Plymouth Congregational Church of Fort Wayne, UCC
April 4, 2010
Easter

Scripture Lesson: John 20:1-10 

Easter Integration - The Race to Understand  

"... 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."
(John 19:3-4)

Prelude

It is good, indeed, thrilling

to share in worship on this

Easter day. 

How sweet the sound of a people,

united in song that swells and soars

with Alleluia!

The confession we share with all Christians

"Jesus Christ ... though crucified;

though he died and was buried;

though he descended to the dead;

yet ... on the third day he rose again."

(see "Apostle's Creed")

The acclamation we share:

Christ is Risen!

Christ is Risen, indeed!

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This morning I'd like to ponder the theme of

Easter integration - the race to understand.

In the beginning of the Christian movement, faith emerged

as an integration of life in a world set upon death.

It is tempting to find in the scriptures

what we often want - a quick fix, tidy resolution

to the confusion that followed the cross.

You may recall the story of the 2nd grader who was

in class with a pastor on Easter, and the question was

asked by the youngster:  "What did Jesus say when

he came out of the tomb?"  The pastor replied, "Well,

really, we don't know."  This intrigued another child,

whose hand shot up, and she said, "I bet I know."         

She proceeded to leap to her feet and shouted out:  "Ta da!"

I like that story.  But honestly, I don't think it happened that way.

For the Christian Easter faith doesn't often come that easy;

the cross is a symbol that keeps our assessments of life honest

and real.  If faith springs, flowing and free into the soul,

an inheritance of loving nurture and grace,

then it's maintenance is not easy.

What I'm suggesting is this:

The proclamation:  Christ is Risen!

didn't start with fortissimo (fff; "very, very loud");

there was gradual crescendo,

a subtle dynamic, beginning with

pianissimo (ppp; "very, very soft),

gradually building into the alleluia we shout today.

I offer this understanding of Easter to  

any who may find themselves in a pause mode,

reluctant to embrace Easter enthusiasm,

or who may be a little leery of effusive Easter claims.

There is no rush to resurrection in our gospels.

There is rather a graceful integration

of faith and life that followed the death.

What began with a whisper of God,

turned into courageous praise;

the hand that moved unseen in the silence of night,

directed the dawn,

fine tuning the triumphant song of the church.

This unfolding is evident in our morning lesson.

While still dark, no light,

Mary Magdalene ventures to the tomb

where dead Jesus was laid with expectation

of staying put.

She makes the discovery that

the stone,

designed to seal and protect the grave,

has been moved. 

Before faith, we find frenzied panic.

Mary retraces her steps and reports to two disciples,

Peter, and "the other disciple," noted as the

"one whom Jesus loved."  She is clearly alarmed.

The body is missing; the whereabouts unknown.

Peter and the other investigate.

John suggests their advancement to the tomb

is something of a race.  Curious verse: 

"The two were running together,

but the other disciple outran Peter

and reached the tomb first" (John 20:4).

This is not Bible trivia of no consequence.

this is acknowledgement -

we have different arrival times at the tomb

from which life flows.

The dawn of faith is not synchronized within our souls

such that illumination comes at 10:00 am every Sunday.

Disciples can run together, but circumstances

dictate different paces, even a parting of paths.

This does not suggest deficit within a disciple,

nor that faith is a sign of favor being granted or withheld;

it is simply an observation of what is apparent within the text.

It is still dark, remember;

the dawn breaks as grace

at different times within our lives.

There is another angle at work here -

if Peter was a player with certain rights and privileges,

designated with special status and authority in the early church,

this gospel clearly enunciates a counter narrative.

This gospel offers a different understanding.

Opinion polls may favor Peter as rock,

the preferred first among equals, but there are others

who see this rock as slow of foot,

and with a heart that was at times hard to move,

Both disciples arrive at the tomb;

both investigate; Peter enters first,

followed by "the other."

Both see the linen wrappings;

but only one, "the other," is noted

as having seen and believed.

Revelation of resurrection is then placed on pause.

Integration is postponed -

"for as yet, they did not understand the scripture."

What is it we say most every Sunday?

Wherever you are on life's journey ...

I extend this Easter an invitation -

wherever we are on life's journey, I sound this plea

seek integration of the mystery; make haste,

and race at the pace of grace

to Easter understandings.

In particular I invite us to consider three

pressing dimensions of Easter faith.

Easter is wonder and wistfulness;

(the two are hinged, tied, in tension);

Easter dawns as "fresh quality of living in the ordinary;"

Easter is a blossoming,

it springs from within,

a transforming access of power.

Let's take a moment, and work on each of these

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(1)        Easter is a day of whose wonder is tied to wistfulness.

Without the presence of wistfulness,

the impact of the wonder

is severely diminished.

For the first Christians the wistfulness

(the longing, the yearning, the pining of the human heart)

was predicated upon the horrific crime the cross.

There had been a perversion of Justice (Isaiah 53:8).

The cross was an act of terror

to subjugate and vanquish a people. 

For the first Christians, the wistfulness

was being leaderless, without aim, direction;

it was being broken-hearted, bereft of light in the world. 

Yet night ended, dawn did break, and there emerged

a wonder, an understanding that runs deep in our Jewish

heritage, back to Joseph in Genesis:

God worked with what was meant to harm,

with what was designed to silence,

and turned it to life (see Genesis 50:20).

The circumstantial will (cross)

got trumped by the ultimate will (life) of God.

We have our own wistfulness;

look into your longing, ponder what is broken,

remember who is dead, and by that I mean to include

the walking, talking dead,

and consider the wonder of life,

returned, renewed, resurrected. 

Ponder this Easter integrated life,

made possible by grace, mercy,

and most of all, love.

Yes, we have our own wistfulness,

born of disintegration:

the disintegration of love (Erich Fromm);

the disintegration of personality (Fosdict);

the disintegration of trust in them and

those we once and may still hold dear.

Look about and what do we see?

The church is scandalized,

as well it should be scandalized,

become an insulated chamber of secrets

protesting too much innocence,

in protecting priests at the expense of children,

blaming victims, crying foul at the messenger.

In the nation, we are at war without end,

at cost without measure or protest,

a most vocal quarter of angered, anxious citizens

flying flags bearing a serpent,

decrying loss of a privilege

they presume to be liberty,

at the expense of health care for the

poor, uninsured, underinsured. 

And not so far away (Michigan),

a Christian militia movement was tracked and exposed,

charged with a zany plot to the overthrow the government,

killing a law officer, then hoping to attack the funeral.

There is nothing Christian about this at all, of course.

There has always existed a "wacko" factor in our world.

Almost twenty years ago, church historian George Marsden offered

the definition:  "The fundamentalist is an evangelical who is

angry about something." 

Easter comes not to fuel our grievances,

nor to let them rest - for our good.

Let me clarify: 

I'm not intending to sound here a lament due

to powers that contribute to disintegration of the world.

It is the world, our world, broken, yearning, a wistful world;

this is the world God loves, and it is a world suited

for people who have heard a living word,

who believe in more than what we see,

whose hearts thrill, and delight,

in life integrated with love. 

This is Easter life. 

The Jesus life.

The church's love life. 

It is now and forever alleluia life,

when Easter wonder envelopes

the wistfulness of the world.

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(2)        Easter as inviting "fresh quality of living in the ordinary (J.B. Phillips).

Easter integration and our race to understand includes

beholding the beauty and wonder of God even in the ordinary.

This includes the beauty of the lily,

the unfolding of the daffodil, those things we can see,

but also those imperceptible things

to which we are no less bonded.

It was J.B. Phillips who commented:

"The Young Church lived in the

daily demonstrable conviction

that this world was continually

interpenetrated by the world of the Spirit."

The interpenetration of Spirit and flesh

is part of Easter integration. The Jesus life

results in our being wedded in love to this world;

while we are mortal, the ties that link,

though stretched and stressed by death,

will not be broken.  So states our Christian faith.

I've followed of late, just a bit,

the project in Europe known as the

Large Hadron Collider.  The LHC is a project

consisting in part of a tunnel buried on the border

between Switzerland and France.  It is a collaborative

involving over 10,000 scientists and engineers from 100 countries,

addressing fundamental questions of physics,

and what really is holding the world together.

So the tunnel tracks sub-atomic particle beams

being fired at each other, that they might collide

and spin off secrets heretofore hidden from

the theoretical eye.  The term "hadron," so I read,

refers to particles composed of quarks. 

It is within the world of quarks and hadrons

that scientists seek answers concerning time and space

and the material construct of the world.  In this

world there exists what some call a "strong force"

that seemingly does not diminish.

Easter faith suggests that there is a "strong force" at work

in the world.  Not in the flash and brilliance of the

extraordinary, but in an integrated understanding

of daily life lived in the presence of God.

Such an understanding of Easter invites us all to be mystics,

with daily demonstrations of grace and mercy holding the whole

of our lives together.

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(3)       Easter as a transforming access of power.

A final thought.  Let us reckon with Easter as a surge

of power for those who had fallen in love with Jesus,

for those who first believed and confessed Christ is risen.

Easter, resurrection was an occurrence of what one Anglican called

"seismic change" in the followers of Jesus (N.T. Wright).

Let us be careful here. 

The first disciples just didn't wish Jesus back to life;

nor was it an instance of remarkable willpower,

a power of positive thinking.

There was encounter, "an invasion from beyond" (Fosdick).

What inspired the church was neither trauma nor grief,

but peace and joy from an integration, an assimilation

of the Risen Christ. 

This much is indisputable about Easter:

there was God-given vigor in the early church

focused upon the Jesus life.

And I hope, I pray, I plead, that we might partake

as once disciples of old partook of that life and

experience, that vigor, for the salvation of our souls,

for good to flourish and redeem the world.  I hope that

surge might come and enliven us with fresh

discoveries of peace and joy!

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Conclusion

Well, Easter always inspires song does it not?

In my home I'm blessed with song, music.  The current

number getting play is an old Neil Young song: 

It's gonna' take a lotta' love

to change the way things are. 

It's gonna' take a lotta' love,

to make things work out right.

It's gonna' take a lotta' love,

or we won't get far.

Easter is God's lotta' love.  Christ rose!

Sharing the lotta' love he wills to impart,

may we run this race with grace

and joy and peace.  For we are bound for glory,

and the beauty and wonder of the alleluias,

the delight of all saints, forever.

Amen.