April 24, 2011
(The Sunday of the Resurrection,
or Easter Day)
(From The Lectionary Page)
More Ready Than We Know
by The Rev. Canon Susan Sommer
So there we were, a bunch of pregnant-out-to-here women, looking like a pod of whales who had somehow gotten beached in a classroom at Hinsdale Hospital. We, and our anxious husbands, were in a Lamaze class. All of us were first time moms and one of us, bless her heart, asked the two questions we all wanted to ask, "How will we know when it's time to push? How will we know what to do?" Our instructor simply smiled and said, You'll know." It was a singularly unhelpful answer. Turns out, it was also absolutely correct, though I for one had been pretty skeptical at the time. When it was time to deliver Cady, I knew in the fullness of my being that it was time, though I had no prior first-hand experience. As anyone who has given birth or witnessed a birth can tell you, when it is time for a baby to be born, two things can be counted on: it will happen and you will be more ready than you knew.
We just heard Matthews account of the Resurrection. Of all four gospel accounts, it is by far the most dramatic, with the women witnessing the earthquake, the rolling away of the stone, and the sudden appearance of the angel. And it struck me this year that Matthew's gospel contains a lot of birthing imagery. The women arrive, the ground trembles as though the earth itself was in the final throes of labor, the men faint, and then suddenly all is still. An angel explains to the awestruck women what had happened, and commissions them to be apostles to the disciples, to share the good news of the resurrection of their Lord.
And the resurrection, like every new birth, absolutely changes everything, and those changes ripple outward to encompass not only the inner circle, but the whole human family. In a moment, in the vastness of time, God utterly shattered the status quo. Death no longer has dominion over humankind. All that separates us from one another, all that separates us from God, is forever bridged in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Everything had changed and the women scarcely comprehending the fullness of what had happened found themselves the bearers of testimony to the other disciples. In itself, that too shatters the status quo, given that women could not testify in courts of law, either in the Jewish world or in the Gentile world of the Greco-Roman empire. How did the women know? They had no experience with the resurrection. After all, they didnt witness it. There were no classes in it. There was no instruction. There was nothing in their lives that would have prepared them to track down men they werent related to, in order to share this crazy news with them. All they had was an angels word for it, an empty tomb, and what must have been a boatload of confusion and anxiety. They werent prepared for this.
This was what they did know. The Romans put Jesus to death on a cross in an act of state-sponsored terrorism. Before Jesus was even dead his crucifixion had the desired deterrent effect the disciples had scattered in fear. They were the only ones left who had witnessed where Jesuss body had been placed, and they came back after the Sabbath most likely to mourn because that was what they knew how to do. Grieving, and tending to the dead, after all, was work normally relegated to women.
It should have been all over. And instead, on the morning of the first day of the week, it was a new beginning. Something miraculous had happened, as miraculous as the birth of a child and every bit as mysterious. God took the broken body of his only begotten Son, took into himself the pain and suffering of all humanity and on the morning of the third day brought into being something completely new. What made it different from human birth, of course, is the raw material. Rather than the seed from a man and a woman producing new life, God took death itself -- the supposed end of life -- and birthed instead the resurrection.
They came to the tomb with heavy hearts to be with their dead Lord. They were as mired in grief as only those who are newly bereaved can understand. They had their beloved memories of Jesus to console themselves and it would have been to those memories of the past that they would have clung. We get that. We cling to our beloved memories as well. But look what happened. The messenger of God met them in that place of death and rocked their world with the news of resurrected life, and brought to birth new hope in their broken hearts.
The gospel passage today gives us vivid imagery of that first Easter morning. But it does far more than merely that. It also gives us a template for what we are to do as well. Like the women, we gather together on the first day of the week because it is familiar. We know how to do it. We experience the risen Christ in the Sacraments, and then we are sent out into the world to share the good news. We gather, we experience the Risen Christ, and we are sent forth with the good news. Thats the heart of the Easter gospel and it is the heart of the work of the Church at all times and in all places. And if we feel ill-prepared to share the good news, take heart. Were not one bit more ill-prepared than those two women were on that first Easter morning.
See, its not about preparation. When we meet the Risen Christ, it IS time whether we believe ourselves adequately prepared for the task or not. And when it is time, there is but one thing for us to do: run with joy to tell abroad the good news to those who do not know, who are locked away in fear or anger or guilt or grief: Alleluia, Christ is Risen.
