The sun is shining. The flowers are blooming. The clouds are fluffy. And it is the weekend. A spring break weekend. Awesome. Right? Hard to imagine anything better, isn’t it? Hard to imagine needing anything else. It would just seem greedy to want more, to ask for or hope for more. Don’t you think? We are content, we are complete. We are all we need to be.
Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t I? I know you are beginning to feel set up already. It started so well with the sunshine reference, and now I’m backing you into a corner. OK, you’ll grudgingly admit, there is more to life than sunshine and flowers. Can’t think of what it is at the moment, but certainly there is.
Well, while we all ponder that a moment, let’s take a look at our reading for Easter Sunday. It is Mark’s turn this year. I love all the stories and the nuance they put to the description of the first Easter Sunday morning. They all tell it a little bit differently (or in John’s case, a lot differently, but never mind) but there are common themes. There are women on their way to the tomb, there is a startling announcement, there is an empty tomb, and there is a reaction that sets the stage for what comes next. Only Mark leaves us with a great big “huh?”
Mark 16:1-8 When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 They had been saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?" 4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6 But he said to them, "Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you." 8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
La Donna redid the chore charts for the kids today. They were less than thrilled, to say the least. But I suspect (I hope) that they will do the jobs that are on their list, eventually. Even if they do it with less than enthusiastic abandon.
We don’t know much about the mindset of the women who went to work that Easter Sunday morning. We don’t know if they went dragging their feet, or with a driving sense of duty, or with a passion to do this one more act of service for the one who had taught them about loving. We don’t know if they chatted with one another along the way or if silence had wrapped them up in clouds of separation and loneliness with each plodding step. At least until someone thought of the stone.
That’s something that occupies our thinking most of the time, even in difficult moments: obstacles. How can we do the task we are here to do? How can we continue on? Who is going to take care of the problems that we know are there? But give them credit, they didn’t turn back. They kept coming with doubt in their minds.
And then their minds were turned inside out. However many years of Easter celebrations have dulled our senses to the shock of this morning. Attempts to put ourselves in that place even through the most imaginative of exercises always will fall short. “Alarmed” hardly describes it, but it was the best that Mark could do. Luke says they were perplexed. Matthew says they ran away in fear and great joy.
Terror and amazement is how Mark concludes the story. Here is the bible study part of this reflection. The most authoritative manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark end right here. “They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” The end. The verses that follow were added in later by a church uncomfortable with that original ending, or so say most scholars. We can’t end with silence. We can’t end with fear. We can’t end with nothing to anyone. We can’t end with emptiness.
Can we? Perhaps Mark’s message, perhaps the impression that he wants to leave us with is that there is nothing we can do to enhance this Easter act. This is not our proclamation, this is God’s. Our job is to be empty enough to be filled. Our job is to stop focusing on the barriers, the obstacles, the reasons why we can’t possibly be joy-filled and welcoming, why we can’t be loving and supportive, and let the resurrected Christ fill us up enough to actually live out our faith.
Sure it is easy to fill ourselves up. To occupy our thinking and our doing with stuff that while satisfying is not necessarily transforming. Or to fill ourselves up with things we think we ought to be doing but have no real passion for doing. When a life of fulfillment and significance awaits us. That’s the Easter promise, the resurrection possibility, that when we acknowledge our own emptiness there is more than enough joy to fill us up. There is life available, and no better place than to realize it than in a cemetery on Easter morning.
Christ is Risen. Alleluia.
Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t I? I know you are beginning to feel set up already. It started so well with the sunshine reference, and now I’m backing you into a corner. OK, you’ll grudgingly admit, there is more to life than sunshine and flowers. Can’t think of what it is at the moment, but certainly there is.
Well, while we all ponder that a moment, let’s take a look at our reading for Easter Sunday. It is Mark’s turn this year. I love all the stories and the nuance they put to the description of the first Easter Sunday morning. They all tell it a little bit differently (or in John’s case, a lot differently, but never mind) but there are common themes. There are women on their way to the tomb, there is a startling announcement, there is an empty tomb, and there is a reaction that sets the stage for what comes next. Only Mark leaves us with a great big “huh?”
Mark 16:1-8 When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 They had been saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?" 4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6 But he said to them, "Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you." 8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
La Donna redid the chore charts for the kids today. They were less than thrilled, to say the least. But I suspect (I hope) that they will do the jobs that are on their list, eventually. Even if they do it with less than enthusiastic abandon.
We don’t know much about the mindset of the women who went to work that Easter Sunday morning. We don’t know if they went dragging their feet, or with a driving sense of duty, or with a passion to do this one more act of service for the one who had taught them about loving. We don’t know if they chatted with one another along the way or if silence had wrapped them up in clouds of separation and loneliness with each plodding step. At least until someone thought of the stone.
That’s something that occupies our thinking most of the time, even in difficult moments: obstacles. How can we do the task we are here to do? How can we continue on? Who is going to take care of the problems that we know are there? But give them credit, they didn’t turn back. They kept coming with doubt in their minds.
And then their minds were turned inside out. However many years of Easter celebrations have dulled our senses to the shock of this morning. Attempts to put ourselves in that place even through the most imaginative of exercises always will fall short. “Alarmed” hardly describes it, but it was the best that Mark could do. Luke says they were perplexed. Matthew says they ran away in fear and great joy.
Terror and amazement is how Mark concludes the story. Here is the bible study part of this reflection. The most authoritative manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark end right here. “They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” The end. The verses that follow were added in later by a church uncomfortable with that original ending, or so say most scholars. We can’t end with silence. We can’t end with fear. We can’t end with nothing to anyone. We can’t end with emptiness.
Can we? Perhaps Mark’s message, perhaps the impression that he wants to leave us with is that there is nothing we can do to enhance this Easter act. This is not our proclamation, this is God’s. Our job is to be empty enough to be filled. Our job is to stop focusing on the barriers, the obstacles, the reasons why we can’t possibly be joy-filled and welcoming, why we can’t be loving and supportive, and let the resurrected Christ fill us up enough to actually live out our faith.
Sure it is easy to fill ourselves up. To occupy our thinking and our doing with stuff that while satisfying is not necessarily transforming. Or to fill ourselves up with things we think we ought to be doing but have no real passion for doing. When a life of fulfillment and significance awaits us. That’s the Easter promise, the resurrection possibility, that when we acknowledge our own emptiness there is more than enough joy to fill us up. There is life available, and no better place than to realize it than in a cemetery on Easter morning.
Christ is Risen. Alleluia.
Shalom,
Derek
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