"Going On Ahead"

Christ is Risen!  He is risen indeed!  That joyful greeting has opened Easter celebrations down through the ages and has brought assurance, peace and comfort to an uncountable number of broken hearts.  Many of us have lost loved ones, but we find peace in the promise that “nothing in all creation shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus,” [Romans 8:39] and, “Death is swallowed up in victory.  O death, where is thy victory, where is thy sting?” [1 Cor 15:53-55]. This confidence that death is not the end is at the very heart of Christianity for, as Paul writes in 11 Corinthians 15:14, “If Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain and your faith has been in vain.”

I wonder if you noticed that when Anni read the Easter story from the Gospel of Mark this morning there was no description of the resurrection.  Very early in the morning three women bring spices to anoint the body of Jesus.  They are not expecting a resurrection.  They accept the reality of death and want only to honor Jesus, to belatedly anoint his crucified body and are wondering as they walk, “Who will roll away the stone for us.”  But the stone has already been rolled away and, entering, they behold “a young man, dressed in white,” who tells them that Jesus has risen from the dead and instructs them to go tell the other disciples “He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him.”  

That’s it! No literal explanations, no theological speculations.  Just the promise that somehow, in some inexplicable way, the risen Christ goes on before us, and that we will continue to experience his presence in the daily Galilees of our ordinary lives. That sense of presence is both the power and the comfort of our faith, and it’s not found in speculations about what happened to Jesus two thousand years ago.  It’s found in what is happening now, for you and for me.  It’s found in our personal stories, in the experiences, the symbols and the metaphors of promise and new life.  Our faith in resurrection is expressed in such ordinary acts as the gentle planting of colorful Easter pansies - even as the cross is draped in black and worshippers gather in prayer at a Good Friday vigil commemorating the crucifixion. Or as that black draped cross is transformed into a flower-bedecked symbol of resurrection triumph on Holy Saturday, in the midst of a drenching downpour, while Christ is still in the grave.  Go ahead, plan for tomorrow.  Faith is a bird that feels the light, and sings while the dawn is still dark!

Easter transforms our understanding of not only death, but of life as well.  We’re familiar with the story of Lazarus, the friend of Jesus who had died, and whom Jesus called forth from the grave. Like Easter, it’s a resurrection story about the promise and the potential of new life. Eugene O’Neil wrote a play entitled, “Lazarus Laughed”(1) and the play picks up where the biblical story leaves off.  Lazarus has been dead four days when Jesus has the stone rolled away and calls him from the grave.  As the curtain goes up, Lazarus is seen stumbling out of the dark, blinking into the sunlight.  And after the grave clothes are taken off of him he begins to laugh a gentle, soft laugh.  The very first thing he does is to embrace Jesus with gratitude.  Then he begins to embrace his sisters and the other people who were gathered there.  He has a very clear look in his eye, nothing far away.  It’s as if he’s seeing the world about him for the very first time.  He reaches over and pats the earth very affectionately.  He looks up at the sky, at the trees, at the neighbors as if he has never seen them before, as if he is overwhelmed by the incredible aliveness of the way everything is.  The very first words he utters are the words, “Yes, yes, yes,” as if to embrace reality as it is being discovered all over again. 

In the play he makes his way back to his house and the whole village of Bethany is awash with wonder. Finally somebody gets the courage to ask what was on everybody's mind. "Lazarus, tell us what it's like to die. What lies on the other side of this boundary that none of us has crossed?"

Lazarus simply laughs as he says, "There is no death, really. There is only life. There is only God. There is only incredible joy." He continues, "Death is not the way it appears from this side. Death is not an abyss into which we go into chaos. It is, rather, a portal through which we move into everlasting growth and everlasting life . . . The grave is as empty as a doorway is empty. It is a portal through which we move into greater and finer life. Therefore, there is nothing to fear. Our great agenda is to learn to accept, to learn to trust. We are put here to learn to love more fully. There is only life. There is no death." And with that his laughter began to fill the whole house in which he was staying.

Lazarus goes back to his daily tasks and yet there is something different. The house where he lives became known as the "House of Laughter," and night after night, you would hear singing and dancing. And the spirit of this one who had come back with this message that there is nothing to fear began to spread throughout the whole little village. The quality of work began to rise all over Bethany. People began to live more humanely and more generously with each other. There did not seem to be the old occasion for conflicts that there had used to be. In fact, a joy settled over the community. 

That joy is the promise of Easter, the promise that life is vivid and beautiful, precious and irreplaceable.  Life is for living, and death is not the end. 

The Rev. William Sloane Coffin died this past week and I want to honor his memory by recalling the opening, and the closing words of one of the most famous sermons he ever gave, just ten days after his son, Alex, was killed in a car accident. Reverend Coffin delivered this sermon to his congregation at Riverside Church in New York City.  His words express the essence of our Easter faith.  He opens his sermon by saying:  “As almost all of you know, a week ago last Monday night, driving in a terrible storm, my son — Alexander — who to his friends was a real day-brightener, and to his family "fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky" — my twenty-four-year-old Alexander, who enjoyed beating his old man at every game and in every race, beat his father to the grave.”

Life is beautiful.  Life is for living, and death, especially untimely, tragic death, is perhaps the greatest challenge that ever confronts our faith.  Thank God for the sunrise of Easter morning.  Thank God for the confidence that death is not the end.  Coffin concludes his sermon with these words: “And finally I know that when Alex beat me to the grave, the finish line was not Boston Harbor in the middle of the night. If a week ago last Monday, a lamp went out, it was because, for him at least, the Dawn had come.  

“So I shall — so let us all — seek consolation in that love which never dies, and find peace in the dazzling grace that always is.”  Christ is Risen!  He is risen indeed.  Amen!

(1) This play is quoted by John Claypool in his radio broadcast of “Easter and the Fear of Death” Program #4024, first air date, March 30^th, 1997.  The Rev. Dr. John Claypool is a native of Kentucky and was ordained in the Southern Baptist denomination in 1953. He served churches throughout the South for over 30 years and then in 1986 was ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church. John became rector of the historic St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Birmingham, Alabama, a post he held until his retirement. Claypool now serves as Theologian-in-Residence at Trinity Episcopal Church in New Orleans, and is a Visiting Professor of Homiletics at the McAfee School of Theology in Atlanta, Georgia.