“Jesus Christ is risen today! Na-na-na-na-na-na!” Yeah, I know, that’s not the way the song goes. The way we sing it on Easter morning is: “Jesus Christ is risen today! Alleluia!” But a good alternative to the word alleluia that captures the spirit of our Easter celebration would be: Na-na-na-na-na-na!
For we gather this day to taunt death. We stand up to the great fear that plagues us all, the fear of death. Much the way we might stand up to a schoolyard bully… with an older brother standing behind us, of course.
It feels great to be on the winning side against death. What a glorious day!
· Strained relationships
·
the continuing global pandemic, the uncertainty of vaccines and
variants, and those who still refuse to acknowledge that the coronavirus is
real.
·
schools confounded with all the complications involved in safely
reopening,
·
civil unrest all around the world,
· the discomfort of a nation coming to terms with systemic racism that has marred our past and threatens our future,
A planet that will not survive the abuse humanity has unleashed upon it.
When faced with the reality of our lives, the resurrection may even seem a bit unreal. After all, we have no way of verifying it. There were no reporters on hand. We don’t have many details about it, and what details we do have seem to vary, depending on who’s telling the story. We don’t know what the weather was like that morning. Was it stormy, was it calm? Was the sky clear? We don’t know why Jesus’ burial cloths were neatly folded and left in the tomb. We don’t know if he found some other clothes to wear or if he was naked when Mary saw him. Maybe he found some of the gardeners’ clothes lying around in a shed somewhere and he put those on. Maybe that’s why Mary mistook him for the gardener. But we have no idea what gardeners wore back then. Certainly, Jesus didn’t appear in a pair of bib overalls. Was it just his clothes, or was it his face that changed somehow? Of course, we don’t know what he looked like before the resurrection, either. There’s so much we don’t know, it’s really amazing that we would believe such a story at all.
And yet, despite that, we celebrate the resurrection today. Some of us celebrate because we believe to the core of our being that it happened. Others celebrate because we want to believe it. Perhaps the one thing we all have in common on this day is that we’re people who can’t bring ourselves to dismiss it altogether.
We’re like the author John Updike, who had a strong Lutheran upbringing, and confessed that although he knew all the scientific and historical reasons for doubting the resurrection, he couldn’t quite "make the leap into unbelief."
And yet, I don’t think it’s our struggle to believe something so unbelievable that keeps us from experiencing resurrection in all its fullness. It’s our inability to make the connection between the resurrection story and our life stories. When we celebrate on Easter Sunday we’re remembering the story of the empty tomb, something that happened in the past. But what power does resurrection have in our lives today?
Beyond Easter morning, we also invoke the risen Christ at funerals. Yet, if we limit resurrection to an idea that brings us consolation whenever we gather around a hole in the ground to lay a loved one to rest, the resurrection of Christ is no more than an insurance policy against death.
Here’s the Easter truth. The resurrection story isn’t just something that we return to at Easter or funerals. Our God is a God of resurrection. The same divine energy which first took Christ out of the grave, is not just to help us in the hour of death, but to bring us life, here and now.
I know that not many of you have been inside Ascension’s church building since the pandemic sent us all home. But for the few of us who have, it’s a surreal experience to be in this space. Every time I’ve come here over the past year, it’s felt a little like I’m one of the women coming to Jesus’ tomb on Easter morning. Like the tomb, it’s empty. The Body of Christ that once filled this space is not here. In its place, I find folded grave-cloths. A notice on the bulletin board for Lenten Soup Suppers – from over a year ago. A welcome to Angie and Sophia, whose visit with us was cut short when they had to return home to Nicaragua early because of the pandemic. A hymn board for Lent. Handbell tables draped in purple for Lent. A bulletin board for Lenten music madness. All of it from over a year ago. Just as it was when we all went home.
The taste of Ann Reilly’s chocolate chip cookies. The altar guild moving swiftly between services to reset the table. The latecomers slipping silently into their pews. It seems so long ago. And yet, I know this time of dormancy isn’t going to last.
Life will return to this place. It’s more than an empty tomb. It will again become a place teaming with life. We wait patiently to become our future selves. It’s a stark reminder to us that no matter how dead our lives may become, death is fleeting. It’s no match for the life God promises us. Resurrection is coming.
You may wake up tomorrow morning with a resurrection hangover and wonder if anything we’ve done on this Resurrection Sunday makes a lick of difference in the world around you. No matter how desperate things may look, I hope you know where your life is headed. Our God is a God of resurrection. As his people, our stories are connected with his. We can’t tuck the resurrection story between the pages of a dusty old book and return to our little lives of quiet desperation. The world around us may be enveloped in the walls of a tomb from which there appears to be no escape. But as followers of the resurrected Christ, our time on this earth is always filled with hope. Every place among us where death has a stronghold, we stand on the side of the one who defeated the power of death.
Jesus Christ is risen today. Na-na-na-na-na-na! Be assured that Jesus Christ is risen the day after today as well. Alleluia.
Pastor Nancy Kraft
Ascension Lutheran Church,
Towson, Maryland
