A place we do not know

Easter Vigil 2013
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Easter/CEasVigil_RCL.html

Most people I know are more familiar with Good Friday than Easter. I am too.

Good Friday is where our very human lives, just as they are, meet the pain and unfairness of the world. Good Friday is the tears at loss and death. Good Friday is the deep sigh we draw when, once again, humanity lives up to our darkest and most pessimistic expectations. Good Friday is when the doctor comes in the consultation room with our test results and closes the door before pulling a chair close to ours. Good Friday is our parents aging, the innocent suffering, the homeless poor going on being homeless and mentally ill and living right where they are.

We know Good Friday. We know what to do, we know how to manage unmanageable pain. We know our place.

Tonight we come to a place that we have not known before.

The women who came to the tomb knew who they were and what they have come to do. They have seen the violent death of their teacher and friend and, although they were heart-broken, they were probably not surprised. Like women in all poor places, those places now optimistically called “the developing world”, these women knew abuse, sorrow, and loss. In traditional cultures men die violently and children die young. In such cultures women absorb abuse and have their loved ones torn from them and it is they who have to bind up wounds, feed everyone who is left, and arrange the dead decently for burial. This they know.

They knew where they had left Jesus. They expected to find him right where they left him. Their only worry was “who will roll away the stone?”

From there on, things got interesting. And the women found that none of their reasons for coming to the tomb made any sense any more. It is strange how an utter and complete surprise, a surprise that reverses everything you thought you knew about your life and the lives of others and your world and your reality—how that is terrifying, even if the news really is good. Even animals in the woods will circle suspiciously around unexpected food, suspecting a trap.

An empty tomb. A missing Jesus. Young men who seems to know what is going on. “He is not here.”

I think anyone in their right mind would be confused, or afraid, or run away terrified.

And that is the experience of resurrection according to the Gospel. That shock, that amazement, that feeling of blundering through a doorway into a large and unexpected room filled with light.

No Easter is just another Easter. Each proclamation calls forth new shock, new surprise, new amazement and awe. And so now, what do we do? What is it to be Easter people?

Thomas Merton said, “The risen life is not easy…It is also a dying life.” We walked through Lent admitting once more that we need to learn to walk with the Master. This past week we walked with him to Jerusalem, to the lonely garden, to Calvary. And now, where do we go?

Easter faith is embodied in those word, “He is not here…He has gone before you.”

Merton thought that many Christians hold a faith not of the living and risen Christ but of the dead Christ, the object of a cult, treating Christ as a “holy thing, a theological relic.” We know where we left Jesus, said Merton, and our only anxiety is how to roll away the stone so we can get to where we last left him. We do the same when we make our religion and our customs and our ideas something to hold on to with a death-grip. This grip does not allow the Spirit to say new things to us, to lead us in new directions, to animate us to new mission, to open our minds to new insights even when those insights are startling and strange. We know how to rustle the dry bones of Ezekiel. We do not know what to do when Christ puts new flesh on those bones and fills them with life.

Easter-faith is the faith of a people on the move, a pilgrim people. An Easter person is committed to allowing Christ to set him or her free, to dissolve any chains holding us to oppression or sadness or despair, to lead us into new and surprising life. An Easter church is a community that asks “Where is Christ leading us now?” and dares to listen for Christ to answer. And once we hear the answer, then we get up and move. “He has gone before you…”

Tonight allow wonder and awe to break into sadness and gloom. Tonight allow the astounding news to dispel sadness and despair. Tonight allow the strangeness of Easter news and Easter hope and Easter joy to break open the closed places of our hearts. We do not need any more practice handling the expected sadness and struggle of our lives. We need our prison-houses broken into, our weary expectations shattered, our darkness dispelled. We need to have every gloom and shadow whirl away like dingy startled pigeons.