I don’t like surprises. Back when we used to go out to eat, if we picked a place and that place wasn’t open, I had a terrible time adjusting to the thought that I wasn’t going to eat what I thought I was going to eat. And I think I already told you the story of when my husband was trying to plan a surprise anniversary trip for us a few years back. I asked him so many questions that he blurted out the surprise and told me that I ruined it. We had a very enjoyable surprise anniversary trip to the Painted Hills and Crater Lake! But I needed to know the surprise, because I needed time to adjust to it.
The women ran to the tomb that Easter morning prepared to perform a
ritual they had done many times before, washing the body of a beloved friend
and family member to prepare it for burial.
It was a matter of duty—that’s just what was done. And it was a matter of coming to terms with
the loss—touching the body, reviewing the scars, the features, remembering each
touch. I remember when my grandpa
died. When I saw him in his casket, it
was hard to believe it was him. But when
I saw his hands and fingernails, I knew it was him and he was gone. My hands are the same shape as my grandpa’s,
only his are about twice as big. We used
to play a game where he would put his hand on the table and I would put mine on
his, then he’d put his hand on mine in a stack.
The person with the hand at the bottom would pull it out and put it on
the top. We’d go faster and faster until
everyone was laughing. You can play this
game when you are camping or fishing or at a picnic or bored after Thanksgiving
dinner. Seeing his hands got through to
me that this was my grandpa and he had died.
The same was true of washing the body.
What games had they played? What
tender touches had they shared?
Certainly the women would have thought of the teary footwash from the
previous week when one of them used her hair to dry his feet. And now they came with their perfumes and
oils to anoint his body, prepared to perform this act of love, prepared to talk
to each other or sing while they did so, prepared to touch his wounds and see
his bruises and brush his hair.
They were talking about the stone blocking the tomb and how they would
move it or get someone to help them and they looked up and the stone was rolled
away. I imagine they stopped very
abruptly. Something wasn’t right. Something was not as expected. They must have looked around to see if
anything else was out of place. They
must have looked to see if they were in danger or not. Were there grave robbers around? When had this taken place? But the women were not deterred. They entered the tomb. These are strong women, ready to face
whatever they would see or not see. What
they found was a young man. Was he an angel? Could he be trusted? They were very alarmed to find someone there.
This young man said this,
“Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.
He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7But
go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee;
there you will see him, just as he told you.”
The man knew they were alarmed and was trying to calm them. He knew who was supposed to be in this
tomb. He knew who they were looking for. He knew why Jesus wasn’t there anymore—that
he was raised. And he knew where Jesus
was headed.”
These women are terrified. This is not what they were expecting. They had this whole plan and no reason to
think that it would go awry—if it did, it would be a stone that was the impediment. It wasn’t a stone, but a very difficult story
to understand, lacking many details at all.
“What do you mean he has been raised?”
They are moving in one direction, mourning, afraid, devastated, but with
a clear purpose and action required of them.
Now they are standing there, completely baffled. And the Gospel says, “And they said nothing
to anyone for they were terrified.”
Last
week the Ever Given container ship ran aground in the Suez Canal. It was on it’s way to deliver hundreds of
shipping containers worth millions of dollars to ports around the world. And then it encountered a storm and ran
aground. The story of this ship reminds
me of the women. The ship was headed on
a mission. It ran aground because of
it’s own speed and outside forces. And
it felt all week like it might never get going again as soil was removed one
scoop at a time. It took most of the
week to get it unstuck, and a lot of tugboats and a lot of backhoes.
When
the Gospel says they said nothing to anyone, it is easy to understand. They were stuck and it takes a while to
switch gears. This is one surprise too
many for the friends of Jesus. But we
know that that ship got unstuck at some point.
The women got unstuck, because we have this story today. They did tell someone or it would have never
been written in this Gospel.
Two
things about that. One is that they
admitted that they were afraid.
Sometimes in the church we want to have everything neat and tidy and
beautiful and orderly and only joyful.
But it is okay to be afraid and messy and confused and hesitant. And it is okay to admit those things. We don’t have it all together and we don’t
need to because we always have Jesus messing up our decent order. We always have Jesus confusing us and loving
us into opening our hearts even more to his messy, loving reign.
The
other thing about that is that the story ends in a cliffhanger. “They said nothing to anyone because they
were afraid.” The End. No happily ever after, no riding off into the
sunset, nothing. This ending made people
so uncomfortable that they later wrote several other endings to this Gospel to
be a better fit. But Mark left this
story this way for a reason and that is that we are the end of the story and
generations to come after us are the end of the story. Actually, this story never ends. It only goes on and on as God’s love is
shared and as terrified people are paralyzed and then later see their
resurrected Lord. This story goes on
every time someone is lifted up who was laid low, every time life flourishes,
every abundant blessing that is shared, every time someone confused and scared
reaches out to someone else who is confused and scared and they find they
aren’t alone. The Easter story is all
around us, a story of death and a story of life, a story of hope in all
adversity, a story of good news. It is
the story of a ship running aground and instead of blaming, we all watched and
cheered when it was freed and all the tugboats honked their horns in
celebration. That’s what Easter is, God
unsticking us from our stuck place, all of us cheering for each other, being
freed to serve God and to love our neighbor, and our cup overflowing with God’s
blessings and grace.
Alleluia
Christ is Risen! Christ is risen indeed,
Alleluia!
No comments:
Post a Comment