Church of the Messiah (Episcopal), Gwynedd, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

                                                         

 Message from the Rector

EASTER 2008
Matthew 28:1-10

Slowly … Methodically … Deliberately … One foot in front of the other. No need to hurry. After all: Bodies in tombs aren’t going anywhere … .  He was dead. They had been there. Just three days ago … had it been only three days? … Yes: that awful Friday, then the Sabbath, and now Sunday morning … just three days ago, they had seen it for themselves …

At Golgotha. That miserable place. On that hill outside the city walls … All the rest of them - all the men! All of them! Even Peter and James and John! – all of them had fled in terror. Only the women were there at the end … Only the women had stayed to see Jesus’ sagging body, limp in death, taken down from the cross … just another Jewish criminal, handled roughly by Pilate’s soldiers …

Only the women had seen his mother step forward … her tears and pained expression betraying the fact that she is the mother of this man. The soldiers, men who had faced or contemplated their own deaths, in that quiet moment, must have envisioned their own mothers’ pain upon someday receiving their battered and bloody bodies. And so quietly, compassionately, they motioned for Mary to sit … And lay Jesus’ cold body in his mother’s arms.

Only the women saw Mary gently cradle his head against her breast with one hand, the other holding his body against her lap. With a mother’s instinct, she began to rock her child – slowly, deliberately, lovingly. Everyone - the entire world it seemed – was silent, watching as her fingers smoothed his matted hair, gently closed his staring eyes, softly touched his blue-tinged lips.

Silence …

No tears came; for the wailing sobs of the past three hours had left all of them spent and dry. No tears. No words. Only a soft, barely audible, intimate humming of a simple lullaby – unsung for years … The lullaby that welcomed this first-born child into the world, now bid him good-bye as he entered the grave.

After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.

Accept it. He was dead. They had been there; witnessed the horror themselves … Just three days ago … So, on this Sunday morning, there was no need for urgency.

Slowly … Methodically … Deliberately … One foot in front of the other. No reason to hurry. After all, the Marys were on their way to fulfill an exceedingly sorrowful obligation; to attend to the body of their friend and the one whom they had believed to be the Messiah. Oh, remember his triumphant entry into the city? Just a week ago, the whole city had turned out to escort him … waving palms, shouting Hosanna! … And then, just a few days later, they had turned on him, betrayed him, denied him … And crucified him.

They had seen it. The women had been there. And now, at this early hour of Sunday morning, while the world still slept, the two Marys walked slowly to see what they most dreaded … Jesus, the one they were sure had been the long-anticipated Messiah, crucified, dead and buried … their hopes and dreams and faith buried with him … No need to hurry …

But what was waiting for them as they entered that garden of death was hardly expected! … An angel! His very presence, his very reality shocking! His appearance frightening! His garments dazzling! … But there he was … Seated on a stone; the same huge boulder that on Friday had sealed the tomb, now rolled off to the side … The Marys pinched themselves, rubbed their eyes, laughed nervously, stood frozen in their tracks …

And then, the realization dawns that this is real. There, before their very eyes, was a messenger of the Lord … right … right there in front of them! … lounging on the rock, feet dangling, waiting … just waiting … for the two of them, the first citizens of God’s new Creation, the first witnesses to the new reality of the Messiah’s resurrection.

It must have been a sight; that holy encounter in the early mists of that first Easter morning. The Marys, clinging to each other … edging forward in equal parts wonder and terror …

“Don’t just stand there … come on!” says the angel. “Come! Come see the place where they laid him.” And the dazed, amazed women, on tiptoe, steadying themselves against the opening in the rock wall, peer around the corner, and stare into the cool darkness of the tomb … hoping! hoping for what? … hoping now NOT to see what they had been prepared to find, yet hardly believing anything else could be possible.

The testimony of the angel: “He has risen!” Quickly followed by angelic instruction: “Go! Go quickly, and tell …” And the Marys are off! Running! Feet flying back along the path they had come just moments before! In great fear … and in great joy! … And, in a way even they would only come to understand later, they are running for their life!!!

In the midst of that mad dash away from this terrifying messenger and the empty tomb, suddenly Jesus meets them and says – in what is surely one of the most underplayed lines in all of the Gospels – “Greetings!” … Crucified. Three days dead. Risen to new life … “Greetings

I must admit: I am amazed at their composure. Without a doubt, my response would not have been as calm and collected as these two faithful women.

But THEIR response!! How I envy their response!! For it is to be admired and imitated!! A response of faith! And belief! And trust! … Upon meeting their risen Lord, they come to him, take hold of his feet, and worship him. Without hesitating, without questioning, they take hold of those scarred, calloused, crucified, risen-from-the-dead feet … and immediately begin to worship their Lord and Savior!

Beginning in that moment … Starting with these two women … the message spread … Pilate had asked Jesus, “What is truth?” Now the whole Creation receives his answer …  “Go! Go quickly, and tell … tell the truth of Easter! Tell the truth of the risen Christ! The truth a despairing, sorrowful world longs to know … ”

That amazing, unimaginable truth: WE TOO, like those two Marys, have journeyed far and waited anxiously to know that truth: Jesus. The Christ. Risen from the dead. Standing in glory. And greeting each of us as a friend … WE TOO, evidenced by our presence here this morning, have come to take our place at Our Lord’s feet … to join with these faithful women, and the countless others throughout the centuries, who worship there.

Like those two women on that first Easter morning, clinging to the feet of Jesus, this sacrament, this blessed meal, this Holy Eucharist provides each of us an opportunity to reach out and hold the Risen Christ. This Easter meal – and every Eucharist – is for each of us another resurrection reunion with our Risen Lord. On THIS Easter morning, WE TOO gather at the foot of the cross and, taking our place at the feet of Our Savior, worship the one who lived for – and died for – AND ROSE for us! Here, around this table, we celebrate his life and death - and NEW life. Here, we celebrate OUR PROMISED future life after our death. And here, receiving this bread and this wine, his Body and Blood, we find the strength to hold on in this life.

But we are not left on our knees. However grateful we may be, however humbled and awed we may be, we are not left kneeling at this altar. Reassuring them, Jesus speaks to the two disciples at his feet, “Do not be afraid.” And then, bending and offering each woman a helping hand, in the midst of their tears and their laughter and their relief, he gives them the same instruction as the angelic messenger: “Go! Go quickly, and tell …”

We too are sent away from this Eucharist not only back on our feet, but back on our feet with a renewed purpose: to go and tell of what we have seen … go and tell what we have experienced … go and tell the holy message, the Easter truth we have been privileged to receive – and are now entrusted to carry to others.

In the light of this new Easter day, let each of us be on our way – slowly, methodically, deliberately … And joyfully! With urgency! … one foot confidently in front of the other.

For we have seen what we longed to see.

We have held the One we longed to hold.

We have died to sin and been resurrected to new life.

 Let each of us go from this place … go and tell … tell the world:

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Keith Marsh