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Easter, 19.04.2009
| 19.04.2009, 16:21 | |
| Rev. Tatiana Cantarella Psalm 118:1–2; 14–24; Isaiah 25:6–9; John 20:1–18; Acts 10:34–43; Revelation 1:12–18; 5:4–6, 11–14; 21:1–5 Easter: world reborn There is a story from the soviet days. A lecturer paused before summarizing his lecture. Huge audience was listening attentively and fearfully to what he had to say. “That’s why”, he said, “There is no God. Christ never existed. There is no Holy Spirit. The Church is a tyrannical institution and all of this is outdated anyway. Future belongs to the State and the State is the hands of the Party”. He as about to sit down when an old priest from the first row stood up. “Allow me to say three words”, he asked. Lecturer disdainfully waved him to go ahead. The priest turned to the audience, looked over it and shouted: “Christ is Risen!” And back came the roar of the people: “He is risen indeed!” They’ve proclaimed it every Easter for almost a thousand years and were not about to stop now. These people were not just whistling in the dark that day, somewhere deep inside they knew the truth that the Good News of Easter is the ultimate answer to tyranny and violence of this world. Someone rightly called Easter the most thunderous moment in the whole year. Easter is such a huge event that even the church can’t cope with it and constantly scales it down to fit our little minds. The world scaled it down to colored eggs, Easter bread, cemetery visits and chocolate bunnies. But all this only vaguely points in the right direction don’t really get off the starting blocks of Easter faith. We scale Easter down even in the Church, we make it a source of our personal spiritual life: Jesus is alive and so I can have personal relationship with Him. And that’s right and wonderful but it’s not the whole truth of Easter. We’ve make Easter a source of our future hope: resurrection of Jesus proves that there is life beyond death. And that’s right and wonderful. But when we’ve scaled that little hill we haven’t even got to first base camp on the Everest called Easter. Because Easter, my friends, is not just about you and me and our personal hopes of eternal life. Easter is the beginning of God’s new world. Easter is the victory of Creator over all the evil, victory of the loving God over tyranny and violence. Isaiah proclaims it today: “On this mountain He will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples’, the sheet that covers all nation; he will swallow up death forever” (25:7). Resurrection of Christ proclaims that in the end God is God and His kingdom will come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Easter is the proclamation of the world reborn. How can one express an event as big as this? Perhaps only with images of thunder and lightning, earthquakes and tornados, devastating terror and joy so rich and full you could swim in it. And such is the picture that we find in a strange book of Revelation, a picture which opens before our eyes an image of a living God that is both frightening and full of joy. This book starts with the description of the risen Jesus (1:12–16). «And I heard the voice like a trumpet which said: I am the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last… I turned around to see who is speaking to me and saw…someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice like the sound of rushing waters». No wonder that John fell to the ground like death. He experiences what we’ve forgotten – Easter is not some domesticated, kids’ story. Easter is a revolution that changed the world. The image of the risen Christ is both terrifying and joyful. “Do not be afraid”, He said, “I am Alpha and Omega, First and Last and the living One. I died, and look, I am alive forevermore” and almost conspiratorial, “I’ve got the keys – the keys of Death and Hades”. Whatever you lost, whoever you lost, whatever part of your life is locked by grief or shame – He has the keys. John’s vision continues and he finds himself before the throne and sees that the One who sits on the throne has a cross that is sealed – God’s plan of salvation, of rebirth of all creation. It needs to be open but no one can open it and John says: “I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals. Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain” (5:4-6). Here is Easter image: the Lion, the King of kings and the Lord of lords became the Lamb, the paschal Lamb and with His death he triumphed over the powers of evil and God’s plan of salvation of all creation can be unrolled and put into operation. The struggle is over, the fight is finished; He is the victor. And this scene concludes with the song of praise being sung by every creature that exists: “worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing” (5:12) All the heavens and all creation celebrates the risen Christ and what we do here today is joining in this total harmony. We celebrate together the fact of a world reborn. Halleluiah! What a joy! But notice the classic effect of the Easter message in the Gospel today. Mary stood on the outside of the tomb and cried…she turned around and saw Jesus standing there but she didn’t recognize Him…she assumed it was a gardener and said: “Lord, if you took him, tell me where you put him, so that I can take him”. Jesus said to her: “Mary!” She turned around and said in Aramaic: “Rabbuni!” which means “Teacher!” (Jn. 20:11–16). Mary stood outside the tomb and cried. She cried for all of us. She wept for herself and her Lord. Cried for the hope of Israel crushed by tyranny, wept for the hopes of the whole world snuffed out by the power of the world. She keeps weeping today in Bosnia, in Iraq, in mounts of Tibet and deserts of Sudan, in constant expectations of death in Chechnya, in Italy where thousands lost homes and loved ones, in every place where Christians still suffer for their faith in the risen Lord. On that Easter day Jesus called Mary by name and asked, “why are you crying”? And He calls us by name, calls with a voice like waterfall, voice that breaks through all defenses that we’ve raised to keep away fears and joys. He calls us with the voice, which we know, calls us with love which is stronger than death. And He says: “I am the First and the Last and the living one. I died, but look, I am alive forevermore and I hold the keys of Death and Hades”. Weeping Mary met risen Jesus on that first Easter Day. Weeping John realized that the Lion who is also the Lamb triumphed and can unroll the scroll and complete the rebirth of this world. And in our tears we can encounter the risen Christ. For the power of Easter is in drying all tears. We shun away from the terrible and joyful and therefore we’ve forgotten the purpose of our tears. We are ashamed of tears and for a reason – for they are a God given reminder of what our culture and years of communist propaganda wanted us to forget – that we are neither naked apes nor trainee angels, but humans created in the image and likeness of God. God who stood at His friend’s grave and cried; God who fell on his knees in the Garden of Gethsemane and wept. This world tries to convince us that tears are for children only and that emotions need to be hidden. But if Good Friday and Easter don’t stir our emotions, then the tyranny of this world really enslaved us and we’ve become like grass that has been paved over with stone slabs. Many people live like that, even choose it, they don’t want to face the terror and joy of their own hearts, let alone of Calvary and Easter. But Easter makes such paving over grass look silly. Jesus cried at the tomb of Lazarus but then called him out of the grave and gave him life. Jesus cried in Gethsemane but then went and faced and conquered sin on the cross. Peter wept bitterly after denying Jesus but the risen Jesus met him, showed him love and sent him to serve. Mary wept at the tomb of Jesus but He met her alive and comforted. John wept because the plan of salvation was sealed and the world had no hope of ridding from evil but his tears turned into worship of the Lamb who was slain. We can try all our life to hide our feelings, to camouflage our fears and joy, can try to pave over grass but the spring will come, Easter will come and grass will still find its way through the cracks in the stone. And may be this Easter we will finally be able to see the Lamb who was slain but came back to life. May be we’ll be able to hear him calling us with love that is stronger than death. You know that often times believers picture their future hope as the time when they will leave this world and will go to another that we call heaven, to be with God forever. And this world they view only as unavoidable reality that need to be “survived”. But in his vision John opens before us a very different image, an Easter image of the world reborn: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth are no more. And the sea is no more. And I saw a holy city – a New Jerusalem that came down from God. It is decorated like a bride expecting her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne – her is the dwelling of God with people! They will be his people and God himself will be with them and will be their God. And he will wipe away their every tear, there will be no death, no grief, nor cry, no pain, because the old is gone forever” (21:1–5). Here is the power of Easter – not just strength to survive the difficulties of earthly life until we leave it but the truth that the kingdom of God will come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven! The resurrection of Christ means this world reborn and many things will not have place in it. In God’s kingdom there is no place for bombs and barbwire, no refugee camps, no dividing walls, no animosity. Revelation has its own list of what there won’t be in God’s Kingdom: no Temple, who needs one when the living God is in the midst! No sea – which was believed to be a place where evil, comes from. No sin, which corrupts and defaces human reflection of God. No death, no mourning, no pain. All these weapons of tyranny will be destroyed. And therefore God will wipe away every tear. He will wipe away Mary’s tears, Peter’s tears, John’s tears for the scroll of God’s saving plan have been revealed. The tears of Jesus himself shed at the tomb of Lazarus and in Gethsemane will be swallowed with joy. Tears of Chechen widows and Rwandan orphans will be dried. Tears of those who’s loved ones left them, tear of those who lost jobs, tears of the child that is mistreated by other children, tears that we shed in secret. All our tears will be dried thanks to the Easter Lamb. Jesus whose eyes are like fire and voice like waterfall, Lion of Judah, Messiah became the Lamb that was slain and shed his blood to conquer evil and save humanity, save the whole world from tyranny. This is his love. Without resurrection – the cross would remain just another political execution of a failed Messiah. Without Easter the world would still live between cynicism, escapism and weapons of tyranny. Without Easter there is no reason to believe in the victory of good over evil, of love over hatred and life over death. But in the resurrection of Christ we have hope, and because hope depends on love, love became human and died but lives forevermore and holds the keys of death and Hades. And because of the Easter Lamb we don’t just hope, we know that God will wipe away every tear. And this Lamb calls us to follow him in terror and joy and to be His resurrection people, Easter people called to minister in the world full of Calvaries We are called to see that the hand that wiped away our tears hands us the cloth and calls us to follow Jesus, to go and wipe away the tears of others. The Lamb calls us to follow Him wherever He goes, to follow Him even into the dark places of this world, dark places of our own hearts, place where tears blot out the sunlight, the places where tyrants pave the grass with concrete. And he bids us shine his morning light into the darkness, and share his ministry of wiping away the tears. And as we worship the Lamb and follow the Lamb we join in the song that one day the whole creation will sing, all trees and mounts and waterfalls – the whole world reborn on that first Easter day will sing with us “worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, riches, wisdom and power, honor, glory and blessing! To Him, who sits on the throne, and to His Lamb be the blessing, honor, glory and power forever!” (5:12–13) | |
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