Resurrection finds us...

The Reverend Deon K. Johnson

Preached at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Brighton MI April 8, 2012 Easter Day

Mark 16:1-8

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint Jesus. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?" When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, "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. But 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." So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

"When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back" (Mark 16:4).

The women approached the tomb to complete a proper burial for their friend and would-be-messiah. Dread and sorrow filled their hearts, but like women everywhere, in every time, they came simply to do what must be done. This One, who had gone beyond merely making the lame walk and proclaimed the forgiveness of sins and a new life under the reign of God, was now dead. The end of a dream -- their dream of salvation and deliverance. And then they looked up and "saw that the stone, which was very large, had ALREADY been rolled back."

Can you imagine the fear and the joy they felt on that first Easter morning? Can you imagine going to visit the grave of a loved one and finding it open and empty? You'd be mad, or scared or both. You don't expect the dead to be anything else but dead. We like our dead to stay dead. And that is the problem with Jesus he just won't stay dead! He just won't stay in the places that we put him!

You see we try to contain God. We crucify him, wrap him in a shroud and roll a stone to bar the entrance. But God can not be contained no matter how hard we try, no matter how many stones, or shrouds or cross we place in the way!

Resurrection finds us. It finds us at the point of brokenness in our lives and does something amazing. We may not always see it, may not even understand it, but God will be there to find us when we need to be resurrected the most.

We as people of faith should worry less what people say they believe happened 2,000 years ago to Jesus and worry more about whether we are living as if resurrection still happens. I believe in resurrection because I have experienced it. I experienced it when I lost my sight in seminary and my professors and classmates showed me what God’s unconditional love looked like. I experienced resurrection when I have sat at the death bed of a complete stranger in the hospital who was at peace with the life to come and left this world with a smile on his face because he lived his life to the fullest. He lived his life in a way that made him happy because he lived like God intended him to live. He let the small insignificant things fall away. How many of us when we come to our deaths will meet our end with a smile looking back at a life well lived?

I experienced resurrection in seeing a close friend go through months of chemotherapy, loose her hair, her health and at times it would seem her hope but through it all managed to smile and come out the other side a survivor. I experience resurrection in my two nieces who teach me more about God that I sometimes care to know.

The thing is we don’t have to go back two thousand years to know resurrection, we know resurrection because we live it! Because of Jesus’ resurrection we experience resurrection!

You have been there as well. You know only too well what resurrection looks and feels and tastes like in your own life. You know what it feels like when the massive stone that has been holding you back has been rolled back and you experience life in all its fullness. You see resurrection isn’t a time and place in history that happened to Jesus, resurrection happens every day.

We don’t find resurrection, we don’t get up one morning and decide…”well I have nothing else to do I think I am going to go look for resurrection.” No we don’t find resurrection, resurrection finds us. Like the women early that morning looking for the body of Jesus to anoint, they were not looking for resurrection; it didn’t even cross their minds that they would find anything other than the lifeless body of their teacher in a borrowed tomb. But instead resurrection finds them.

I think it begins by practicing resurrection. It begins by opening up ourselves to our lives being transformed when we least expect it. It means living our lives as if they had meaning, and purpose and hope. Living a resurrected life means that we have to let the massive stones in our lives be rolled away so that the life that God is calling us to can come alive! Living our lives in that truth means doing courageous and mighty things in Jesus' name. Surrendering to the resurrection means letting go of all the anxiety and fear that can so easily grip and disempower us and experiencing the joy of the resurrected life.

It means living our lives with "the peace that passes all understanding" in our hearts. And it means stopping each and every day, one day at a time, to look up and be reminded that the stone has ALREADY been rolled away. We need to live as Easter people in a world clinging to Good Friday! We need to like Jesus’ followers to practice resurrection. We need to leave behind all the dead places and things that we have followed and proclaim a God who will not be contained, who will meet us and resurrect us when we are weighted down by the instruments of death.

Wendell Barrie in his poem “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.” Here’s a taste of this poetic and prophetic masterpiece:

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.

Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary,

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

This Easter, may you open your whole self — heart, soul, mind, and strength — to God’s inspiring call to new life and renewed love. May you feel God luring you, prompting you, goading you, cajoling you, calling you and encouraging you — each day and in each new present moment — to practice resurrection. Alleluia! Christ is Risen. Amen.