Please, No Explanations Inside the Church
David C. Myers
April 12, 2009
Easter
Mark 16:1 - 8
Text: "And they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come over them; . . ." . . . Mark 16:8a
In February, 1993 I was in the lands we call Holy. Specifically, I was standing outside the church in Tabgha. It is at the base of a hillside, right on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. The church commemorates where Jesus fed the 5,000 with the loaves and fishes. I was fascinated by a sign beside the front door of the church that said, "Please no explanations inside the church." This sign was meant for the Tour Guides not to give explanations about the site inside, but to have the Tour Groups take their groups on a quick tour and then gather outside because the church was so small. Whatever the intent of that sign, I think it is a most appropriate title for an Easter Sermon.
You see despite its centrality to our faith, Easter is not an easy message to preach. I have some experience with preaching on Easter mornings. And I know there are people who come to church on Easter hoping to find the key that will explain everything and give meaning to a life filled with struggle and pain.
And yet, so often on Easter, when it comes to preaching I have always felt a bit like Archie Bunker, when, in a fevered argument with his agnostic son-in-law, Michael (or as Archie called him, Meathead), asks, "Archie if there is a God, why is there so much suffering in the world?"
After the awkward silence that follows in which Archie tries desperately to come up with an answer, he finally yells, "Edith would youse come in here and help me? I'm having to defend God all by myself!"
And there are days that Archie is me all over, defending God . . . all by myself.
But I know that's not entirely true; for, your presence indicates that each of you have, at some point in your life, deeply felt God's love. And, in fact, your presence here means that I am not defending God all by myself. There is something to this Easter story that gives you hope and that fuels your faith.
But I don't think Easter answers all your questions. In fact, Easter may raise more questions than - at least I think - any of us are comfortable answering - at least with any degree of surety.
Let's face it, do we ever go to the cemetery and find the grave empty? Only on Easter does someone rise from the dead. And only on Easter do angels in white linen speak to us. On no other day of the year do we even give passing thought to such utter nonsense. So it is no wonder when we hear women who were the first witnesses to the resurrection tell us they have experienced such things, we still don't listen.
And if you are looking for answers to these questions, I can only respond, "Please, no explanations inside the church."
But we are not alone - approximately 2,000 years ago Jesus' disciples didn't listen either.
For despite our nearly 2,000 years of rehearsal that has transformed Easter into a magnificent spectacle of glory, there is everything about it that doesn't fit with the rest of our life experience. It's almost as if we suspend our understanding of the world for this one day each year, and then on Monday we go back to understanding the world in our customary manner.
Our worldly wisdom tells Easter is all wrong; perhaps even, all foolishness. Hans Kung reminds us, "Nothing compels us to believe." It doesn't make sense. Over and over again in the Mark passage we hear "they did not believe." It was, after all, too much to believe. Indeed, they were filled with fear.
Wouldn't you be frightened if you went to the grave and found the body gone, and an angel dressed in white linen spoke to you? Indeed, this magnificent spectacle that Easter has become was originally a day of fear and trembling, causing people to ponder in fear and amazement.
Oh, to be sure, people came to believe - or we wouldn't be here today. But they were not compelled to believe. Certainly they were not compelled by any certainty of the logic of what happened. There weren't any explanations that could make this fit. We are left to wonder, to struggle about what it all means.
And that is the beauty of our faith. We are not forced by any convention, or any law, or even cold, hard logic to believe. Quite the contrary. We believe, we have faith, not because of compelling rational logic, but because just when we think we have life all figured out, or just when we are convinced there is no way out, Jesus breaks loose and shatters the logic. And there is simply no rational explanation that can be given.
It has been said by one of the world's greatest theologians - whose name is . . . anonymous - that, "The simplest meaning of Easter is that we are living in a world in which God has the last word."
I once heard Tony Campolo, an evangelical minister who teaches sociology, preach a good Friday sermon in which he said that "Today's Friday, but Sunday's a comin'." His central tenet was that we so often get caught up in the reality of a Good Friday world - Jesus is put in a tomb, darkness sets in, hope is gone; you know what a Good Friday world is - we find ourselves unemployed, or facing a difficult illness, or a family member dies, or raising our children seems to be a challenge beyond our capabilities, . . . the litany goes on. It is on the Fridays of our lives that the harsh reality, the angst of the world sets in. It is the Fridays when we don't deem to be able to dream dreams and have visions. It is on the Fridays when we are overwhelmed with the seemingly inevitable weight of the world's problems - environmental pollution, war, terrorism, illnesses we can't control, hunger, starvation, racism - the list is seemingly endless.
Fridays, no matter how discouraging they can be, make sense. They fit into the world as we live it. No matter how prevalent the madness, there is a way to figure Fridays out.
But Sunday's a comin'! The truth is that we are living in a world in which God - not the Good Friday forces - has the last word.
In the midst of writing a journal as he experienced the grief of his wife's death, C.S. Lewis discovered, "the best is what we understand the least." When our Fridays are changed into Easter Sundays there is no way we can fully figure it out.
"No explanations inside the church."
Permit me some Scriptural excess please - I want the liturgist to read few more sentences beyond what is the Mark text as printed in the bulletin - and this time from the Peterson paraphrase.
"After rising from the dead, Jesus appeared early on Sunday morning to Mary Magdalene, whom He had delivered from seven demons. She went to His former companions, now weeping and carrying on, and told them. When they heard her report that she had seen Him alone and well, they didn't believe her." (Mark 16:9 - 11)
You would have thought, the loyal disciples, after hearing the words from the woman would have understood what was happening, that this was the resurrection message. But they didn't - not at first; not until Jesus own resurrected presence spoke to them in harsh terms for their unbelief and hardness of heart. It was simply too much to believe.
"No explanations inside the church."
Even a study of the church and the Bible do not explain the resurrection; rather it is the other way around - they are explained by it. There would have been no Church and no Bible unless there had first been the fact of the resurrection. On Good Friday Jesus died an apparent failure, His friends scattered and His movement stopped. But on Easter He rose from the dead, His friends reassembled, and his movement started up again, never to stop!
The Resurrection explains these things. It changes our perspective.
Photographers learn that it makes a great deal of difference where the camera is placed. Most of us have had the humiliating experience of taking a picture where the subject turned out to be all feet. This did not mean there was nothing wrong with the feet, but that only from where we stood, we had focused on the wrong thing. The Resurrection is that event that changes our focus. The Resurrection has become the focus where we see life in proportion. When we stand there, we see things differently; what is happening before us is reflected through different values. Our focus changes, not necessarily the subject. It is important to note that the Resurrection did not change the world in which the disciples lived - any more than our world will be any different when we walk out of this building. Rome was still Rome and the political and military structures went about business as usual. Washington will still be Washington and whatever burdens you brought with you today will still have to be faced when you leave.
But to those who were changed by the Resurrection - and hopefully, some of you will be changed - there was - and is - an entirely different focus. On the Fridays in this frightening, crucifying world the question was, "what is this world coming to?" But after the resurrection the focus of the question changed to, "What has come to the world?"
A little boy and his father were driving down a country road on a beautiful spring afternoon. Suddenly out of nowhere a bee flew in the car window. Since the little boy was deathly allergic to bee stings, he became petrified. But the father quickly stopped the car, reached out, grabbed the bee, and squeezed it in his hand. Then he released it. But as soon as he let it go the young boy became frantic once again as the bee buzzed around in the car.
His father saw his son's panic stricken face. Once again the father reached out his hand, but this time he pointed to his hand. There still stuck in his skin was the stinger of the bee. "Do you see this?" he said. "You don't need to be afraid anymore, I've taken away the stinger for you."
And this is the message of Easter. We do not need to be paralyzed and totally pre-occupied by the Fridays anymore. Oh, the Fridays still exist; we can't deny their presence. But the Good News is that Christ faced Fridays for us and with us. Christ walked the streets of injustice and the cities of oppression. Christ bore the humiliation and pain of being abandoned with all hope seemingly gone.
But that was Friday.
Today is Sunday! And by Christ's resurrection, we are saved from sin. Christ has taken away the sting! Christ is risen! Fear is gone! Even if we can't explain it, we realize that our lives are explained by the resurrection.
New life is ours!
Hallelujah!
Amen!