EASTER DAY, YEAR B

THE BAPTISM OF HANNAH JANE BROWN AND NIKOLAS SHAYNE PARSONS

SERMON PREACHED AT CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, NORWAY, MAINE

THE REV. ANNE G. STANLEY

12 APRIL 2009

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Acts 10:34-43; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; 1 Corinthians 15: 1-11; Mark 16:1-8

“Afraid.” The last word of the gospel for Easter Day. Happy Easter! Is this any way to end an Easter gospel, the Easter Good News? With “afraid?” Actually, in the Greek language in which the gospel was written, it seems that the last sentence was chopped off in the middle—“they said nothing to anyone, they were afraid, for…”  The last word of Mark’s gospel is “for.”  That’s unusual word order even in Greek.  Where’s the rest of the sentence? What happened to it?

Fear, amazement, terror, a raggedy sentence. And women running away, unable to speak a word to anyone about what they had seen and heard.

Other gospels tell about the witnesses speaking and people coming to check the evidence in the empty tomb. Other gospels tell us about the thrill of realizing that Jesus really had risen from being dead. Other gospels talk about what came next, the disciples talking and spreading the word and proclaiming the Good News.

But not Mark. People added other endings to Mark’s gospel later on, to smooth out the rough last sentence. But the original version leaves us hanging. The women fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, they were afraid, for…

Rough ending, fear….. But think of what the women had just gone through, they and the other friends of Jesus. Think of what they brought with them in their hearts to Jesus’ tomb—living with hardships in their own lives and in their own families and in their own towns in those tough times, and now this, their beloved companion and rabbi and leader, the one they’d thought would save them from all the bad things in their lives, now horribly and disgracefully and slowly murdered, and not only that, but his body gone, too. They couldn’t even do their women’s work and anoint his body with their spices.

How do we come to the tomb today? What do we bring in our hearts to the scene of Jesus’ burial and his resurrection? We bring our own fears and our own struggles, no?  Things that we deal with every day in our lives, as the women did in theirs, the business of our lives, our own lists of hardships? What do you carry with you today?

“He is not here,” said the strange young man dressed in white. Remember him?  There he was, sitting in the empty tomb, as cool as a cucumber. “Don’t be afraid…..Jesus has been raised…..he is not here.”  This was more than the women could wrap their minds around.

What in the world?

How could they absorb this?

How do we fit this news into our lives?

Something happened to Jesus.

Do we believe it?

Do we trust that it is true?

How can we make it real for ourselves?

How do we trust that something has happened to us as well as to Jesus?

I can’t tell you how to trust or believe or make this real for you.

But I can hold up the witness of the women.

They were terrified at first, but we know that ultimately they did find their voices. And it’s a good thing for us that they did!!  Can you imagine what wouldn’t have happened if they’d kept quiet?

The women found their voices and out of their terror and their amazement they eventually came the realization that although Jesus had died, he had not died forever.  That God had done this thing, for Jesus and for us. That somehow nothing is hopeless any more. That’s the message of Easter. Nothing is hopeless! Ever again. Somehow the women got it. And they spread the word and the story continued. The women picked up where the raw and raggedy ending of Mark’s gospel left off.

And now it’s our turn. It’s our turn to continue the story. Through our own voices and by what we do. We are part of God’s story, too.

We are part of Jesus’ story. And when we are baptized, we are transformed and marked and as Christ’s own forever, sealing us forever in the story. We talk and walk as witnesses and characters in the ongoing story. Spreading the word that nothing is hopeless any more.

The talking and walking and spreading are not always easy, though. Most, maybe all, of the time we have to do it even when we can’t understand it. The promises we make, the promises Hannah Brown and Nik Parsons are about to make today are not feel-good fluff. They are commitments made in thanks for being given a place in the story, God’s story, Jesus’ story. I’m utterly convinced that God longs for us to be participants in the unfolding story. Our baptismal commitment gives us a place in it.

Hannah and Nik will make their commitment. They will promise, and we who answer with them will renew our promises, to reject everything that keeps us apart from God. We’ll promise to turn instead to Jesus as the one who shows us the way to God.

Hannah and Nik and we will promise to make prayer and scripture and coming together to receive Communion a part of our lives. They and we will promise to reach out to God in repentance whenever we drift and to live as if we really believe we’ve been given new life. They and we will promise to serve Christ in everyone and to love others as we love ourselves. And maybe the hardest of all, Hannah and Nik and we will promise to work for justice and peace and to respect the dignity of every human being, no exceptions.

Of course, Hannah and Nik and we will do all of that with God helping us. “I will, with God’s help,” is our repeated response. Because our lives are gifts from  God and I believe God wants us to use our lives well.  Making the resurrection of Jesus Christ the basis for everything we will ever do. That’s the Good News: that through the Cross of Jesus even death itself has been trampled and conquered, made new and transformed.  Nothing is hopeless any more--that’s Good News! Alleluia and thanks be to God!