April 5, 2015
Resurrected, Resurrecting, Resurrection
- Mark 16:1-8
- Dr. Teri Thomas
April 5, 2015
Resurrected, Resurrecting, Resurrection
Mark 16:1-8
Lent and Holy Week are a bit like riding roller coasters,
or traveling through whitewater rapids.
Full of ups and downs, twists and turns, long slow stretches,
and deep, terrifying drops.
We’ve been following this river for almost 40 days now.
We’ve discovered obstacles, over-come some, and been swamped by others.
In just the last seven days we have experienced
cheering and palm waving
eating and drinking and killing
suffering, betrayal, dying
and now it is over.
Today then is the beginning of the end.
The disciples probably saw it as the end of the beginning.
It was the end of a new way of life that was just beginning
the end of a movement that was just starting
the end of a promise they had just been given.
But really, for us, isn’t it the beginning of a beginning?
the beginning of a new story
a story that goes on
without the tomb and the women with the spices
eventually, without the disciples
it is the beginning of our story.
Mark is often referred to as the “unfinished gospel”
His account of the resurrection just ends, almost in mid-sentence.
What did the women do next?
What did the disciples say?
Did anyone see Jesus?
We have no idea, since there is no ending.
Some early Christians were so uncomfortable with Mark’s account
that they actually crafted endings to the Gospel.
They invented stories and added them to tie up loose ends.
To satisfy curiosities.
To calm anxieties.
But Mark left it open.
he left the story to us.
What happens next- after the resurrection- is now ours to decide.
So pick your tense-
past, present or future.
Some of us like to really think about resurrection as a past event.
We want our Jesus to be resurrected in the past-tense.
That way it is over.
We want the past-tense resurrected Christ,
a God who won’t pull any punches,
a faith that will never grow and change,
a God who will never surprise us.
We want to freeze Jesus in the past
so we know exactly what to expect in the future.
Heaven forbid someone let God out of the biblical world and into human history.
Some of us really like resurrection in the future tense.
We dream of a sign from heaven that will lift us out of the tears,
and pain, and difficulty we experience in this life
and take us into a blissful and serene heaven
where we will see God, and Grandma, and our last dog.
Resurrection means there is something good waiting for us up ahead.
We can speak of resurrection as something past or future
but we seldom identify it as a present reality.
We have everything fixed in place in our minds.
Our world is neatly ordered.
Solid
Bounded
We know what life is.
We know what death is.
Oh, we are so wise.
Our belief is so secure.
Our faith is so well defined it can be protected by an act of the Indiana legislature.
But if resurrection happens today
God destroys our certainty.
Terror and amazement seize us.
We have lost control.
Lost control over the world we knew.
Worse yet:
lost control of God.
If death is no longer an absolute certainty,
all we have left are taxes.
But if the authorities could not control the living Jesus in Palestine 2000 years ago
why would we think we can control the living Christ in Indiana today?
The resurrection of Christ, in present tense, is terrifying.
Mark said it- the women fled the tomb in terror and amazement and said nothing to anyone.
Resurrection means we do not know what might happen next.
Resurrection in the present tense means it comes to us
as we are, where we are,
and might be so quiet and unobtrusive that some time may pass before we even realize we have been raised to a new life.
- Resurrection is the opening of astonishing new possibilities when we give up the delusion that we can control reality.
- Resurrection is the renewed love that friends, partners, and spouses discover when they let go of their need to reform the other.
- Resurrection is the fresh impulse that inspires artists when they acknowledge they have been working too long in one creative vein.
- Resurrection is the surprise discovery of a scientist who puts aside an old theory in order to examine unexpected data.
- Resurrection is the future that opens to a society when it comes to terms with its injustice and prejudice.
- Resurrection is the vision of our Lord we see when we are able to release the images we have created to preserve our sense of security and stability.
- Resurrection means it is not over yet- we do not have all the truth, all the wisdom, all the direction God wants us to have. We do not know all and we certainly do not understand all. What God came to do is not finished yet.
Jesus broke free and still breaks free. He finds a crack in the walls we’ve created to contain him, and he slips loose. He crawls through pain, and death, and absolute darkness in order to break free, not only for me and you, but for the world. And the resurrected Jesus is on the loose. The truth is out there. The living, active word of God is out there.
Jesus has gone on ahead of us, beckoning, waiting for us to arrive.
Mark’s version of the Easter story has no ending because it was designed to lead us into our future with God, today. Easter cannot have an ending. It is not about what happened two thousand years ago, it is not about what is finished, it is about what has just begun, a future that is so mysterious only God could write it.
If the story is true, you will not walk out of here the same way you came in. You will be changed. You will leave in amazement and terror because that’s what it takes to follow the Christ who lives today.
Christ is risen.
He is risen indeed.
Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.