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The Shocking Truth About Easter!

1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Mark 16:1-8

It is= Sunday morning and three women come to the tomb, looking for death. They are prepa= red to anoint a dead body. They are not seeking the truth of a new day. It is an act of devotion; a sign of their love. But they will grieve a little or a lot, and get on with their lives. Was it that Joseph of Arimathea was so hurried when he asked Pilate = for Jesus’ body, trying to get the body buried before sundown, that the b= ody was not properly prepared for burial? Or, was it an intentional sign of disrespect? We will never know.

These= women were not prepared for what they found. The stone had been moved, the body w= as gone. There was an unidentified young man sitting in the tomb. Expecting de= ath, they stumbled on a mystery! They were alarmed and even more so when the you= ng man began speaking to them. “He has been raised. Go, tell his discipl= es that he has gone before you into Galilee.” The women fled the tomb in terror and amazement seized them, and they said nothing to anyone for they = were afraid! Mind you, they were not afraid of death, but they were afraid of a mystery!

That = is the end of the story for Mark. Eugene Peterson ends it with these words in The = Messsage: “They got out as fast as they could, beside themselves, their heads swimming. Stunned, they said nothing to anyone.” That’s it folk= s, Mark didn’t write anything more!&nbs= p; Oh, if you look in the New Testament there is more. There is a short= er ending and a longer ending, both added by someone other than Mark. Because = you see, we always need an ending to the story and Mark didn’t give us on= e. We want every story wrapped up in a neat package. We prefer a nice ending of course;= but if need has it we will accept a tragic ending. We have to know how it ends.= We can’t leave a story dangling. But Mark has this notorious non-ending = in which he never reports that the disciples saw the Risen Christ. Later autho= rs like Matthew, Luke and John added all kinds of endings, wonderful stories: strange appearances of Jesus – touching Jesus – Jesus moving through closed doors – Jesus eating breakfast on the beach – sometimes they recognized him, and other times they did not. But for Mark, Easter is not the end of anything; it is the beginning of everything. And we have no idea where it is headed.

We ca= n no more face truth and mystery than could the women. We want closure. We are t= old we have to see the dead body to have closure. Millions of dollars were spen= t, and many more lives lost retrieving body parts from the World Trade Center = site so grieving families could have closure. I understand that. However, someti= mes I think we want closure so that we can turn our backs on tough events and g= et on with our lives without ever incorporating the suffering into our daily lives.

We wa= nt a nice ending to the story of Jesus so we can get on over to the Radisson for Brunch and walk away from this whole somber Lenten season, and the walks wi= th Jesus in real suffering, real pain and real death. Get all of that behind u= s, so that on Monday we can get back to life the way it has always been. Yes, = the way life has always been!

But t= hink about it. Why were the women stunned, beside themselves, struck with terror= ? Why did they not tell anyone what they had seen and heard? Was it that they had encountered a shocking truth? It was not good news. By Sunday, rigor mortis would have set in. And Jesus was walking all the way back to Galilee? My goodness, what if Jesus was actually raised from the dead? What could we possibly do with that in the 21st century? It is that awful upside-down log= ic! It is a terrible choice for the church in the 21st century; the frightful wonder of what it would mean if Jesus really was raised from the dead. Forg= et about rigor mortis. It would mean that tomorrow actually has to change!

Walter Brueggemann, has a wonderful sentence in his book, The Theology of the Old Testament. It speaks to his scholarship, his teaching, his writing, his life: “I have focused on disputatious testimony that refuses closure.” Don’t you see, th= at is the essence of what Mark is about. Resurrection cannot be reconciled by = any usual logic. What St. Paul, Brueggemann and others look to is the testimony= , disputatious testimony, out of the faith community over hundreds of years; events of upside-down logic, that refuse closure. The story is kept open and it progresses in marvelous ways.

James= Lowry was raised in a small town in the Piedmont of South Carolina.

A few= weeks before he was to leave for college, his father received a call from the Chief of Police that Billy had been caught pilfering through things

at his father’s hardware store. Billy was a twelve year old throw away child=

who l= ived on the wrong side of town. Before his father asked anything else he asked where Billy was. They had taken him to the county jail 20 miles away. The next morning, after breakfast, as was the family custom, his father read from the Bible. This day he read from Matthew 25: “I was in prison and you vis= ited me.” After that he offe= red the family’s morning prayer and he prayed for Billy. He left the table and drove to the county jail. He talked the county judge, his friend, in allowing Billy to come live with the family. From that time on, whenever Bi= lly needed a clean bed, clothes, and a place at table, he lived with the Lowry family. And by recent accounts, Billy and his wife and children and grandchildren are doing well. Lowry says: “Nobody invites the one who wants to steal from you to live with you; except, the one who ate with sinn= ers and those who by faith follow after him.” That’s what it means = that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. Forget about rigor mortis. It’s turned upside-down logic.

Anoth= er disputatious testimony that defies closure: Milon lives in Bangladesh. This= is another culture, but not another time; it is our time. It would not be possible for Milon= to have an automobile. So Milon is on his bicycle, and an angry crowd yells af= ter him: “If we see you again, we will cut off your feet.” This was= not the first time Milon had been threatened by angry people. Each time is was = an angry crowd of fundamentalist Muslims. But such threats have not quenched h= is zeal to take what he believes to be the truth of God throughout his country= .

Milon= says: “I ride to the villages on my bicycle and carry Christian literature.= In the rains I hold an umbrella in one hand and steer with the other. I often = fall down and get muddy and scratched. At night I hold a flash light. I sing from the Psalms when I ride. The Christians I do meet do not have an extra blank= et for me, so I try to make it home to sleep.” Milon runs a clothing sho= p in the local market. These fundamental Muslims come in and steal the clothing = and his books, and of course no government official is going to do anything abo= ut it. There is no protection for Christians. Milon says: “I go through = many problems in my life, but I still have Jesus Christ. I have peace through him.” At that time Milon was 16 years old. He knows the fundamentalist Muslims could kill him. But he says they could not take his life. They can = kill him, but he believes his life is always secure in the arms of God. Today he would be 24, but the story is a dangling story. I know no end to the story.= It is again that upside-down logic= ; a testimony from the faith community that Jesus is raised from the dead.=

When = I was living in Washington D.C. I came to know a man from Bangladesh. He was a wa= it person in a restaurant near the church. He knew about Milon, and he said emphatically that true Muslims would not treat Milon that way. But you see, fundamentalists, whether Muslim or Christian leave no room for disputatious testimony without closure. For them it is all certain. It is a closed book. There are no deviations; there is no room in which to move and respond to mysterious or unfamiliar movements of the Spirit.

But y= ou know there is a bit of fundamentalism in each of us. We must have such good endi= ngs that we can say: “Well, now, that’s over. We are done with our = spiritual moment for the year, and we can get back to life as usual.

And t= he preachers put their Lenten, Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter files deep in a cabinet somewhere to be pulled out the following yea= r.

But s= omeone will say, “Now, wait a minute! This being raised from the dead - sure= ly this upside-down logic means something; new relationships, new ways of livi= ng, new politics, justice and dignity for the poor and the marginalized. Surely= it is not the end of a story, but the beginning of new stories and outrageous disputatious testimonies from every faith community because of the shocking truth of Easter. Jesus is risen! I can’t define it; I can’t pro= ve it; I can only sense it in the stories people tell. Amen.=