I Corinthians 1:17-21, 4:10
Mark 16:1-8
Was I the only one who was a little worried about what the men of this congregation might come up with to serve us for breakfast on April Fool’s Day? Knowing those who were “manning” the kitchen this morning, I had visions of rubber pancakes, of eggs made out of Play-Dough, and of sausages that were really cigars.
None of this happened, however, and for that we can be grateful. Everyone was on his best behavior. Thanks to B C and all his able helpers, we had a wonderful breakfast this morning and got the day off to a great start. Thanks again!
So maybe my concerns as this rare April Fools Easter Day approached reveal more about my own suspicious nature than about mischievous nature of others in this congregation.
I don’t know—maybe I got this way by spending too much time reading the Bible.
In Genesis we encounter that cunning serpent and that great practical joker, Jacob. In the Gospels we listen to Jesus using jokes to drive home his point. And when the Book of Proverbs warns: “Like a maniac who shoots deadly firebrands and arrows, so is one who deceives a neighbor and says, ‘I am only joking!’”—well, we get a sense that ancient people were tricking one another quite often and that maybe we should be on guard.
As the advice goes: “Be alert—the world needs more lerts.”
As you listened to the Bible lesson this morning, you might have thought that you were being fooled.
This Easter Day we heard from the brief, final chapter of the Gospel, the Good News according to Mark: “They were afraid.”
That’s how Mark concludes the Easter story—with women running away from the tomb, “for they were afraid.”
That’s it.
It leaves us wondering: Is this some kind of joke?
What kind of ending is this?
As we listen to Mark’s Gospel, it seems at first that the ending was the usual one—death.
Jesus of Nazareth is not alive.
He is, in the words of the Apostles’ Creed, “crucified, dead, and buried.”
Two women, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses know this. Like proper women of their time they kept their distance at the public sites of crucifixion and burial on that Friday. But they were at least present, unlike the men who betrayed, denied, scattered, and ran away.
Now look as darkness turns to early morning light on the first day of the week. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome purchase spices and go to the tomb to anoint Jesus. Their purchase tells us what they expect. They expect to find a corpse, not the One who had stated three times that after three days he would rise from the dead.
Foolishness! That’s how Paul describes the whole Christian enterprise just some fifteen to twenty years after the crucifixion and some fifteen to twenty years before the Gospel of Mark was even written. The message of the cross—the death of Jesus—is foolishness, at least to many. But in this great foolishness there is a greater wisdom at work.
Paul says that this foolishness is the power of God “for those of us who are being saved.” Now, we don’t usually talk like that here at the Congregational Church. Talk of salvation has come to mean drawing a line between those who are in and those who are out, between those who are “saved” and those who aren’t. It’s not the line that Jesus drew and it’s not the line we choose to draw in this congregation and we reject any attempts to do so.
But listen closely. Paul is not drawing a line between the “saved” and the “unsaved” either. He speaks of those of us who are “being saved.” He speaks of a process, not a result. He speaks of God’s ongoing act of bringing wholeness, fullness of life, to us and to all creation.
That wholeness—and that is what “salvation” means—comes into our lives and our world through the foolishness of the cross.
So we are able to look at and accept the harsh realities of our lives. Life doesn’t always go as we would want it to go. Friends betray, marriages fail, children get ill. We know that violence is all too real and there is enough injustice in the world to make us heartsick. We are broken people and we live in the broken places of this world.
When we recognize that we walk in the valley of deep darkness, we also see the wisdom of God in the foolishness of the cross.
Easter has an ending and it is death.
And yet when those faithful women arrive at the tomb they do not find death. They find something greater than death: the life-giving power of God. Foolishness meets wholeness.
The stone that sealed the tomb, as big as it was, is rolled to the side.
You probably sense that something more is going on here besides feats of strength. The stone rolled away is a sign of God’s power over death. Even more the stone is a sign of God’s power over the power of sin to crucify, to destroy. The stone gives silent testimony that God has done what is impossible for us to do.
And we hear again the great good news of Easter: “He has been raised. He is not here.”
This message rings true in our hearts. God is able to do what we cannot do on our own. God is able to do far more than we can ask or imagine.
Christ is alive in the world, leading us with the good news of a new power unleashed on the earth.
The risen Christ is always going ahead of us.
When we refuse to give in to evil,
When we will not give in to the cycle of violence,
When we seek to love one another,
then we discover that the risen Christ is always going ahead of us.
Always.
Some of the great theologians of the early church imagined that God played a practical joke on the devil by raising Jesus from the dead—the “Easter laugh” they called it. For many centuries the days following Easter were “days of joy and laughter.” Clergy and lay people played practical jokes on each other. Again, you can see why I was a little worried about Bryan and his band of cooks.
The crucifixion seemed to be the end of the story, but it was not.
After the crucifixion came God’s own practical joke.
But this is not really the end of the story either.
Look at those women once more.
Faithful to Jesus through his crucifixion.
Faithful to Jesus through his burial.
How do they respond to the message they receive: Go, tell?
“They went out and fled from the tomb; for terror and amazement has seized them; and they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid.”
What kind of ending is this?
Well, it’s not an ending.
In fact, I think that in order to understand these words, we need to go back to the start of Mark’s gospel, to chapter 1, verse 1: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The whole thing—Jesus’ baptism by John, the temptation in the wilderness, teaching and healing, confrontations with religious and political authorities, all the events that we have recalled in recent days: betrayal and arrest, trial and crucifixion, death and burial, and yes, resurrection—all of this is just the beginning of the good news.
The story isn’t over at Easter—and Mark’s gospel doesn’t need an inspiring ending. Resurrection is the beginning of the good news.
When, after centuries, Christians recover the basic equality between men and women that the early followers of Jesus knew and lived out, it is once again the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ.
When, after centuries, Christians recover the message of peace, the message of concern for the poor above concern for profits, the call for justice in the public square, it is once again the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ.
When, after centuries, Christians recover the biblical call to stewardship of the earth, it is once again the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ.
When, after centuries, Christians awaken to God’s unlimited love for all people—of all races, gay or lesbian or straight, rich or poor, it is once again the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ.
Foolishness! Yes. But to those of us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
No ending that we propose can contain the risen Christ, any more than the tomb with a great stone could. Always he goes ahead of us; we never know where or when we shall see him; we only know we cannot escape him.[i]
The story goes on. Each one of us here today is a part of that story.
With lives of love,
with generous lives that show mercy and kindness,
with lives that work for peace in the world,
with lives that find and offer courage in the face of adversity,
and with lives that show the lightness and joy of the fools that we are,
go from here and let the good news begin once more.
[i] Lamar Williamson, Mark, Interpretation Commentary Series.