"Resurrection" - Episcopal School of Jacksonville

Several weeks ago, I was asked by the Episcopal School of Jacksonville to preach for their two chapel services. I joked to several people that they must have asked all the Episcopal priests and they all said no to preaching the week after Easter Sunday. So they asked me, the Lutheran posing as an Episcopal priest. I was told that chapel services have themes... this week would "resurrection!" Ha. I suppose that makes sense. So here we heard the story of Mary Magdalene meeting the risen Christ at the tomb: 

Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene

11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

Let us pray: God of new and ever-present resurrection, be with us as we seek to understand what the resurrection of Christ Jesus means in our lives and in the whole world. Amen. 

On Sunday morning, I drove my two year old toddler to church for Easter morning worship. “You’re going to hear a new word today,” I said, “it’s ‘Alleluia.’ When you hear that word, you get to yell it as loud as you want. Do you want to practice? Alleluia!” 

“Whadda whadda!” He responded. I tried again: “Alleluia!”

“Whadda whadda!” He screeched back. There were too many vowels and consonants. This word meant absolutely nothing to him. It wasn’t like “ball” or “truck,” two of his favorite words right now— there was nothing to point to, to say “there it is.” 

That’s sometimes what the resurrection feels like to me. We have these words, these stories, but there is nothing I can really point to to say “that’s the resurrection.” We have pretty images like flowers blooming and the sun rising, but those don’t really do it justice. 

Often on Easter morning, we tend to be unprepared for the message of the resurrection— even for those of us who grew up in the church our whole lives, we don’t fully understand what Jesus’ resurrection means in our lives. We feel like toddlers learning a new abstract concept. Resurrection. Okay, it’s something that God did. *shrug* It somehow changed the whole world.  

In all honesty, I think it’s okay that we don’t totally understand the resurrection. From the stories we have heard on Sunday and today, it doesn’t seem much like the disciples understood the resurrection either. And we’ll hear next week that some of them even doubted it, asking for proof over and over again. 

I think that’s okay too. Because when we don’t understand something, we are invited to listen more closely, to listen again and again, to ask more questions, and be honest about our doubt. 

Jesus’ resurrection from the dead on Easter morning is the turning point in our Christian history, an absolute upside-down-ness of the whole world. Something that takes more than one day to explain and something that will take, perhaps, our entire lives to understand. 

The comfort is that in this place, and in our home congregations, and as we continue to feed our faith with questions and doubts and research and devotion, we will have countless opportunities not only to hear the story of the resurrection over and over again, but to tell it. And in telling it, like Mary did, we might come to better understand what it means for us in our own lives and for the whole world. 

And that is the good news of the resurrection— that, because Jesus has defeated death and is creating a new world in the resurrection, we have our whole lives, we even have eternity, to be in relationship with one another, with all of creation, and with God. This is only the beginning of the good news. Alleluia. Amen.