Acts 10:34 – 43 / Psalm 118:1 – 2, 14 – 24 / I Corinthians 15:1 – 11 / Mark 16:1 – 8
This is the homily given at St. John’s,
Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker, on Sunday, April 4, 2021.
“A SWIRL, AS EMOTIONS
MEET REALITY”
(Homily
text: Mark 16:1 – 8)
It’s a commendable thing to try to place ourselves
in the situation that the early followers of Jesus found themselves in. After
all, we live on the near side of the resurrection. We know how the story turns
out, we know how things end.
But those early disciples didn’t know. They lived
on the far side of the resurrection. They didn’t know how it was all going to
turn out. They didn’t know the end of the story, at least not right away.
That’s the situation that the women who came to the
tomb early on Easter morning found themselves in. They had come, prepared to
anoint the dead Jesus’ body with spices. As far as they could understand, Jesus
was dead. His life was over. Their love for him extended into their shared
experiences with Him in the past. They would go forward without His physical
presence among them.
Or so they thought.
When they get to the tomb, they are astonished to
find that the stone which had covered the opening to the tomb had been rolled
back. What might their first thoughts have been? Perhaps they wondered who had
done this, and where had Jesus’ body been taken, if someone had come and had
opened up the door?
Instead, they enter the tomb to see what they could
learn, only to find a young man sitting inside. They are alarmed, Mark tells
us. But the young man says to them, “Don’t be alarmed. You seek Jesus of
Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where
they laid him.”
Let’s stop right there for a moment.
First of all, let’s notice that they are willing to
take the chance to find out what they could. Was Jesus’ body still inside?
That’s the first thing they probably wanted to know. So to find out, they go
inside. (I can imagine that just being willing to go inside must’ve been a
courageous thing to do. Tombs aren’t places that most of us are willing to go
into.) They are alarmed to find a young man sitting inside (I think I would
have been, too.) But then, the young man gives them some specific information,
information that they couldn’t have expected: He tells them that they are
looking for Jesus. (Notice that the women don’t ask him where Jesus’ body is.)
Then, he identifies Jesus with the events of Good Friday, connecting Jesus to
His death by crucifixion. Next, he tells them that Jesus isn’t in the tomb any
longer, but not because someone had come to take His body away. No, Jesus has
risen from the dead.
A swirl of emotion meeting reality, a new reality,
must haven overtaken these two women. I know if I’d been there, I would have
been swept up in a swirl as emotion attempted to cope with the former reality
and this new reality.
It’s worth remembering that the persons we meet in
the pages of the Bible are made of the same stuff that you and I are. (That’s
one reason that the Bible remains authoritative in all matters of faith and of
life…the situations, the problems, the dilemmas and the choices those people we
meet in the Bible had to face can inform us about the situations, the problems,
the dilemmas and the choices you and I will have to make.)
The three women knew a reality, a given reality:
Jesus was dead. No one ever got off a Roman cross alive. And Jesus’ death had
been a public affair. There were plenty of witnesses to it. He had been buried
in a grave whose location they knew. For these three, life would never be the
same again. The Savior, that One they had pinned their hopes on to open the way
to a new, better and more promising future, was gone.
But a new reality came crashing into their notions
of what is real: It is the reality that this One they had trusted to bring into
reality a new, better and more promising future had done just exactly that. But
this Jesus had done all these things in a way they hadn’t quite expected. No
one ever got off a Roman cross alive. But one person who died on one came back
to life, declaring victory over all things that would destroy our lives and
which would separate us from God forever.
You and I today still live with a swirl of emotion,
as our emotions meet our expectations of what is real, and what is not. Aren’t
we prone to ask ourselves, “Did it really happen the way the Gospels say it
did?” And, we might add, “Rising to new
life isn’t something that happens, not really.”
It’s OK to wonder. It’s OK to ask these questions,
I believe. For without this wondering, this questioning, isn’t it just possible
that the faith we hold isn’t really our own, simply because we haven’t had to
struggle to come to that place of believing? I believe it is.
But God gave those three women what they needed to
believe. God gave the original group of disciples what they needed to believe.
God will give us what we need in order to believe that it really happened the
way the Gospels say it did.
Thanks be to God!
AMEN.
