April 16, 2006
Easter!

Practicing Resurrection

by Julianne Stokstad

I have always imagined that first Easter morning to be rather like this morning---gray with fog hiding the nearby hills, no bright warm morning light, no blue sky, only shadowy and mysterious shapes seen in the distance. It would have been very quiet, so early that Sunday morning. His disciples, friends and family had watched his death with horror and now in their shock and grief, they have mostly gone into hiding. Only the women were out. They knew what to do with the cold chill of death. They came with spices to anoint his dead body and worried about how they could move the huge stone the Roman soldiers had placed in front of his burial cave. But the stone was rolled away and they saw an angel who told them, he was not there, he has been raised.

The gospel of Mark ends starkly mid-sentence with the fear-filled women fleeing in amazement and silence. How very great a contrast from that to chocolate Easter eggs, the flower covered cross and joyful Hallelujahs of this morning's Easter service!

What happened? Something must have happened to change their silent terror into new life and energy that was enough to start the early Christian church.

It was the Risen Christ.

The women, in fact, all the disciples and anyone who had spent any time with Jesus knew about resurrection. He told them about it often enough. It is recounted in every gospel. In fact he used the very words the angel spoke to them earlier in Mark. The Essenes and Pharisees, Jewish sects that were active at that time, had teachings about resurrection. It was hot stuff in the turbulent times Jesus lived in. Yet, not one of them thought about it after he died. Resurrection completely slipped past them, which perhaps isn't surprising. It isn't what we observe of how the world works.

Mark and all the gospel writers believed in the resurrection of Jesus, yet his gospel contains no resurrection appearance. Mark's resurrection story is by far the leanest, giving the fewest details. Scholars have long debated its awkward and incomplete ending; in the original Greek it really ends mid-sentence. Most think the last bit of the papyrus scroll was lost. The longer version is considered to be put in by later scribes.

The angel told them to go back to Galilee, to go back to their ordinary lives where they will see him. Go back home and do what you were doing before. They will go back home, but they are not the same because they had known and loved Jesus.

Clearly the original witnesses didn't know what to do with the resurrection. Resurrection is said by many to be the cornerstone of our faith. Can you be a Christian if you aren't sure what happened? Can you be a Christian if you don't believe in resurrection? I think too much time is spent by modern folk worrying about whether body resurrection happened or not, that is not the point. What matters is what happened to those who were left. After all, who is the resurrection for? What does it matter if it happened two thousand years ago in Jerusalem, if it has no impact on your own life? Now, like then, it is a challenge to recognize it.

You tell me stories from your life and I'll tell you ones from mine. I have something big to tell you! I HAVE seen the Risen Christ! Looking with eyes of compassion and hope, I have seen resurrection many times in my life. Some of the most powerful resurrection happens to the least likely people in the least likely ways. It's always surprising, usually not recognized and doesn't feel very good when it is happening to you.

Death is not separate from life. They are mysteriously and intricately inter-twined and connected. Within the living, one can find people walking around with dead parts inside of them. There are too many hopeless, despairing people, living under oppression, like those in Palestine Monica Styron writes us about. There are people living in seriously broken or abusive relationships. There are those among us deathly afraid of ill health, for they have no health insurance. There are those locked in self-inflicted prisons of behaviors that bring death to their souls. There are people who reject the oppressive dogma of crusty religion and yet can't quite find meaning without something greater than them. And there is forgiveness, reconciliation, and new life within life.

Resurrection has always raised big questions. How do we handle our doubts? If you look at the cover of your worship bulletin today, you will see the big question mark.

Doubts are not something to hide, they are signs of our deep concern and thoughtfulness. They are a holy stirring. Rainer Maria Rilke wrote: "Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves...Live the questions now. Perhaps you will gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answers."

In stories we tell each other or in the natural world are the events that point to resurrection. There was a man in a former congregation. He was a brilliant entrepreneur, one of the first leaders in the semi-conductor industry, an early millionaire, when that was a lot of money. He was active in the church; led a big addition to the church building, sang in the choir. He had a loving wife and a son and a daughter. But the dragon of alcoholism got him by the throat and it broke up his family, led him down a slippery slope to poverty, anger, blame and a sad and lonely life. He refused all help yet, on his deathbed, I witnessed reconciliation and healing between him and his son, so beautiful and profound you wouldn't believe it if you saw it in a movie. His son told him how much he loved him and forgave him. God's grace was in that hospital room so that he could not speak, but only look at his son, clearly hearing and receiving the words. In that room with the smell of death in the air, in that forgiveness, I saw resurrection.

A student of mine years ago came to me after her summer camping adventure in Alaska. She told me about the wonderful sights she had seen, massive rivers running with salmon, bears and eagles, forests and mountains. But something happened to her there and she didn't know what to make of it. Coming up to a saddle point, with higher peaks on either side of her, she had an incredible view and suddenly she became a part of it. It was like there was no separation between her and all she saw. As she told me about this, I could see the power of the experience in her. I told her it was precious and not to ever forget it. Some day she would know what it meant.

Resurrection is a scary thing especially when it is happening to you. It doesn't feel very comfortable and it is possible to explain it away by other means. We are uncertain because the very ground of our life is changing. I know this because my life changed when I saw the Risen Christ and found myself on a path to ministry.

Eugene Peterson writes that resurrection is the primary metaphor for our spiritual life. It is not a one-time thing, but an approach to our living every day with an awareness of God's presence in our lives. Every day each of us makes choices to live a resurrection life or to keep on with our former path. Our challenge is to learn how to practice resurrection in our daily lives. I mean practicing in the sense one practices a profession, like medicine or law, we need help in practicing resurrection. It is an approach to the art of living.

What we need is help in spiritual formation. Like the women in Mark's gospel, it is our challenge to find our voice, to speak of our hope and faith to those who so need to hear it. It is our challenge to find ways to connect the teachings of Jesus to hurting lives, not in oppressive dogmatic ways, but in language that is not heavy with dusty clichés or guilt-laden rules. We can help each other to practice resurrection in many ways.

Traditionally this church has spent much of its energy doing good works in the world, you might say using the word resurrection as a verb.

• When we feed the hungry, as we do with our monthly Sunday shelter feeding, our monthly food collection, our up-coming involvement in the CROP walk and our work with EDFK, we are life-givers. We are practicing resurrection.
• When we do little acts of kindness, we bring tenderness to the hearts of those who need to know of God's good will in the world.
• When we listen to others, to the earth, to God's inner voice in prayer, we are listening to the quiet voice of resurrection. When we forgive someone, or ourselves, resurrection is happening.
• When we welcome strangers as part of our family, especially those who bring ideas we don't necessarily agree with, we might well be welcoming angels and bringing resurrection into lives searching for a spiritual home. New people are certainly bringing resurrection to into our church.
• When we work together with others, seeking our common purposes and goals, as Marin Organizing Committee is seeking to do, as Marin Interfaith Council does, as our Interfaith Easter sunrise service did, when we contribute to the One Great Hour of Sharing offering with many other churches, this unity is a mark of resurrection.
• When we are willing to welcome changes big and small in our own lives and in the life of our community, we are participating in transformation and resurrection. And this is one I need to work on, when we play and laugh and hold our faces up into the rain, remembering the love that was present at our baptism, resurrection is happening.*

Are you beginning to see that what we do here is practice resurrection. It is the work of our church. We are Easter people called to live with hope and trust, even when we don't know how that new life can happen. New life. New creation. God's creative spirit is alive and bringing us resurrection. We celebrate this today, but it happens every day. Praise God. Hallelujah!

HAVE YOU SEEN THE RISEN CHRIST? Look around! Amen

*Thanks to Federic and Mary Ann Brussat "Resurrection as a Spiritual Practice" for significant inspiration and ideas.