Advent Lutheran Church

"Didn’t Expect that to Happen! (Day of Resurrection/Easter)"

            Long, long ago – the Creator reached down and scooped up some dust from the ground.  This dirt, called “adamah” in Hebrew, he used to form Adam.  Then, cradling Adam in the divine arms, God breathed into the man and gave him life.  Adam and God had some great times together in those days, until it became clear to God that “it is not good for the man to be alone.”  And so, formed out of the side of the man, “eesh” in Hebrew, came “ee-shah,” the woman.

            In the cool of evening, God had taken to returning at the end of the day for a walk in the garden.  After being separated, God enjoyed these times of being together, and he called for his creations for their evening gathering.  But Ish and Ishah turned away.  They were ashamed of their disobedience, what their pride had driven them to do, and they hid from God. The intimate connection between Creator and created was broken.  Since that day - long, long ago - we humans have forever yearned to return to God. 

            If that sounds familiar to you, it may be because it was how I began our Lenten journey on Ash Wednesday.  It is also how many of us learned about our status before God when we were little ones in Sunday School.  It’s how we were taught about the big break-up between us and the Almighty.  It’s the foundation of our Christian faith and the beginning of the answer to why Jesus had to die.

            But there is something even more important in that story…it’s the “what comes next?” when God comes into our gardens with the same question he had for Adam and Eve, “Where are you?” 

            This Easter morning’s story might seem more like it is we who are asking the question (with the women,) “Where are you, Jesus?”  The two Marys who loved him the most (probably Mary his mother and Mary Magdalene) had been there for the whole thing - the ministry, the teaching and healing, the miracles – they had come into Jerusalem to the shouts of “Hosanna!” and served the meal with his closest friends which had turned out to be his Last Supper.  They had been there at the crucifixion, and had watched as Joseph of Arimathea took Jesus’ lifeless body from cross, wrapped it hastily – much more hastily and without the care the women would have taken – but then Joseph put him in the tomb which he had bought for himself, and had rolled a great stone to cover the door of the tomb and went away.  They heard the huge rock settle into its receiving groove and knew that whatever they might have done to care for the body of this one they loved so dearly, would have to wait.  Probably after sitting there for awhile, they made their way home as the evening closed in and the Sabbath began.  All during that next day they would have been occupied with activities connected to the Passover festivities, and their time was not their own.  Meanwhile, the chief priests and the Pharisees were ignoring the Sabbath rituals and the festival, to come to Pilate and share their concerns that the disciples would steal Jesus’ body and claim he had been raised from the dead.  Pilate gave permission, and the rest of that day they spent not in worship but arranging the guard, and securing the tomb against – who knew? - by sealing the stone.

            So at dawn on the first day of the week, the Marys were finally free to come and grieve.  They were not bringing spices or ointments in this telling – they were just up as early as it was safe to come and see if the nightmare they had had to set aside was really real.  Both these women had “made space” for Jesus in their lives, and had ended up building a whole new life around him…and now that whole new life was all about death.  Mary Magdalene and Mary walked to Jesus’ grave, expecting to find death. Death had become the defining story of their lives, and isn’t that the way we feel when any kind of “death” intrudes? We do not – and they did not understand.

            Strange that Matthew’s gospel (all about the boys) concentrates on the women…the religious leaders have abandoned even the sacredness of their own Sabbath for their own personal power play, and the disciples – well – the disciples are absent.  Perhaps that is because the game is shifting – the rules have changed.  Perhaps even the storyteller, Matthew had to concede that the world was no longer going to be controlled by a patriarchal system of power and privilege, but that there were others – those on the margins – who would now be brought into the inner circle of God’s grace.  And the first to hear that word of freedom were the two women who had been the closest to Jesus in his life:  his mother and Mary Magdalene.  It was a seismic shift in the way of the world – an earthquake come to undo the best work that the power-brokers could offer – a sealed up tomb, under guard.  

            But instead of death, the women met a resurrection messenger – an angel who cracked the seal, rolled the stone away and sat upon it shining like the summer sun, while the guards shook with such fear that they “became like dead men” - who said, “He is not here: for he has been raised, as he said.” As they hurried to tell others, the risen Jesus met them, and their lives were changed yet again.  Now it would be Resurrection (New Life,) not death, that would define their lives, and they began to understand.

            I have a friend who loves to read the Bible stories because he constantly finds himself exclaiming, “Wow, I never expected THAT to happen!”  And isn’t that what Easter is all about?  Just as if we were the original men and women in the Garden at the beginning…we, also would find it too hard to let God be God, to submit our wills to him.  So each and every one of us would probably turn away, have probably turned away in anger, or pain, or frustration…But then Jesus came, and died.  And God showed forth power greater than our pride, greater than our fury.  New life beyond our earthly death.   “I AM the Resurrection and the Life…” and, “Wow, we didn’t expect that to happen!”

            Easter is about the unexpected happenings in life.  It gives us the strength to be the unexpected happening.  A woman I know in Minneapolis had just such an experience.  Almost a year ago, she stepped into a crosswalk and was hit by a car.  Her injuries were multiple, but not severe.  However, to add insult to her injuries, she received a ticket for jaywalking.  Not one to take these kinds of injustices lightly, my friend decided to appear in court and contest the ticket.  But the officer and the driver of the car also appeared, and refuted her experience.  The one thing she noticed about the testimony was that the driver of the car, who just happened to be a lawyer who works right around the corner from her office, seemed drained, nervous – completely undone by the whole proceeding.  “Strange,” she thought in passing, for a lawyer to be so uncomfortable in court.”  After hearing all the testimonies and looking at the evidence, my friend was exonerated and the citation was cancelled.  Afterward, she just happened to get into the elevator with (you guessed it) the lawyer who had hit her with his car.  His face looked ashen, he could not even speak to her.  Finally, after 5 flights of agony in the elevator, she turned to him and said, “I’m OK.  I’m not going to sue you.”  Three times she had to repeat herself.  Then the lawyer burst into tears. (Wow.  I never expected THAT to happen!)

            When Jesus awoke that Easter morning, he saw the same overwhelming love for him that we will see.  God poured out on the Resurrected Christ all the surety, the love, the outright joy of a father welcoming his son home from a long journey, or battle, or a life well-spent.  And I wonder if Jesus’ first thought was, “Wow.  I never expected THAT to happen!”

            Easter is not so much the triumph over the idea of death; it is the discovery of life in the midst of death.  Easter is not about us going to God, it is about God coming to us.  Easter is not about us understanding why God would love us so fiercely to pour out his life for us – even when we don’t pour out our lives for him in return - it’s about the meaning our lives have when we connect to world-changing work that is bigger than ourselves, to a strength that is more powerful than any we could ever imagine from ourselves… it’s about a love for us that never counts the cost, but forgives and forgets and comes back to love us even more. 

            My prayer for you this Easter morning is that when you set aside your expectations of who God is and let your hearts be opened enough so that you have only one answer to the question God asks.  “Where are you?”  “Wherever you’d like me to be.”  Wow.  Bet you’d never expect THAT to happen.  But, may it be so with you and with me.  AMEN.