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The lectionary - which is a three year rotation of scripture passages that many churches across the United States and Canada use - have some rich texts appointed for this day, and where normally one is chosen to explore in depth, I couldn’t resist picking three for us to hear this morning. The first continues the story that we heard from last week from the book of Acts. Hear these words from chapter 4:
Acts 4:1-12 (NRSV) While Peter and John were speaking to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came to them, 2 much annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming that in Jesus there is the resurrection of the dead. 3 So they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. 4 But many of those who heard the word believed; and they numbered about five thousand. 5 The next day their rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem, 6 with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. 7 When they had made the prisoners stand in their midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” 8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, 9 if we are questioned today because of a good deed done to someone who was sick and are asked how this man has been healed, 10 let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead. 11 This Jesus is ‘the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone.’ 12 There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” The second scripture this morning is one much beloved and often one we turn to in times of grief or struggle, but it’s one that also offers insight into the human condition. It’s one that many of us have memorized. With this Sunday being Earth Day - this passage spoke to me as we think about the way God and the earth care for our needs. Instead of reading this passage, we’ll be singing it together: number 138, The King of Love My Shepherd Is. *Hymn - The King of Love My Shepherd Is, UMH 138 Lastly, this passage from the Gospel of John reinterprets the 23rd Psalm in light of who Jesus is and one way Jesus offered an understanding of his ministry - that of the Good Shepherd. Incidentally, “good” falls far short of what the original word is in the greek - it’s much closer to the word “model” “ideal” “beautiful” -- paragon. Hear these words from chapter 10. John 10:11-18 11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. 17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.” Sermon - Now how on earth do all these things tie together? Hopefully, we’ll get there. :-) We’ve all heard the famous line “What’s in a name?” - penned by William Shakespeare in the famous play Romeo and Juliet - a scene where Juliet is wrestling with the fact that Romeo - her true love - has a problematic name as he belongs to the Montague family, a rival of her family the Capulets. We have this wonderfully poetic monologue that Romeo overhears as she is lamenting at her balcony: O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father, and refuse thy name; Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I’ll no longer be a Capulet. 40 Jul. ’Tis but thy name that is my enemy; Thou art thyself though, not a Montague. What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part 45 Belonging to a man. O! be some other name: What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet; Names, however, are powerful and have meaning - as we see in the Acts story, which centers on the name of Jesus and what happens by the power of the Holy Spirit through his name -- as well as the salvation found by those who claim his name. Last week we learned about the beggar who sat by the Beautiful Gate, healed not through Peter or John’s power or piety - but made whole in the name of Jesus Christ. This event amassed a crowd, and Peter couldn’t resist launching into a sermon, sharing about not only what happened to the beggar, but about Jesus’s death and God raising him up from the dead and offering the people the opportunity to be a part of the new thing God was about in the world - that the healing and salvation in Jesus’ name that had come to the beggar was also available for them. Such a demonstration and such a speech, even though five thousand people believed their message, caused trouble for Peter and John - the high priests and Sadducees didn’t like what they were teaching in the Temple and had them arrested. The priests got right to the heart of the issue by asking them a specific question: “By what power or by what name did you do this?” There’s power in a name. We know this, right? Names are significant - they are how we understand our world, they designate important people and places and things -- and lack of a name can signify unimportance - at least on the part of who is speaking. For instance, in the Bible, there are many people who remain nameless, or many women who are not known by their name, but by that of their father or husband, like Lot’s wife, Pharaoh's daughter, or The Samaritan Woman. The beggar here in our story doesn’t have a name, known only by his association with the Beautiful Gate - a sign of his unimportant status - while the priests here in Acts are clearly named. Others in the Bible are named - the twelve disciples each have a name, there are even prominent women leaders in the early church who are thought to have been additional disciples of Jesus also have names. The dear friends of Jesus - Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, are also named -- and Jesus’s lineage is full of prominent figures in Jewish history. Names have power - and we see this in the world when wealthy or influential individuals or families mark buildings or have foundations named after them, as a sign of gratitude or philanthropy - as is the case with the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital - or via some other honor. Bridges and highways are named for famous people or prominent individuals from the community. Companies are named for their founders. Names also have the power to denegrate - to take away. I remember the old rhyme “sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me.” Well, that’s not true. Disparaging nicknames can hurt because they take away our humanity and are meant to embarrass, to hurt, to erase our identity. Sometimes, people change their names in order to mark a new start - in the Bible we have Abram becoming Abraham as a result of his covenant with God - or Saul changing his name to Paul. I had a friend in school who went back and forth from Katie to Kathryn and Katie again, and even though those names were related, changing that name can mean trying to live as the person they want to be, or a means of commemorating a transition. And then we also say names to ensure people aren’t forgotten or overlooked. In this way, we remember and honor their personhood - particularly when we do this with people who are unimportant, oppressed, or the victims of injustice. This is part of what is behind the #saytheirname movement, the initiative to say the names of black men and women who have lost their lives because of racial injustice. In all three lessons this morning, but particularly that of Acts and John, there is a great deal of importance placed upon the name of Jesus -- the importance and power that that name has in Acts, and the name Jesus gives himself of the Good Shepherd in John. Both instances aren’t just about the name as it relates to Jesus’s personhood, but about his relationship to God as the promised one...and about his relationship to us as Shepherd...and the salvation that comes through that relationship. Peter claims in this passage that there is no other name under heaven, given by mortals, by which we must be saved. Salvation is a broad word used in many ways throughout the New Testament, and can mean anything from physical healing - as it is used here in this passage - to rescue from bondage, to spiritual wholeness. All of this comes through the name of Jesus - Peter and those early church followers believed the name Jesus contained power beyond any other earthly name anyone could say. So often this passage is used to divide - that there is salvation in no one other than Jesus - you are either for Jesus and or you aren’t, you are either in or you are out. However, when taken with these other passages, we have a more complete picture of what Jesus came to do. Certainly the author of Acts believes God acted decisively in the person of Jesus Christ -- and there is no way that any other human can make a claim on what God has done, no person can control the Holy Spirit. In Jesus, God acted on behalf of the whole of humankind - John’s gospel has Jesus describing himself as the Good Shepherd sent to reclaim all of the sheep -- even the ones not belonging to the fold - for the sake of being one flock...one shepherd guarding and protecting us all. When we talk about salvation, then, and salvation in the name of Jesus, this image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd can help us picture what that looks like. Shepherding in Jesus’ day wasn’t an easy life -- it wasn’t a serene, pastoral image with nice, clean, fluffy sheep. Shepherding was a matter of survival - for the sheep, the shepherd, and those who depended upon the flock for their livelihood. Shepherds had to roam far from home to make sure their sheep had enough food and water. They were exposed to the elements - heat during the day and cold at night, during which they stayed awake to guard the flock from thieves and predators. Their families were also more vulnerable to predators - and this was a major reason that shepherds were generally thought of as dishonorable characters because they left their families exposed. And too many sheep lost to illness, injury, or starvation meant that the whole family would suffer. The welfare of the flock was really tied to the welfare of the shepherd. So to have a Good Shepherd who would abandon the whole flock to seek after one lost animal was unheard of (people would have considered that a bad shepherd, because you were risking the safety of the whole flock). Salvation, then, comes in the form of a shepherd who knew full well the risks of keeping the flock from ruin, who goes to seek the lost - even at the expense of the whole flock - and even went to the grave to protect the ones he came to save...and even death could not keep him away from us. Salvation is something then of God’s initiative - God’s action in raising Jesus from the dead - the act of the Good Shepherd loving the sheep of his fold and providing for their every need - as we hear in Psalm 23. And as members of the flock, it is for us to trust in God’s continuing saving work in our lives and in the world. It is to - like Peter and John in the passage in acts - trust that the power Jesus displayed on earth now comes through the work of the Holy Spirit - the spirit that is poured out on all of us as followers of Jesus….and that the same power that resided in him is now embodied in the church - body of Christ in the world….and that there is no other earthly power that can make that same claim of power...and that there can be salvation in no other power or entity, despite how much the world tries to offer salvation through other names. So for us as followers of Jesus, it isn’t enough for us to simply rest in the green pastures and still waters offered to us by our Good Shepherd - it isn’t enough for us to be grateful for the healing and wholeness that we’ve found in the name of Jesus as his disciples. As followers of the risen Christ, it is not enough for us to say his name, it is also for us to claim that power for ourselves and use it -- not for our sake -- but to offer healing and hope in his name -- in the name of the Good Shepherd who cares for all the sheep -- in the name of the one who is the cornerstone of our lives. We use that power to transform the world and make it a better place for all God’s people. We use that power to point to God’s saving power in our lives and in our world. And so the invitation and challenge here is this: do we really believe that the same power - the power given by the Holy Spirit that enabled Peter to heal the beggar, the power that granted him the strength to stand up to the religious and political authority of his day to speak the truth given to him, the power that expanded the flock by five thousand more people that day -- do we really believe that power now resides in us? That it’s not just about saying the name of Jesus and our identity as Christians, but also about claiming the same power to live as people transformed - to live as he lived and taught? The good news is that the power of Jesus Christ is with us. His spirit resides within us as the body of Christ. His spirit goes before us. His spirit gives us the power to bring hope, healing, and wholeness to those around us...and also the power to be transformed by the power of that love as we proclaim the care and provision we found in the shelter of the Good Shepherd. May we have the boldness of the spirit this week as we go forth this week in the name of Jesus, offering that salvation - the wholeness of life lived in God’s love - to those we encounter this week. Amen.
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Scripture - Acts 3:1-19
Acts 3:1-19 (The Message) 3 1-5 One day at three o’clock in the afternoon, Peter and John were on their way into the Temple for prayer meeting. At the same time there was a man crippled from birth being carried up. Every day he was set down at the Temple gate, the one named Beautiful, to beg from those going into the Temple. When he saw Peter and John about to enter the Temple, he asked for a handout. Peter, with John at his side, looked him straight in the eye and said, “Look here.” He looked up, expecting to get something from them. 6-8 Peter said, “I don’t have a nickel to my name, but what I do have, I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk!” He grabbed him by the right hand and pulled him up. In an instant his feet and ankles became firm. He jumped to his feet and walked. 8-10 The man went into the Temple with them, walking back and forth, dancing and praising God. Everybody there saw him walking around and praising God. They recognized him as the one who sat begging at the Temple’s Gate Beautiful and rubbed their eyes, astonished, scarcely believing what they were seeing. 11 The man threw his arms around Peter and John, ecstatic. All the people ran up to where they were at Solomon’s Porch to see it for themselves. 12-16 When Peter saw he had a congregation, he addressed the people: “Oh, Israelites, why does this take you by such complete surprise, and why stare at us as if our power or piety made him walk? The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of our ancestors, has glorified his Son Jesus. The very One that Pilate called innocent, you repudiated. You repudiated the Holy One, the Just One, and asked for a murderer in his place. You no sooner killed the Author of Life than God raised him from the dead—and we’re the witnesses. Faith in Jesus’ name put this man, whose condition you know so well, on his feet—yes, faith and nothing but faith put this man healed and whole right before your eyes. 17-18 “And now, friends, I know you had no idea what you were doing when you killed Jesus, and neither did your leaders. But God, who through the preaching of all the prophets had said all along that his Messiah would be killed, knew exactly what you were doing and used it to fulfill his plans. 19 “Now it’s time to change your ways! Turn to face God so he can wipe away your sins, pour out showers of blessing to refresh you, and send you the Messiah he prepared for you, namely, Jesus. Sermon - Easter is over - the flowers (mostly) have been taken care of, the leftovers from Easter dinner finished, the Easter candy is pretty much gone or squirreled away into hiding. The day of resurrection is done and finished and we can get back to our regularly scheduled lives, which here means desperately waiting for Spring to arrive, watching early season baseball (or, in my house, playoff basketball), getting ready for the end of the school year - and on Chebeague - we’re already getting ready for summer. True, right? May and June might as well not exist, we’re all already thinking about July. Easter in the church, though, isn’t one day but a whole season. 50 days, running from Easter Sunday - the day we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, to Pentecost - the day we celebrate the Holy Spirit pouring out over the disciples. In the early church, where Lent was the season for new converts to learn about the faith and prepare for baptism on Easter Sunday, the Easter season was the period that continued the faith formation of these new Christians. It’s also a season for the church and for us to think about the question - now what? Jesus lived, died, and rose again. After the resurrection - what does that mean for us? What does it mean to follow Jesus and be his disciples in light of his death and resurrection? How do we live now? Throughout this season, we’ll hear stories from the book of Acts as these first disciples tried to figure out the answers to those questions. What I’d like to do is read our scripture passage again - not that John didn’t do a good job, but I’d like for us to really hear what’s going on in this story. So to give you a bit of background here, this story happens after Peter’s first big sermon, and people were joining up with this Jesus movement in droves. They gathered in the Temple for teaching and prayer, ate in one another’s homes, shared things in common...things were really moving along. They’re in Jerusalem and the death and resurrection of Jesus wasn’t a distant memory - it was a fresh reality, within 3 to 6 months, most likely, of these events. With that in mind, let’s hear the story again. 3 1-5 One day at three o’clock in the afternoon, Peter and John were on their way into the Temple for prayer meeting. At the same time there was a man crippled from birth being carried up. Every day he was set down at the Temple gate, the one named Beautiful, to beg from those going into the Temple. When he saw Peter and John about to enter the Temple, he asked for a handout. Peter, with John at his side, looked him straight in the eye and said, “Look here.” He looked up, expecting to get something from them. 6-8 Peter said, “I don’t have a nickel to my name, but what I do have, I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk!” He grabbed him by the right hand and pulled him up. In an instant his feet and ankles became firm. He jumped to his feet and walked. 8-10 The man went into the Temple with them, walking back and forth, dancing and praising God. Everybody there saw him walking around and praising God. They recognized him as the one who sat begging at the Temple’s Gate Beautiful and rubbed their eyes, astonished, scarcely believing what they were seeing. 11 The man threw his arms around Peter and John, ecstatic. All the people ran up to where they were at Solomon’s Porch to see it for themselves. 12-16 When Peter saw he had a congregation, he addressed the people: “Oh, Israelites, why does this take you by such complete surprise, and why stare at us as if our power or piety made him walk? The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of our ancestors, has glorified his Son Jesus. The very One that Pilate called innocent, you repudiated. You repudiated the Holy One, the Just One, and asked for a murderer in his place. You no sooner killed the Author of Life than God raised him from the dead—and we’re the witnesses. Faith in Jesus’ name put this man, whose condition you know so well, on his feet—yes, faith and nothing but faith put this man healed and whole right before your eyes. 17-18 “And now, friends, I know you had no idea what you were doing when you killed Jesus, and neither did your leaders. But God, who through the preaching of all the prophets had said all along that his Messiah would be killed, knew exactly what you were doing and used it to fulfill his plans. 19 “Now it’s time to change your ways! Turn to face God so he can wipe away your sins, pour out showers of blessing to refresh you, and send you the Messiah he prepared for you, namely, Jesus. We start by seeing Peter and John on their way to the Temple, a normal, everyday occurance. It was part of their habit as observant Jews, and part of the emerging life of this new community of Jesus followers. At the same time,we have this beggar being carried up to his habitual place at the Beautiful Gate to beg, a man on a street corner in his usual place. It’s like when you’re driving in Portland - if you are in town with any degree of regularity and your route is the same, you’ll see the places where people pick to stand and panhandle and there are the usual spots that people choose to be to beg. For this man, it was the Beautiful Gate. And I have to believe that Peter and John know this - this man was not unfamiliar to them. His story was probably not unfamiliar to them. He was the beggar who sat at the Gate at the Temple between such and such a time who was there every day. Crippled from birth, having to be carried and placed in that spot to beg. Everyone going to the Temple would have known this. And that day, for whatever reason, he asks Peter and John for a handout. Presumably he knows who they are too, just like they know who he is. Peter and John are frequent attenders of the Temple, they aren’t unknown quantities. There are those two guys who are here all the time, talking about that Jesus fellow. But on this day, he begs from them, asks them for money...he asks for the things he’s accustomed to - money and food for survival, to live and eat. They don’t have anything, but they stop. Peter takes a moment to look at the beggar and really sees him. Peter looks at him - and sees him for who he really is - he sees the beggar how Jesus would see him. And so he stops and has compassion for this man and Peter tells him to look - to look at him, and the man gets excited because he thinks he’s going to get something from them -- and he does, just not what he expects. Peter doesn’t have money or food to give, but gives of what he does have - and that’s Jesus, the risen Christ. Peter takes his hand and pulls him up and the beggar finds that his ankles are strong, that they can support his weight, that he has been healed in the name of Jesus Christ. He rejoices and dances and draws quite a crowd around the three of them because everyone knew this man’s story, right? This was the beggar, crippled from birth, the one who sits by the Beautiful Gate and here he is dancing around praising God - now what on earth is going on? They aren’t used to this kind of thing - it’s out of the ordinary, they can’t get their minds around it. When Peter sees that he’s got a bit of an audience, he launches into a sermon, interpreting what happened for those around him. This is his second sermon that we have recorded here in Acts - he’s finding his voice, starting to become what Jesus knew he was - the Rock upon which Jesus will build the church - and we see him beginning to live into that here. He’s here at the Temple, with all these other observant Jews who are there, and so he begins to talk about what happened to the beggar in the light of Jesus and who Jesus was and is and how their God is the one who is in on all of it. He’s quick to point out that the power wasn’t from himself of John...and it wasn’t their piety that made it happen either. I mean, we’re talking about Peter -- Peter, the one who denied Jesus three times as Jesus was on trial. He’s not exactly the picture of faithfulness or holiness here. Peter and John didn’t do anything special, there was nothing inside of them - no prayers or words or attitude - that made the crippled beggar get up and walk. It was Jesus. He goes on to talk about Jesus as being part of the Jewish Tradition - as the son of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And we may think he’s being pretty harsh with the crowd here with his pointing of fingers, “you did this, you killed Jesus” and in a way he is - but he’s talking to them as an insider. As a fellow Jew - a bit of an internal family squabble. He’s not calling people out for whatever they may privately feel about the Messiah, but about the public rejection of Jesus before Pilate, the crowd mentality that led to Jesus’ execution. He kind of lets them off the hook - saying, “well, I know you didn’t know any better at the time”....but he brings it right back around and says, “well, now you do because God made it a part of what God was doing in the world, so now it’s time for you to change your ways so you, too, can become a part of what God is up to.” This whole story is about living in this new reality - this reality where Jesus is alive and risen and active in the world. People are going about business as usual and they don’t see what has changed. They don’t know that Jesus is out and about, they live on auto-pilot. The beggar - asking for a handout as he always did, who didn’t even think healing was possible. The people in the crowds going to the Temple as usual -- the place where they understood God to dwell, the place -- if anything special were to happen -- you’d expect it to happen there -- and even the crowds were surprised to see something amazing happen before their eyes, not expecting to see God show up in such a visible, tangible way. Don’t we, too, live life that way? Living business as usual, going about letting the world dictate our reality, telling us that we cannot be more than the sum of our circumstances, that we will never be enough or measure up, that our brokenness and the broken systems of the world define us and that we are not worthy of God’s attention and love? And then, God acts, and we have Peter’s question to the crowd - “why does this take you by such complete surprise?” This event kind of wakes them up a bit to something more - to a world bigger than what they thought they knew. It’s the world ushered in by Easter, where God’s forgiveness and healing and compassion flows in abundance and not a miraculous exception to the norm. And our response? We’re challenged to be more than merely amazed at its in-breaking - we’re invited to be in on it - to be seen as Jesus sees us - as people worthy of love and forgiveness - to turn away from the broken and sinful places inside us and to believe in the life and love Jesus offers to us...and to become a part of what God is doing in the world, to see God’s hand moving through our lives and our communities not as a one-time event, but as pervasive and sustaining and present as the very air that we breathe. God’s work is everywhere - in the restoration of broken relationships, children in Guatemala seeing a doctor for the first time, meals shared with friends, neighbors stopping to help one another, nations working toward peace instead of war, in communities carrying one another through times of grief, homeless families putting their lives back together, in challenging white supremacy, in standing with those on the edges in our society, in reaching out for help, in people choosing hope over despair and love over fear, in a million different big and small ways we choose to enter in to suffer with one another in the face of all that life can bring. God’s work is resurrection. The world Easter ushered in is resurrection life. As Easter people - resurrection is normal. Life abundant is normal. God’s action in the world - healing, restoring, redeeming work - is normal - and work that we are invited into as we follow after Jesus and as he seeks to make us whole. Peter challenges the crowd in the story to change their ways - and that’s the challenge for us as well - to turn away from thinking that brokenness is the norm and toward this resurrection life which is all around us. Jesus is risen and that means we can’t go back to our regularly scheduled lives or business as usual. God is doing a new thing in our midst - redeeming all of creation and restoring us to wholeness. May we go forth this week to discover God’s abundant life all around us - and may we step out to follow Jesus in that work. Amen. Scripture - Mark 16:1-8
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. *Hymn - He Lives, UMH 310 Sermon - 2004. Last game of the World Series. The Red Sox were ahead 3-0 in the bottom of the 9th against the cardinals. Keith Foulke was looking to close out the game with one out down and two more outs to go. Pujols was on first...so anything could happen. The energy and the excitement was high. It looked like the curse was about to be broken. Foulke wound up to throw the first pitch to Edmonds....and the Emergency Alert System came on. Ben and I were watching the game together in his dorm room. The whole campus exploded as everyone checked with neighbors to see if - by some miracle - their television wasn’t affected by the interruption. People started to break out radios to try and find the radio broadcast of the game so we wouldn’t miss a play. Everyone was worried - what if we missed something? What if the Cardinals got on base or scored a run? What if we missed the final out? What if the curse was broken while the voice on the screen was telling us, “this is not an emergency”? (Irony of ironies there -- of course it was an emergency! Riots threatened to break out all over the state unless the game was put back on!) We all wanted to know -- what happened next? But what if the game never came back on? What if we were left perpetually in this state of “what happened next?” This is what the early readers of Mark’s gospel must have felt like. The ending that Mark gives is abrupt. In the original Greek, the ending is even more sudden. Our english translations have verse 8 read: and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. The original Greek reads more like: “They said nothing to nobody; they were afraid for....” It almost sounds like Mark slumped over, dead of a sudden heart attack while finishing the story. Or maybe he was attacked by Roman soldiers as he was hastily penning the last few words. Maybe the original manuscript got ripped, the true ending lost and never to be found again. Or maybe, Mark’s not that good of a story-teller, and just doesn’t know how to end a story. Whatever the reason, it’s obvious that some people felt uncomfortable with the ending. Readers wanted to know: what happened next? Later editions of the gospel tack on extra bits of the story - and in fact, you’ll find in your Bibles that verses 9 through 20 are bracketed and that there’s a note about them being added on later, even though all of our earliest manuscripts end the story right where Mark left off. All the other gospels give so many more details about the day of Jesus’s resurrection. John places the scene in a garden, and writes in a conversation between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Matthew includes an earthquake and an angel with shining white robes. Luke has two angels in dazzling clothes with the women cowering in fear before them. Mark, on the other hand, simply shares a story of an empty tomb, a mysterious young man in a white robe, and a word - go and tell. We’re left with three women who initially kept quiet and who were afraid. The women expected a body to embalm. Instead, they encounter the truth that the past is no longer bound by death, the tomb is no longer sealed, and a call into an uncertain future - to go and tell...and their fear in the face of this reality is understandable. Where do we go from here? What happens next? The story as Mark tells it isn’t wrapped up in a neat bow. Jesus makes no final appearances, the women don’t have any conversations with the disciples, there are no final parting words of wisdom from Christ. It even ends with an incomplete sentence - we don’t know why they were afraid. It’s an unsettling story. But what if Mark meant to leave the story there? The gospel of Jesus Christ is an unsettling, open-ended thing -- it’s unsettling to announce that Christ has come back and the future is open. It means that what you thought you knew, what you expected to be true, all the assumptions you thought you could rely on have suddenly gone out the window in the face of the empty tomb and an unfinished story -- a story with no assurances as to what happens next. We want the nice, shiny ending. We want to know what the moral of the story is, we want everything to resolve nicely and neatly, with a final concluding speech and a dropped curtain. Applause! We know that the story is over, and that we can move on, having enjoyed a good tale and satisfied that the world is as it should be. For Mark, the good news of the resurrection is so much more than a polished ending. What happens next? For Mark, it isn’t Jesus appearing to select disciples, it isn’t some final parting instructions or a brilliant ascension into heaven. For Mark, what happens next is us. And for the women at the tomb, the first witnesses to see death’s undoing and to experience the reality of the resurrection, perhaps a lot of that fear came from the recognition that they were about to write the next chapter in God’s story -- that they had the responsibility to continue the work that Jesus was about....that the hope and vision they had believed in while following Jesus was actually real, and that it was up to them to take that next step - to go and tell - to spread the news that God really was doing something radically new and different in the world. We know, despite their fear and initial silence, that the women do eventually tell the others what they saw and heard, that we wouldn’t be here today without that testimony of Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, that they found it within them to break out from their fear and spread the word of this news that Jesus is going ahead of them to Galilee. We know the story continues to unfold...just as it has been unfolding for nearly two thousand years until this very day. We are what happens next. The rest of the story is up to us. And that’s a scary thought, isn’t it? We’re used to Easter being a time of comfort and joy, a time to celebrate that because God raised Jesus from the dead, we can brush off our hands, lay back and live our lives rest assured that God’s got everything under control. We’re off the hook because Jesus already did it all. The story has a nice ending and all we need to do is remember it from time to time. It is up to us to continue the story that Mark started. Mark’s gospel starts off with the words, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” What happened 2000 years ago was just the beginning of what God was doing through Jesus in the world...and the ending was open enough to include God’s continuing work - inviting us to step into the story, to pick up the narrative where Mark left off, and to go and tell others -- inviting them to participate and experience the good news of Jesus’s resurrection. The story isn’t over yet - because now it’s our story. The story of Christ happens through us together -- we see it where charity and love prevail over injustice and violence; where compassion and hope replace cynicism and despair; where peace and love take root in lives that are empty and lost; where human beings know joy and justice, dignity and delight: there is the risen Christ, beckoning to us, calling us forward to continue the good news, and inviting us to keep writing the story of God’s love in the world. This week it’s up to you to live out the Easter story -- when you do spend time with the lost and the lonely, you continue the Easter story. When you feed the hungry and eat with friends and neighbors, you continue the Easter story. When you offer a word of hope and encouragement to someone in despair, you continue the Easter story. When you choose to love in the face of a world that calls for hate and indifference, you continue the Easter story. This day, this empty tomb: this has been our destination for the season of Lent. But we see, with Mary Magdalene, that this is not a place to stop. This is not the end toward which we have been traveling. This is only just the beginning of the Easter story. We are what happens next. As we encounter the empty tomb, as we are drawn into God’s larger story, and as we face the unfinished possibilities that have not yet been written - it is up to us to chose to live into the same future the women faced - one that is uncertain, one where the next steps are not yet outlined - but one that proclaims God’s resurrection power goes before us...and that God’s story is not finished yet. Amen. |
AuthorPastor Melissa Yosua-Davis has been serving the community of Chebeague and its church since July 2015. She currently lives on the island with her husband and five year old son and 2 year old daughter, along with their yellow lab. Read here recent sermon excerpts, thoughts on life and faith, and current announcements for the church community. She also blogs at Going on to Perfection. Archives
December 2022
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