Mark 16:1-8
Each year we choose which version of the Easter story we will read from among the four Gospels in our Bibles. We don’t often choose this story from Mark. It was the first of the stories to be written down and it is the most abrupt. It has more of what happened and less of what it means than the others. Even so, it was probably written fifty years or more “after the fact.” It’s based on the oral traditions shared among Jesus’ followers and it will have been shaped by the telling and re-telling of the story over time. That means it gives us the remembered facts of the event shaped by how two generations of followers saw its importance. It’s both a recording of an event and an experience of living in light of that event. Both are helpful to us as we receive the story and understand it in our own lived experience.
Mark tells us that resurrection was both amazing and terrifying. The women went to the tomb expecting to mourn Jesus’ death by giving him a proper burial. They were going to pack spices around the body and wrap it so that it could decompose with dignity in the tomb. They would shed tears and tell stories and grieve together as they worked. Instead they find an open tomb, a missing body, and a young man that tells them Jesus has left and will meet them in Galilee.
We have been conditioned by a lifetime of hearing this story to hear it as cause for celebration. That it certainly is! But I also want us to acknowledge that nobody celebrated that first Easter in any way like we celebrate today. What had happened was simply unbelievable. Crucified bodies don’t stand up and leave the grave. Yet his followers were told Jesus has done just that. That he was alive. That he expected them to keep going with the movement he began. These people had just watched their beloved leader endure a horrible death at the hands of Roman authorities. They were in shock. Then here is another shock, just as jolting, even if the news is good. If nothing else, Jesus’ followers were real people, and real people don’t make that many u-turns in life on a moment’s notice.
Which is to say on the first Easter and the almost 2000th Easter, resurrection is a process. It takes time to find life in the midst of death and destruction. Resurrection is about finding life in the midst of death. Yes, it’s about something that happened to Jesus. AND it’s about how his followers figured out what it meant in their time and through the ages. Easter may be about celebrating Jesus rising from the dead, but resurrection is about all of us rising from the deaths of ordinary living and finding new life and hope on the other side.
Jesus’ death was real and ugly. Even though thousands of people were crucified by Empire in those days, it was never easy. His followers were devasted when they watched him die and surely terrified that they would be next. That fear and anguish isn’t going to be wiped away by a young man saying, “He’s raised.” That’s a lot to process and it takes time. Thankfully, no one we know and love is going to be crucified, but even the calmest most expected death in old age is gut wrenching. We are never the same after each one we love dies. Yet there is also a resurrection. There is a healing of grief that comes with time. There are memories to share which eventually give us joy. There is a sense that life can be good again and that our loved ones, although gone, are still with us. We believe that in a new way they live.
I think of the refugees we’ve come to know this year who are celebrating Easter in North Dakota for the first time. Surely they have known fear and danger or they wouldn’t be here. They have loved ones still in danger with no guarantee that they will find safety. They must know some very bad days as they adapt to a new climate, a new language, find jobs which are much different from before. Yet I think most of them a grateful for this new life. They have found their own resiliency as they adapt to this new home. They have made new friends and see that strangers can accept them and offer support and encouragement. These families are surely still in the process in making the many transitions that are required of them, but they see hope and resurrection beginning.
Tonight we’ll serve Easter dinner at LaGrave on First. In five years of serving meals there we’ve become friends with many of the residents. Those who came first came from decades of living without shelter. They had to learn again what it meant to have a reliable home. They had to learn to trust each other and us. Some of them came from living death, from the clutches of addiction, from the trauma of unmedicated mental disease. Many of them still struggle to find health. But today LaGrave represents hope to me. People have found stability, health care, work, and family. I’m glad we get to celebrate Easter by serving dinner there, because it’s a daily sign of resurrection in our community.
The first generations of Jesus’ followers lived in difficult times. The Pax Romana or peace within Rome was maintained by constant warfare to extend the boundaries of Empire and violence to control slaves and conquered peoples. Many followers were themselves slaves. Many struggled to feed themselves and their families. It was a hard time to be alive. They coped by forming communities of friends and sharing the teachings of Jesus with each other. They learned from Jesus how to live with dignity, compassion and hope in any circumstances. It was a process of shaping a life by life-giving values, supported by those who cared. They talked about Jesus’ resurrection and about their own resurrections, finding life in the midst of forces of despair.
I want to affirm to you who follow Jesus in this moment in history, Resurrection is real. Jesus’ death was not the end of his ministry, but the beginning of his movement. His followers then were convinced that he was still alive, teaching them and encouraging them to create the reign of God in their time and place. His followers today are convinced that he is still alive, teaching us and encouraging us to create the reign of God in our time and place.
In our own lives we face moments of discouragement, illness, broken dreams, but we never face them alone. We believe Jesus is with us, and the community of Jesus is with us. In every hardship, there is hope. After every dark day, there comes a dawn – a new beginning, a new possibility, a new friendship, a new opportunity. Each sign of new life is a resurrection and all of them are real. If you aren’t seeing that now, we’re here for you. We’ll hold hope for you until you can hold it for yourself. We’ll walk with you until your path is clearer. We believe in Resurrection – for Jesus, for our community, and for you.