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Brothers and sisters, It is Easter morning! Christ is Risen, Alleluia! (LONG SILENCE) It is Easter morning and there is silence, A silence that surprise us… If you were in balcony, maybe you leaned over to see if I had fainted or if Will missed a music cue… A Silence that makes us uncomfortable, A silence arising from the Scripture lesson: The women hear the good news of the resurrection and “they say nothing to anyone, for the are afraid.” Silence….Silence on Easter Sunday? It doesn’t seem quite right – The women ought to say something on Easter, shouldn’t they? We can understand silence on the days of Holy Week we have just lived through. We held silence on Maundy Thursday, as the darkening sanctuary invited us to reflect on betrayal and desertion, the eve of death. On the Friday we call good, We left the chapel in silence to ponder love – Love that does not require the cross, But a love that ends up on the cross. But silence on Easter Sunday? It just doesn’t seem right, does it? But silence is the last word to the Easter Story that we hear this morning. The GOOD NEWS from Mark’s gospel of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ – ends in a deafening silence. The gospel story is likely not the one we most often hear or tell. I will confess my favorite telling is in John’s gospel, Where Mary Magdelene recognizes Christ is the garden after he calls her by name. But in Mark’s gospel, there are no shouts of recognition, no joyous proclamation of belief, no alleluias or loud amens – Not even an appearance of Jesus. There is, however, an abundance of silence and a dose of fear and terror as the women who encounter the empty tomb “say nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” We’re a little uncomfortable with silence – We’re uncomfortable in our culture, in our church, and perhaps even in our Scripture. Most scholars now conclude that Mark’s original gospel ended where we ended this morning - with the women silent about what they had seen and heard. Despite that, there have been other endings that have been added, and if you look in your bibles – or read along in your pew bible this morning, you will find them. A shorter ending immediately adds the women speaking and telling others; A longer ending includes an appearance of Jesus and the proclamation of the good news by many – to everyone everywhere. We may be more comfortable with those endings, But I’d like to invite us this morning to stay with what is considered to be the original text - to discern and discover what God might be speaking to us in this moment and in this time. For I believe we can learn about the power of the resurrection through the women’s silence, especially at the end of the story. Our story begins in quiet, But not in full silence as of yet. Early in the morning, Mary, Mary, and Salome head out to anoint the body of Jesus. They are walking along when they have an “uh oh” moment. Suddenly they remember when they were at the tomb two days ago- As Mark tells us in the chapter previous to the one we hear this morning - The last thing they saw was Joseph of Arimathea rolling a stone against the door of the tomb. And so now they ask themselves: How will we get to the body if the tomb is closed up? How can we perform our religious duty and act of love for our friend and Savior? We’re sad and exhausted. We’re out of hope and don’t have barely a shred of faith left in us. What are we going to do? Who will roll the stone away for us? We asked that very question in confirmation class last week. We gave each young person a stone and a pen and asked them to think about what keeps them from experiencing the full power of God in their lives, and write it on their stones. After some moments of silence, they were invited to share what they had written. Around the circle we went: Sadness, stress, pain, fighting with a sibling, jealousy, anger, a wish they had been made different. There is a stone in everyone’s life, Something that keeps you and me from seeing and experiencing and knowing the new life that Christ desires for each of us. There is an obstacle – Sometimes within us, Sometimes outside of us– that blocks Easter grace from entering our hearts and our lives. It can be anxiety over the economic situation or changes that come in a time of transition – in our individual or communal lives. An old grudge…the wounds from words uttered long ago in anger. Maybe doubt or despair or loneliness is written on your stone. And who will roll the stone away for us? The women walk along – Sometimes we walk along – downcast, dejected, and in despair. Deep in thought now as they get closer, They are silent when they arrive at the tomb. And then they look up. To their amazement, The tomb is open! The work has been already been done for them… God’s Easter power has rolled the stone away! Friends, Easter is an invitation to look up and out and around. For when you look down, you can only remember a closed tomb, But when you look up, you see the stone that has been rolled away. When you look down, you see despair, And when you look up, you see hope. With eyes and heads and hearts cast down, you can see only your own feet. But when you look up, you can see your neighbor and your neighbor’s face. When you look down, you see only scarcity. And when your head and your heart is lifted up, you can see abundance and fullness all around you. When you look down, you see confusion and chaos, And when you look up – at least on this Easter and in this sanctuary this morning – You see can see a canopy of cranes, A canopy of peace. Made by many members and friends of the church, The cranes – an international symbol of peace – Brighten up the sanctuary like the man in the white robe brightened up the tomb. His message echoes in the empty tomb and all the way down through the ages: Jesus has been raised! He has gone ahead of you! And then we wait for the women to respond. But there’s only fear and flight and silence… When I first read and prayed with this morning’s lesson, I thought: Mary, Mary, and Salome, Please say something! Please give us a word of hope or peace or joy or love! But the women say nothing for they were afraid. The first Easter witnesses fled in fear – Perhaps fear of the resurrection itself. Life would never be the same with Jesus’ death, But you could get used to walking with grief and loneliness, despair and hopelessness. But resurrection, Resurrection changes everything. Resurrection challenges everything. If Jesus did come back as promised, Your life would be turned upside down. You could not live in the same way, Or tell the same stories, Or walk down the same path or in the direction that you had been living your life. Maybe we can understand why they said nothing to anyone… For some of that same fear may be present today amid all the lilies and bells and cranes and alleluias. But friends, stronger than the fear is the presence of the Risen Christ, The one who goes ahead of us and promises us peace and grace and strength. The one who goes ahead of us and promises us his peace and strength. Maybe, after all, Mark’s ending of the women’s silence is the perfect ending, for it invites generation after generation and generation to become witnesses to the Easter event. Mark’s ending invites us to participate in the Easter story, For us to go and tell others what we seen and heard today. You and I – Friend, brother, sister, child, parent, old and young – Are invited to speak the truth, to say what needs to be said to the world in need of good news: To share the love of God in word and in deed as Jesus did: Standing present in the midst of pain and proclaiming healing, Declaring that new life is stronger than death, Speaking up for and welcoming those who live on the margins of our society and our church, And sharing compassion and mercy with all others. Sisters and brothers, it is Easter morning. (PAUSE as in the beginning) What shall we say? Amen and alleluia. |