March 31, 2024 | Rev. Loren McGrail
Accept the Gift and Go Practice Resurrection
Mark 16: 1-8
Rev. Loren McGrail
Holmdel Community United Church of Christ
March 31, 2024
The Holy Women at the Tomb of Christ by William-Adolphe Bouguereau
Empty tomb. Tomb full of light and an angel or two. Jesus disguised as a gardener. Jesus showing Thomas his wounds. All resurrection stories.
Did you notice that in Mark’s Gospel that the women fled in terror and amazement and told nothing to anyone. So how did the disciples know he was resurrected then? It’s in plain sight, in the words of the young man dressed in a white robe who tells them, “Don’t be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified; he has been raised and is not here.
This is, however, the place where they laid him. Now go and tell his disciples and Peter, that Jesus is going ahead of you to Galilee; you will see him there just as he told you (Mark 16:7-8).
Dear Ones, whatever the Resurrection is, it is not easily rendered in words, explained, or lived. We have only the bare facts that the life of Jesus is not contained or swallowed up by the way of the world not even by the natural world and its ways of death and corruption. In Mark we are left not with a triumphant vindication but a silent terror. The angel’s announcement neither inspires belief nor transformation. The ending, back in the Galilee pulls everyone back where the Jesus movement began. Back in the Galilee where Jesus provoked the anger of every group that had power and privilege, exposed religious lies and illusions; and where Jesus identified with the sick, the marginalized, the poor, and the oppressed.
No wonder the women were terrorized. The women who followed Jesus in the Galilee were fierce and brave. They stayed with him when he was tortured and executed. Later, they watched as he was buried in a cave. And now at the end they came with spices to anoint his body. They were faithful to the end.
In Mark there is no Easter proclamation, no arc from hopelessness to faith. Maybe we need this Easter story this year. Maybe we need some time to sit with the terror then and the terror now.
As has been said by others, the listener or reader is the ‘lost ending’ of Mark. We are the ending. Former Anglican Bishop and theologian, Rowan Williams, says that the good news here is “in Jesus crucified and in the struggling failing community, that the coming of the Human One in glory is made visible to the world…” Say what?
The Risen One is made visible in all those places in our world where there is violence and failure? Again? In Bethlehem this Easter at Christmas Lutheran Church the cross is seen coming out of the rubble of Gaza---the same rubble they laid their creche in December. Jesus’ resurrection can be found in all the places where violence continues to take lives through bombs or starvation; through economic exploitation or land theft; through denial of rights and destruction of other creatures. The Risen lives here in us working for justice and peace.
Dear Ones, how do we break through our own silence and fear in order to live lives threatened with resurrection? How do we practice resurrection? How do we sustain being-resurrected communities committed to following Jesus in the Way of the Cross? How does Holmdel Community UCC live more deeply into this calling?
The women are terrified of all that will happen when they return to the work of discipleship, but they are also amazed and stunned by the reality of the resurrection too, the power of God over all other powers in their lives. He was not there. The tomb was full of holy light. Who are they to be light bearers? Who are we?
Dear Ones, do you hear this as an invitation or threat, or both? Jesus, crucified and raised, is still powerfully present among us and waits for our response. Jesus challenges us into a discipleship that calls us to question everything.
As death of all kinds breathes down our own necks this year, let’s take time to appreciate a resurrection story that meets us just where we are. I am aware that not all of you believe in a conquered grave or a risen Messiah. You identify more with being a follower. Whether or not you do doesn’t matter. The Risen Christ, the one you have been struggling to follow, promises to meet you in all the spaces in your life where you might feel entombed, in all the places that cause fear. And not only this, but Jesus also goes ahead to meet us, to join us once again in spirit if not in the flesh.
Dear Ones, we are all called to practice resurrection by refusing to comply with those things that steal our soul or rob other people of theirs. Listen to this last verse from the poet Wendell Berry in his poem Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front for inspiration:
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
The ongoing journey of radical discipleship pulls us toward the kin-dom of God and releases us for outrageous hope, and deep and abiding joy. The shorter ending in Mark waits for us to wake up and love the world all over again, prodding us to move into the streets where Jesus waits. The world is waiting for us to put flesh on our faith, to become Christ’s body.
I would like to end with these words from Emilie Townes, a womanist theologian, poet, and dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School:
“…hope reminds us that we cannot accept the death-dealing and life-denying ways in which we have often structured our existences…
All who hope in Christ have accepted a gift that will always
challenge and always change us…
We are set free to serve and free others, with full hearts---
We can do this…”
Cross at Christmas Lutheran Church, Bethlehem, 2024