When I searched for Easter at the library,
the first three sources listed had to do with bunnies and children’s
stories. Not that those aren’t
important. Chocolate and lambs and eggs and bunnies are all ancient symbols of
fertility in keeping with the original intent of Easter, the pagan celebration
of the earth goddess Ostre whose holiday was appropriated by Christians in the
second century. Easter can be confusing. Some of you remember the little Unitarian girl
who was attending a Lutheran pre-school.
The teacher asked her little class what the holiday of Easter was all
about. One little boy raised his hand
and “Isn’t that the day we have fireworks?”
“No” replied the teacher “that is the fourth of July.” Another boy raised his hand “Isn’t Easter
when we eat turkey?” “No” again said the
teacher “that is Thanksgiving” Growing more impatient, she heard from two other
children, about Christmas and Halloween.
Finally the UU girl raises her hand, “I know” she says “Easter is when
Jesus died on the cross, was placed in the tomb, and on the third day the stone
was rolled away, and he emerged and if he saw his shadow there would be six
more weeks of winter.”
Bunnies and groundhogs aside the Christian meaning
of Easter is clear: Jesus has risen! Easter is the primary story in much of the
Christian church. This morning, I want you to lay aside your own skepticism as
to the factual truth of this event and journey with me into the powerful metaphors
it has to offer. The Christian Easter story is a powerful one. The march of
Jesus into Jerusalem, the show down at the temple, the last supper, his
betrayal, his arrest and his trial are all powerful symbols of our own lives. I
ponder the brutal crucifixion and those who stayed by his side (all of the
women if you remember), I think of his cry of anguish and the death. I think
about the tomb he was laid in, and the huge stone that was placed over the
entrance. After the Passover feast the
women went to the tomb to anoint his body only to find the great stone guarding
the entrance rolled away and man….dressed in white…and he said unto them “Do
not be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He has risen, he
is not here…” (Mark 15-16).
We actually don’t know what happened to Jesus
and his body. Crucifixion was a brutal
tool of execution and oppression by the Roman Empire. Jesus died on the cross, not as atonement for
our sins, but for his radical and seditious message that the first shall be
last and the last shall be first in the coming Kin-dom of God. It is highly unlikely that the Roman
authorities gave him a trial before the Jews, even more unlikely that his body
was laid in empty tomb. Much more
likely, Jesus was dropped into a common grave, in the so called Potter’s field
which was occasionally set on fire to dispose of the corpses. Much more likely is the lament in the Gospel
of John by Mary Magdalene, his closest disciple who cried. “They have taken my Lord, and I do not know
where they have laid him” (John 20:13).
Her anguish, so familiar to so many of us, is the anguish of a world
lost in her love for the man who showed such promise. I can imagine Mary wailing that Proverb of
Ashes from the Book of Job to the disciples: “Your words are only proverbs of
ashes; nothing but clay.” A fitting
agony in a field of carnage, at the base of a cross which had taken the life of
the one she so loved.
So the question becomes this on Easter
Sunday: If Jesus body is lost to
history, a proverb of ashes, what did his life mean? What was truly resurrected in his memory?
I would offer you this: Jesus embodied the hope that all will be well again. That suffering will pass and life restored in this or another to come. I offer you the possibility that we are made new by being together through our struggles towards a new day, a new season, a life yet to be lived.
Happy Easter, John
