EASTER AND THE EVERYDAY

Dr. Richard J. Henderson April 20, 2003

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Isaiah 25: 6-9
Mark 16: 1-8

Introduction

Several people suggested that I see the movie, SIGNS. It stars Mel Gibson as an Episcopal priest who has lost his wife, and subsequently his faith. After a while he and his children discover strange patterns being formed in their fields. They assume they are local pranksters and try to catch them. It turns out they are aliens who apparently have come to do them harm.

Eventually they find themselves locked in the basement - the father, his two children, and his brother, trying to fend off the aliens who are banging at the door. As a result of this traumatic experience the priest regains his faith, and at the end of the movie he is once again wearing his clerical collar.

I didn't like the movie. For me it was too artificially otherworldly; it was too much science fiction. I found the movie too weird, with little gray aliens you occasionally just caught a glimpse of. The priest's faith is restored after he fends off the aliens at his door. I don't think most of us find our faith - or renew it - in that way. For us faith is more an everyday experience. Events happen in real life that strengthen or challenge our faith. The movie didn't need the aliens.

I

Maybe that's why I like the Gospel according to Mark. Mark tells of the resurrection in the briefest account. There is no earthquake rolling away the stone from the tomb, no guards trembling in fear, no Peter and John running to the empty tomb and looking in.

In Mark the resurrected Jesus doesn't appear to the women. Mark's is the stripped down version.

Many people would say this is no way to tell the resurrection story. I mean, in the end we have the women running away in fear, and not saying anything to anybody. The only witnesses are silent!

Apparently the early church thought Mark's account was too brief. We can't leave Mark that way; somebody's got to add the rest of the story. So in the early second century people added verse 9. Others weren't satisfied with that either, so they extended it to include verses 9-20. This would portray more of the drama.

Some scholars believe that the real end to Mark was worn off, or torn off. He didn't really mean to end it that abruptly, but it was the end of the story, and therefore at the end of the scroll, so it wore off, or got torn away.

But I believe Mark wanted his gospel account just the way it is. He wanted to give us the story without any glitz, without impressive light or booming sounds or shaking ground. Just three women, a young man in white, and the facts. He is risen, go tell the disciples to go to Galilee and he will meet you there.

II

Why Galilee? Why would Galilee be important? It is the place where Jesus' ministry began. It is a common, everyday town with ordinary people. Jesus went to meet them in the everyday-ness of their lives.

In your life and mine, God doesn't come to us through earth-shaking events or with a clearly articulated voice; God speaks to us through the ordinary and extraordinary events of everyday life.

We are facing surgery and a friend tells us he will remember us in prayer. That person mentions our situation in church at prayer time, and then dozens of people are praying for us.

As we lay there in pre-op, we realize that we go into this procedure with lots of people praying for our health and recovery. If that doesn't give us a nudge from God, what will?

We read of a man - Mohammed - who sees a young soldier girl held captive by his country. She is being mistreated and it disturbs him. He risks his life to get to her army superiors to tell them where she is. Then he goes back to the hospital where he saw her, to check that she is still there. Then he draws a map of which hallway and which room she is in, so she can be found.

Only because of his information are troops able to storm the hospital and rescue the nineteen year old. Can you see God in that event? We see God not so much in the fantastic and the extra-terrestrials as in the wonderful things that happen in life everyday.

III

When Jesus says he will meet the disciples in Galilee he is moving out of the garden and into the places where people live. To me Jesus is saying to his disciples, come here to the place where we began our work, and continue the ministry we started. Come back to the work we were doing together and continue it.

Jesus was raised on the first day of the week. In Jesus time, that was the first day back to work after the Sabbath. In our culture it would be as if Jesus were raised on Monday morning, our first day back to work. Jesus meeting the disciples in Galilee indicates that he wants them to get back to their ministry, get back to the important work they had done with him.

The disciples had scattered after Jesus death. Out of fear and disillusionment they took off. They went back to their homes, back to the places where they lived before Jesus came along and took them with him, back to their old jobs. They were afraid and upset that the one they thought would change the world was crucified like a common criminal.

At his resurrection Jesus shows the disciples their trust in him was right and he calls them to come back. He meets the disciples in Galilee so they will come together again and continue the work they were doing.

IV

For us, too, Easter is not a spectacular event that we celebrate every year, but an experience that changes how we live everyday. God didn't intend to put on a great show. God didn't want to demonstrate how he could raise his son from the dead. God wanted to show us hope.

God wants every day of our lives to be affected by what happened on Easter. What Christ wanted for the disciples is what he wants for us - to get back to work, doing the will of God in our everyday lives. Easter is not so much about a one-time amazing event as it is about our living everyday.

Just as we experience God in our ordinary lives, so we show God in our acts of compassion, risk, and caring. When we dare to go against popular opinion to do the right thing, when we risk our job to stand firm on what we know is morally right, when we reach out with exceptional caring, we are living the Easter resurrection.

As we were planning the summer work trip to West Virginia we were surprised to find out that the coordinators have four and five churches sending mission trips into that area every week during the summer. Even though it has been about a year since the flooding, they still have dozen's of churches and hundreds of people wanting to come and help. These are not extraordinary people; they aren't spectacular trips; they are everyday people like you and me making a difference in someone else's life, because they are committed to Christ.

Easter is about the difference Christ makes to you and me in how we live everyday.

Conclusion

A young woman recounted to Dr. Tom Long about how her father had died over the summer. The last week of his life was very difficult because he had a stroke and lost his ability to speak. She said, "He loved to talk. But, in his last few days he couldn't speak. I never will forget, my sisters and brother and I were gathered in his hospital room on the last day of his life and we were feeling the pain of his struggle as he tried to communicate with us."

"Finally he motioned toward my brother as if to say, 'Get me a glass of water.' My brother went over to the sink and filled the glass with water and brought it to my father. But he wouldn't drink it. He motioned as if to say to my brother, 'You drink it.' So my brother took a sip. Then my father motioned, 'Give it to your sister.' He handed the glass to my sister. And then, he motioned to pass it to me. And suddenly my brother said, 'Oh, my God. He's serving communion.'"

And then they knew that neither death nor life, nor powers from on high, nor powers below, nor anything else in God's whole world could separate any of us from the love of God in Jesus Christ. So, through a simple sip of water, the promises of resurrection became real to them all.

Amen.

©Richard J. Henderson 2003