While it was still dark…

DATE: Easter – April 20, 2014
SCRIPTURE: John 20:1-18
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton

Imagine not knowing if the sun will come up, if day will ever break.    Imagine watching the sun sink behind the hills, draining all the color from the landscape, watching your back yard, the trees and the hills all turn from blue to purple, gray to black and feeling the cold night air encroach, raising goose bumps on your arms and neck, turning your nose uncomfortably pink. 

It’s one thing, if this happens on an ordinary night between ordinary days, when you are sitting with a friend on the porch, or playing soccer in the yard before bedtime, or waiting for the stars to come out.  Then there’s nothing ominous about the dusk.  It’s as it should be.  Soon, we’ll all go inside where the house is warm and the lamps are lit.  At bedtime we’ll sleep, assured that the sun will poke through the blinds to wake us in the morning.

But what if we didn’t know the sun was coming back?  Sandy Eisenberg Sasso wrote a children’s book called Adam and Eve’s First Sunset.  She pictures what it might have been like for Adam and Eve, as they watched the sun go down at the end of their very first day.

At first, they worry; they offer to comfort the sun, to hold it up on their shoulders, but it keeps sinking.  Then they get scared, and blame each other for causing the sun to disappear.  Finally, huddled together in the dark, they offer up a desperate prayer: “God, Creator of the Great Light, do not let your world grow dark. Help us bring back the sun. Make morning again.”  Imagine not knowing if the sun will come up.

Maybe it’s not so hard.  We live, after all, in a Good Friday world.  Our ordinary days are daily threatened by episodes of grief or pain that can stop time in its tracks. Think of those families whose children died in the bus crash in California, or drowned in the sunken ferry off the coast of South Korea.  Think of Nepalese communities that lost 13 sherpas in one avalanche on Mt. Everest this week, and Norwalk and Bridgeport neighborhoods that weekly lose sons and daughters to gun violence.  Try telling any of them that the sun will come up ever again.  Not in their world it won’t. Not as far as they can tell.  Their world has been plunged into darkness.  Their only prayer: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”   How do you even speak about the sunrise after a loss like that?

“Stop All The Clocks,” wrote the poet W. H. Auden:

“The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.”

Perhaps that’s the lament that ricocheted around Mary’s soul, as she set out for the tomb on that Sunday morning, while it was still dark.  Her life had turned into one long night, void of color and warmth, since she had witnessed the execution of the teacher who had opened up her heart and expanded her faith – Like the best teachers always do.

Eyes puffy from weeping, she made her way to the tomb, only to discover that the massive stone had been rolled away.  And all she could think was, “They must have stolen his body.”  She wasn’t expecting a sunrise, much less a resurrection.  Dead people stay dead.  Broken hearts stay broken.  At least, that’s what we suppose.

Mary ran to tell the others.  Two of them came running back:  Peter and the One whom Jesus loved (who is never identified by name).  Mary saw the stone; the beloved disciple saw the abandoned linens; Peter went in and saw the head covering, neatly folded up.  They did the math:  thieves don’t un-wrap bodies. They certainly don’t fold up the sheets before they go.  And yet, there was that head covering, that utterly incongruous head covering, rolled up in a place by itself, as if someone had put things in order before going out for an early morning walk at sunrise.

What could it mean?  It was like a coded message.  As though God Godself had crept into that tomb, into their grief-muddled hearts, and whispered, “But wait: there’s more…” It was like finding a big black comma etched on the wall…

Some of you have seen the big, red commas on my car.  Here’s the story behind the commas:  years ago, while comedienne Gracie Allen lay dying, she wrote a note to her grieving husband, George Burns.  George loved Gracie fiercely, deeply and her illness tore him apart.  He told her he couldn’t imagine living without her after all those years.  In reply she wrote, “Never put a period where God has placed a comma.”  He shared that note with his friends, over and over, throughout the rest of his life.

Eventually, it was picked up by our own denomination, the United Church of Christ, and turned into a motto to convey our conviction that God is Still Speaking. Or, as you hear me say almost every Sunday:  God is alive and at work in the world.  You may feel as though you’ve been thrust into a tomb, like the sun has set on all your hopes.  But it turns out, God’s not finished.  We know, because that first Easter morning, while it was still dark, God was working up one more surprise.  While it was still dark, God was rolling up Her sleeves and rolling aside a stone too heavy for us to move; while it was still dark, God was breathing life into that lifeless tomb, setting the stage, directing angels and summoning the Son…God’s ownson…

“Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn…You will have pain but your pain will turn into joy…You will see me again, and your hearts will rejoice and no one will take your joy from you!”  That’s what Jesus promised, just a few chapters back, when he was saying goodbye to his friends and disciples.

And Mary had wept.  And Peter.  And no doubt the Beloved disciple.  Even Jesus wept, when he learned that his friend Lazarus had died.  Weeping always will be part of life. Because we love, we weep.  Because we cause pain, and experience pain, we weep.  Because we are sometimes confined to tombs fashioned by those who would deny our God-created worth – because of what we look like, whom we love, or how we roll … and so we weep and wail.  But that’s not the end of the story.  Sooner or later, God surprises us; sooner or later, the sun does rise.

It did for Adam and Eve:  they woke after that first frightening, fretful night to discover the dawn light “wrapped around them like a robe of gold.”¹  Can you imagine how their faces must have lit up?  When that radiant, yellow arc finally appeared above the horizon, how they must have leapt and danced for joy?  Like Mary must have danced, all the way back home, now that the color had returned to her world and wonder had filled up her soul.

That’s what being church is all about:  It’s collectively holding onto the promise that dawn will come, even when it’s dark; it’s leaning into Mary’s proclamation that somehow, Christ turned his back on Death, left it folded up in a corner of the empty tomb, and so set us all free to live without fear.   Church is where we get to rehearse that Good News, over and over; sing it at the top of our lungs: Christ is risen!  And whisper it into the silence: Christ is risen.  We should write it on our coffee cups and print up T-shirts:  Christ is risen!  Repeat it like a mantra while we practice yoga, deliver a hot dish or march on the capital:  Christ is risen. 

Church is where we tell that story, because we all need to hear it: That though we live in a Good Friday world, Death does not have the last word.  God does. Gazing at a sunset may be enough to sustain us on an ordinary day, but when the sun refuses to rise and we can’t find our way through the dark:  then, we need each other.  So we gather here.  Here, we get to name our fears and admit our fumbling – trusting that we are welcome, fears and tears and all.  Really.  Here, we get to tell our own resurrection stories – to remind and encourage each other. Like Mary, we can say, “I have seen the Lord!”  Here, we love and support , inspire and work together to while it’s still dark.

It’s like this:  One October, author E.B. White (who wrote Charlotte’s Web) found his wife Katherine out in the garden, fingers plunged deep in the cool soil, planting daffodil bulbs.  She was sick and knew she didn’t have long to live, but there she was, in her husband’s words:  ‘calmly plotting the resurrection.”²

That’s our job, Church – and our joy.  To calmly plot the resurrection.  While it’s still dark, to grab a trowel and plant those bulbs.  While it’s still dark, to grow gardens and build homes COMMA to stand up for someone whose dignity is being denied COMMA to hold hands and wipe away tears COMMA to cradle a friend’s head, while she vomits after the chemo treatments; to wipe her brow and hold her tenderly; and then to Walk for Cancer Research in her honor – or in her memory COMMA to be the one being helped when we need it COMMA… To do all that, is if a new dawn was on its way; as if the Creator of the Universe had something surprising in store; because God knows, She does!

Sisters and brothers in Christ:  this morning, we step out into a world completely transformed by the rising of the son.  Today, we joyfully greet the day, whatever it holds, because there’s no longer anything to fear.  Trust that!  Trust God who does mend every broken heart; trust God whose love is stronger than death, more constant than the sun.  If it takes your whole life to sort out the details, that’s ok.  You can come here as often as you like, to be reminded and to remind each other.  But start here:  take a deep spirit breath, grab a hand and spread the glad good news.  You might even want to sing it:

Hallelujah, Christ is risen!   Hallelujah: Christ is risen indeed!

Scripture Texts

John 20:1-18

1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples returned to their homes. 11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.