Easter People

Easter Sunday
Text: Luke 24:1-12

As I have previously posted, the first funeral I ever attended was one I officiated, and never having been at one I wasn’t sure how it was done.  One of the realities about a funeral that surprised me then, and still affects me now, is the business of it.  Caskets need to be purchased, plots prepared, the body of the deceased embalmed or made ready for the viewing.  Call the Florist. Meet with the pastor.  Write the obituary.  In the fervor of all the arrangements that need to be made (it's like planning a wedding in three days!) it’s easy to get lost.  It’s easy to forget that what we’re about is an entire life, so enmeshed are we in the routines of death.

It should have been a funeral preparation like any other.  The women approach the tomb in the darkness before dawn, with their spices and oils, following the custom of preparing the body.  There was no hope in their eyes.  They had seen this before – one of the Mary’s had once buried her brother, Lazarus; and I suppose now the fact that the deceased had been violently ripped from life, slain at the hands of men in a mockery of justice made their pain all the worse.  They knew as we do:  the human house is built on Death, Violence, and Injustice, and the house always wins.

Or so they thought.  It’s no coincidence that the first word in Luke 24 is “BUT”.  “But” just when we've pronounced hope dead and prepared the spices for burial, that’s when the unthinkable, unimaginable, certainly unanticipated happens, and two visitors approach in star-filled jackets and say:  why are you looking for the living among the dead?  And then Luke says something amazing about the women:  “they turned away from the grave, and reported what happened.”  They turned away from the “memorial” (as it’s called in the Greek), a sign and token of the way death and despair so easily take hold of our lives, and they proclaimed good news.  They became Easter people.  And for Easter people hope reigns. 

Several weeks after he had first been arrested for preaching against apartheid, then Archbishop Desmond Tutu was scheduled to preach at a large ecumenical worship service. As Tutu was beginning his sermon, South African Security Police stormed the building and surrounded the worshipers in the congregation. Needless to say, the presence of armed policemen at a worship service was unsettling.  Their message from Johannesburg was clear. Speak out against the Apartheid regime and we will take you down.

After pausing for a moment, Tutu fixed his glare on the policeman and said to them, sternly: “You are powerful, but I serve a God who cannot be mocked.” Then Tutu’s face turned warm and compassionate as he said to the police, “Since you have already lost, I invite you today to join the winning side.” No one expected what they just heard, including the officers. The crowd became energized. First, a few “Amens” erupted. Then someone stood and shouted “Hallelujah!” The next thing everyone knew the crowd was rushing out of the building and parading down the streets of the city singing hymns of praise. The police were caught totally unprepared, and could do nothing but watch it happen. Eventually, they grew confused about what they should do and so they disbanded for the evening and went home while the crowd of Easter people continued to praise God in the streets. 

Move ahead a couple decades and across the Atlantic to Saranac Lake, NY.   In a story from StoryCorps Andrea St. John relates how she and her fiancé were in the faculty room when he received news from his doctor.  All he said to her was “I think you should get your jacket, maybe we’ll go for a walk.”  And he told her what the doctors had told him;  that the cancer was back, he said, “There’s a spot in my thigh, in my ribs, and in my pelvis,” and he paused and said humorously, “the scans lit up like a Christmas tree.”  One morning Andrea who had now become his caregiver, prepared his tea and breakfast for him and said, “Hey, I need your opinion on something.  I want to wear this dress to your wake.”  So she put it on and she stood on the bed and asked “How do I look?”  He started to cry, and she immediately stepped down and said “I’m so sorry -- I’ll take it off, I didn’t mean to upset you at all.”  And he replied “No, it’s just that you look so beautiful.  I’m so glad I got to see you in that dress.”  But he kept crying.  She held his hand and sat down on the bed next to him and asked “What’s going on?”  He replied, “It’s just that I woke up this morning more ready.”  Andrea asked him what that felt like.  He paused and looked at her and said, “Well, I guess it’s the same thing you felt when you put the dress on this morning.”

For Easter people death is real; but not final.  For Easter people violence and injustice are sickness are powerful in this world, but not more powerful than God’s victory over death and cruelty and brokenness.  Easter people are those who live in God’s great “nevertheless, still, but”.  If I can quote from Practicing Resurrection, by Nora Gallagher: “When I think about resurrection now, I don't only think about what happened to Jesus.  I think about what happened to his disciples.  Something happened to them, too.  They went into hiding after the crucifixion but after the resurrection appearances, they walked back into the world.  They became braver and stronger; they visited strangers, and healed the sick.  It was not only what they saw when they saw Jesus, or how they saw it, but what was set free in them. . ."

Something has been set free, and the world will never be the same.  Easter people, you know the task ahead of you.  The wind is at your back, the victory is yours, and nothing is wasted.  Come and eat the meal before you, refresh yourself for the work ahead of you.  Practice Resurrection!

+++ Sources and Influences

Thank you, Pastor Steve Klemz, for the Desmond Tutu illustration.