There is something about Easter morning. The resurrection. For while we know the story, this is something unexpected. This has to be an April Fool’s joke, right? An empty tomb. Life overcoming death. But we also know the science. We have definitions for “life,” and descriptions of “death.” God breaths into the human creature. Life emerges. The heart beats. Brainwaves pulse. 
And now, today, we gather here as a people of the resurrection. That ridiculous idea of life overcoming death. The proclamation that love reigns over fear. In the mystery, theologian Marjorie Suchocki notes, “That which appears to be death can, through faith, be a gateway to resurrection.”[1]
This morning is unexpected. Death is death. Laced with grief. Tears. Ritual.
Just a couple of nights ago on Good Friday, we gathered here as witnesses to the faces. The tears. The anguish. The wails. On social media. On news outlets. On the front pages of the newspaper. On the cross. The children. Women. Men. Ambushed by violence.
Over and over we hear their cries—“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
The void. Hopelessness. Overwhelming grief. How can we believe that anything can rise out of that?
But yet we are here. In the garden. A new creation story. A recognition. A naming. A race to the tomb. I have been intrigued by theologian Belden Lane’s thoughts on the “accounts of Jesus’ suffering and death, followed so closely by the ludicrous joy of Easter.”[2]
“I have seen the Lord!”
I have seen.
Have you?
Lane lifts up the grotesqueness of the image of Jesus’ body broken, mangled, and suffering on the cross. He notes that in the story of the crucifixion we discover “God’s presence in brokenness, weakness, (abandonment), and despair. It exposes our compulsive fears of being vulnerable in a society that values only competence. Our temptation is always to flee the monstrous terror of our own deformity, but by confronting it we discover a spirituality that exults in woundedness.”[3]
“I have seen the Lord.”
This is unexpected.
As followers of Jesus, we are a people of the resurrection. In each generation, we are called to retell the story of the cross in our own contexts, for we have heard Jesus’ story and know that in some way, shape, or form, life overcomes death. If I were to ask you to describe how you understand the Easter story, how you see Jesus living among us today, it is likely that we would each tell a slightly different story. In all of our belief, in all of our questioning, in all of our uncertainty, we were each still drawn to come HERE to worship on Easter morning. As a people of the resurrection, can we discover, as Lane says, “God’s presence in brokenness, weakness, renunciation, and despair”[4]?
Have you seen?
How do we define, and then identify, the ongoing crucifixions… and resurrections… occurring around us in the world today? How… and where… do we encounter the Risen Christ?
A new creation. I want to share with you this question raised by Howard Thurman, a black theologian and pastor that was born in 1899, and ask you to consider how you would respond:
Thurman asks, “What happens then when there is a new center of focus for life?”
For us that identify as followers of Jesus in the United States in the 21st century, I think that Thurman also answers this question for us when he responds that with Christ as our center, “Death no longer appears as the great fear or specter. The power of death over the individual life is broken. Death is no longer regarded as the worst thing in the world…”[5]
Death no longer appears as the great fear.
People of God, this day the power of death over life is broken.
This day, death is no longer regarded as the worst thing in the world…”[6]
Have you seen?
As we hear the writings from the early church in the first and second centuries, we know that the Jesus followers of that time created a movement. A movement rooted the new center they found in the risen Christ. Yet for them, as for us, this was not the narrative they expected. Everything that they had thought Jesus would be for them as the Messiah was flipped upside down by Jesus’ arrest, torture, and death. These unexpected events of the past few days were packed with Holy Folly.
Lane reminds us that “… a spirituality of brokenness is (a) call to reconsider the ways we’ve learned to picture God…. (and that) This is the “scandal” of the gospel that Paul describes in I Corinthians. God is not what we expect… Our image of God doesn’t prepare us for a truth realized in brokenness. We need to be shaken out of our expectations…”[7]
Have you seen?
Have you heard?
Have you responded to the Christ living amongst us?
Suchocki writes “… we too must be living words, embodied proclamations, living that which we speak… (which) leads us to the living testimony written in actions of love and justice.”[8]
Love and Justice.
Have we seen?
Have we heard?
As we race to the empty tomb this day, as we ask, “where have they taken him?” I believe that it is imperative for us to pause. To bend over. To look in. To see. Really see. And to hear. Fully hear. And to recognize that… at first… we don’t recognize the Jesus that is right in front of us. Sometimes the tomb looks empty, with just a few rags scattered about. Sometimes the teacher, Jesus, is right in front of us, in the guise of the gardener. Or the homeless woman. Or the teens congregating at the mall. Or the neighbor who has been incarcerated and is out on probation. Or the elder who is not able to make it to church due to mobility issues. Or the kid that wiggles a bit too much during worship.
Mary didn’t “see” Jesus until he called out her name. It seems that something needs to happen for us to recognize Jesus. To see the Good News. Here are a few examples retold in our own time:
In the book, Making a Way Out of No Way, Monica Coleman writes that for Karen Baker-Fletcher, a womanist (or a black, female) theologian, “…it is Jesus who empowers black women with the vision for resistance and survival resources… (such as the) ‘Laying on hands to heal, sharing food and wine… loving widows and orphans, forgiving women condemned by society… conquering death and evil in his historical life and beyond’” Yet Baker-Fletcher also “does not exclude the significance of Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection… ‘Jesus’ ministry of resistance against evil and his empowerment of others involved the real risk of political persecution, character assassination, and even death. The cross must not be forgotten because such persecution is a possible consequence of standing up for what is morally right.’ The resurrection, on the other hand, represents God’s ability to constantly create anew.”[9]
A new creation.
This is something unexpected.
In the world of theology there are also Public Theologians, such as Rev. Dr. Susan Thistlethwaite, who sees and proclaims the good news in real time on social media via blogs, tweets, FaceBook posts, and articles in the Huffington Post. Thistlethwaite tweeted this week that she has “… seen resurrection in survivors of violence & movements that seemed to have been crushed, but (resurrection) is not a given. There is descent into hell. Jesus shows us the possibilities, & the risks.”[10]
Have you seen?
The potential for a new creation.
Life overcoming death.
Love overcoming fear.
Have you heard?
This is something unexpected.
People of God, as we continue celebrating throughout the upcoming Easter season, remember this day. Take a time to think about our faith as Jesus followers. Bend over. Look in. See. Really see. Hear. Fully hear. Know that… at first… we don’t recognize the Jesus that is right in front of us. For us, sometimes the tomb just plain old looks empty, with just a few rags scattered about. Sometimes the person in front of us just looks like a stranger, that dust covered gardener. We do not see the Jesus that is standing right before us. Something needs to happen. Something unexpected. Something unexpected needs to happen for us to recognize the living Christ that is HERE. NOW.
This is the new creation God raises before us.
May we too be living words.
Like Mary, may we run off and say, “I have seen the Lord!”
May we be embodied proclamations of the Good News.
May we be an active part of the living testimony, “written in actions of love and justice.”[11]
Have you seen?
Have you heard?
~ Pastor Kris
Reflection on John 18:1-18 offered on April 1, 2018.
[1] Suchocki, Marjorie, God, Christ, Church: A Practical Guide to Process Theology, (New York: Crossroad, 1982), 31.
[2] Lane, Belden C. Solace of Fierce Landscapes Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality. Cary: Oxford University Press, USA, 2014. 32.
[3] Lane, Belden C. Solace of Fierce Landscapes Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality. Cary: Oxford University Press, USA, 2014. 32.
[4] Lane, Belden C. Solace of Fierce Landscapes Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality. Cary: Oxford University Press, USA, 2014. 32.
[5] Thurman, Howard. The Creative Encounter. Indiana: Friends United Press, 1972, 77.
[6] Ibid, 77.
[7] Lane, Belden C. Solace of Fierce Landscapes Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality. Cary: Oxford University Press, USA, 2014. 34.
[8] Suchocki, Marjorie, God, Christ, Church: A Practical Guide to Process Theology, (New York: Crossroad, 1982), 135.
[9] Coleman, Monica A. Making a Way out of No Way: A Womanist Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008. 28-29.
[10] Thistlethwaite, Susan. Twitter. March 30, 2018.
[11] Suchocki, Marjorie, God, Christ, Church: A Practical Guide to Process Theology, (New York: Crossroad, 1982), 135.