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Sermons & Writings |
Loree Penner
Saint James, Monkton
March 22, 2008
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Many years ago when I was in ministry in a different kind of church, I spent a lot of time creating dramatic productions for special days such as Christmas and Easter. Each year when it was time to tell the Easter story through drama, we encountered the big dilemma - - how to portray the resurrection? We did it a number of ways, from simple to complex, but none really brought together the force of power and sheer terror of that amazing event which included, according to Matthew's gospel, earthquakes, angels, miraculously opened tombs and disappearing bodies. Power and terror enough, in fact, to scare the women who came to the tomb half to death. Scriptures say they were terrified; and I don't know about you, but if an angel sitting on a rock spoke to me and told me not to be afraid, I don't think it would help much - just the angel's presence would make me quake in my sandals. We never were really able to produce anything that dramatic. And in those days of big productions in big churches with big budgets, we would go to see what the church down the road was doing, and found that their resurrection....well, fell a bit flat like ours.... It wasn't really the special effects that were important to us. We were trying, in our feeble efforts, to communicate something of the magnitude of the event - - we were trying to make understandable for those who did not yet believe, that this Jesus, this Christ, died for our sins and was raised from the dead. But try as we would, we could not wrap up this miraculous and eternal occurrence in dry ice and foam core. It remained, at its best, a touching human effort. For the resurrection was like no other event in history. But it was only described by others after the fact. Our understanding of that day's events is limited. According to the gospels, powerful events occurred outside the tomb that day, but no one knows what really happened inside. No one was there to see if Jesus awoke as if from sleep, Raised his arms in a cat-like stretch, and began to look for breakfast, or if his rising from the dead was more spectacular. And as history has moved forward from that first Easter day, it is not how the event itself took place that has captured the hearts and minds of believers and scholars for centuries, but the meaning of it. For in the events of the Triduum - Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter - are found the mystery of our salvation - A mystery so simple that it can be effectively said and taught in three sentences: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. And yet, this mystery is so complex that scholars have been studying different aspects of it for centuries - for millenia, in fact. And the study, the wonder, and the worship continue, and will continue until that day when we are called home to be with Christ. For in that mystery are found all the promises of God - those promises through which we walked tonight as we heard again the history of God's faithfulness to his people, Israel. Those promises give us not only the hope of future resurrection, but also the very real, imminent grace and forgiveness we have received through Christ's death for our sins. We have died with Christ, St Paul said, in the waters of baptism, and have been raised to newness of life. And now we are called to live in to that mystery through the daily working out of that new life as we endeavor to live the promises of our baptismal covenant - to live the life of those who have been redeemed by water and the spirit. - To be faithful in the practice of the breaking of the bread and the prayers, and to keep, with God's help, Christ's mandatum - to Love one another as he has loved us. Because the really meaningful resurrection scenes don't occur in passion plays, but in lives changed forever through the Love of Christ. Alleluia! Christ is Risen! |
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