Easter Sunday, March 27, 2016 | 8:00, 9:30, and 11:30 a.m.

Easter Rising

Shannon J. Kershner
Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 118:1–2, 14–24
Isaiah 65:17–25
Luke 24:1–12

In the end, God’s will, not ours, is done. Love is the victor. Death is not the end. The end is life. His life and our lives through him, in him. Existence has greater depths of beauty, mystery, and benediction than the wildest visionary has ever dared to dream. Christ our Lord has risen.

Frederick Buechner

“It seemed to the men an idle tale and they did not believe them.” The women’s testimony about Jesus, their Jesus, being raised—the women’s words about God’s resurrection power breaking the eternal hold of death—it seemed to the eleven male disciples to be only empty talk, a silly story, an idle tale.

I’ll let you in on a secret, though. It’s about the Greek word we translate as “idle.” That Greek word is leiros. Leiros is not used anywhere else in the New Testament, but the most accurate translation of it is not “idle.” Leiros is more like the stuff organic farmers use to fertilize their fields. My Southern preacher self won’t allow me to be any more explicit than that. My friend, preaching professor Anna Carter-Florence says that leiros is “a locker room word, a wet towel whipping through a chorus of jeers.” But for reasons of decorum, we will just say this morning that the male disciples thought that the news the women carried back from the tomb was nothing but pure and total nonsense. Leiros.

Even if that colorful negative response caused the women’s faces to flush red with anger, I imagine they understood the men’s reaction, their innate hesitation to believe what the women said was true. That very morning, as they made their way to the tomb, the women themselves had carried that old-world grip of death wound tightly around their own hearts. The Gospel writer Luke tells us the women had seen the whole sequence of events unfold that weekend. So they—like the men, like everyone else—assumed Jesus’ dead body remained just where it had been placed. But even though they knew their leader was really and truly dead, they were not quite done with their discipleship. Not yet. They desired to minister to him in his death, the way Jesus had ministered to them in his life.

Our text tells us they started off at early dawn, but a more poetic way to translate that phrase is as deep dawn (J. Lowrey, Journal for Preachers, Easter 2004), that indefinable time between darkness and light, that time when you decide either that the promise in which you believe is true, or the promise in which you believe is a lie (Lowrey). With the old-world grip of death wound tightly around their hearts, the women started their journey at the time of deep dawn—that thin time between darkness and light when you decide if it is an idle tale, leiros, or not.

We know deep dawn, don’t we? Deep dawn is the thin time between darkness and light when we hear about terror in Brussels, in Ankara, in Nigeria. In that moment either we believe the angels’ promise that there really will be peace on earth and we have some part to play in it, or as J. Lowrey preached, “we believe there is nothing but an angry God winking at terror’s destruction,” so we should just focus on self-preservation. That’s deep dawn.

We know deep dawn, don’t we? Deep dawn is the thin time between darkness and light when we hear our employer say, “I’m sorry we have to downsize. Don’t come in on Monday.” In that moment either we decide God can do a new thing or we believe all that is just a lie we tell ourselves to feel better. That’s deep dawn.

We know deep dawn, don’t we? Deep dawn is the thin time between darkness and light when we are in middle school and some of the kids tell us we are worthless, insignificant, and no one really wants to be our friend. In that moment, either we decide we’ll try to trust the truth that we are God’s beloved ones or we believe their opinion is fact and disappear into the crowd. That’s deep dawn.

We know deep dawn, don’t we? Deep dawn is the thin time between darkness and light when we find ourselves getting drawn into the cynical politics of our days and the words “those people” form on our lips and rage or fear is what feeds us. When we recognize it is happening in us, either we decide Jesus’ call to “love your neighbor as yourself” is the basis for our life or we believe it’s all foolish nonsense designed to keep the weak ones weak. That’s deep dawn, and yes, we know it well. It’s the thin time between darkness and light when we decide if it is all just leiros, an idle tale, or not.

The women started their journey to Jesus’ tomb in deep dawn, with the old-world grip of death wound tightly around their hearts, spices in hand, looking for Jesus’ corpse. And what they found completely undid them. “Perplexed” is how our text puts it, but that is an understatement. Other ways to say it are the women were disturbed, uncertain, at a loss. Of course they were. Who can blame them? They had gone to the tomb at deep dawn—that thin time when you choose to either trust the promises or not. But that early morning, not only could they not trust the promises, they could not even remember the promises. They could not remember any of what Jesus had told them while he was with them.

So when they arrived and could not find his body, they were lost, for the old-world framework for understanding life with worn-out, tired and empty dreams—that old world still rang in their minds and hearts as true. And yet there they were, standing in an empty tomb, spices in hand, looking for a body but only finding two men in dazzling clothes who ask them why they are looking for the living among the dead.

What a ridiculous, insensitive question. Why? Because that is the way it happens. Dead bodies stay dead. What you see is all there is. They were looking for his body because they had watched him die and they could no longer remember the promise. They were looking for his body because it was deep dawn and the old-world grip of death wound tightly around their hearts.

“Your Jesus is not here,” the men said. “He has risen. Don’t you remember what he told you when he was with you in Galilee—that the Son of Man would be handed over, crucified, and then raised? Don’t you remember his words of promise?” Truthfully, no, in their time of deep dawn, the women had not remembered. But now, standing in that empty tomb, feeling perplexed, confused, disturbed, yes, but also feeling strangely liberated from assumptions and presuppositions, like something has shaken loose in the world and new light can come in—standing in the middle of that cognitive dissonance, the women began to remember.

They started to remember all of Jesus’ promises, all the teaching, all the shared meals and stories, all the ways that Jesus brought healing and forgiveness, along with justice and inclusion, life, everywhere he went. “I remember,” one must have said. “I remember Jesus did tell us all this would happen.” “I remember too,” another woman said. “I remember how he said what is impossible for mortals is possible for God.” “I remember,” another one shouted as they ran back home, dropping their spices as they went along, “I remember how he said the kingdom of God, the realm of God, was coming, was here, was among us in him.” “I remember,” Mary Magdalene might have claimed, “I remember all those times he told us who and whose he was—our brother, our Messiah, the one for whom we have waited. I remember he called us his friends. I remember all he taught us about life and love, about God and faithfulness. I remember.”

And as the women remembered and reminded each other of all Jesus had promised them, the time of early morning light took stronger hold. By the point the women reached the others, their liminal space of deep dawn had faded for at least a while. They began to trust Jesus’ promise that Easter always rises, and the women went straight to those who knew them the best, those who had also heard Jesus’ promises, Jesus’ words. They went to their family of disciples, and they told them everything they had seen and heard at the empty tomb, all that they had remembered. And when they were done, they took a collective deep breath and waited for their friends’ equally joyful reaction.

But to those men locked up in that room, scared, ashamed, guilty, the women’s words seemed to be an idle tale—empty talk, utter nonsense, leiros. They were in their own space of deep dawn, and they could not remember yet. The old-world grip of death still wound its way around their hearts. They could not trust the power of resurrection. They could not trust the word of life. They did not imagine Easter rising. All of that sounded like leiros to them.

I understand. I understand how that testimony from the women sounded like merely an idle tale—empty talk, utter nonsense, leiros. Do you? At this moment in your life, do you walk in the time of deep dawn—the time when you have to decide either what you see is all there is to our lives and to our world or that you will trust there is a different power at work—a resurrection power at work, a world of life emerging? Are you at a time in your life when, if you are honest, you feel the old-world grip of death still winding its way around your heart and my words of empty tombs and Easter rising ring shallow? If that is how you feel, welcome. You are at home here, and you are in good company with the other eleven disciples. So if you are, if we are, let us also be reminded of the rest of their story, because the men’s reaction of leiros did not have the last word.

Later on that same day, the risen Jesus came to be with them— to remind them of all the promises he had made, to let them touch his wounds, to help them see how resurrection power had truly broken into their time and their history. He helped them to remember. And as they did so, they found the old-world grip of death loosening, and their deep dawn started to fade, at least for a while. They began to trust that Easter always rises.

Though the rest of their story is not a completely fair comparison to ours, their experience, the experience of the women, of remembering and seeing anew, still rings true. For just as we know deep dawn, we also know Easter rising. I know it. I’ve seen it. I imagine you have too, even if you cannot remember right now. I’ve seen it at the bedside of a person resting into her death, Communion shared, love expressed, fear and anxiety banished, peace and grief intermingled. That’s Easter rising.

I’ve seen it when people in this congregation continually decide to choose Jesus’ way of loving neighbor instead of fearing them; welcoming all instead of protecting a few; trying to be a community that prizes unity instead of uniformity; a people who long to speak truth gently and persistently. That’s Easter rising. I’ve seen it when I’m told by a parent that her son washes his face at night and whispers softly to himself, “I am God’s child” because that is what he has heard in Sunday School and in worship. It will sink into his soul, and that’s Easter rising.

I’ve seen it when people who have been hurt by the church decide to give it one more chance and come to the new member class, guarded but willing to risk. That’s Easter rising. I’ve seen it when people of different faiths and different races decide to gather around dinner tables and get real, even though it is hard and vulnerable, but that’s the only way a change is going to come. That’s Easter rising. I’ve seen it when Pope Francis chooses to wash the feet of refugees and when our own Moderator of the Presbyterian denomination, alongside other Presbyterian leaders, chooses to spend Holy Week following the route that Syrian refugees are taking as they flee the violence. That kind of solidarity, that kind of humility and care, is Easter rising. I’ve seen it. You’ve seen it too, even if you cannot remember right now. And if you can’t, some of us will hold hope for you until you can remember and hold it for yourself again.

For our testimony is that Easter always rises—no matter what the old world tries to tell us, no matter how many times we wrestle with doubt and unbelief. As William Sloane Coffin always preached, “We may kill God’s love, but we cannot keep it dead and buried!” Easter always rises. No matter how many moments we spend in deep dawn, no matter how many times we hear the stories of our faith and think “idle tale” or “leiros,” the power of resurrection will eventually break in. That is the testimony of our faith on this Easter Sunday.

That is the testimony that began way back when, with those women disciples at the empty tomb and those male disciples in the locked room. That is our testimony that has been handed down from generation to generation, so that all those who follow, who are sent to proclaim the Lord, crucified and risen, will remember his promises and trust—trust that the old-world grip of death has been broken forever. Trust that things are not simply the way they seem. Trust that hope does emerge from despair and we can live new resurrection lives here and now. Trust that God’s love will not be kept dead and buried.

Why? Because our crucified Lord has risen. The power of resurrection is loose in our world, in our time, in our history. Resurrection is hard at work in our world. Easter rises. And there is nothing idle; there is nothing nonsense; there is nothing leiros about it.

The Lord is risen!

He is risen indeed!

Amen.