Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!
It has been observed by some, at long last, that in the New
Testament there is no description of the resurrection. Given all the detail to
much of the rest of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, it suddenly strikes some as
odd. Although, much the same can be said about the Crucifixion. On Good Friday,
the Fourth Gospel uses only four spare words, “…there they crucified him…” Luke
simply has, “…they crucified Jesus there…” In either case, that’s four more
words than the resurrection is allowed.
We see an empty tomb, some discarded linen, the sudden
appearance of men or a young man dressed in white delivering messages, from
which we move right on to a Risen Christ appearing to the likes of Mary
Magdalene, or two people walking home, or visiting the scared and hiding
disciples behind locked doors.
Curious, isn’t it, that it is only now occurring to some
that what many consider the pivotal moment of Christian Faith, his rising from
the dead, receives no attention whatsoever?
Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Equally overlooked, it seems, until Richard Rohr points it
out in his new book, The Universal Christ,
is that Paul in a letter to the Corinthians seems to imply that resurrection is
a general principal of reality, not a one-time unique occurrence, but rather is
a pattern of creation that has always been true when he writes, “If there is no
resurrection from death, Christ himself cannot have been raised!” [1
Corinthians 15: 13] Or, as Rohr understands Paul to be saying, “…the reason we
can trust Jesus’s resurrection is that we can already see resurrection
happening everywhere else.” [Rohr p170]
Paul sees resurrection as a general principal of all
reality. Modern science agrees. Nothing is the same forever. The Buddha
understood this 600-years or so before Christ when he taught, “Everything is
changing. Nothing stays the same.” And we now know, thanks to science, 98% of
the atoms in our bodies are replaced every year, and every seven years every
cell in our body is new. Even I can see that the landscape of our yard is not
that same as it was last year, let alone when we purchased it in 1995.
Caterpillars go into a chrysalis cave and emerge as butterflies. Stars become
Red Giants, Supernovas and Black Holes. Stardust becomes human beings, human
beings become dust. Suggests Rohr, “Resurrection is another word for change,
but particularly positive change – which we tend to see only in the long run.
In the short run it often just looks like death.” [Rohr 171] Thus, in our
burial liturgy we say, “Life is changed, not ended…”
Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!
And really, how can we expect any one of the four Gospels to
give a moment-by-moment description of physical forces the likes of which
remain mysterious even to modern science. And is it not more impressive that
the ancient imagination could some how give rise to things that only modern
science is beginning to understand?
General principal of creation or not, it is clear that the
women who arrived at the tomb on the third day, what we call Sunday, were not
expecting it to be open, let alone empty. By the way, we often sing of Christ’s
“three-day prison,” but from noon on Friday to dawn on Sunday is barely 42 or
43 hours, short of two days let alone three! Jesus was obviously in a hurry to
get on with things. And as depicted in the art of Eastern Christianity, he was
already off doing what he is depicted at doing best: freeing people from
whatever bondage imprisons them. In the painting and icons of the East you see
him literally dragging people out of jails, locks flying, and pulling people
out of Hell, not thrusting them into it, but literally and figuratively
abolishing any idea of hell.
Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!
We might pause for a moment to note that in Luke, and in the
other gospels, the primary witnesses to all of this are women. Luke names three
of them: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James. There were others
who remain nameless. They did not see the body and were “perplexed.” Then two
men in dazzling clothes, (not the Transfigured Jesus, and not time-travelers
from Saturday Night Fever) reminded him that he had told them that this would
happen. They run to tell the eleven, who immediately write their witness off as
“an idle tale,” – or, as another translator puts it, “They appeared in the
men’s eyes as women’s trinkets, those words did.” Women’s trinkets! Oh, my!
Yet, Peter is either curious, or takes them more seriously
than the other ten, redeems himself for his previously miserable behavior and
goes to look for himself. “…then he went home, amazed at what had happened.”
Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!
A funny thing happened to me on the way to the empty tomb. I
picked up a book I had not looked at for some years. It is a collection of
writings by the first American-born saint, Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton, a former
Episcopalian who became a Roman Catholic and founded the Sisters of Charity,
first in Baltimore, later moving their center out to Emmitsburg. The writings
were collected from her journals by Dr.Sister Ann T. Flood, who supervised my
seminary field work for two years working with abandoned and homeless teenagers
in group homes in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. She was drawn to the
poetry of Mother Seton, and somehow the spirit led me to open that book and to
see one of the very last poems she had written as she was dying at the age of
47.
If the moment of resurrection can be described, I believe
Mother Seton comes close:
The sleep and dream of life
awakening to another life
the horizon of futurity
the pure skies of heaven
dawning of eternity
Rising sun of Immortality
splendor
beauty
perfumes
angelic singing
views immense
Jesus – infinity itself
boundless light
all delight
all bliss
all GOD
all this may be tomorrow
if only from the sleep
and dreams
of life
I may
through penance
and innocence
truly awake in Jesus!
From Courage and Grace
Dr. Ann T. Flood, SC 2010
I cannot escape
reading and re-reading these words of Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton. It is as if
she already has seen, and heard and smelled and felt the next stage of our
evolution. And she sees this stage we call life as a time of sleep and dreams.
This is a woman who has witnessed the power and truth her Lord’s resurrection
in the midst of what was a difficult life that often demanded her utmost
courage and grace.
Most of all, Mother
Seton sees that what emptied that tomb, what changed Jesus to Christ, what made
all things new, is what awaits us all. One day we will all “truly awake in
Jesus!”
That is why we are
here this morning: to witness for ourselves the empty tomb. To imagine, if only
for a moment, this moment, what resurrection, positive change, does look
like, will look like, if only we take
the time to stop and join with Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of
James, Mother Seton and all the other nameless women who have witnessed first
hand what we will all experience first-hand.
We Come from Love,
we Return to love, and Love is all around. Rohr suggests elsewhere that “…fully
Implanted Love cannot help but evolve and prove victorious, and our word for
that final victory is ‘resurrection.” [Rohr 180] One day we will all “truly
awake in Jesus!” as Mother Seton sees in her vision. That day can be now for
those who want to see, hear, smell and know the reality of Love that is all
around us; of which she and those she followed and those she taught are so much
a part of:
awakening to another life
the horizon of futurity
the pure skies of heaven
dawning of eternity
Rising sun of Immortality
splendor
beauty
perfumes
angelic singing
views immense
Jesus – infinity itself
boundless light
all delight
all bliss
all GOD
Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!
And so are we! And
so are we!
Amen.
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