Easter 2023
Mark 16:1-8
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they could go and anoint Jesus’ dead body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they came to the tomb. They were saying to each other, “Who’s going to roll the stone away from the entrance for us?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away. (And it was a very large stone!)
Going into the tomb, they saw a young man in a white robe seated on the right side; and they were startled. But he said to them, “Don’t be alarmed! You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised. He isn’t here. Look, here’s the place where they laid him. Go, tell his disciples, especially Peter, that he is going ahead of you into Galilee. You will see him there, just as he told you.” Overcome with terror and dread, they fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
What is dead is dead… I’m sorry but it’s true. What is dead stays dead and it can’t come back to life. Everything in my life points to the evidence that it’s true. Pets, people, dreams, hopes, prophets, and maybe even messiahs. Sometimes I think they can come alive again, or maybe even that they didn’t actually die, but the truth is… What is dead is dead and it doesn’t come back to life. Which is a terrible opening to an Easter sermon because for so many years, I’ve thought that having faith means that believing against all evidence and odds that what was once dead could be alive again.
The 4th of July shooting happened and I had my faith shaken. People tell you like they’ve told me that if you want to see where God is in any tragedy that you should look to see the people helping and that’s where God is. And I believe that but there was a part of me that wondered where this God was when the shooter took his perch. And I wondered how could this supposed God of love let this happen. The scary part was when I started to think God was asking us the same question: How could we let this happen… …again?
And as the summer turned to fall and the to winter and it seemed like spring was finally starting to emerge, I thought I was good. I thought I had moved on from my questions and doubts about God in the midst of suffering. I thought I found a path forward where maybe even if I didn’t have hope in a situation, at least I could believe that hope exists. That even in the moments where I didn’t have hope, it didn’t mean hope was dead because after all, what is dead is dead and I needed hope to be alive. And it seemed easier this year than maybe any other year to write out an Easter sermon because… come on… the winter this year seemed mild but really long, spring is in the air, and after last year, I was looking forward to a new summer, new life, new possibility. I had hope.
Then Tuesday happened at the high school and I realized that all those feelings, all those fears, all those doubts weren’t gone in me. They were just hiding below the surface, buried not too deep in me. And as I stood with concerned parents outside of a school surrounded by police cars and could see police armed to the teeth just inside the doors, I realized something really hard and really painful. What is dead is dead. And any hope of this town and our community going back to the way it once was… well that’s dead too. We’ll never feel safe quite the same way we once did. We’ll never be as innocent as we once were. We can never go back to being a pre-4th of July community or world.
Now, I knew this would make for a horribly depressing Easter sermon and there would be people here who don’t come to church all that often and they’d really be looking for some hope, some joy, some good news this morning. What would I have to say to you? What would God want me to say to you? And so I’ve spent some long days and nights thinking and praying and asking God why I just can’t seem to shake this dread, this feeling of finality that what is dead is dead and it doesn’t get to live again. The crazy thing is that even with how pessimistic and fatalistic and whatever other “istic” you want to add to that list of feelings that I felt, I still have faith. I still believe in God. So I still prayed and hoped against odds and experience that God would somehow answer my prayers and show me that I was wrong - that what is dead does not, in fact, stay dead. And the wildest thing happened to me. I think God really did answer me in my prayers. But God didn’t give me the answer I was looking for.
All this time, my entire career, with all my studies, and over 22 years now of thinking deeply about faith, specifically the Christian faith, and proclaiming a risen Lord, I failed to make a rather large distinction in my thinking, in my belief and in my faith. And family, the moment I realized this, it changed everything. What I realized was that I’m only partly right. Yes, What is dead is dead and it doesn’t come back alive again. But the gospel, the story of Christ, the faith that we live doesn’t claim anything different. Because there’s a big, big difference between resuscitation and resurrection. And we don’t celebrate the resuscitation of Jesus. We celebrate the resurrection of Christ. It isn’t that the old life returns and things go back to the way they were. It isn’t resuscitation. Its that a new life and a new way of being in the world begins. It’s resurrection. And There’s a big difference between resuscitation and resurrection. It’s not old life returning. Its new life beginning.
The truth, the cold hard truth of it is that when Jesus died on that cross, a lot of things died with him that could never and maybe should never be resuscitated. Things like the Ideas of who he was and what he was trying to do, understandings of what a messiah does and looks like, dreams of what this new kingdom looked like that he spoke of and taught about and tried to show us. Ways in which we look at and understand not just the world we live in, but how we understand ourselves and God, and how they all relate to each other. When Jesus died a lot of things died with him. Things that couldn’t be revived because what is dead is dead.
But among the terribly inconsistent accounts of Easter in the Gospels, something consistent emerges - Easter isn’t about resuscitation. Easter is about Resurrection. Its not a resuscitation of the old life - that life is dead and gone - never to be seen again because what is dead is dead… but instead its a resurrection into NEW life. The idea that many of his followers had at the time of what God’s Kingdom looked like would actually better understood as Empire - specifically a new empire free from Rome - Jesus would come with real soldiers and have a real physical confrontation with Rome and would build a new empire without Rome and sit on a physical throne as an earthly ruler. They thought he was talking about a physical kingdom and country. But that old understanding of God’s kingdom died on the cross and stayed dead while whispers of this new kingdom being something not constrained by physical borders, ethnic origin, social status, or earthly rulers emerged and climbed out of the tomb.
The understanding that the messiah would come and save us from each other and from outside forces died on the cross with Jesus and what was resurrected in it’s place was the realization that the messiah came to save us from ourselves. The faith in hard work or the right work or that our work could somehow earn us the favor or wrath of God died on that cross and should never be resuscitated and instead what emerged from that tomb is the conviction in God’s grace, the intrinsic worth of each person, and the faith that each person is precious in God’s heart.
What died on that cross with Jesus is the idea that somehow what you have or don’t have is a sign of God’s favor or wrath upon you and is what really matters. And despite some people’s best efforts even today to revive that idea, what was resurrected three days later is the understanding that how you live and what you do with what you’re given to make this life better - not just for you but for everyone - yes everyone - that’s the true sign of your faith.
And what I’ve come to understand is that while we may want resuscitation of the old life before something like the 4th of July - while we may want to return to what we now view as a simpler, more innocent time; it’s dead. And what’s dead stays dead. And that’s a hard truth to hear. But what we need is resurrection into new life - whatever that new life may look like. And that’s where the hope lies. We may WANT resuscitation but we NEED and are called into resurrection.
It’s no happy accident that the original ending of Mark stopped here at verse 8 with the women fleeing in terror and not telling anyone. It’s a real cliff hanger that leaves you wondering what happens next. Because that’s what Mark is asking us. What happens next? Now that the old life is dead never to be revived, what do we do with this new life we’re resurrected with Christ into? And because it’s new life and its uncharted territory, Mark didn’t know what to write yet. But he was brilliant enough to know that it’s up to us to continue to write the Gospel, the good news, this new understanding of Christ and this new life in him. And so he leaves us asking ourselves and each other that if this old life is dead and gone never to be resuscitated, what do we do with this new, resurrected life?
And that question, family, is just as pertinent and pressing right now today in our own context as it was 2,000 years ago in Mark’s context. If the old life is gone, if it’s dead and can’t be resuscitated because what is dead is dead, what do we do with this new life we are now emerging into? Do we take these new understandings, these new insights, these new values and allow them to inform and guide our newly resurrected life or do we set them down in the futile efforts to resuscitate the old dead life that we may miss but is never coming back because what is dead is dead?
Do we as a church try to resuscitate the ways we understood and did church in the past while turning a blind eye to the fact that the world we now live and operate in has fundamentally changed? Or do we have the courage to embrace this new life and new world we’re resurrected into and find ways to more effectively spread the Gospel and be the church? The question Mark asked when he first penned his Gospel is being asked of us again today. Do we cling to the dead familiarity of an old life that can never be resuscitated because it’s what we want or can we let go into the new life of resurrection because its what we need? And what do we make with this new life? What happens next?