Easter Sermon
Dierkes Grave, Woodlawn Cemetery, Edwardsville, photo jch.
Gospel of Mark 16:9-15
Now after he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. –Mark 16:9
On the first Easter, I imagine the people who loved Jesus woke with a start. They could barely believe what had happened during the past week. Some of them stumbled out of bed and into their morning routine with a knot in their stomach, knowing that today they would have to go to the grave. There were tasks on their checklist of grief, like a body to properly prepare.
Pastors have their own perspective on what days at the grave feel like. When I was a young pastor, I frequently lamented the fact that I spent more time in funeral homes and cemeteries than I had imagined would be the case. Later, I grew fascinated with the way cemeteries reflect the faith of the people buried there.
Recently, I’ve spent time in Woodlawn Cemetery inspecting the new monument stone marking the grave of Betty Dierkes. Many of you know her story. Betty was baptized in this church shortly after her birth in 1930, and was buried at Woodlawn following her death last summer. With the placement of the monument stone, my list of duties related to Betty’s affairs is getting close to receiving its final checkmark.
Some of you remember your own checklist of grief. There was time spent in a cemetery, church, funeral home, or maybe just a gathering with family and friends. You may be emotionally separated from this event by months or years, or it may be as fresh and raw as last week. At Easter, I remember what Craig Barnes, recently retired president of Princeton Seminary, said about the people he saw from his preacher’s seat. Among them, “In the third pew … is a new widow who’s back in the church for the first time since her husband’s funeral …. Across the aisle, two-thirds of the way back, sits a well-dressed gentleman who will leave the worship service to go to the Alzheimer’s unit of a nearby nursing home to visit his wife,”[1] (mentally planning a funeral). That is just a small slice of the human dramas the pastor sees, knowing a little bit of what is happening in many different households.
I know that some of you feel that sort of heartache. It’s not enough to focus only on beautifully dressed people, as pleasant as they are, or chocolate bunnies and candy-filled eggs, as fun as those things are for the children. If we want to talk about good news as Jesus instructed, then it’s important to match it up with the grief in Jesus’ story, and our own pain and sadness. Unless you feel the bad news, the good news doesn’t make sense.
March is women’s history month, and the Presbyterian Church designates one Sunday to “celebrate the gifts of women.” Partly because of this emphasis, I recalled how all the gospels agree that women were the first to discover the empty tomb. Some scholars suggest their good news was poorly received because the testimony of women was valued less than the testimony of men. That kind of injustice was present in Jesus’ time, and is perpetuated in our time, even by Christians who should know better. If you ever are tempted by such prejudice, remember that the first to preach resurrection were women!
The gender of the speakers may have been part of the reason for the resistance, but not all of it. The good news of Easter likely was too overwhelming to believe. Those who loved Jesus most were experiencing all the emotions that come with fresh grief. Comfort was beyond words.
Why did the women go to the tomb? When Jesus’ body was removed from the cross on Friday afternoon, there had been only enough time for a quick burial before the Sabbath began at sundown. Throughout the Sabbath, the women planned their return trip to prepare the body properly. On Sunday, they rose before dawn, and left the walls of the city to travel to the area of the tombs. When they discovered the empty tomb, the women were the first of many who are invited to move beyond despair, and consider what lies beyond the checklist of grief.
Henri Nouwen was a Dutch Catholic priest, admired by many for a combination of his writing, teaching, and his ministry to adults with disabilities. Shortly before I arrived on the field of service at Westminster Presbyterian, Springfield, Nouwen had led a lecture series. He had achieved a saintlike status for many in that congregation, so I read his writing, and paid attention to mentions of his teaching.
John Buchanan, who pastored the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago for more than 25 years, once drew my focus to passages from Nouwen’s book “Our Greatest Gift.” Nouwen said, “The resurrection is God’s way of revealing to us that nothing that belongs to God will ever go to waste. What belongs to God will never get lost …. The resurrection doesn’t answer any of our common questions about life after death, such as … ‘How will it look?’. But it does reveal to us that love is stronger than death.”
Nouwen, via Buchanan, shared a conversation he had with ‘The Flying Rodleighs,” German trapeze artists he admired and befriended. The leader, the so-called “flyer,” said, “I must have complete trust in my catcher. The public might think I’m the star – but the real star is Joe, my catcher.” How so? “The secret is that the flyer does nothing, and the catcher does everything.” You do nothing? “The worst thing the flyer can do is try to catch the catcher … the flyer must trust, with outstretched arms, that the catcher will be there for him.”[2]
One day, it will be our turn. The checklist of grief will be formed and managed by others. Our only job will be the flying, the falling, and the trusting, waiting for the Catcher who holds us arm in arm, and carries us home.
NOTES
[1] Craig M. Barnes, “Faith Matters: Listening all the way into the pulpit,” http://christiancentury.org/article/faith-matters/listening-all-way-pulpit, 16 March 2018, accessed 12 April 2019.
[2] Henri Nouwen, as told by John M. Buchanan, sermon to the Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, 23 Apr. 2000.
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