April 12, 2020 - Easter Sunday - Mark 16:1-8 - Jesus Invites Disciples Back to the Future

Jesus Invites Disciples Back to the Future

Mark 16:1-8

Easter Sunday – April 12, 2020

“Resurrection”

YouTube video of this sermon is here.

Our world is in a Holy Saturday moment.

·       A sabbath of sorts, though it doesn’t feel quite like we might envision sabbath to feel like

o   Sabbath as time of rest and renewal and reconnection

·       This pandemic-initiated sabbath feels perhaps more like the experience of the women we find in Mark’s gospel going to the tomb early Easter morning

o   Jesus dying Friday – taken from the cross in time to be laid in the tomb before sundown, when sabbath began

o   Sundown Friday – Sundown Saturday = sabbath

§  Sabbath law would have allowed them to go anoint Jesus’ body, but they did not have the spices they needed, and buying them was not allowed on the sabbath

§  So nothing they could do but wait

We have an extended sabbath

·       Not that no work is being done, of course – to the contrary! Many of us do not find this enforced time at home to be all that relaxing, as we try to do multiple “jobs” at the same time

·       But normal life is suspended as we wait at home for this time to pass until we can be “set free” in the wider world again

·       Much to do as we wait – but we wonder during this time

o   And fret, maybe, about what we will find on the other side when the stay-at-home orders are lifted

·       What will the world look like?

o   Will we find ourselves going to the tomb of what once was?

o   A way of life that, if it hasn’t died, has certainly shifted and changed

o   No going back to exactly the way it was, whatever normal we were accustomed to

o   This is a before & after kind of event that we’ll use to mark time

As Mary and Mary and Salome go, wondering and worrying about how they will get past the “very large” stone that sealed the entrance to the tomb

·       thinking that they will offer one last act of love and devotion for their beloved teacher and friend

·       and then close the chapter and move into a world forever changed

·       their expected future changes yet again, suddenly!

·       The stone is already rolled away!

o   Entering, they find, not a dead body, but a young man dressed in a white robe (Bible-speak for an angel), who starts with what they already know: “You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified”

o   But the next words are utterly unimaginable: “He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 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.”

·       And just like that – the women find themselves with a new job, a new and joyful (and terrifying) mission!

o   Not to prepare a body for its final rest – but instead, sent to share the amazing, incredible, nearly unbelievable good news that Jesus has been raised from the dead and invites his followers to follow him into a new future!

·       It’s not a surprise to me really that the women tear off into the morning terrified and amazed and too afraid to tell anyone, at least at first

o   b/c this is just too good to be true

·       and yet ultimately we know the women must have shared the story

o   realizing that Jesus has called them and the male disciples into a future they only could have dreamed and hoped for just a few days, a few moments! Before!

And as we wait here in our Holy Saturday world, we hear these words come to us too

·       you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here!

·       Go tell the world that he is going ahead of you – he will meet you, just as he said!

On this Easter morning, so unlike the ones we have so often known, Jesus is calling to us, inviting us to follow him into the future that he is creating

·       Though we may be anxious about the pandemic and the many effects it will have on our future, Jesus reminds us that he waits for us there, just as he walks with us now

Easter reminds us that Jesus has conquered death and the grave!

·       That goodness is stronger than evil

·       That light is more powerful than darkness

·       That love is stronger than anger and envy and hatred

·       And that life ultimately wins out over death!

As we live in this in-between time, we, like the women, are called to prepare

·       Not just to care for the bruised and broken (which we are certainly called to do)

·       But to hear and believe and share the good news that Jesus is risen – he is risen indeed!

·       And that changes everything.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

April 9, 2020 - Maundy Thursday - Jesus Decides to Drink the Cup - Mark 14:22-42

Jesus Decides to Drink the Cup 

Mark 14:22-42 

Maundy Thursday – April 9, 2020 

“Lord’s Supper/Prayer in Gethsemane”

Click here for the YouTube video of this sermon 

Lord of the Rings trilogy: Frodo and Gandalf

·       Oft quoted, talking about the evil overtaking their world and the need for someone to return to One Ring to Mordor

o   Frodo: “I wish it need not have happened in my time.”

o   “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

Frodo knows the weight of the task that is set before him.

·       In the gospel for this day, we see that Jesus too knows the weight of what lies ahead

o   He knows the risk, the vulnerability, the very real danger of what he will face

o   He knows already the betrayal that is coming, the desertion, the denial; he knows of the accusations and condemnation and death on a cross

·       As he prays in the garden, Jesus is agitated; distressed; deeply grieved

·       we see the very human side of Jesus that wishes that it did not have to be so, that somehow this cup would pass from him

·       “I wish it need not have happened in my time”

We may feel like Frodo, like Jesus in this time that is unlike any other times we have known in our lifetimes

·       The fact that you are watching this on a video or reading it on a screen is a witness to how much our world has changed in just a few weeks

·       Ordinarily we would be gathered in person to observe these holiest of days

o   And instead, we are self-sequestered – working from home perhaps; or on the front lines as essential workers in many occupations; or now out of work and wondering how we will pay our bills

o   We have loved ones suffering from this new virus or we fear for those who are most vulnerable if they catch it

·       We are grieving the changes and losses that are all around us and upended by the utter lack of control that we have over it all

·       And even as we know/hope that we’ll get through it, we are not alone in wishing it need not have happened in our time

Tolkien’s quote reminds us that we don’t get to choose the time – but we can decide what to do with the time we are given

·       Though he prays for it to be removed, Jesus decides to take the cup before him

·       It’s no accident, I think, on multiple levels, that this happens on Passover

o   The festival that celebrates and remembers the story of how God liberated and led God’s people out of slavery into freedom

o   As they finished the meal, the hymn they would have sung was Psalm 118 – “A Song of Victory” in my Bible

o   Beginning and ending verse are the same: “O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.”

o   These are the words that would have been echoing in his head as Jesus went out to meet his fate – a psalm that sings about struggle and distress and how God is strength and might and salvation

·       What a testimony of love and faith and trust, even though Jesus knew what was to come – and so Jesus accepts the cup

It is okay if we come to this night with feelings of distress and agitation, if we are grieved by the changes and loss that we have all experienced, if we with that this time had not come to us, especially since we cannot know for certain what lies ahead

·       But we do know that Jesus goes ahead of us into that future, whatever it may hold

·       Tomorrow we will go with him to the cross and there we will witness his death

·       But still springs the truth that God’s love endures forever – and so even in these trying times that we wish may not have come to us, we decide to follow the one who leads the way through death to new life on the other side

And for that we say, thanks be to God. Amen.