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Easter Sunday
March 27, 2005 Sermon
by Rev. Aron Kramer, Associate Rector
“Jesus said to her, Mary!
She turned and said to him, Teacher!” Mary at first thought Jesus was
the gardener, Mary at first thought Jesus was the man who stole the body
of her beloved teacher away from her. She was so blinded by her grief
and her anxiety that she could not see Jesus standing, literally, right
before her. It took Jesus calling her by name to wake her out of her
stupor and reveal to her the miracle that had happened in that moment.
Jesus called Mary by name, in that moment imagine the feelings that Mary
must have felt, a man she loved who had died on a cross, she had seen it
personally was suddenly standing before her alive. It is miraculous, it
is shocking this resurrection concept, and what is it all about? What
sort of influence does resurrection have in your own life, what does it
mean for you? Is it the small revelations that occur daily to remind you
of how God is in the world? Is it in the spring flowers that are popping
up all over or maybe simply the melting snow? Is the resurrection more
theological and distant concept to you? What is the resurrection and how
does it play out in our lives.
The collect of the day speaks to the presence of resurrection in our
lives when it says, Grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may
evermore live with in the joy of his resurrection. There is a Celtic
saying that has been hanging on to me this past week as we have
experienced Holy Week. The eternal and the mortal world is woven into
and through each other. The collect speaks to this immensely, our
culture constantly reminds us of the separation of this world and the
heavenly world, our culture speaks to the evilness and the dirtiness of
this world and the glory and wonder of the heavenly world. But this
Celtic saying, I think captures the true sense of what the mission and
life of Jesus was all about. Jesus’ life was about weaving the eternal
and the divine into and through the mortal world, reminding us once
again that God created this world we live in and everything in it is
good. Jesus was not on a journey, we are not on a journey, in fact
Meister Eckhart, a great Christian mystic has said, “There is no such
thing as a spiritual journey.” He continues to say, “If there is a
spiritual journey it is only a quarter inch long but many miles deep. A
journey would be a swerve into rhythm with your deeper nature and
presence.”
The more I reflected on that quote the more I believed it, because a
journey sometimes does indicate an ending, and don’t we truly believe
that God’s work is never completed. As Oscar Romero has said, “nothing
we do is complete; which is a way of saying that the reign of God always
lies beyond us.” The other thing I wonder about is if our journey’s tend
to get in the way of our call as Christians, our call by God to follow
Jesus and live a Christ like life in the world. Mary, in John’s gospel
had forgotten, in her grief, her call to do God’s work, God’s summoning
to bring the Gospel to the corners of the world. It took Jesus calling
her by name, and look what she did, she ran to the disciples, saying, “I
have seen the Lord!” I have to imagine that instead of trying to
discover the spiritual meaning of Christ standing in front of her and
calling her name, she continued to tell people that she had seen the
Lord, that the reign of God was near, and all the things that had
happened to her. Her own journey, her own agendas her own grief was all
thrown out the window because she had seen the Lord! Her first reaction
was to proclaim! What will our first reaction out these doors today be?
What will do in response to this glorious day? How we will be like Mary
proclaiming the acts and deeds of Christ in our lives?
Ed Bacon, the rector at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena has said
this: “The most infallible sign of the presence of God in a person is
joy.” The most infallible sign of the presence of God in a person is
JOY! What a wonderful statement and what a wonderful way to be reminded
that the Holy is present with us right now at this moment, the Holy is
not far from us, the holy is not distant or something to achieve
somewhere down the road. The Holy is within us and that can bring
everyone present today great joy. Because with joy comes that most
important characteristic of All of Christendom, HOPE! Without joy there
is no hope, without hope there is no joy. Mary, before Christ called her
name had lost all hope; she had filled her heart with despair. Before
Christ called her by name, she was unsure of what the future might hold
for her and the people she loved. After Christ called her by name her
despair vanished, her fear evaporated and her heart was filled with
hope. Because suddenly there was a future, it had been revealed to her.
Suddenly there was joy in the world; it had been discovered once again.
Sara and I live right next door to Tischer Creek, and every year I
forget about the beauty and the glory that runs practically right
through my backyard. I have become so familiar with the creek, and with
all that goes on there that I forget its beauty. I wonder if that is how
we tend to go about Easter as well. There is a wonderful quote from
Hegel that says, “Generally, the familiar, precisely because it is
familiar, is not known.” John O’Donohue talks about the familiar like
this, “Behind the façade of the familiar, strange things await us. This
is true of our homes, the place where we live, and, indeed, those with
whom we live. Familiarity enables us to tame, control and ultimately
forget the mystery.” Being familiar with a place is not always good,
being familiar with tradition is not always helpful and being familiar
with the ones we love produces apathy and numbness. Yet here we are at
Easter, a time where the familiar is destroyed and the mystery is
renewed, a time when we are rediscovered by God, called by name by Jesus
to follow and do God’s work in the world. An event has taken place that
is very familiar to us familiar to us through our liturgy and familiar
to us through our obligation to attend worship services. So I go back to
my question of how do we see the resurrection in our daily lives? How do
we experience dying to sin so we can experience the joy of the
resurrection?
Springtime rolls around and Tischer Creek explodes with a beauty and
wonder that is different every year. It is made new each and ever year
and I love that; it reminds me of the power of God and most of all the
beauty of God. It takes reminders such as those, sometimes; it takes
Christ calling my name or the warm weather to melt the ice around my
heart, those reminders bring me out of my stupor and call me to be
present in the world and call me to be filled with the joy of the
resurrection. We are called as a faith community to remember that we are
not on a linear journey with an ending; we are not striving to achieve
some sort of accomplishment that will bring self satisfaction or even
salvation. That has all been accomplished for us already, 2000 years ago
in fact, we are called to recognize the divine and eternal woven in and
through the mortal and temporary. We are called as Mary was called to go
into the world and tell the story, tell people that we have seen the
Lord. We are called as Mary was called to tell of all the acts and deeds
we have experienced through the many and daily resurrections we
experience in our lives. We are called to live in a world that is full
of our ancestors and our loved ones, full of the Holy Spirit and full of
God’s presence. We are called to do the work that God has called us to
do. Not seeking an end, or trying to chalk up enough points to get to
heaven, rather simply to hand our lives over to God and say take my
life, take all that I have and all that I am and fill my soul with the
joy that brings hope into the world.
So let us look at ourselves differently starting right now, let us
operate out of a place of deep and wide hope. Let us operate out of a
place that recognizes the familiar as dangerously apathetic. Let us
operate out of a place that brings the world joy. Let us operate out of
a place that recognizes the holy and eternal woven in and throughout all
that we are, have and do in this world. Let us see Christ’s death,
resurrection and ascension in a new transforming way. And let us leave
this place today, proclaiming from the tree tops and the depths of this
glorious lake of God’s, not only that Christ is Risen, but that Christ
is in the midst of us! Christ is and ever shall be! Alleluia, Alleluia!