ethans feet

NLC Sermon, Easter 2010

1. This is how Mark decides to end his story about Jesus?
   1. “Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.”
   2. That’s not really the ending we were looking for
   3. I mean Jesus is Risen!
   4. This is the part in the story when we are supposed to stand up and cheer, the music plays and the actors come out to take their bows, and we leave the theatre feeling good about life
   5. But that’s not what we get.
   6. We get, “they said nothing to anyone because they were afraid”.

1. Mark has taken great pains in telling us the story of the cross Jesus as a story of great crisis
   1. And in Mark’s telling of the story, the crisis of the cross, though re-interpreted in light of the empty tomb, is not reversed.
   2. The resurrection does not end the Jesus story in a nice neat little package, it is, in fact the beginning of a whole other chapter

1. In my experience when crisis happens in our individual lives,
   1. Or as communities or nations or whatever,
   2. Something very important, but often neglected happens.
   3. In the midst of the suffering and confusion that come with a crisis lies a sort of hole
   4. And in that hole is pain and loss, sorrow and fear
   5. But in that hole also, often, lies opportunity for a new future
   6. During a crisis the world as we know it is ruptured and in that rupture, if we have eyes to see it, a new world can become visible

1. But, in my experience, we are as people and communities and institutions decidedly uncomfortable with the hole, with the rupture.
   1. So we try as hard as we can, as fast as we can, to fill the hole and close the rupture.
   2. To get everything back to the way it was before the crisis happened
   3. We do this to save ourselves from the pain of the hole and the fear that comes from having a ruptured reality
   4. This idea came to me as I was studying Mark in seminary on an anniversary of Sept. 11^th
   5. Our world changed on that day, irrevocably.
   6. And in my view, for the most part, we did not as a culture stop and think carefully about what it meant to live in this new reality.
   7. We simply tried to get the world to be like it was on Sept. 10^th, as fast as we could.

1. Or I think of my time in hospital when one of my roommates had a health crisis, came into the hospital and found out he was diabetic
   1. His world had changed
   2. But I remember being skeptical that he was going to change with it
   3. And even more hauntingly I remember thinking how glad I was that I wasn’t him, not sure that I would be able to change my life enough to respond to that crisis

1. What I see Mark doing in the inspired way he ends the Jesus story is fighting to keep the hole open
   1. The cross is a crisis that ruptured reality for all of us
   2. The last thing Mark wants to do is fill that hole, or close the rupture.

1. Because it is in the hole that a crisis creates that resurrection and new life can happen.
   1. It is in the rupture to the world as we know it, that whole new worlds can be envisioned and born and lived into

1. Mark’s whole gospel was told in a way as to communicate that the world as they knew it was coming to an end.
   1. And now, Easter Morning it is time to envision a whole new world
   2. The cross is the crisis that forces Mark’s listeners to see that their past world was gone and wasn’t coming back
   3. The systems of power of Rome and the temple state were breaking down
   4. The dream of a political revolution and return to the Davidic dynasty were shown bankrupt
   5. The resurrection is the hint of where the new world lies
   6. The unsatisfactory way Mark ends his Gospel leaves the hole unfilled the rupture open and refuses to return the world to the way it was before.

1. And we realize that this whole time what we have been reading has been an invitation to live into this new world
   1. A while back in the story Jesus asked his disciples, “but what about you, who do you say that I am?”
   2. And I asked us to imagine that he had turned and asked that directly to us
   3. And we saw that the disciples got the answer kinda write but also kinda wrong
   4. Well now the angelic figure gives the women a command to go and tell and follow Jesus
   5. And the women fail, and I want us to imagine the angelic figure looking out to us, as if to say, they failed – what will you do?

1. One more thing about the crisis
   1. For the disciples the cross was not merely a crisis that they experienced but also one in which they participated.
   2. By this point in the story every one of Jesus’ followers (even the crowds) have betrayed him, denied him, fled his presence or fallen asleep when they were needed most.
   3. We too often find that we are in fact complicit in the crisis that befall us
   4. And when we realize that, the desire to make it all like it was before is even stronger
   5. But the need for us to see the world honestly, in all its ruptured reality, is even more important
   6. For if we are going to change, we need to see that the world has changed around us
   7. And it is precisely these disciples – Peter by name – that are invited to join the resurrected Jesus in engaging in this new reality.

1. So to review:
   1. The cross is the crisis that blows the world wide open.
   2. Mark’s ending invites his hearers to live into that new reality.
   3. And what is that invitation explicitly?
   4. To go, gather the old gang, go back to Galilee and wait for Jesus.
   5. Wait what, why Galilee?  What happens in Galilee?
   6. For that I turn to Chapter 1 v. 14

“Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.  “The time has come,” he said.  “The kingdom of God has come near.  Repent and believe the good news.”

1. The end of the story points us back to the beginning of the story.
   1. To re-read anew the story of Jesus knowing how it ends.
   2. We are invited to knowingly follow Jesus on his path that leads to the cross.
   3. The resurrection does not nullify the tragedy of the cross.
   4. Instead the resurrection shows us that the world that crucified Jesus is ruptured and the new reality is a new world, a new kingdom.
   5. And that in this new kingdom it is not power and brutality and death that have the final say, but rather sacrificial love that leads to new life.
   6. And the way to live in line with that new reality is the way that leads to the cross, through the cross and to the promise of resurrection and new life.
   7. We learn that in our life, in the good times as well as the crises, resurrection is present.