That's How God Works -- Easter Meditation

This meditation was given on Easter Sunday, April 20, 2014 at Central Congregational Church, based on John 20:1-18

This is how God works.
In the dark.
The darkness of creation.
The darkness of the tomb.
The darkness of our hearts.
Can’t you see it?
Well, actually, you can’t
Because it’s dark.

What we know
Is that
This is how God works.
When we are in the dark
outside a tomb
behind locked doors
Collapsed on the side of the road
Not able to take
One more step
God finds us.
We feel a presence
And turn around.
And in the darkness of our hearts
In a place beyond words
Beyond sound
We hear our name.

This is how God works.
Stones are rolled away
Doors open
And we must choose
Whether to cross the threshold
Before us
Into new life.

Sometimes
It happens all at once
And in a blinding flash
We get it.
Sometimes
It takes more than one visit
To the empty tomb.
Sometimes
It takes being willing to weep,
To let the tears flow
to open us up
so that living water
can clear away the debris
That blocks our vision.

Sometimes
It takes a few good questions
“Where have they taken him?”
“Why are you weeping?”
“Who are you looking for?”
That never really get answered.
Because questions open us up
In a way answers don’t.

Mary thought she had the answers.
She analyzed the available data:
Open tomb
Missing body
Area known for grave robbers.
And she knew that
Dead is dead
and
Just when you think things can’t get any worse
They do.
Her conclusion is perfectly logical:
Someone has taken Jesus’ body.
She didn’t assume divine intervention,
Nor did Simon Peter or the beloved disciple,
Who tradition names as John,
So today, will we too.
They all
Came to the perfectly logical conclusions
From the available evidence,
And yet – Easter.

Here’s where we sometimes get into trouble.
Easter is not a missing body,
Or a rolled stone or an empty tomb.
If we could somehow get a time machine
And go back
And see a couple of guys
Pushing aside the stone,
Carrying the body away,
Dropping the funeral wrappings
On the floor,
It would change nothing.
Whatever happened in that closed tomb
Was between Jesus and God.
And God often uses human hands
To accomplish divine ends.
But whatever actually happened
To Jesus’ body
Happened at night –
Had already happened
By the time Mary and the others
Got to the tomb in the morning darkness.
That’s not Easter.

Easter happened
Not when the stone was rolled away
From the tomb of Jesus
But when the stone was rolled away
From the tomb around Mary’s heart.
Easter happened
When in the dark
Mary felt a presence with her
And encountered the living Lord.
Easter happened
Not just because Jesus crossed
The threshold between life and death
But because Mary did too.
It was in that moment when she recognized Jesus
Held him close
That Easter happened,
And kept on happening.
Mary experienced resurrection,
Then she carried the news to others.
And more thresholds were crossed,
As Jesus appeared in more dark places,
Behind more sealed tombs and locked doors.

It’s only then,
After experiencing the risen Christ for themselves
That the open tomb
Could become a symbol of hope.
Hope that we are not alone.
Hope that death is not the last word.
Hope that when we find ourselves
In the dark, God will find us too,
Roll back the stones entombing
our hearts, our lives
So that we can experience
Resurrection too.
That’s the promise of Easter.
That’s the Easter hope.

It can’t be weighed or measured.
It can’t be proven using mathematical formulae.
It won’t show up on an MRI.
But it’s real.
And we can measure it’s effects,
In lives changed
In heartaches eased
In story after story
Of the real experiences
Of real people.
Some of those stories
Are recorded in scripture,
But others happen,
Every day.

“I was at the end,
crying on the bathroom floor
planning how to die.
I couldn’t go on.
But then I felt something,
I don’t know what,
But I knew it would be ok.
I could get up,
Open the door,
Go down stairs,
And keep going.
I knew I wasn’t alone.”

Or,
“I can’t explain it,
but when I – you can fill in the blanks –
started coming to church
started praying regularly
started working at a homeless shelter –
my life began to turn around.
It didn’t happen all at once,
But looking back,
I can see that’s when it started.”

Powerful. Life changing.
Encounters with the Living Lord.
Resurrection.
Easter.

Easter happened,
and keeps on happening.
If it didn’t
The empty tomb, would be just an empty tomb.
A curiosity. A who-done-it.
Jesus didn’t ask Mary, or anyone else
To believe in an empty tomb,
But in their own experience of him.
That’s Easter.

But Jesus asked something else of Mary,
He asked her to go and tell,
Tell the disciples what you’ve seen,
What you’ve experienced.
Oh, they wouldn’t really believe her,
Not until they had experienced it
For themselves,
But her story could give them hope,
Hope to hold onto
Until they were ready to cross
The threshold Jesus offers,
And let their live’s be changed.
Ready to let God color
Outside the carefully drawn lines
That describe their reality,
So they can see something,
Experience something,
That can’t be seen from within those lines,
Something
That can’t be weighed or measured
But is just as, or perhaps even more, real:
love, peace that passes understanding,
resurrection.

And when Mary ran to tell them,
She still didn’t have all the answers,
Maybe had even more questions,
Than she had before.
Before, all she needed to know
Was where the body had been taken.
But Mary could testify
To what had happened to her,
She could say,
“I have seen the Lord.”

So Jesus asks all of us
who have had
Such an experience
to share that with others,
Share the good news
Not to convert others
Or to shame them,
And not because we have answers,
Maybe it’s better that we don’t,
But by sharing we just might
crack open a door
Give a glimpse of something more
Offer hope, when hope seems in vain.
That’s what the Gospels do for us.
That’s why we read and tell
the stories of Easter.

John Lennox,
a professor in Great Britain,
Tells the story of being on a train
Sitting next to a man reading
A paper on metallurgy.
That day, John was reading a copy
Of the New Testament.
John said to the man, “I see you’re a scientist.”
“Yes,” said the man, “and what do you do?”
“I’m a mathematician,” John replied,
and went back to reading his Bible.
As they sat there,
John could feel the other man’s curiosity was aroused.
And after a few minutes,
The man said, “I see that’s a New Testament
You are reading.”
“Yes,” said John, and went on reading.
After another few minutes,
The man said again,
“That’s a New Testament you are reading.”
“That’s right,” said John, and went on reading.
Finally, the man said,
“Excuse me. I don’t mean to disturb you,
but you’re a mathematician and you’re reading
the New Testament.”
“That’s right,” John said, and went on reading.
By this time, the man was getting a little desperate,
And exclaimed,
“But look, how can you be an intellectual
and believe the New Testament?”
And John said, “Tell me, what hope have you got?”
The man went white and he began to shake.
“Well,” the man said,
“I guess I hope the human race will muddle through.”
John said, “You know I didn’t mean that.
What hope have you personally got?”
And the man said, “None whatsoever.”
They talked for a little while,
And John didn’t give him answers,
Just a copy of the New Testament.

We don’t know how
The story continued for that man,
But I think
He had an encounter
With the living Lord,
That day.
A stone was rolled away,
A locked door cracked open.
Then it was up to him,
Whether to cross the threshold
To new life.
Maybe it took a while,
Even years,
But looking back,
He will see that this is where it started,
Resurrection.
Because that’s how God works.
That’s when Easter happens.

Christ has risen.
Christ has risen indeed!