resurrection, and salvation unfold slowly; in different shapes and clues and directions.

 

Humans, after all, usually need to receive information, discover truth, in multiple different ways before we absorb it, know it, can act on it.

 

And, for all we throw the lights on and shout “Alleluia!” in one bright moment here tonight, Easter does not really happen in a snap.

 

We might want to, sometimes, but we really don’t go from death to resurrection in the blink of an eye.

Easter, salvation, and resurrection build up in us, in individuals and communities, layer by layer, story by story, experience by experience.

 

Mary doesn’t experience the revelation of new life without first experiencing the absence of death. Or without experiencing – and expressing to the angels, and the “gardener” – her longing for Jesus. She does not see Jesus risen until she hears all the love of God in her own name, spoken.

 

The shock, the yearning, the partial experiences all build up, to the full truth.

The wounds, his and hers, are still there – but now wrapped in the incomprehensible and glorious full experience of resurrection.

 

So tnight, we too enter into the layers of resurrection. We journey together through the stories of creation and salvation, the insistent summons to abundance and celebration, that God lays in front of us in different times and ways and places.

These stories of our community life in God are meant to weave themselves with our personal – and our shared – experiences of self-discovery, and rescue, and generosity, and protection. To wind around and through our own wounds and losses, our fears and fragile hopes, brought together here.
Until, one moment, or many times, when we hear our own name spoken in the voice of love and eternity. As we finally, slowly, repeatedly, suddenly discover that the undefeatable love of God has risen for us.

 

That Easter is ours, now and always.

That resurrection becomes real for us, around us, in us.

Inviting us to what comes next.

 

Not Erased

John 18:1 - 19:37

This is not going the way it’s supposed to go.

 

Definitely for Peter, who probably can’t understand why Jesus tells him to put his sword away, and then finds himself trying to stay faithful and stay out of trouble in the high priest’s courtyard, and discovering he can’t do both at the same time.

 

Not going the way the chief priests want it to go, when they have to keep arguing back and forth with Pilate about guilt and innocence until he catches on that they are talking about political necessities and the threat of insurrection, not abstract justice.

 

Not how Pilate wants it to go either. If someone’s going to bring him a criminal, he’d rather it be clear and simple and not messed up with local religious beliefs. And not this baffling prisoner who turns the interview around and instead of answering authoritative questions, asks him, Pilate (the voice of Imperial Rome!) uncomfortable questions.

 

Not how we would want it to go, watching a friend of ours get arrested on a manufactured charge, and then die, publicly, before our own eyes.

 

It might, however, be going the way Jesus means for it to go. John tells us, and shows us, that through every minute of this story Jesus knows what is going on, what’s supposed to happen, and that he’s steering events from the moment the guards find him in the garden.

 

“It’s me. You’re here for me,” he tells the guards. And tells them again “take me, and leave the rest alone,” when the guards have already drawn back from him in fear, and would have probably just watched in silence if Jesus had chosen to walk away.

 

I have very mixed feelings about this, personally and theologically, but as we remember and retell this story tonight, we can see Jesus shaping the story, guiding all of us toward the cross.

Jesus encourages his own arrest. Jesus walks directly into death.
God dies.

And crucifixion fails.

 

Because, you see, nailing someone to a cross to gradually suffocate wasn’t just meant to kill that person.

It was one of Rome’s tools for erasing a person.

For making that person so shameful, so untouchable, so unmentionable, that they vanished. So that not only did they disappear from public sight, even their families would stop talking about them.

Being crucified, all by itself, was meant to serve as evidence that someone was the lowest kind of criminal, best rejected and forgotten immediately (if we know what’s good for us).

Most of those who were crucified were never buried, erasing even the record of their death.

 

And that tactic failed spectacularly with Jesus.

The crucified victim whose name never stopped being spoken.
Whose death has been remembered, and retold, over and over and over and over and over again, including here, today/tonight.

Whose death turns shame into the seeds of glory; turns the erasure of a human being into the revelation of the presence of God;

turns loss into the recognition of a love so deep, so broad, so high, so beyond our imagination that we cannot forget it once it touches our hearts.

 

The power of the powers of this world is turned upside down, and inside out, and even while death stands over us, crucifixion fails.

 

Jesus is not erased in this moment; instead, love is revealed.
God is recognized as Mary and Mary and John (and maybe others) stand at the foot of the cross; hear Jesus give them to each other; see and hear him direct the cues and the moment of his death.

And they remembered and told that story. Shared that revelation of love with others, gathered people into their remembrance; as we are gathered now.

 

As we gather here today/tonight,

standing in the shadow of the cross Jesus has guided us to,

making ourselves present and open to the heartbreak of experiencing God’s own love poured out upon us as Jesus dies before our eyes – or ears, tonight – before our hearts.

 

Gathered here, you and I are the proof that once again, crucifixion fails, and God’s presence in the deepest loss is felt once again.

And gathered here, we are, in God’s hands, the promise that again and again, every time, the power of the powers that be will fail; that love will be revealed, and felt. Remembered and shared.

That love will win.