Like a Tree that Springeth Green

Robert E. Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

April 12, 2009
Easter Sunday

The story from Mark is full of surprises.

Though they are not named in the gospels as part of the inner circle, three women (at least) are the ones who go to the tomb: Mary, the mother of James, Mary Magdalene and Salome.

We might ask: Where is Simon Peter? Where are the apostles who were with him at his last supper? Where is the beloved disciple? Have you ever noticed that there are no references to their whereabouts during or after crucifixion?

These three and other “women who had followed him from Galilee” had been disciples of Jesus, and came with him to Jerusalem.

Women were not on the sidelines but very much a part of the original band of followers. They too were eye witnesses. (Who knows how much in the Jesus material we have in the gospels came from the memories of the women.)

It would be of no use, but these three women would show their respects nevertheless. They had watched Jesus die on the cross. At least Jesus was not suffering anymore. It was finally over, this grand adventure with their Healer, Rabbi and Prophet. Those with influence, backed by tradition and swords, had put an end to their dreams. The least they could do was offer fragrance for Jesus’ scarred body.

They were concerned with practical matters. The stone? Who will roll away the stone? It would take two or three strong men to do it. (Did the male disciples know what they were doing?)

So here is the second surprise. It was not the custom to roll away the stone from the cave---not until the corpse had decayed and the remains were placed in a small casket. So it was highly unusual for anyone to anoint the body after three days. And stones do not roll by themselves.

What has happened? Did someone steal the body, adding insult to injury? (An explanation that the authorities circulated according to Luke.)

The stone is a symbol, too, of course. Stone of stumbling, immovability. When you dig a hole to plant a tree in Cedar Park and you hit a rock, you just plant the tree somewhere else. No more unrealistic hopes, please. It is time to mourn, adjust, and come to grips with the way the world really is. any good and promising leaders had died. As we sometimes say: “It figures.” Besides, they all had told Jesus that this would end badly.

And the third surprise is the empty tomb and the young man dressed in white with a report and instructions on what to do next. ome say it was an angel. The nature of such figures in the Bible is that of messengers. Persons from out of nowhere who represent God to mortals.

He is risen, as he told you. “What happened in the tomb was entirely between Jesus and God.” (Barbara Brown Taylor, Feasting on the Word) No one witnessed the resurrection; some witnessed the empty tomb; they and others witnessed his lively, transformed presence. But here the surprise is the absence of Jesus’ remains. What is happening here? urprise is too bland a word to describe resurrection! These things just do not happen. he young man tells them, “Go tell the disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him as he told you.” he story has become so familiar to us that we may not be surprised. Or we may have become accustomed to a tamer deity, one who no longer surprises.

This was not predictable.

But, Abraham and Sarah; Moses being called; the exodus from Egypt; people being held together by covenant through the wilderness; Joseph’s survival in spite of his brothers’ treachery, and his forgiveness of them later: all of these were surprises. Not to mention a person like Jesus coming from humble origins in Nazareth. And the birth of the church from among those same disciples who had scattered at Jesus’ death?!

All unpredictable happenings.

“God intervenes in history when, from the human point of view, all is lost.” (Eduard Schweitzer, Mark) I know that interventions are not always discernible---until later.

Here we are again. What are we to expect from God? More of the same: surprises in which life emerges from death, hope from despair. The same Jesus who died on the cross by the collusion of religious leaders and Roman authorities, “under Pontius Pilate,” was experienced again as the same---but transformed---person, for a time, by his disciples and by others. The faith question is this: Has God acted to affirm and continue the life and influence of Jesus of Nazareth?

By faith we answer “Yes.” This is why we are here. Christ lives. And we are not done with God’s work through him! “The true Jesus who died rose in the fullness of his humanity into the full presence of God.” (Quoted in Context, May 1, 1998, Volume 30, Number 7)  “Christ returns and, in so doing, testifies to God’s indestructible love……Although sin may be terrible, God’s covenantal faithfulness is greater.” (David Buttrick, The Mystery and the Passion, page 225)

The crucifixion was not able to defeat God’s love. God raises Jesus from the dead and the resurrected Lord comes back to us asking for us to receive his love…..It is as if God said, “You cannot get rid of me. I keep coming back, even from the dead. Now: what are you going to do about my love that continues to seek you?”

The Easter message continues to strike home in the face of all our accommodation to a tightly held “realism.” We are pushed to reconsider our taken for granted world.

When Bishop Willimon was the Chaplain at Duke, a well-known student died in a tragic accident. The counselors working with students in a state of shock did their best, telling them that they were doing fine, that they were right on schedule with their grief work. But the grief was not so easily dealt with. It was healing lightly, or too “pat” counsel to speak to their deep sadness.

Five days later, at a memorial service in the chapel, the choir stood and sang, “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive!” (Source unknown)

And Willimon writes: “Death slinked off campus, his great victory party ruined by a choir that refused to defer to death.”

Even though the women were scared silent for the time being, the word got out sooner or later. You can almost hear the disciples when they heard:  But we thought the story was over! Another surprise. Why would Jesus want to meet with those disciples who had deserted him in his hour of greatest need? Perhaps with the women, yes, but with the men? Who knows what Jesus would have to say to them in that encounter!? Peter, who wept bitterly when the rooster crowed after his vehement denial of even knowing Jesus. Legend is that Peter cried so much, his cheeks had furrows in them from that day. And now a new start?

Suppose a recovering alcoholic is told that his disease is genetic and hopeless. But a co-worker slips a note under his door: “I’ve been there. I know a way out.” In the midst of his recovery he comes to know God’s forgiveness and power in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, and he is transformed, re-born. When his pastor asks him one day what to preach, he says, “Tell them they can, that their future is not determined.”

Dead ends become cul de sacs.

Because Jesus has been raised, we are confronted with the invitation to have God’s Christly, Holy Presence stirring us up, convicting our consciences, comforting us in our suffering. Sparky Anderson, Detroit Tiger’s coach: “Grace is getting something you don’t deserve. Mercy is not getting something that you do deserve.”

The disciples were all given a “do-over.” They are invited to go back to Galilee, to the place of ordinary life, and start over in following Jesus, perhaps wiser now than before.
Christ is, through Word and Spirit, our contemporary.

And this has clear implications for the church, for us! God’s mercy is not merely a “therapeutic fix” for people who seem to feel guilty. Peter and the other disciples certainly needed mercy and forgiveness. But there was more: Christ was raised and then invited them (and us!) “To join a new humanity, God’s new order in the midst of a broken, sinful world….a being-redeemed world.” ( David Buttrick, The Mystery and the Passion, 1992,  page 227)

How does Christ come to us now? Through song, story, stained glass, [internet!], Bible study, sermons, prayers, service and advocacy for others, and pictures.

Peter Marshall said it this way: “No single event of your life will ever have to be faced alone---neither sorrow nor grief nor pain nor loneliness, nor joy nor laughter or pleasure nor fun [nor even death.] And you never have to make decisions without his help and guidance.” And genuine living is re-defined. We become intimately related to God through the Spirit. We are “indwelt” by a God who keeps on forgiving us and leading us forward, or deeper of soul, and broader in witness and service. And with fear and trembling, we say “Yes, Lord, come and live in me, now and always.”

The last surprise in the story is the way it ends.

The story in Mark states that the women at the tomb were so terrified and astonished and they said nothing to anyone. This is no way to end a Gospel! (Some scholars suppose that the original ending was lost.) But their response seems a logical one: Who would believe? Nothing like this had ever happened before. And they were women in a ruthlessly male-dominated culture. This may be the hidden wisdom in the abrupt ending of Mark’s resurrection account. If the women were silent, who would spread the news of resurrection?

Answer: The readers of this story, then and now, will! “Mark hits the ball into our court.” What are we going to do with this story?“ There is a blank at the end of the story and we are invited to fill it in for ourselves.” ((Feasting on the Word)

“Do we take Easter for granted, or have we found ourselves awestruck at the strange new work of God? What do we know of the risen Lord? Where is he now going on ahead of us? What tasks has he for us to undertake today, to take ‘the gospel of the kingdom’ to the ends of the earth?” (Tom Wright, Mark for Everyone, page 224)

Can we believe in something we cannot understand? I do it every day. I cannot explain love; it is a mystery to me, but I believe in it, can’t live a day without it.

I do not understand resurrection. It is an event in the realm of God’s doing, not mine. But what will I do with the reality of the Triune God working in me, in the church and in our world? Why the profound power of the message of Jesus? Lives still turned inside out? Hope for kingdom come? It is the witness of the church, as Elizabeth Achtemeier so eloquently wrote, that:“Jesus lives and now dwells in our midst as Lord. Despite all our failures in the church, we know this to the depth of our being…..We know this because God has come to us in his Risen Son and spoken to us through his Word. He has spread out his table before us.He has nourished our lives with his merciful message.He has filled our cup to running over with his incarnate word of love. We know from whence we came and to whom we are going.We now experience God’s forgiveness in Christ as our daily sustenance.We now live in hope by his promise of a final kingdom, where God will be all in all,and where evil and pain, and sorrow and sighing will be done away forever.”(The Christian Center, first aired on April 20, 1993; available on line at 30 Good Minutes.org)

This Easter hymn expresses our hope:

“When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain, Jesus’ touch can call us back to life again, fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been: Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.” (“Now the Green Blade Riseth, Hymn 311, UMH)