Easter Sunday 2014

                                                           Easter Sunday Year A 2014

Acts 10:34-43; Ps118; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-18

Father Adam Trambley

April 20, 2014 St.John’s Sharon

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!  The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Today we gather to celebrate the great victory of our Lord Jesus Christ over death and the grave.  We have a flourish of flowers, brass and timpani augmenting our organ, and as much light, beauty, joy, music and color as we can muster.  Yet even with all of this, we can barely begin to describe the extent of what Jesus has done for us.  The concept of the Son of God becoming flesh and dwelling among us; emptying himself and becoming obedient unto death; descending to the depths of hell to destroy death forever; then rising from the dead, appearing to his disciples and going to sit at God’s right hand where he has prepared a place for us in his heavenly kingdom; all of this is a bit more than we can easily wrap our minds around.  To be free from fear and sin and death and to be reconciled to God as his children is huge!  The resurrection does nothing less than changes our entire lives.  Too often, though, instead of struggling to live out the amazing implications of Easter, we seek to shrink God’s blessings to what we can handle.

Our Easter gospel gives us a great example of how we sometimes respond to God’s miraculous work.  Where God is opening up untold blessings, we see Mary Magdalene trying to make everything fit her preconceptions.  Where God wants to give her an amazing gift, she tries to finish the tasks she had set for herself earlier.

Early in the morning, Mary comes to the tomb and sees the stone rolled away.  Now we can understand that her first thought might not have been, “Jesus is raised from the dead.”  Even if she heard him talk about it at some point, that thought might still have been a leap.  But she is looking to see the body of Jesus, and she is not letting go until she finds it.  She runs to tell Peter and the beloved disciple that they took Jesus’ body away.  Maybe they know something or can find something out.  But they run to the tomb and see the burial clothes.  They believe that something has happened.  What exactly, they don’t know, but they’re pretty sure that the local cemetery association grounds crew isn’t responsible.  Then Peter and the other disciple return home, leaving Mary by herself. 

Now Mary looks into the tomb, still seeking the body.  Instead of seeing burial cloths in two piles, she sees two angels.  At this point, we might expect her to realize that whatever is happening is bigger than she thought, but she doesn’t.  She is simply crying that the body is gone.  The angels ask her why she is crying.  They don’t tell her not to be afraid – apparently she isn’t.  She’s just upset.  Two heavenly messengers ask her what’s wrong, and all she can talk about is not knowing where they put the body.

Once she realizes that the angels don’t have an answer she turns around and sees somebody.  Standing before her is the answer to of her questions.  On the surface, if she wants to see what has happened to the body of Jesus, there it is.  On a deeper level, her initial desire to come to the tomb to connect with Jesus is also now fulfilled.  But she isn’t looking for either of those answers to come in that way.  She is just trying to figure out who moved the body.  So she decides the man in front of her might be responsible.  She thinks he is the gardener, and asks him about the body. 

Then, finally, Jesus breaks through.  He calls her by name: “Mary.”  Then, just as the sheep of the Good Shepherd know his voice and recognize it, Mary Magdalene recognizes Jesus as he calls her by name.  He connects with her, tells her that he is going to their heavenly Father, and commissions her to tell the disciples, which she does.   She proclaims, “I have seen the Lord.”

Like Mary Magdalene, we sometimes refuse to pay attention when God is sending us his blessings.  God wants lives of love, joy and peace for us.  Jesus wants to enter into a profound personal relationship with us.  The Holy Spirit wants to fill with his gifts for mission and ministry so that we can accept God’s plan and purpose for our lives and build up the whole Body of Christ.  Jesus’ resurrection is meant to come to us and put our lives back on the right path so that we live as citizens of the Kingdom of God.

But sometimes we just poke around wondering where they put the bodies.

To stop being distracted by our own plans and preconceptions, we might ask ourselves three questions:

First, where in my life is something unexpected happening that might be from God?

Second, who might be acting as an angel with a message from God for me?

Third, where might Jesus be calling my name?

First, where in my life is something unexpected happening that might be from God?  Mary didn’t find the body, and assumed someone took it.  Too often when things happen in our lives that aren’t according to our plans, we assume something is wrong.  We decide to blame somebody, even if it is an unknown “they”, for moving the body, for delaying our schedule, for making us do something differently, or for making us experience some inconvenience, unpleasantness, or even pain.  We decide that if it isn’t our way, it must be the wrong way. 

But maybe God has another plan.  Maybe Jesus wants to meet us on the road that we weren’t planning to take.  Maybe we can only open ourselves up to God’s saving life when we can no longer fix everything for ourselves according to our own master plan.  Maybe the only way we will ever have our eyes open enough to see the major changes for the better God is trying to make in our lives is if we are forced to stop seeing things the way they have always been.  Maybe we will never accept the power of the resurrection until we have had a real encounter with death.

Second, we ask who might be acting as an angel with a message from God for me?  For Mary, it was a couple of guys in white hanging out in the tomb.  Often for us, two types of people have messages for us that we need to hear.  The first are people who tell us what we don’t want to hear.  I’m not talking about mean people or people who say untrue, nasty things.  But we all have people in our lives who may not have the best filters, or don’t worry about social conventions, or have no need to be nice, and just say what they think, speaking the truth from their own perspective as best they can.  Sometimes these folks say things we need to hear, usually when we don’t want to hear it.  The other type of people who may be sent from God are the random people we encounter who saying something odd that sticks with us.  The person we’ve never seen before in the grocery line, the person who comes into the office once, or the person we’re thrown together with in an elevator or other unexpected situation.  When these folks speak to us, instead of trying to get them to fit our own boxes, we can actually listen for anything that might be a life-changing message.  Now don’t get me wrong – every homeless dude shouting through your open window is not the Archangel Gabriel.  But when God is planning to do something totally unexpected in our lives, the announcement is going to sound, well, unexpected.

Then finally, and perhaps most importantly, we need to ask where Jesus is calling my name?  We may think that we wouldn’t have any trouble hearing Jesus, especially if he is calling us.  But if we keep babbling about bodies, we may not let him get a word in edgewise.  If every situation brings to mind an long list of ways the Almighty can exhaustively correct conditions to return them to the way we want them, we won’t be listening.  If we are always spewing out our plans, our ideas, our needs, our wants, our fears, our resentments, and any other stray thought that crosses our mind, we will have a hard time letting Jesus stop before us, look lovingly into our eyes and call our name.  If we are churning up our own insides so we don’t have to stop and listen to Jesus, we are going to have an even harder time hearing him when he calls.

On the other hand, if we just stop every once in a while, and listen, we might hear him.  We might recognize him at work in events that previously befuddled us.  We might notice a quiet spot in the center of our lives where he invites us to sit down while he calms the storms around us.  We might notice his voice in the beauty of nature, in a piece of music we hear playing, or even, amazingly enough, in the words of scripture or our Prayer Book.  We are also bound to hear Jesus calling us by name when we finally lay down because all seems lost to us, when we have put aside all other hope, and when we give ourselves over quietly to the various graves of our lives.  In those moments, Jesus Christ, who destroyed death once and for all, will call us forth from the grave and into his eternal life.  And his eternal life starts right now.  We are given his power when he calls us to follow him through all our lives’ dark and dead places right into the joyful light of his resurrection.

The dead are coming out of the tombs, the light of Christ is shining into every dark place, and nothing is going to be the same again.  Keep an eye out for those unexpected events where God may be at work, in the unexpected people he is sending, and in the profound moments he is calling us by name.  And then rejoice, for Christ has broken the chains of death and brought us into his eternal life.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!  The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Easter Vigil 2014

                                                                EasterVigil Year A 2014

Father Adam Trambley

April 20, 2014 St.John’s Sharon

We gather tonight

Because liturgically living together

Into the great mystery of faith

            Lets us experience something significant

            That we would otherwise see slip

                        Through the spaces of our

                        Struggling human understanding.

An Easter sermon itself is really not enough.

            The intellectual engagement

                        of the doctrine of the resurrection

                        amid the great theological questions of salvation

            takes us only so far.

Neither is the Easter morning parade adequate. 

            Bunnies and chicks and eggs and chocolate,

                        As well as stately ladies in dashing hats,

            All speak of spring’s steady turning aside

                        Cold winter’s death

            And even of the seed that falls in the ground and bears much fruit.

But human reason cannot wrap itself around

            sin’s absurd rejection of its loving creator

and the spring equinox’s fecundity has no power

            over the God-forsaken grave

                        held fast by the fingers

of hell’s harsh hand.  

So this night,

            We gather to seek something else.

We seek to experience personally

            Some sense

                        Of the startling reality

                        That shook sleepy women awake

            And made them run to tell their brothers.

We seek to experience personally

            Just a bit

                        Of the disciples’ joyful befuddlement

                        As the tomb lay empty

                                    And angels announced

That Jesus was not there.

We seek to experience personally

            A profound encounter

                        With our Risen Lord Jesus Christ

                        Who came to his disciples on the road

                        And in the upper room

                        And in Galilee,

            So that we can be freed from our fears

                        And follow where he will lead.

We gather this night

            Hoping,

            Praying,

            Daring almost to believe

                        That if we acknowledge our own tombs;

                        If we allow ourselves to approach

                                    The stone rolled over the entrances

Of our hearts and lives,

That we will see Jesus harrow our hells

                        And raise us up

To life eternal with him.

We did not start this journey this night,

            But all week have walked

            The way of dying with Christ

                        So that we might also live with him.

Really, nothing less than our entire lives

            Are about this work,

But during Holy Week

            We cycle through it again,

            Allowing

                        The Hosannas to linger on our lips,

                        The water to wash over our ankles,

                        The “Crucify Him”s to catch in our throat

                                                One more time

In preparation

For the light of Christ

                                    To blaze brilliantly forth from the tomb

                        For the waters of baptism

                                    To sweep away our sins

                        For the Alleluias

                                    To announce the joy of the resurrection

                                                Renewing the whole world.

Many of us have lived at least part

            Of this liturgical life this week.

Let’s review.

On Palm Sunday we waved our branches

            And enthroned Jesus as King,

            Eager for Jesus to be in charge,

                        But on our terms.

Our shouts of Hosanna

            Promoted the short-term,

                        Quick fix

                        Where we win,

            Since we’re on Jesus’ side, of course.

But Caiaphas cut short the coronation,

            And he encouraged the crowd’s

                        “Crucify him”

We shouted along,

            Uncomfortable and unwilling

            while all too aware

            that our deeds often agreed

                        with the cruel curse on our lips.

Our hearts want to love,

            But the people’s part in the passion play exposes

            The ways we really do push towards death,

                        Both Jesus’ and our own.

Yet by lifting up those ill-begotten urges,

            Jesus can remove them when he dies a bit later--

When we are left

Listening and lingering before the cross

                        Standing empty, alone, and waiting.

Maundy Thursday makes meaningful to us

            Our inability to be saved by ourselves.

Our feet are washed.

            A religious leader pouring warm water

                        Over our heels and between our toes.

            Rubbing away dirt, lint

                        And whatever has found its way between our piggies.

A not unpleasant sensation,

            But personal.

            Reminding us we can’t come to church

                        And keep a comfortable distance

            But have to really live with each other,

                        Sharing our dirty feet,

                        Showing our oddly-sized toes

                        And not expecting help with our hands or head

                                    Just because we want the full spa treatment.

Then we receive the Body and Blood of Christ,

            And become incorporated into it,

Accepting a sacrifice about to be made for us

            For the forgiveness of our sins.

Somehow staying secure on a deadly Passover

            When all the firstborn sons are slain

                        Of both the Egyptians

                        And of God

            So that we might be brought through the Red Sea waters

To the newness of life.

To munch on our Maundy Thursday meal,

            Mindful of the massacre around us,

            And our own utter unworthiness

                        To feed on these gifts of God with thanksgiving.

So much cries to stop it,

            Yet we can only

Carry out Christ’s command

                        To love one another as he has loved us,

                        Even to the end.

Then Good Friday opens and exposes us.

The hunger in our stomachs echoes

            The aches we hear in the solemn collects

            Detailing the long litany

            Of places our broken world longs

                        To be made whole.

The emptiness and absurdity of the crucifixion

            Calls forth the full outpouring of our hearts

            For healing in all the exposed wounds

                        Of a hurting humanity.

Then we have to hold that hurt,

            As the cross is held out to us,

            The instrument of Jesus death

            The stark, silent answer

                        To whatever prayers we utter.

But we are drawn, nonetheless

            To this artifact of such a wondrous love,

            Even while we are still reluctant

                        To surrender to a cross

                        That offers only the most difficult

                                    Of all answers.

We would rather approach a throne

            Whose seat of power was power,

But we come to a cross

            That is an absurdity and a stumbling-block,

            Whose power is weakness.

So, at the end of this week,

            Tonight we gather.

Tonight we gather,

stripped bare of all that makes sense

            to the world’s standards.

Tonight we gather,

            Draped in the darkness and numbness

                        Of the cold tomb around us.

Tonight we gather

            Eager for something

            Beyond what we can expect or understand.

Tonight we gather

            To keep vigil until the great victory of Easter.

That great Easter victory has come for us this night,

            Alleluias

            Illuminating us with the brilliant radiance

                        Of the Son of God     

            Focused through the dazzling prism

                        Of this Great Vigil

            So we can see

                        The entire awe-inspiring spectrum of salvation

                        Won through the resurrection of Jesus Christ!

Starting in darkness,

            The sun having set

            And the savior stuck in a tomb,

A flickering flame kindled,

The fire is passed

            From person to person

            Until the room is awash with light

            And the deacon intones the Exultet.

We hear:

Christ’s light delivers us from sin’s dark gloom.

Christ’s strength shattered every bond and chain

            Death and hell shackled him with,

            And he will break all our shackles, too

Christ comes with cash,

            Paying off the enemy who holds us hostage

            Until our debts are paid.

Christ takes the wickedness walloping us

            And womps it with his righteous wrath

            Until it flies far from us.

Christ comes compassionately into our hearts

            And carefully cleans away

            All the evils we have seen and done

            Resetting our souls to stay secure

                        In innocence, joy, peace and concord.

Christ creates the reconciling bridge

            Crossing the chasm of sin

            And enabling clear communication

            And constant communion

            Between the creatures of God on earth

                        And their heavenly Father.

Christ the light,

            burning as a candle for us to see and understand

            but also burning forever in the life of all creation.

 Then the lessons lead us

            To other understandings

            Of the unexpected and unbounded

                        Power of God.

Chaos.  Darkness.  Nothingness.

            Then God speaks the Word

                        And light, land, sea,

                        Fish, cattle, creepy-crawly things,

                        Men and women

                                    In the image and likeness of God

            All come to be created

                        Through Christ the eternal Word.

Later, rains cover the earth.

            Noah is held fast in the ark

                        As winds and waves

                        Send his mobile menagerie

                                    Soaring high up on crests and

                                    Diving down deep in troughs

                                    Thousands of years

before the discovery of Dramamine,

            Until the ark grounds itself on the rock of Christ

                        And the waters recede

                        And that elephant-sized door is finally opened.

            The light of Christ arcs across the sky

                        In the covenant of the rainbow.

 Then tonight we see the Red Sea through the eyes of children.

            The waters ahead of us.

            Pharaoh’s army behind us.

            Death surrounding us.

            Until God once again parts the waters,

                        And we walk through

                        this valley of the shadow of death

            Without even getting our shoes muddy. 

            A new life won from certain death

                        And a prefiguring of Jesus’ resurrection.

Then, after baptizing our brother

            Into this amazing heritage

            Of life and light,

The moment of our great Alleluia finally arrives.

We walk with the women to the tomb,

            Looking for Jesus.

Amid earthquakes and stunned soldiers,

we see angels telling us

                        Do not be afraid. 

                        He is not here.

                        Come see where he lay.

                        Then go quickly and tell his disciples

Where they can see him.

On the road home,

            We see Jesus

            Alive!

            We want to worship,

            But he has other ideas.

            “Go and tell my brothers

                        Where they can see me”.

Go tell your brothers and sisters

            Where they can see Jesus.

That’s what it’s all about.

Everything else this entire week

            Is our preparation

            To go and tell others

                        Where they can find Jesus.

Because they don’t know.

Trapped in fear,

            They are too frantic to find him.

Trapped in pain,

            They are too preoccupied to seek him.

Trapped in despair and darkness and death,

            They have barred the doors

                        And believe no one can

                        Cross the threshold.

But we know better.

We know

            That the Word made flesh

            Is familiar with all our infirmities

            And that the one who made us

                        In his own image

            Is always available to all

                        Incorporated into his own body.

We know

            That the Morning Star that knows no setting,

            The Light of the World,

            Penetrates even the deepest darkness

                        Of human despair, grief, sin or suffering

            With the first light of creation

                        And the light of early dawn

                                    On the first day of the week.

We know

            That even death and the grave

            Is not unknown

            To the Son of God

            Who suffered on a cross

                        Descended to the depths of hell

            And brings forth everyone

                        Willing to leave their grave clothes behind.

We know that our Risen Lord Jesus Christ

            Is willing and able to go

            To all these places.

But our brothers and sisters don’t know.

So we need to take

            What we have experienced this night,

            And share it.

We need find our friends

            Who believe they can’t or won’t

                        See any trace of Christ or his love,

            And we need to dive after them

into the depths of their darkness

            And show them where they can see Jesus.

That’s the point of the liturgy this night.

That’s the message of the angel this night.

That’s the commission of Jesus this night.

We’ve experienced the resurrection this week.

            Now we run to share it with others.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Go and tell your brothers and sisters

            Where they can see Jesus.