Easter Failure

 Resurrection.         What in the world do we mean by Resurrection?

And, in a practical sense and more to the point, 

how can I sum up Resurrection 

in the space of a few minutes of a sermon?

Easter is the time to celebrate 

         the best good news of the Gospel message,

         how the death of our Savior 

                           provided for the biggest surprise of all,

         how in that death, which could not hold Jesus in the grave,

                  we have incredibly been brought into life,             

New Life,

         life in its fullness, life as it was always been meant to be,

         life without the taste of death

         life that is timeless and endless

         and most of all, the possibility for us to live fully in that Life right now.

 

A new life and a new creation in resurrection:

         if we have the eyes to see that.

It’s new only to us, this new life and new creation.

It’s what has always been in the heart of the Creator

         who has yearned to open our eyes to the wonder of it all.

That is why God became incarnate, 

         why the Divine creative Word came among us,

                                    to open our eyes.

That is what Jesus was doing then on that first Easter day

         and at Pentecost pouring out his Resurrection Spirit

and is doing ever since right up until today, this particular Easter Day.

 

Fine words,          but think for a moment about what it was like 

         for those disciples and followers of Jesus 

                           that first Easter morning.

That first Easter Day was not totally as full of joy and excitement

                  as one might think.

Just the week before 

         there had been this grand procession into Jerusalem

         that had all the trappings of the Messianic King,

                  a new King David

         who would restore the nation to its former glory, 

                  they thought,

         in which there would be no Roman occupation 

                           grinding down the people under military rule, 

                  no crushing taxes draining the country’s wealth

                           in tribute money pouring into Rome’s coffers.

Was all that with the idea 

         that God was only interested in their political success?

 

But the Kingdom of God does not happen in that way.

Instead Jesus appeared to intentionally 

         poke in the eye the priests at the Temple,

         and cause such provocations 

                  as to drive it all to the crisis point.

But there were no legions of angel warriors 

         descending from the heavens

                  to bring a quick victory.

Instead there were those strange things Jesus had said 

                           at that last supper with them,

         the audacity and scandal of telling them 

                  that in partaking of the bread and wine

                           they were consuming his Body and Blood.

Then his arrest in the garden

                                             when they had all fled.

A couple of them had endangered themselves 

                           to witness some of the trial,

and a few, mainly the women, 

                           had gathered at the scene of the execution.

The rest were in hiding 

         knowing that they too could be rounded up, arrested and killed,

                  because the Romans would be quick to suppress 

                  any hint of revolt.

It was all over, the mission, the hopes and dreams, died with Jesus.

The disciples were taking a chance even meeting together,

                                                               even behind locked doors.

 

And the Resurrection story from the Gospel of Mark 

                           that we just heard 

         is not one of ecstatic joy.

The women going to the tomb 

         are going there mourning and grieving

         and for the purpose of properly anointing the body for burial.

They are worried about being able 

         to complete this act of devotion

         because of the stone sealing the entrance to the tomb.

So when they find the tomb open and the body missing,

         and this stranger dressed in white 

                           telling them something incredulous,

they were greatly astonished, they were terrified.

That’s a far cry from joy.

         Can you imagine it?  

They were perplexed and dismayed and hindered in completing          their loving devotion to the body of Jesus.

Who could understand what this young man was telling them?

         who reminded them that Jesus had been crucified,

         but now he had gotten up and was gone, no longer there,

                  and that they could see him in Galilee?

         How did Jesus get there so fast?  It doesn’t compute.

They fled trembling, bewildered, beside themselves in fear.

 

Have you ever had the experience of being told some good news,

         but were afraid to believe it?

Have you ever come up to something in your life 

                           that was a turning point

         in which, if you took this turn, life might be so much better –

                  and you were afraid to risk it?

 

Today’s Gospel reading ends with the words,

         “they were afraid.”

But that definitely was not the end of the story.

         The joy, the ecstatic joy would come.

         And with that a whole new way of being.

Their lives would be changed in a way they could not foresee.

         They would all know the joy, catch the vision,

                  get what Jesus was all about,

                  and become Apostles, ones sent.

                  and spread that joy and hope and love and life

throughout the whole world.

Please notice this:

         Failure was a big part of that first Easter Day – 

         Jesus looked like a failure 

                  (they didn’t understand him or the purpose of his death).

         The disciples were a failure,

                  and they probably felt it profoundly.

         And the women at the tomb were so bewildered

                  that they failed to understand 

                           what that strange young man in white was saying.

But that failure was short lived.

In Paul’s first letter to the Church in Corinth 

he relates how widely the witness of the Resurrection was spreading:

         the appearance to Cephas aka Peter, then the twelve,

         then to more than 500 brothers and sisters at once,

         to James, the Lord’s brother, all the apostles,

         and even to Paul, who considered himself unfit to be an apostle,

                           a failure who had persecuted the Church.

“But,” Paul says, “by the grace of God I am what I am.”

That grace is the Resurrection Spirit of Jesus at work in us.

There is where our true inheritance and identity rests.

By the grace of God I am what I am,

         because of the Presence of Resurrection

         because the Spirit of Jesus is at work in me,

                  is at work in you,

                  is at work in every heart 

                                             open to hope, to faith, to love and to joy.

So let us enter with joy into this Easter celebration.

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

GOOD Friday

Did you ever stop to wonder why today is called “Good Friday?”

                        Not Bad Friday?                        It’s Good Friday.

 

And did you know that this liturgy today

            is not meant to be gloomy, sad and depressing?

No, it’s meant to be solemn for sure, but not mournful.

 

The liturgy is designed to be reflective,

            giving a time to ponder,

            to ponder how such a death brings life and hope,

                                    how such a death opens the way 

                                                for healing and reconciliation in human lives,

                                    how such a death is glory.

 

Yet this is the hardest part of the week we call holy:

            staying present at the cross, with the crucifixion, with death itself.

 

But this staying present is part of our devotion and response in gratitude 

            for God’s gracious love expressed so incredibly for us.

 

At the time, there on that Friday, for the disciples 

            this horrendous crucifixion was devastating beyond belief.

For those who had been traveling with Jesus, 

            listening and taking in and pondering what he had been saying,

            watching how he interacted 

                        with all the various sorts and conditions of humanity that came to him,

            seeing the healings, the transformations taking place in people’s lives,

for these witnesses, 

            how could it be that it was all now destroyed in this cruel injustice and death?

 

 

For the disciples the political forces that ruled the world had smashed 

            what was the most beautiful, generous and loving gift of a person 

                                                                                                            that had ever been.

Their world was shattered.

 

They could not yet see how Jesus was taking on the image of the Forsaken One,

            how he put on every dimension of suffering of mind and body,

            how intentional Jesus was about walking straight into his death with all that.

 

St. Anselm had written about that, 

            saying you can’t do that unless you are God;

            you can’t take that on unless you are God.

That’s the mystery and the beauty and the goodness of the Cross.

 

Jesus had told his disciples, 

            “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.”

That is the image of God – God on the Cross – 

            and not many get this, 

                        even though there is the mercy and love that draws us in.

How is it that this is resisted?

            Our persistent resistance to this good, beautiful truth!

 

Just a few hours before the crucifixion Jesus had said to his disciples, 

            “If you knew where I was going you would rejoice.”

 

Let’s just look for a couple of minutes at what is happening

            in the Passion story according to John.

In this account in particular you can see

                                                            that Jesus is the only one in control.

He is a calm center in the midst of power struggles, mockery, and cruelty.

 

Everyone else exhibits that they really have no control over what is going on, 

that there is great failure on their part 

to achieve what they want to do.

 

The disciples have no apparent control over their drowsiness;

                        they fail to stay awake.

And then they all run away, fleeing for their lives.

Judas is doomed to play his role as betrayer

            despite whatever his motivation and intentions were.

 

In that strange scene in the garden, as John’s Gospel tells it,

            the band that comes to arrest Jesus at Gethsemane

                        is knocked to the ground by the force of the word 

spoken by Jesus, his simple statement: “I AM.”

Only when Jesus purposely gives them a second chance 

            can they lay hands on him and take him away.

 

Peter, in spite of his earlier protestations,

            fails in his ability to keep from denying his Lord.

 

The high priests and Sanhedrin 

can’t make a credible case against Jesus.

So they have to revert to political pressure 

to get Pilate to cooperate.

 

Pilate being backed into a corner, discovers he is not so powerful

            and he can’t engage with Jesus regarding Truth.

Then Pilate tries but fails to set Jesus free.

 

It is Jesus who acts, who is in control, 

who accomplishes all that needed to be done, 

right down to the last detail described in the ancient texts 

about the Servant, the Lamb of God.

 

And then the still point – that moment when he breathed out the last breath.

It is he who chooses when his last moment is, when he dies.

He completes all, 

and breathes out his breath 

and gives up his spirit.

 

The scene at the cross now becomes somewhat surreal.

His side is pierced.

Blood and water gush out

            spraying those standing there.

The witness giving the account of this tells the truth.

This is baptism in his death.

 

Death provides release of his presence 

            empowered to baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit 

                        without the limits of the mortal body.  

 

All that afflicts, that contracts, that inspires a sense of poverty, 

            that leads to violence, deception of self and others, 

            that promotes false, self-serving interest, 

                                                                        abuse, exploitation, addiction, war                                    – destroyed in death.  

Jesus dies the death of all that.  

 

And in his dying, all in us that is identified 

            with such a world of spiritual confusion, suffering and self-destructiveness, 

                        is drawn into his body on the cross.  

All that tragic evil dies there with the death of his body. 

 

He is on the cross in our condition of world-identified humanity.

He is on the cross performing a creative act.

 

For the death of Jesus is the absorption of the sacrificial gift of suffering             

            into the heart of God. 

Jesus takes our humanity in its fragmented, self-destructive state 

            into the divine presence 

                        that is always whole, eternally unbounded and creative.  

 

This is what we need to recognize: 

            by the crucifixion and death of Jesus, 

            as we, and all the world are drawn into and unite with his death,             

the way opens to embrace the eternal radiance of divine love, 

                        which is God.  

 

So today – Good Friday – 

is not just about a morbid reminder of a particularly gruesome death, 

for which we ought to grieve 

and feel deep remorse and penance,

but an occasion for deep devotion, gratitude, thanksgiving even

            for the blessed wood of the Cross.

 

Hymn 166 Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle

            a hymn by Fortunatus, one of the very earliest hymns of the Church,

Verse 4:

Faithful cross! above all other,

one and only noble tree!

None in foliage, none in blossom,

none in fruit thy peer may be:

sweetest wood and sweetest iron!

sweetest weight is hung on thee.

 

This is the glory of the cross,

            the precious weight that hangs upon it, 

                                                            precious beyond all counting,

            the grain of wheat falling into the earth and dying

                        producing the fruit of salvation and resurrection

                        and new life for us all.

 

            In the limitations of our own personal life perspective

                        focused on our immediate issues

we miss the hugeness – it is beyond anything we know how to ask for.

 

Would that we could see more clearly

            how what we here suffer in the routine of daily life

                        often has more to do with our attitudes and presumptions

                        than with the actual reality of our situations.

 

Would that our eyes were opened

            so that we could see how much we are spared, how blessed we are.

 

Then we would sink on our knees before the cross, 

                        the rude representation of the suffering of God,

and express from the heart our love and devotion,

            our thanks and our acceptance of God’s love.

At the foot of the cross let it all drop away

and worship the glory with grateful hearts in wonder, love and praise. 

Maundy Thursday

 We are now engaged in the first of the three liturgies 

         referred to as the Triduum, the Three Days:

                  Maundy Thursday,

                  Good Friday

and, if you were to celebrate it here, the Easter Vigil of Holy Saturday.

I invite you to participate deeply in this liturgy and the next, Good Friday, 

to let your hearts be open to the full scope of meaning 

for the events we are commemorating, 

to follow Jesus as faithful disciples.

The importance of the narration of the events of Holy Week 

is reflected in the Gospels very clearly.

It is thought that when the Gospels were written down,

         they started with the Passion narrative

         and worked backward from there.

At least two full and long chapters in all four Gospels are devoted 

         just to the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday alone

                  not counting the entry into Jerusalem 

                  or the Resurrection stories.

Compare that with mere paragraphs for every other event.

 

So much is crammed into this one liturgy:

There are 3 distinct themes, each so rich and full 

that desire all the attention we can give them.

The first is what Jesus did by taking the role of the lowest household slave 

to do the most menial task of service as an example to all of us 

of how we are to serve one another.

The second 

is what Jesus did with the bread and wine of their table fellowship, 

how he transformed that forever 

and released through those common elements 

the grace of his abiding presence in a very material way.

And the third is what happened next, what happened in Gethsemane.

 

1.  Washing feet symbolizes so much, 

                  and a great part of it has to do with human touch,

         but this is a “touchy” subject.

We may notice that the way we relate to one another 

         has become less and less face to face 

         and more and more via electronic means: 

                  cell phones, email, text messaging, Zoom.

Our culture is more and more high tech, but low in actual physical touch.

 

Now, in the time of Jesus there were taboos 

                           about touching lepers 

                           or touching dead bodies. 

This would make a person ritually unclean, 

                  let alone susceptible to a health risk.

And Jesus touched both the dead and the lepers

         and the result was healing and restoration to life.

 

So foot washing, touching a vulnerable part of the body today,

                  a part of ourselves we don’t usually let get touched,

becomes a bridge between people

         for coming into relationship on a new level.

 

And so you will be invited to experience the foot washing

         as a low tech, high touch way of communicating.

 

Let your feet be washed by someone else.

         Let yourself be vulnerable.

         Let yourself be ministered to.

         Let yourself be loved.

Then take that same gift of being lovingly cared for

         and give it to another.

As you wash someone else’s feet,

         don’t hurry the task.

Do it wordlessly, but with graceful, slow and generous motions.

Make eye contact.

         See how much gets communicated without words.

 

2.  After the washing up, the bread and the wine --

Through sheer familiarity we lose the impact 

of the radical action Jesus took in the midst of the meal.

He took the familiar bread and wine, part of most all their meals, 

bread and wine, which symbolized hospitality, nourishment, 

bread to strengthen the body

and wine to gladden the heart.

 

Jesus took the common elements of most every meal

         and changed forever how we would look at them.

This is my Body.  This is my Blood.

         A mind-blowing way to look at the intimacy of love

                  that goes to the extreme of self-sacrifice,

                                             of giving one’s life for another.

 

But always, every day, it is a matter of one life ending for another to live.

This is involved in every meal,

                  life sacrificed so that I may live

                  right down to the very last lettuce leaf, sacrificed for me.

 

Were we to eat mindfully, 

         we would become aware of the intimate communion of relationship

                  going on between what’s on our plate

                  and what we are:

         the digested fuel for our bodies 

         and components being used by the body to generate new cells.

Biologically it’s an interconnection between self and environment

                           down to the molecular level.

 

Every meal can be seen as a holy communion.

You are what you eat.

So – may we recognize that 

                  in the Bread and the Wine, Christ’s Body and Blood.

 

3.  What happens next in the liturgy,

         the stripping of the altar.

We do this to create the starkly simple setting for the Good Friday liturgy,

         to have a space so sparse that the only thing to draw our attention

                  is the Cross, so that we may place devotional attention there.

 

But in the stripping itself, here is a way 

         for you to enter into that very personally 

                                             as you observe the action at the altar.

 

On that altar in the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Jesus

         all our sin, all our suffering, all the hurt of the world 

                  is stripped away.

May our hearts be like this altar, stripped and then scrubbed clean

         by Jesus and his intentional action of the cross –

dying in order to serve us most fully,

         to absorb our suffering,

         to take upon himself the sins of the whole world.

 

Let your heart be stripped of the grief, the fear, the woundedness,

         the suffering and the sin.

Let go of what Jesus has already drawn to himself 

         and returned to you as the New Creation of Resurrection Life.

 

And so we are invited to be with Jesus 

                                             during these liturgies of Holy Week,

         to watch, watching for just an hour at a time,

                  the usual length of a Sunday service.

In these liturgies we can draw even nearer to Jesus

         as we follow the events,

and offer our worship, our profound sense of awe and wonder,

                  the gratitude of our hearts.

 

Remember, the events of this week

         are the whole reason for Christ's coming.

THE one major purpose of Jesus' life

         was to lay it down, to die.

All the events prior to Holy Week -

         - all the miracles, all the parables, all the Sermon on the Mount

- all were only preliminaries, setting the stage for what was to occur now.

 

Each of us is faced with Jesus' death in a very personal way.

         - what that means to me.

The audacity of one human being 

         intentionally dying as a way to bring me into life.

 

This whole week is a love song from God to us, 

a hard love song, but the ultimate love song of deepest, fullest love.

How can we turn our backs on such love?

And how can we also express our love in return?