Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
Easter Sunday, April 1, 2018
Scripture: Mark 16:1-8
The story leaves us hanging. The Writer of Mark’s Gospel says the women didn’t tell anyone. That they went away afraid. But here we are. Gathered in this flower-festooned sanctuary to proclaim again the Good News of the Resurrection. Which means someone must have told…
It makes me wonder whether Mark left out the second half of the scene. The one where Jesus pokes his head out from the dark corner of the tomb where he’s been hiding blinks his eyes in the morning sun, and calls after the fleeing women: “Mary! Salome! Look again: I’m HERE! April Fool’s!”
The joke is on them. On all the disciples. And on the Roman soldiers. On Pilate and Herod and everyone who mocked him, derided or dismissed him. The joke is on everyone who thought that Jesus’ light could be extinguished – those who wanted it out and those who dreaded the thought of losing him. Because as often as Jesus said it: “Look: Here’s what’s going to happen: I’m going to be arrested. And suffer. And die. And then I’m going to rise again.” It just didn’t compute. Not even with those who loved him most; who normally hung on his every word.
Really: who can blame Jesus’ followers for that particular failure of the imagination? It is, after all, a crazy idea. That there is anything more powerful than death. That death is anything less than final… So, if Jesus popped out of the tomb on that first Easter morning, I can only imagine how the women’s hearts would have skipped several beats. How their faces would have betrayed their shock and confusion, and how Jesus, newly alive, sunshine warming his face, might have laughed out loud at his own joke and at the look on their faces. Might even have laughed ‘til his sides hurt, may have laughed long enough to allow the women to recover their bearings, to move from shocked to miffed to just the slightest bit amused … until something unlocked in their chests, and they whooped right out loud with Jesus, until tears of joy streamed down their cheeks – and they guffawed at the outrageousness of it all.
That’s the way a good joke works. It plays off the unexpected, pokes fun at pain until the cause of that pain is exposed and laughter diffuses the hurt… Which is also how a good resurrection works: turning tears into laughter; mocking those death-dealing forces and upending all our expectations:
So you get a jubilant tangle of sunflowers and tomato vines, where once there was nothing but an abandoned lot; or a booming recycling center on top of what once was the neighborhood trash heap; you find a thriving, whole-hearted woman, where once there was a ravaged victim of domestic violence; or a civil servant and elected leader where once there was an ostracized transgender man; you get a teacher, an artist, an entrepreneur, a community leader where once there was an incapacitated alcoholic…
THAT’S Resurrection! Resurrection laughs in the face of death: April Fools! You thought you had the upper hand – but look again: There is yet more light and life to burst forth from this tomb.
OK: maybe Jesus didn’t jump out at the women and surprise them, as fun as that is to imagine. Maybe the gospel of Mark tells it more or less like it was, and the women really did remain speechless and terrified all the way to Galilee – only to encounter a beaming Jesus Christ on his old turf.
But this we do know: that they didn’t stay speechless and terrified (no matter what Mark says). Sooner or later, the women found their tongues, and courage enough to tell their foolish-sounding tale to someone, who told someone else, who told someone else… until two thousand years later, someone told us…and we showed up here:
Why? To hear that crazy punch line one more time – or maybe for the very first time. To hear it repeated, in the face of the gut-wrenching pain of Good Friday, or the pain we encounter on any ordinary Tuesday; in the face of all that daily breaks our hearts and dehydrates our souls; in the face of the hurt that confronts us in our own homes or in the world around us… We come to hear it proclaimed that God STILL has the power to “pull life out of death”; we come to hear it proclaimed that Christ – the storyteller, bread-breaker, wound-healer, peacemaker, justice-seeker, joke-maker – is alive among us, between us, and in us.
Does it still sound outlandish? Like pie in the sky? Would you have to be a fool to believe it?
Then count me in. This Easter, I want to be an April Fool! Foolish enough to trust that after the fear comes laughter. Foolish enough to trust that after death (all kinds of death) – comes new life. Foolish enough to believe in empty tombs and YES a God who has a sense of humor outrageous enough to topple the fiercest opponents – and then to transform their hearts …and mine.
I want to BE an April Fool. I am prepared to admit, right along with the Mary’s, Salome and the other disciples, that at first, new life can be terrifying. But I want to learn to laugh in the face of that terror, to laugh at myself and my own fumbling attempts to follow the living Christ. Like the White Queen in Alice Through the Looking Glass (Lewis Carroll), I want to practice “believing as many as 6 impossible things before breakfast”; I want to be foolish enough to trust:
That stories have the power to heal;
That teachers can change the whole world;
That teenagers can be stronger than guns;
That our prayers CAN summon the prophets we need;
That a conversation over dinner can turn enemies into friends;
That I can become more courageous, more loving…
I want to be foolish enough to trust in the presence of the living Christ, and brave enough to declare it!
What about you? What foolish things would YOU entertain? Today is the day to consider them all, to lay them all out like so many Easter eggs discovered in the grass…
Let your imagination soar; let your heart swell; let your ideas for healing and hope be wild, expansive, and outrageous enough to unlock something in your chest until you and everyone around you is laughing right out loud!
Then, embrace the foolishness; live that vision… Be courageous April Fools:
The faithful fools among us know that we don’t do it alone. This is no joke and it’s the very best joke: So spread the word and don’t hold back:
The tomb IS empty.
Death IS undone.
Love is at large.
Christ is risen; Christ is risen indeed!
Scripture
Mark 16:1-8 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
16 When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6 But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” 8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.