Fear & Joy

Matthew 28:1-10

After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

Just imagine trying to preach on this auspicious day.  Imagine trying to find a new way to tell an old, very familiar story.  Imagine facing a large room of people all expecting to hear good news in a fresh and exciting way.  Not that I’m looking for any sympathy, but that’s what I’m up against right now.

The Easter story is one that most of us could tell without even opening up a Bible, couldn’t we.  But could we really do that?  Because there are several versions of the story out there, all telling of resurrection and new life but each with it’s own twists and viewpoints.  Each gospel writer has a slightly different take on what happened that morning.  Mark’s gospel is sparest, telling of that first Easter in only eight short verses.  Matthew and Luke, who both used Mark as a source for their own writing, added details to the narrative.  And John has an entirely different perspective.

Today we heard Matthew’s version.  Matthew has two women approaching the tomb, not with spices to anoint the body as in the other versions.  Why not?  Well perhaps because Matthew earlier tells the tale of the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with expensive ointment that he declares was his anointing for death; a precursor of his death that Matthew includes.  So anointing is not necessary for Matthew; it had already occurred.  Plus the women knew that a heavy stone was over the tomb and they wouldn’t have access.

One major difference between Mark’s and Matthew’s gospels is the ending.  Mark’s tale ends in fear; the women who came to the tomb ran away frightened and Mark ends there.  Did you notice though that Matthew acknowledged the fear but added on to it?  He writes that the two Marys “left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy.”  Fear and great joy.  There’s something about that phrase that caught my attention.

I can understand the women’s reaction of fear and great joy.  This is something brand new; resurrection is a whole new event so there’s a naturalness to their fright.  But I like the fact that Matthew added the “great joy” to the story that Mark doesn’t include.  It speaks of more emotion and a truer emotion than just leaving off with fear.  In spite of how crazy this whole resurrection thing might seem, it is cause for joy, gladness, elation.

So with this mingling of emotions the women set out to tell the others of what has happened.  It’s incredible, it’s amazing, it’s unbelievable.  I don’t blame them for their fear.  It’s a natural reaction to an implausible event.

And those are the elements of a resurrection faith: fear and great joy.  It’s okay to have the first and it’s necessary to have the second if you’re going to believe that new life is possible.  It’s what we’re called to in this resurrection faith: fear and joy.

It’s an interesting mixture of emotions, if you think about it.  On one hand there is the gut-wrenching that comes with the fear but the release that comes with the joy. 

We certainly might be fearful in this time of great uncertainty in which we live; it’s natural to have some fear in the midst of all that’s going on around us.  With America’s longest war still in progress and partisan politics seemingly at its sharpest edge in the midst of a sluggish, at best, economy, there are many reasons to be fearful.  I don’t have to give too many examples of why we might fear in this day and age.  We all know them.

The great joy can be the difficulty though, as it certainly was for the women leaving the tomb.  But a resurrection faith calls for it; demands it even.  Sometimes we have to seek out the  joy; work to find it.  But our resurrection faith requires it.  Joy is necessary if we are to claim the name Christian.

True it may be difficult to be joyful in the midst of the overwhelming fear we may feel.  But if we truly believe that resurrection is possible, we must know joy and need to exhibit it to others.

Too many who call themselves Christian get stuck with the fear.  You know them--those who are always predicting gloom and doom.  They want you to believe that the world will end on a certain date and use fear to convert others to their way.  Or they want you to think that if you don’t believe exactly as they do, you’re condemned to the fiery pit.  They use fear as an evangelism tool but never get around to the joy part.

 But Easter is at time of joy:  we celebrate resurrection and believe that new life is not only possible is required.  The women at the tomb were joyful because they had evidence that their teacher, the one of whom they were disciples, was not dead but alive even though they stood and witnessed his crucifixion just a few days earlier.  When something in our lives that once was dead, be it hope or dreams or whatever has gotten you to this point, is found to be alive, we can grasp onto that joy.

Easter does not erase the fear; we still have to deal with it and experience that emotion.  But Easter allows us to mix that fear with the joy of believing in new life.  Practice resurrection faith;  from the midst of your fear, find the joy.

Hope Amidst Dry Bones

Ezekiel 37:1-14

In the year 586 b.c., Jerusalem was in trouble, big trouble.  The Babylonians had laid siege to Judea and Jerusalem and t he tiny realm was crumbling, both physically and metaphorically.  Babylon, the big power of the time, had come to town and they were taking over.  As part of their conquering strategy, they took in exile all the elite of the city:  the thinkers, and doers, the cream of the crop, including religious leaders.  There were waves of exile and in the very first wave was a priest and a prophet by the name of Ezekiel.

We know little about Ezekiel beyond that he was a priest and a prophet at the time of the exile to Babylon.  But he was a prophet of his time, called to speak a new word to a weary and shocked nation.

In their capturing of Judea, Babylon had leveled Jerusalem and in particular destroyed the Temple.  To the Jews of that era, the Temple was where God lived; it was God’s abode and without it God was essentially homeless.  And how does one worship a homeless God?  How does one properly venerate the One who is no longer there? 

Yes, Judea was in a state; a state of confusion and depression and downright chaos.  It’s capital was leveled, its leaders were carried off and its God no longer had a home.  It was as close to being a dead country as you can be.  They knew it and God knew it.

Ezekiel, off in Babylon, knew it too.  Those in exile were no doubt in as much shock as those left behind.  Judaism was at a crux point; if something weren’t done, it would likely die out completely…forgotten totally except in some dusty old history books.

So God brought forth Ezekiel, the priest, as a prophet and gave him words to speak to a wondering people.  And what an image God gave Ezekiel, the image you heard this morning of resurrection and life anew.

Ezekiel saw a valley of bones; human bones that had been long dead.  These bones had lost all their connective tissue and muscle and skin and had in fact been bleached white by the sun.  They were bones that hadn’t flexed or jumped or walked or done anything a body would do for a very long time.

And Ezekiel was called to prophesy to them; he was called to speak God’s words of truth and love to these dry, dusty bones.  And as he did, a miraculous thing happened: the bones began to move.  They began to connect up once again with each other.  And they developed sinews and tendons.  And muscles formed on them and skin formed over them. 

But there was something missing:  their spirit was missing.  So God had Ezekiel prophesy to the breath of God and call it forth.  In Hebrew the same word, ruach, means wind or breath or spirit.  So the wind blew and God’s breath flowed and into these once dry bones came the spirit that they had been lacking.  They lived again, as alive as you and me sitting here today.

If ever there were a people who needed to hear that dry bones could live it would be those in Judea during this time.  They needed to hear the word of God in a new way.  They needed to know that their God still lived and hadn’t been destroyed along with their Temple and city.  God knew it and said as much to Ezekiel:  “Mortal,” God says, “these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, 'Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.'”  God knew the state that God’s people were in.  Their hope was gone and the land that had been theirs since the time of Joshua, hundreds of years prior,  and promised to ancestors even further back, was overrun. 

The thing to remember, too, is that for a priest, such as Ezekiel, being in a place of dead bodies is impure.  Priests avoided contact with the dead.  We can’t begin to imagine how much this prophesy offended and affronted both Ezekiel and his hearers.  And yet, this is where God was found speaking to Ezekiel.  This is where the word was coming through.  So this is a time of contrasts:  the pure and the impure; the holy and the profane; God absent and God present.

So out of those contrasts comes the hope that is to give life again to a battered and shattered nation.  From the midst of chaos and confusion comes the hope of resurrection, not on a personal level, but on a national level. 

This is a new way of thinking.  This is completely foreign to the Hebrew people.  Because God resided in the Temple, they always assumed that the Temple was safe; protected from harm.   But God, Ezekiel’s prophesy is saying, lives outside the bounds of the Temple, outside the borders of Jerusalem; even beyond the boundary of Judea.  God lives on whether the Temple exists or not.  God lives through chaos and destruction.  God lives on through hopelessness and despair. 

Where is our hopelessness and despair today?  Do you think God lives through it or do you feel an absence of God in the midst of it?  Do you believe in resurrection; that dry, dusty, old bones can live again?  Or does your imagination prevent you from adding sinews and muscles and skin to the bones that inhabit our world?

There is, without a doubt, much reason for hopelessness and despair these days:  from a personal level as we continue to consider the future of a congregation that has meant so much to each of us here today to a global level as we see hatred grow and ongoing war become the norm.  Those, and everything in between, are our dry bones today.  That is our valley of death that we must wander through.

Hopeless and despairing?  Perhaps, but do you believe that God still lives and still practices resurrection?  If you don’t, then Ezekiel’s prophesy was just a rambling vision of a desperate priest two and a half millennia ago.  And I don’t know what you’re going to do in a couple of weeks when we celebrate Easter.

But if you do believe that it is God’s breath which breathes new life into situations of despondency and desolation, then you have reason to hope.  Your work is cut out for you though.  For you are called to be the breath of God, breathing life where there is no life; hope where there is no hope.