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Then Peter began to speak to them: "I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ--he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name."

Gospel

John 20:1-18

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, `I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord"; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

Sermon

Sermon
The Rev. Jack Zamboni

Easter Day  

Mary said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.  

On Thursday night after the liturgy and before returning here to pray in the Garden of Repose, I had a brief chance to get caught up with my wife who had just returned from a business trip to San Francisco. Judith told me about the delay in getting people boarded and seated on her flight home. That recalled for me a curious item I’d heard on National Public Radio week before last. A frustrated air traveler, also an astrophysicist, designed a computer model to determine the quickest way to get people onto a plane, their overhead luggage stowed and in their seats. The results showed something rather odd -- it turned out that having peopled board completely at random was quicker than the standard method of boarding from the rear of the plane forward. Judith said, “That doesn’t make sense.” “It’s counter-intuitive,” I agreed, “but that’s what his model showed. But I’m dealing with a lot of counter-intuitive stuff at the moment – preaching in Holy Week is always counter-intuitive.” 

What I meant is that everything about Holy Week, the whole story we’ve been living these past days, is counter-intuitive. It just doesn’t make sense in the ways we’re used to.

Only centuries-long familiarity with the events and ideas of this story keep us from seeing the counter-intuitiveness, the unexpectedness, the strangeness, of what is at the heart of our Christian faith. 

Take what I said in my sermon on Good Friday -- that if we ask, “Where is God today?” the universal Christian answer is, “On the Cross.” Precisely where evil is at work, where people are suffering; where Sin, Satan and Death most seem to rule -- that is where God is.  

We are all too familiar with evil, suffering, misery and death. That these exist, that the world goes wrong very often -- that is not at all unexpected. But that we should find God in the midst of evil, suffering, misery and death. is not what we expect. We expect to find God where joy and wholeness and goodness and life hold sway – and, of course, God is there. But God is also we least expect God to be, in the places of evil, suffering, misery and death.   

That is counter-intuitive, and it has always been so. Fred Craddock has written, "All the way to the cross Jesus kept trying to get people who believed [that], 'Where the Messiah is, there is no misery’ to see a new perspective, [that], "Where there is misery, there is the Messiah.'"

"Where there is misery, there is the Messiah.'" 

And not just on Good Friday, but on every day -- here in our world today – in Iraq, Afghanistan, the dying children of Africa, the homeless children in America, in sick rooms and on death beds in every place. The Crucified God is there in those places of evil, suffering, misery and death.

That part of the Holy Week story is nothing if not counter-intuitive and unexpected. 

This morning’s Gospel story has its own unexpectedness – and a double dose at that. Early on Easter morning, Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb. She is come, surely, to mourn Jesus. She had seen him die on the Cross. She knew where Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus had laid his body. Like those of you who have gone this week to put flowers on the graves of your loved ones, Mary has come to be as near as she can to her beloved teacher, dead and buried.  

Only when she gets to the tomb, his body isn’t there. The tomb is open, and empty. That the one she and others had thought was God’s Messiah should die a shameful, brutal death was unexpectedly awful enough. Now she suffers a second, unexpected loss: “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb,” she tells Peter and another disciple, “and we do not know where they have laid him!”  Her heart is broken & she stands outside the tomb weeping as the men peer around inside.  

And it is then that things get really strange. Two angels in the tomb asks her why she is weeping. Then she turns around to see a man she does not recognize, who also ask her why she is weeping. She thinks he must be the gardener – who else could he possibly be? That it might be Jesus alive never crosses her mind. Mary is used to the world we know in which things often go wrong. She knows that mortals die, and are laid low; they lie down and do not rise again.¹ The dead stay dead -- only, they don’t. Jesus calls her by name and the utterly counter-intuitive truth breaks through -- Jesus is alive, alive beyond any hope! This man whom she saw die, which she saw buried, is standing before her! It is no wonder she didn’t recognize him -- it was too unexpected even to dream! 

To see Jesus alive after death on Easter was as counter-intuitive, as unexpected, as to see God on the Cross on Good Friday. This story at the heart of Holy Week, at the heart of Christian faith is, indeed, counter-intuitive.  

Now, if this were only a paradoxical story that preachers struggle to find words for, it might be of not much more import than the best way to get people onto on airplane. But it is much more than that. This counter-intuitive story tells us vital truths not only about God, but about our own lives. Good Friday tells us that we will find God in the midst of evil, suffering, misery and death.  Easter tells us that because God is in the midst evil, suffering, misery and death, we will find life coming out of death. And that matters.  

For as Br. Curtis Almquist, SSJE writes:  

“Life is full dying.  Everything we can see and touch, taste and smell, every person, every animal, every living thing has a life span, whether or not we consent to it.  In the course of our own lifespan, we will lose many things dear to us.  That's life…”   

But, as Curtis goes on to say: “Life comes out of death. Resurrection for the here-and-now is the awareness life comes out of death.  The life cycle includes death, many times over. Jesus says, ‘unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it will not bear fruit.’ He’s not just talking about the principles of gardening; he’s talking about the ground of our being.  This is the way it is.  Understanding resurrection power in the here-and-now is not something that can be taught.  It's counter-intuitive; it's even confusing. . .  until you've experienced it. It's only when you have experienced how life does come out of death - what could seem to just kill you proves to be the gateway to life - can you understand resurrection in the here-and-now. Resurrection for the here-and-now is the awareness life comes out of death.” ² 

It takes a lifetime of awareness to know that what is standing before you is God. ³  It should be clear by now that this is so because God’s way are counter-intuitive, unexpected.  It takes real awareness to know that life comes out of death; It takes real awareness to experience the power of resurrection here and now. Mary didn’t get it at first even when the Resurrection and Life himself was, literally, standing before her. If we want to have that awareness, if we want to know that life comes out of death, we will need to work at it, to cultivate it, above all to pray for it.  

Br. Curtis suggests a way to cultivate that awareness by reflecting prayerfully on our lives.

“[Look] backwards in your own life to the many deaths you've experienced, big and small, “he writes.  “See where what had seemed your breaking has actually been your making.  This is a wonderful way to claim resurrection power.  Look backwards to remember what has led up to this present moment, which has likely included many, many deaths . . .  and likely many risings, nothing short of a miracle.  Extending that memory into the future is called "hope."⁴ 

To Curtis’ words about the future and about hope, I would add only this. To be aware of God:

Expect the unexpected. 

Look for the counter-intuitive.

Look for the Crucified God in suffering and death.

Expect the Risen Jesus to bring life out of death.

Know that, counter-intuitively the two will often come together.  

Do this, my dear friends -- cultivate this awareness the rest of your lives -- and you will know the Crucified and Risen Christ, standing before you, always. 

Alleluia, Christ is Risen!

The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia!