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THE RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD, 04/16/2017
DON’T BE AFRAID
Sermon on Matthew 28:1-10, by David Zersen
As long as I can remember, the worship services on Easter Day caught my attention with inspiring music, lovely floral scents, the return of the Alleluia, and colorful clothing choices made by women and girls, sometimes even by men. Surrounding the main worship times were early services The Great Vigil of Easter, Easter breakfasts, Easter egg hunts and the excitement waiting at home with a special dinner attended by relatives and friends. Easter Day, as is fitting for a time of celebration, was upbeat, positive and creative. It was to be expected, I thought as a child, and I always looked forward to it.
Compare that mood with the one that the followers of Jesus experienced on that first Easter Day.
What they were facing had not been expected. They had prepared themselves for a bleak future without a spiritual leader. Jesus had died and the future he had challenged them to consider seemed no longer possible. Suddenly, however, as all four Gospel accounts relate, the tomb in which he had been buried was empty and Jesus meets Mary Magdalene and Mary the Mother of James the Less and Joses on the path and says, “Don’t be Afraid.”
Wow! “Don’t be afraid!” And why not? Jesus was dead, and now is alive. All the plans for the future were shattered, but now they were struggling to make sense of the moment. Change doesn’t come easily-- to anyone. It wasn’t just that Jesus was alive. How could they understand the larger issue—the one we proclaim today? How could they understand that those who knew the reality of death in the midst of life would now be asked to believe that death for them is done? How could they be asked to trust that the way in which humans had conducted their lives-- using hatred, violence and revenge as tools to build community-- was being called into question? “Don’t be afraid,” indeed.
Big changes are proposed to those who needed to look squarely at the resurrection of Jesus. On the one hand, there are the changes we are asked to consider when we trust that God has put Jesus in charge of everything-- that we now have to think differently about the powers that we allow to constrain and control us. My grandson, at 8 years of age, learned from his parents or Sunday School teacher how to deal with these powers. One day, when I had both him and his ten-year-old sister in the public library, they needed to go to the bathroom. I thought it best for me to stand in the hallway next to the drinking fountain so that I could be there for either one if there were a problem. As Aiden walked timidly into the men’s room, after the door closed, I could hear him singing “Jesus loves me this I know.” I am still moved deeply by this memory, because I then understood that he could face new situations, changes, because he knew he was never alone. I wonder if we as adults understand this as well.
We are beset by phobias and paranoia. Phobias are fears of things that happen to us accidentally, over which we have little control. Increasingly, in our society, we don’t believe much in accidents. Someone has to pay! Some is responsible! It is the cry of the ambulance-chasing lawyer in the TV commercial. Increasingly more common among us is paranoia, the fear that someone is going to do something to us, is seeking our harm. Have we developed the resurrection faith that allows us to combat this?
Increasingly, people in our society worry about changes brought on by others that may (or may not) affect them. We read articles about potential changes and we hear about them in the media. The earnest, probing interview questions of Judy Woodward on PBS strike me as typical:
“Aren’t you afraid that Russia may be trying to impact our democratic elections?”
And others, like my cousin, or perhaps your cousin (gins) will ask:
“Aren’t you afraid that we are moving down the path to socialism?”
“Aren’t you afraid that our educational system is being taken over by the gays? By the
Muslims? By the Jews?”
“Aren’t you afraid that Gorsuch (by now already elected) will repeal some of our basic laws?”
I’m not trying to influence anyone toward one political view or another. I merely want to say that in our society today there are many uncertainties and fears, largely based on simple or profound versions of paranoia, that changes promoted by some may create enormous problems for all. And this is not to say that some changes may not be problematic, but rather that fear of change in general is a far larger problem for us.
What does this discussion about fear have to do with Easter Day? It was on this day, when the followers of Jesus were so troubled that they could not make sense of their situation, that Jesus said to them, what he had often said before: “Don’t be afraid.” At the heart of the Easter message is a word to those who should know that because death is done and the future is assured, we simply cannot afford to be afraid of anything.
Some years ago, my wife and I had the privilege to be in London during Holy Week and on Easter Day we heard the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, preach. I will never forget him saying to me and to all gathered, “If I did not believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus, I could not be a Christian and I could not stand in this pulpit and bring you a message of hope and confidence for the future.”
Let me, now, for a moment, take his thought and our very human fear about change and the future and explore them theologically. Part of what the followers of Jesus were afraid of was that the very human lifestyle that they understood so well was being threatened by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. If something as groundbreaking and unsettling as a resurrection can reorient our human priorities, then it is no longer possible for us to be content with jealously, violence or hatred (something at which the disciples at times were so good). We will want to be open to God’s own way of doing things. Resurrection opens to us, terrifying as it is, a new way, God’s way, fashioning us into people of repentance, reconciliation, faith and love.
For that matter, and this is scary, if we follow the disciples who went to their death preaching the reality of Jesus’ physical resurrection, then we are called to a new way of life, a radical change, that considers military or violent solutions only as a last resort, never as a first one. We are called to pursue help for the disenfranchised who fall between the cracks of laissez-faire capitalism more than the quest to be successful and affluent. We are called to see the cross of Jesus as God’s negation of violence in general. We don’t have to react that way when we are troubled, intimidated, or challenged. We are summoned to work together to cease placing our own guilt on scapegoats who may have nothing to do with the crimes of which we accuse them.
Caiphas, at Jesus trial, understood this only partially. “It is expedient that one should die for the sins of the people,” he said, “rather than the whole nation perish.” (Jn. 11:50) He was correct arithmetically. But he voted for violence nonetheless. He never discovered the power of a resurrection faith that allowed a believer to renounce an old way of life and enter a new one.
A wonderful play by Eugene O’Neill written in 1926 attempts to come to grips with this dilemma. The play has an enormous cast of characters, about 140, providing good reasons why it has seldom been performed. However, the play, Lazarus Laughed, provides other challenging reasons for its having been produced so infrequently. In the play, Lazarus, a poor farmer, is raised from the dead by Jesus. The main character is so puzzled and overwhelmed and enthralled by this challenge to the one reality of life, death itself, that he can’t stop laughing. This annoys his children and his wife, who can’t seem to grasp the reality in the same way that Lazarus does.
And this is what should send us out and onward today, laughing with all our hearts The fear mongers, the paranoid types looking for scapegoats to blame for the world’s problems, and the haters, are wrong. Oh my good and gracious God, they are mistaken! How can that be? How can it be that when I worry about the future, when I’m anxious and afraid, that I am as wrong as those who crucified Jesus? Yes, the verdict is in. When you and I confess our confident faith that just as Jesus died and rose again, so shall we, then we may place our fingers with Thomas in Jesus’ side and say, “My Lord and my God.” And with a new understanding, we can laugh at those who tell us to cower in fear because of Russia and North Korea, because of Isis and
Terrorists, because of the Zika virus or a new strain of bird flu. We can listen again to Jesus’ words as he says to the women on Easter Day and to us, “Don’t be afraid.”
You and I know there is evil in the world, but we will not allow that awareness to restrain our joy and laughter. We are resurrection people who know that the power of death is done and the future is open to us.
Thank you, Jesus. We are not afraid.
Hymns: The Strife is O’er;