An Easter Faith

Rali Weaver

Easter 2008 First Church and Parish in Dedham

I want to offer you a simple message this morning.

Spring has come again.

The earth is resurrected.

This is my good news.

And I believe that it is the true promise of Easter Sunday.

I am tempted to end my Easter homily just here.

Spring has come again-- the earth is resurrected!

I want to urge each of you to sit with the words of Mary Oliver, the words of ee cummings the hymns and the words from the book of Matthew telling of Mary going to an empty tomb and finding a living Jesus. I am tempted to offer you these words, more poetic than my own, refrain from filling the silence with my words and instead encourage you to simply sit here in the silence and meditate upon the new life at hand.

Meditate upon the birds singing outside and the sun streaming in the windows.

I want it to sink in completely that despite the chill in the air and the lack of daffodils spring has come again.

But the truth is-- that is only a small part the story.

Finding that Jesus was resurrected is only part of the story just as finding the Easter egg is only half of the fun.

Part of the fun in the Easter egg hunt was preparing the eggs with the Youth Group last week and part will be hiding them hiding them after the service, part will be finding them and part will be unwrapping them later and finding out what is inside. The hunt is only part of the story.

And spring is here but what we had to go through to get to it is equally important. The bitter cold temperatures, the record amounts of snow are both a part of the story of what has brought us to this spring day

And what will yet unfold in the days and weeks ahead-- the greening leaves, the birds that will return, the flowers that will bloom, the butterflies that will come out of their cocoons, the black flies that will emerge, the warming temperatures --these things that yet shall be are a big part of the story of spring as well.

The preparation—the waiting -- the not knowing how things will turn out—the period of gestation before birth—the death – the darkness of the tomb—the everlasting light--- these things are all a part of an Easter Faith.

As rational minded Unitarian Universalists I know it is easy to discount a story such as the story I read this morning from Matthew. This gospel tale is easy for our rational minds to discount because there are so many irrational parts of the story.

In fact the only rational part of this story is that at dawn after the Sabbath Mary went to the Tomb to see her beloved teacher. Of course she would go to the tomb that is rational.

In her day someone would have needed to go and prepare the dead body. In this time of grief she would have felt a pressing need to take care of her beloved teacher, and so she would go at the first opportunity, at daybreak after the first Sabbath and do just that. If you have ever lost a loved one in a tragic accident, or unexpectedly, you know how important it is to see the body, to make the death more real. Mary going to the tomb after the Sabbath has ended is a rational act.

But after that the explanation by Matthew leaves rationality behind. Mary walks up to the tomb and there is a violent earthquake. Ok earthquakes happen all the time-- but what are the chances that a violent earthquake would happen just as Mary approaches the tomb?

And then an Angel of the Lord came down and rolled back the stone at the front of the tomb and then sat upon it. Dramatic --yes, rational ---no! And then you know what happens next the Angel talks to Mary- telling her to not be afraid. Just as the Angel Gabriel tells Jesus’ mother Mary before his birth. There does seem to be a great deal of symmetry in this story but it seems too fantastical to be fact. And I don’t know about you but I don’t see Angels of the Lord walking around very often, and they certainly don’t talk to me. These days, in fact, if we saw an angel of the Lord walking and talking we might have to be examined by a psychiatrist. But in the tale of the resurrection, Mary does everything the Angel tells her to do.

The most fantastical thing off all is that the Angel tells Mary that Jesus who was dead is still alive-- and she doesn’t even question it. She doesn’t dispute it in any way. Instead she does as she is told and goes off to tell the disciples about the angel, not even worried that they might not believe her. And on the way you know what Matthew tells us that she encounters? Not the body taken from the tomb, not the disciples she is headed to meet, but the living breathing Jesus.

There is nothing rational about a story with a well-timed earthquake, a Angel that appears like lightening and a dead man that comes back alive.

As good rational Unitarian Universalists, I would imagine most of us hear stories like the one from Matthew and either liken it to a fairy tale or try to explain it away. We might say-“Jesus must have been still alive when he came off the cross and that is how Mary found him alive” or perhaps“Jesus couldn’t have survived, so maybe Mary was just hallucinating,” or even “maybe she saw the Jesus in every person she met after she left the tomb that day, maybe it wasn’t Jesus but the Jesus in another human face she saw.” Or perhaps “she met Jesus’ ghost on the road to the tomb”, or just perhaps “the myth was written to explain the birth of the church and how Jesus’ life and teaching went on despite his death.” We say, “it certainly is a dramatic story but it just doesn’t make sense”.

There are so many ways to describe the Easter story that might make more sense to our rational analytical brains but I believe all of those ways miss the beauty of the story.

I think it was Walter Bruggeman that once said something to the effect that some stories are more real than facts.” And I believe this is true about the Easter Story.

To accept the true beauty of an Easter Faith, we must open fully to the possibility that it is true, that even in our darkest moment, when all hope seems lost, there is life.

This is what the resurrection is really about. This is what an Easter Faith promises: rebirth and new life.

But don’t mistake it this is not a promise of new life at no cost.

In the Easter tale the ultimate price was paid.

Jesus’ life was sacrificed --a beloved teacher was lost.

And the grief that must have been immense is part of the story too.

Yet even in the darkest hour, what is left --what the promise of an Easter Faith offers is how a life, a generous giving committed life such as Jesus’, though lost forever can be reborn in others even now.

This is the new life promised by an Easter faith-- the one that is everlasting life.

I would like to take a moment to reflect upon our Easter Flowers today.

Each flower is a memorial to a precious one who is not here with us today in body but we remember in spirit. Some have died and some are still living but all live in each of us this day. As I call upon these names let us reflect upon these lives and what they have taught us, remembering that whether gone temporarily or permanently from our world, they are alive in us- may this serve as a reminder of the promise of an Easter Faith and how it is we live forever.

(read names of those memorialized in flowers)

Let us move forward into this Easter day paying attention to the sunshine and the birds that sing, and remembering all these names both spoken and unspoken here today remembering that despite the cold barren winter, despite loss, new hope, new promise and new life has risen again.

Amen