What a joy it is to be here this morning surrounded by flowers and hearing the overtones of the bells. Happy Easter.
By all rights, we should be out at the cemetery with the gravestones spaced out around us in somber array, and maybe one of those green tents set up over an open hole in the ground. That's where we should be, because Easter began in a cemetery – or at least at a tomb. Sometimes communities do hold Easter sunrise services at cemeteries, though typically more people show up at the church where there are comfortable pews, less chill in the air, and no muddy ground to stain your good shoes.
Easter began in a graveyard. You know the story: Jesus had been killed, nailed to a cross – a
particularly gruesome way to die. Joseph of Arimathea had claimed his body and laid it in a brand new rock-hewn tomb. No double occupancy for Jesus. In death he got the best. He died as the Sabbath began, when no unnecessary work was to be done, so nothing happened for another day and a half. Finally, the next morning some women came to the tomb with sweet smelling spices to anoint his body.
As I said, you likely know the story. We read it today from the Gospel according to Luke. Did you catch Luke's unique contributions to the story? Let me point out a few.
Each Gospel lists a somewhat different grouping of women. Luke says it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and some others. What you perhaps didn't catch is that earlier in the Gospel Luke had mentioned nearly the same list of women and said they had been cured of evil spirits and that they "provided for him out of their own means." These women had funded Jesus' ministry for maybe a couple of years. And here at the very end they continued to provide for him.
When they got to the tomb and could not find a body to anoint, the women were perplexed and suddenly two dazzling figures showed up. In terrified awe the women fell to the ground. Their faces in the dirt, they cowered in fear – just like the shepherds had when the angels announced Jesus' birth. Then the angels asked, "Why do you look for the living among the dead?" Well, duh. The last place they had seen Jesus had been when they watched Joseph lay Jesus in the tomb – where else would they look?
"Why do you look for the living among the dead?" The question comes to us today. I know, here we are in this beautiful sanctuary and not in a cemetery. If truth were told, however, a lot of us spend our lives in graveyards, in the places of the dead.
We live among the corpses of long dead habits and customs. "We've always done it this way," and its twin, "We tried that once and it didn't work," have been said so often that they have become clichés. And churches are haunted by those ghosts. Some people joke, "If we ever return to things like they were in the 1950's we are ready." And guess what: the 1950's are not coming back. We live in a different world today. From preferred music style to the assumption that the rest of the world actually cares about church, those patterns are so dead they don't even stink any more. Why do you look for the living among the dead? Jesus won't be found in a 66-year-old box.
Why do you look for the living among the dead? This congregation is in a time of transition. We have welcomed a new music director and will formally install him next week. Soon you will welcome a new pastor. I am sad to leave this church and this community. We have done some great things together. We've been through some hard times together. I have been here for twelve years, longer that anywhere else I have served and longer than any pastor you have ever had before. I ask you to allow your new pastor to be his/her own person. Please do not say, "Pastor Sue always did it this way." Don't expect your new pastor to have either my strengths or my weaknesses.
We have known God together and been blessed in so many ways and come June we must let go of each other. Allow the new pastor into your life as you have allowed me in. Look for the Risen Jesus in the new that is coming and bury the good and the bad of our dozen years. As of July 1 those times will be done.
Why do you look for the living among the dead? It is so tempting for us to cling to former visions of ourselves. Years ago Jack came to see me. Jack had recently been diagnosed with MS. Already his body was losing strength and flexibility, though he could still walk. Among his griefs was that he would not be able to go hunting, a favorite activity. No more could he tramp for hours in the woods.
I thought then about Harvey. Harvey too was a hunter. Though he didn't have MS, enough years had passed that Harvey also could not tramp through the woods. Instead Harvey built a blind. He could walk far enough to get to the blind where he could sit in comfort and wait for the deer to come to him. He could still hunt, just in a different way. I told Jack about Harvey's adaptation. "That's not who I am!" Jack stated. He refused to imagine a new way and clung to his vision of who he had been as a younger man. Because of that he blocked himself from adapting to a changing reality.
Why do you look for the living among the dead? Many of us – and I'm as guilty here as anyone – hold grudges and resentments against people whom we believe have done us wrong. Maybe we really have been treated unfairly. Someone once defined resentment as a poison I take hoping it will kill the other person. My anger, justified or not, my grudges and resentments, will slowly kill me from the inside out – if I refuse to let them go.
Why do you look for the living among the dead? God's good news is that it is at the cemetery that we will find new life. When Jesus rose from the dead he conquered both death itself and sin. On my own I cannot forgive the people who have wounded me. By the power of the Risen Christ, however, I can stop drinking the poison of resentment. I can forgive – and in that forgiveness I am freed. You can do that too – with God's help.
"Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen," the angels told the women. "Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again." And the women remembered, for Jesus had indeed predicted three times that he would suffer, die, and rise.
Looking for the living does not mean we have to completely forget the past, for the Author of time comes to us in all three tenses, in past, present, and future. Memory grounds the mystery and awe of the resurrection in the realities of daily life.
Electricians talk about grounding a wire. I'm no electrician so I did a little bit of research. Turns out it is pretty literal. By making a connection with dirt, the earth itself will absorb an unlimited amount of current, an important safety feature.
Remember the women's first response to the angel's appearance? They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground. In the presence of all that divine power they made sure they were grounded. And when they learned that Jesus had risen from the dead they were grounded by their memories of Jesus' own predictions of what was to come.
Memories of how we have known God in the past prepare us to know God's new life in the future. New life bursts from the ground. We are watching it happen in our gardens as daffodils emerge and soon the tulips will follow them. A moment ago we sang, "Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain; wheat that in the dark earth many days has lain." All around us the rolling hills of the Palouse are turning green.
In the same way God is bringing new life – for this congregation as we shed some tears at the separation we know will take place. Change is scary. What will the new pastor be like? Will s/he bring in new programs and get rid of some old cherished ones? I feel the same way about going to my new church. And in the ground of this change, God will bring forth new life. What that looks like is not yet obvious, and memory grounds us to know it will come, just as we know the green shoots of wheat will become a golden harvest in a few months.
God will bring us new life as we forgive each other for the ways we have hurt each other and move on to love each other in new ways. God will be with us in the next two and a half months we have left together – and God will be with us in the future as we look for the living in the new life that is coming.