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St. George's Episcopal Church Roseburg, Oregon Easter Day (without Baptism) 16 April 2006 Go To St. George's Home Page

Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118: 1-2, 14-24
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
John 20:1-18
Collect of the Day
From the Revised Common Lectionary as Adapted for Use by the Episcopal Church
and Authorized by the 74 th General Convention of the ECUSA

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. (John 20:1-18)

Lessons from the Grave
The Rev. Dr. Bill Stroop, Rector

     Next to the University Tennessee is a strange research compound nestled on a wooded hillside, where people often relax in the sun while squirrels play in the trees overhead. The research compound is known as the Anthropological Research Facility. It’s chief scientist, Arpad Vass, sees people laying down in the Tennessee sun every day. But the people lying in the fields that Vass sees are very much dead. They are cadavers sprawled out intentionally as a way of studying the process of human decomposition. They are people who have generously given their bodies to science, and forensic science and pathology owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

     Did you ever wonder how on TV shows like CSI, the medical examiner can say when a person died? The results of Vass’ studies help make those determinations possible. Vass evaluates how bodies decompose under various conditions: shallow graves, in the trunks of cars, wrapped in plastic bags, submerged in a pond. You get the idea. Vass has been studying these bodies as they undergo “corruption” as the Bible puts it. Vass is just one of a number of people profiled in the book, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach.[1]

     We don’t like to hear about things like this. The fact is that for us, in our place in time and in the world, we have thoroughly sanitized death for our physical and emotional protection. We prefer to think of death as the moment the spirit leaves the body as it transits to the next life. We don’t want to think about the icky and gooey parts of human decomposition.

     And that is especially true about Easter. We celebrate Easter with soft bunnies, marshmallow chicks, and plastic colorful eggs. But the real Easter is all about death. It’s about life too, of course, but the fact is one can’t have the resurrection without death.

     Unlike the Gospel of Mark, who we heard from last night, the writer of the Gospel of John doesn’t tell us why Mary Magdalene went to the tomb that morning. Perhaps it was the same thing that pulls at us after someone we know passes away – particularly under tragic circumstances. But Mary’s grief was totally forgotten when she arrived and discovered the great stone rolled away. I can imagine her running back to the city, her skirt tossing around her legs and her hair becoming tangled, as she ran from the tomb to tell the others. Then, Peter and the other disciple ran with Mary back to the burial place to see for themselves what happened.

     They arrived out of breath from the run back to the garden. I imagine the two disciples trying to interrogate Mary as they ran, blurting out questions between gasps of air as they ran along. “Did you go to the right tomb?” they asked. But then when they saw the stone rolled away, a whole new set of questions came to mind.

     The first disciple looked inside. He was probably sure he would see a cadaver lying wrapped on the cold stone shelf carved into the wall. Or was he hoping for something else? Simon Peter came, and, ignoring all worries about defilement by exposure to decomposing corpse, went in. Jesus’ burial wrappings were rolled up, but Jesus was gone. Perplexed, they stood there taking in the scene. Had someone been afraid that Jesus would become a rallying point for a rebellion against Roman oppression? Had they taken his body to prevent his tomb from becoming a shrine from which insurrection could begin? He was gone. That’s all they knew. It was all too overwhelming. The two disciples just went home probably on autopilot.

     But Mary stayed and wept, so overcome with grief and confusion that she couldn’t move. Into her despair came two angels who began to pull her out of her grief. But they were not able to completely console her, because even when the resurrected Jesus spoke to her, she failed to recognize him, thinking instead that he was the gardener.

     It was then that the miracle happened. The man she thought was the gardener called her by name. Only then did she recognize him. “Rabbouni!” she exclaimed. And when she returned to the city she excitedly told the disciples, “I have seen the Lord.”

     It’s a remarkable story. So remarkable, that some people – including faithful Christians – have trouble understanding it. In his book, Resurrection: Myth or Reality? Jack Spong, the former Bishop of Newark, New Jersey, writes this about the resurrection, “ … God claimed the life of Jesus. And this life, now part of God, was available to them forever, as God.”[2] Spong believes that the image of Jesus as resurrected Lord first came to Simon Peter, one of the two disciples who walked back to town. The resurrection, Spong says, had nothing to do with empty tombs or feeling the wounds of Christ. It had nothing to do with the real, physical presence of Christ. It had to do with arriving at the understanding that Jesus made God real to human beings, and that God had assumed the life of Jesus into the Divine nature. Spong continues that the risen Christ becomes known when his disciples learn to love as Jesus loved, and when they love the ones whom Jesus loved, namely, the least of God’s children.”[3]

     I find it interesting in his explanation of the resurrection, Spong comes down to almost the same place as our gospel text puts Mary. Something extraordinary happened that caused her to see Jesus as something extra-ordinary. And in that moment, for Mary, Jesus became the incarnate God.

     Truth be told, none of us can say with any certainty at all what happened on that first Easter day. We can talk about the effects of developing a belief in Jesus as the incarnate God, and in the incredible power of God’s love. We can talk about the power it produces, and the changes it can bring about. We can talk the effects of it, but we can only guess about its factual beginning. The death and resurrection of Jesus are things beyond human understanding. It is beyond time and space and therefore beyond our ability to express in words. But, like Mary and Peter, all we can do is stand in awe of the effect of the thing called resurrection.

     The power of the resurrection however is something very tangible. It has the power to transform anyone who has been touched by the gospel story.

     The transformation is evident in what we do. When we feed the hungry, we feed Christ; when we give clothing to the naked, water to the thirsty, companionship and friendship to the despondent, we give to Christ himself. God came and dwelt in the least of our brothers and sisters. Jesus, the new incarnation, took the risks and died at the hands of a heartless human culture.

     But his resurrection shows how we can live a new life with each other in this world, and with him in the next. And resurrection starts with Baptism. Baptism describes an action involving water that causes a profound transformation in the person Baptized and his or her sponsors. St. Paul wrote with the understanding that Baptism provides a way to participate in the very death and resurrection of Jesus. Through the symbolic use of water, and in the presence of the Christian community, Baptismal candidates emerge from the water of Baptism as new creations, incorporated into the Body of Christ. And today, all of us will renew our commitment to Christ and the Church and promise to support one another along our Christian journeys as we renew our Baptismal Covenant.

     One thing is clear. Despite everything that Jesus said to prepare those closest to him to the mystery of his death and re-birth, they were initially blind to his presence. It was through the collectively remembered experience of the meals that they had shared together that the women and men who had been around Jesus began to feel his living presence among them and within them. It is the same with us today.

     On this Easter morning we come together to celebrate the reality of new life from death. To be sure there is a lot that is gross about this world of ours. The promise of the resurrection is that life will not always be this way. A cure for death has been found, which we have learned from our shared experience of a former corpse. Thank God to those who have donated their bodies to science to benefit humankind. Thank God for Jesus Christ who donated his body to death, only to take it back again for the benefit of all.

     Sharing the Eucharistic celebration with one another is a time when we as a community can feel the presence of the incarnate God still with us even though we killed him and buried him once. We gather together and use ordinary water, oil, bread, and wine to create something extra-ordinary: a community united spiritually through him, and with him, and in him; a community that sees the love of God to be so powerful that even death cannot contain it. We are empowered by that love, a love that knows no boundaries of time or space. A love that will reach toward us, and sustain us especially when we least expect it, when we experience those moments of the cross; times when we endure the betrayal of a friend, the loss of loved ones, physical agony, fear, loneliness, and hopelessness.

     God is with us in those dark moments, when we least expect it. That is the message of Easter: God comes to us when we least expect it. But God comes. And for that I say, thanks be to God!

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Acts 10:34-43

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.”

Psalm 118: 1-2, 14-24

1 O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
his steadfast love endures forever!

2 Let Israel say,
“His steadfast love endures forever.”

14 The LORD is my strength and my might;
he has become my salvation.

15 There are glad songs of victory in the tents of the righteous:
“The right hand of the LORD does valiantly;

16 the right hand of the LORD is exalted;
the right hand of the LORD does valiantly.”

17 I shall not die, but I shall live,
and recount the deeds of the LORD.

18 The LORD has punished me severely,
but he did not give me over to death.

19 Open to me the gates of righteousness,
that I may enter through them
and give thanks to the LORD.

20 This is the gate of the LORD;
the righteous shall enter through it.

21 I thank you that you have answered me
and have become my salvation.

22 The stone that the builders rejected
has become the chief cornerstone.

23 This is the LORD’s doing;
it is marvelous in our eyes.

24 This is the day that the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you--unless you have come to believe in vain. For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them--though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.

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.

Collect of the Day

Almighty God, who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life: Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of the Lord’s resurrection, may be raised from the death of sin by your life-giving Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

[1] Mary Roach. The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2003. Cited in Timothy F. Merrill. “The Secret Life of a Stiff.” Homiletics 18(2): 52-56, 2006.
[2] Spong, 257.
[3] Spong, 256.

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Copyright © 2006, William G. Stroop - All Rights Reserved.
14 April 2006

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