March 23, 2008 Sermon
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Easter Day - 2008 Emmanuel, San Angelo
March 23, 2008 Allan Conkling
This day holds lots of memories for me. I loved to hunt Easter eggs as a kid. I guess when I was around five, I remember being told to help my sister hunt eggs. Since Ginny was three years younger than me I had the advantage in the early days. I could find eggs faster and hidden in the hard places: in the planter, on top of the wooden fence, in the fork of the tree branches, under a bush, behind the sofa. Of course I could also find the easy ones that were meant for her, the ones just sitting in the grass, on the ground or on a table. Guaranteed, when I came in with a basketful and Sister with nothing Mom, would take half of mine and give them to her, which always made for a fight: "Those are mine! I can't help it she was looking in the wrong place!" Later on when I had youngsters, I said the exact same things my parents did: "Help your sister." "Show her where to look," and of course spend the next half hour listening to them bicker: "That was mine...I found it first...You were looking in the wrong place."
On that first Easter Mary Magdalene and others were searching, but not for Easter eggs. As they told it later the foundations shook as with a giant earthquake.
"An angel flew down from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightening and his clothing white as snow."
Yet the body was nowhere to be found. "He is not here; for he has been raised" said the angel. They were looking for Jesus in the graveyard; but they were looking in the wrong place.
The Bible is like a lens. A lens brings things into focus, it magnifies, and helps us to see better. As Episcopalians, we don't worship the lens we use the lens. It is not the object of belief but a means whereby we see. Through the lens of the Bible we see God. Through the lens of Scripture--even those parts like the Resurrection, which, with our 21st century minds we can never fully comprehend--we can see what God is like, and what our life when it is full of God, is like.
That first Easter morning the women had gone to the graveyard and expected to find a body. A corpse. What they found would forever change the course of human history. This Gospel holds the key to nothing short of new life and new hope. This is not about how to get to heaven. It is not about figuring out just how, or if, the Resurrection literally occurred. To do that is "looking in the wrong place." This lens, this magnifying glass, enables us to see what is most central about God: That God is alive; that God is near; that God is at hand and immediately accessible. Christ the compassionate one, the passionate one loves us and feels for us...not unlike the watchful parent who keeps her greedy boy from taking advantage of his little sister!
Celtic Christianity speaks of "thin places", the place where the boundary between heaven and earth seems most sheer. Jesus was a "thin place" as are the stories and the traditions, and the things we do here. Easter is the day to proclaim that the old life is over, and the new day has begun. The time for action and commitment is here. Like the women at the tomb we want to find the Master.
"Come, see the place where he lay," said the angel, "and then go on to where you will find him."
Indeed they did. And so can we. Come to the table and find him in the bread and wine. Go into the world and find him there. Find him in the love of a family; find him in the eyes of a child or a lonely shut-in. Find him in the poor and the outcast, in the different ones. Find him in those who have been made to feel that they were not welcome here. Find him as you pray, or as you work, or as you play. Someone once said that to search for the body of Christ, Christians don’t excavate first-century tombs: they go to church on Sunday. And here you are!
T.S. Elliot wrote:
And the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time.
Have a blessed and Happy Easter. The Lord is Risen. Alleluia.
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Revised: 04/14/08