“Again & Again & Again … The Power of Jesus’ Resurrection”
Rev’d. Tanya Stormo Rasmussen
The Congregational Church of Hollis, U.C.C.
Easter Sermon, 4 April 2021 (Year B)
Mark 16:1-8
Do you ever think about the astonishing, miraculous mechanics of a sunrise? The earth we’re standing on right now is spinning at 1,000 mph, making an orbit of 584 million miles around a star that’s roughly 1 million times the size of our planet. And yet, because sunrises happen every day, we’ve come to expect them. In fact, some of us rarely even see them because we’re sleeping right through them! But it doesn’t make them any less amazing or miraculous. Again and again, with each new day, whether we’re paying attention or not, the light of dawn slices through the shadows of night, and dawn intensifies into daylight as the sun does its work to bathe and brighten.
To Christians, Easter is about as familiar as a sunrise. We know the story well, and we expect to greet the day as we did last year, and the year before that, and the year before that. We look forward to our triumphant music, to the assurance of salvation from all that is wrong with this world, and we savor it … for the day. Then tomorrow, it’s back to the familiar framework, where we get overwhelmed with all that needs to happen and we resign ourselves to the bleakness of the shadows instead of carrying the light forward.
But if we’ve been sitting in the tension of last week—listening not just to the news of our world, but also to the Scriptural accounts detailing the news and events of Jesus’ last week—maybe this can be the Easter morning that we hear things differently. Maybe this can be a resurrection morning for our own understanding as we launch a new way of living, embrace our call to be clearer, bolder about continuing the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; more confident about preparing the way of the Lord for those who will come after us.
The first words of Mark’s gospel read, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Next, reaches back and quotes the prophet Isaiah, who proclaimed on behalf of God, “I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way…” You see, God is always out ahead of us, working in and through faithful servants, getting things ready for God’s resurrecting activity. John Wesley called it “prevenient grace”—the power of divine love that is always at work in the world ahead of our perception and comprehension, making a way for the faithful to accomplish the sacred work God has for us to do. Resurrection happens again and again—salvation and everlasting life are not just about some afterlife, but they’re meant to be tasted and enjoyed in this world, here and now. That’s what the power of Jesus’ resurrection teaches us, though much like the dependable sunrise, we often fail to see it for the daily miraculous occurrence it is.=
Although they didn’t realize it just then, the women who went to the tomb that first Easter morning had observed and learned about resurrection power as they traveled and ministered with Jesus. In fact, Jesus wanted them to know, they were active participants in bringing it to bear on their world. They just couldn’t see that yet, either.
As Mark tells it, the women—Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome—went to the tomb at sunrise, as the first rays of light had scarcely begun to creep across the morning sky. They went carrying spices, intending to do what so many today have not been able to do in the wake of COVID’s fury: to anoint and honor the body of their loved one; to offer a memorial and provide a proper burial. As they hustled to the place where they knew their beloved teacher’s body had been laid, the women worried over how they would handle the obstruction they knew would be there. Despite being attentive to God’s work through Jesus, and noticing that he was constantly defying expectations, they also knew some things in this world are predictable. And they fully expected something to stand in the way of them doing what they’d set out to accomplish.
Having just witnessed the conventional ways that worldly powers conducted themselves, even toward God’s Son—with vengeance, arrogant cruelty, and violence in response to a fear they would never acknowledge, in order to put a stop to activity they did not understand or support—the women were used to the world’s ways of obstructing holy activities. Whereas others had fled in their fear, the women alone had stayed with Jesus to the bitter end, when the world’s ways had seemed to prevail. They had observed him—Love incarnate—submit to the most hideous and inhumane forms of contempt, torture, and finally excruciating death. He hadn’t fought back or used any sort of force when they came for him; he’d even told Peter to put his weapon away. They can’t be faulted if they wondered whether Jesus had just relinquished all power—but that’s only because they didn’t fully comprehend the power at work in his manifestation divine love. It was with this context that they approached the tomb quite reasonably expecting that they would encounter frustration, but not an astonishing surprise like the one awaiting them.
Mark says, “When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.” Their stomachs immediately tightened into knots and they approached the tomb with dread and racing, scattered thoughts.
The white-robed young man sitting in the tomb, in a tone that suggested such resurrection activity took place all the time, told the women not to be alarmed, but instead to deliver a message to his disciples that Jesus was going ahead of them, that they would see him in a familiar place—in Galilee. The young man was perceptive but not necessarily persuasive. At least, not at first. Because Mark reports, “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.” (Mark 18:8)
Two different, somewhat happier, endings have been added to Mark’s gospel by subsequent authors—demonstrating just how uncomfortable we can be with unsettled endings. But what if Mark’s point in opening his Gospel account with the words, “The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ” and ending with the words, “they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” was to make us see that it is up to us to bring the light and the Good News of Jesus Christ forward, to write the continuation of the story? Clearly, the audience of 2,000 years ago embraced the challenge, and so many others between then and now—or we wouldn’t be here today.
To the traumatized Marys and Salome, what they’d just seen and heard in the tomb must have felt like a fantasy induced by their grief and lack of sleep. They didn’t bound out of the tomb with joyful spirits, excited to tell everyone about this great news. Of course they didn’t! They were numb; mentally para-lyzed by fear, perplexed by everything they were going through, and consumed with the normal fog that comes with the death of someone we dearly love, especially when that death is accompanied by violence and trauma.
“How can this be happening?” they surely wondered. “Who could possibly have stolen the body? Were we at the wrong tomb? The guy said Jesus is going where? Galilee? How??” A hundred questions, a thousand thoughts—doubts, and recollections … In our own moments of trauma and grief, those times when we’ve felt our reality utterly shattered, we ourselves have doubted and wondered and despaired for the presence and promises of God. Gradually, though, if we persevere in faith and keep our hearts and minds open to divine work, puzzle pieces begin to fit together. A budding awareness blossoms into recognition that something greater than the self-consumed and fearful powers of this world is at work.
As surely as the light of morning gradually rises, the truth of what they had witnessed, and the facts of Jesus’ life—the ways that, again and again, he had defied expectations—dawned on the women who went to Jesus’ tomb, and on the rest of the disciples. Again and again, Jesus had drawn life from dead places. He’d given sight to blind people, voices to the mute, freedom of movement to the lame, and hearing ears to the deaf. He’d given dignity and a sense of self to those who had heretofore been treated as worthless, empowering the powerless. He’d courageously spoken truth to power and refused to be diverted from his mission by the typical tactics of fear and intimidation by those possessing worldly authority. Had they not learned anything from him? And yet, one of the things he did best was continuing to love them even when they failed him; he continued to believe in them even when their belief in him waffled.
And now, he had gone ahead of them, just as God always does. Just as divine love always, always does, again and again. And so, they would go to the region of Galilee and see Jesus there: some of them in Capernaum, others in Cana, still others in Nazareth, as they did the sacred work they’d learned from him. And then as their lives brought them to other places, they would see Jesus there, too—back in Jerusalem, down in Samaria, over in Bethsaida. Again and again, as surely as the sun rises to disperse the night, Jesus’ words and ways, his teachings and example would come to them as they opened themselves to embodying the Spirit that was in him.
Jesus’ resurrection, and the power that gave rise to it, was and is constantly at work ahead of his disciples—ahead of you and me, assuring them and us of the new beginnings God endlessly makes possible for us. Reminding us of our participation in eternal life, of the fact that we are the continuing story of the Good News of Jesus Christ, even on the days when we obliviously manage to sleep through the miracle of the rising sun, and of the Risen Son. He is Risen—hallelujah! Happy Easter!! Amen.