“He is not there. . . He is here”
RUMC Easter 2009 10:15 worship
The women get to the tomb and discover the stone rolled away.
They peek in and there is a young man in a white robe.
The Bible says “they were alarmed.”
I think that’s a pretty safe bet.
The Bible says “terror and amazement had seized them”
I think that is putting it mildly.
The last sentence in the story says “They told no one.”
Wait . . . they told no one! What did they do? They had come to do a job. A rather unpleasant
job actually; to clean the blood off of their friend, pay their last respects and give him a proper burial.
What they get instead is breathtaking announcement that God has raised their friend from the dead and
that he has gone ahead of them to Galilee where they will see him. And they say nothing?
That’s not right! Why wouldn’t they tell everyone? Why wouldn’t they tell the whole world?
Why wouldn’t they get on CNN and proclaim to the whole world that Christ is risen! Why wouldn’t they
email their whole contact list? Why wouldn’t they put up billboards and print t-shirts and make bumperstickers!
Because, Mark tells us, they were afraid. Mark says, “They went out and fled the tomb, for
terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”
It doesn’t say that they didn’t believe. It doesn’t say had any doubt in what they young man said
or any doubt that God had done just as he had said. But they didn’t say anything because they thought the
story was over.
They went home to eat their Easter dinner- they were all done- the leftovers were being put in the
fridge and that’s when it happened. They were Eastered.
You see they walked away thinking it was all over and they would go back to their lives. Just
like the disciples thought discipleship was an event that happened and now was over. They headed back
to their boats and families. And that’s when it happened to them. They were Eastered!
Now, it might sound weird to you when I use Easter as a verb instead of a noun, but what I want
you to hear today, is that Easter is not just a noun. Easter is not just a holiday, a holy day or any other
kind of day. Easter is not just something that happened 2000 years ago over there, to someone else.
Easter is certainly not just plastic grass or eggs filled with candy. And Ester certainly is not just the
Easter bunny.
In fact I don’t want us to think of Easter as a noun at all. I want us to think about Easter as a
verb; as in the women didn’t say anything because they were afraid. But on the way home they were
eastered! After lunch they got eastered!
The 19th century English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins penned the words, “Let him Easter in us.” In this
phrase, he uses the noun Easter as a verb.
It is a beautiful prayer really, “Let him Easter in us.” In fact, I think this is a great way to look at
the real truth, the transforming reality of Easter. Let Easter get into us. Let Easter come and live where we
live. Let Easter permeate our souls. “Let him Easter in us.” Isn’t that really what we all desire most? Not
Easter as a noun, not a long ago, far away Easter that happened to someone else. But, rather, Easter as a
verb, as something that transforms our present lives, as something that gives us new life now, as
something that gives us hope and meaning and courage. Isn’t that what every human heart longs for? Let
him Easter in us!
Easter Sunday is a day when we get people in the church who haven’t been here for a long time.
If that’s you, welcome! Maybe that is in part because it is tradition. Perhaps some do that because it
makes Grandma or mom happy. But Grandma and mom would be happy if you showed up any Sunday.
It isn’t because of the church we are here 52 Sundays a year. What is it about Easter that makes it one of
the two most attended days of the Christian Year?
I submit to you that it is because whether we come to church 52 times a year, 12 times a year or
just during Easter and Christmas, we have an Easter shaped hole in our lives and instinctively know that
the only way to fill that hole is to let Jesus “Easter” us. So we bring our cold dark hearts full of rotting
hopes and dried up dreams to Jesus hoping to be eastered.
• We look for ways to fill the emptiness when our spouse dies way too young and part of
us dies with them. We want to be eastered!
• We look for ways to light the empty darkness when we struggle with depression which
can be as bone chillingly damp as a stone tomb. We want to be eastered!
• We hope for someone to touch us speak to us, or just smile at us when we are lonely. We
want to be eastered!
• We pray for someone to put their arm around us to support us when we can’t seem to take
another step on our own power. We want desperately to be eastered!
• We cry for someone to show us light in the darkness, hope in the despair, and the
possibility of tomorrow when we aren’t yet sure we will make it through today. More
than anything in the world, we need desperately to be eastered.
Our necrotic souls ache for life but we know that without the one who gave his life that we might
live; death may not be imminent, but it is certain. So we come on this Easter day not celebrate Easter;
but to be eastered. Or as Mr. Hopkins would say to ask Jesus to Easter in us!
But we are playing with fire, because once we are eastered, we want to, need to indeed we are
nearly compelled to Easter others.
Our other gospels and tradition tell us that the women eventually did experience Easter as a verb,
because they did eventually go and tell the other disciples that Christ had been raised from the dead. He
Eastered in them and they were transformed from a group of frightened and fearful loners, to apostles;
people who boldly went forth from the tomb and proclaimed the good news that because Christ is risen.
Life is stronger than death, love is stronger than hate, and God’s peace is more powerful than human
violence.
What would happen if we as individuals and we as the Reinbeck United Methodist church
stopped having Easter--- and started doing Easter? What would it look like?
Do you remember “Be the church Sunday?” It would be- be the church Sunday every day!
Do you remember how excited the youth were when they came back from Colorado last summer?
People would be that excited every Sunday when they came in to tell us about the ministry they had done
that week.
Do you remember the Sunday we were doing baptism Renewal and Jacob Lawton asked if he
could be baptized. Do you remember how the spirit moved that day? It would be like that every day.
Every day would be habitat day. Every day would be invite your friend day. Every day would be
Bible day. Every day would be a prayer vigil. Every day would be a little Easter.
If we were to do Easter every day of our lives we would have to rethink what it means to do faith
and we would have to rethink what it means to do church!
But would that be so bad?
The denomination is embarking on the next phase of the open hearts, open minds, open doors
campaign and that is the slogan… rethink church. When we rethink the Easter church we have to throw
out all of our old thinking habits like thinking that Easter is a noun. When we rethink the Easter church
we have to throw out our old assumptions- like thinking that the way we have always done it is the way
we will always do it. When we rethink the Easter church we have to throw out our old assumptions --
like there is only one way to do this. When we rethink the Easter church we have to throw out our old
models -- like field of dreams thinking-- if we do it they will come. When we rethink the Easter church
we have to throw out our old expectations like the one I heard last week that church is supposed to be a
Sunday and Wednesday thing.
When God planned to send Jesus for our salvation, he forced people to rethink what they thought
they knew about God.
When God came as a baby- he forced us to rethink what we thought we knew about God’s plan.
When Jesus taught it is not what is on the outside that makes a man unclean, but what is on the
inside- he forced people to rethink what the laws were about.
When Jesus asked which one of the men in the story of the Good Samaritan was a neighbor, he
forced [people to rethink what it means to love your neighbor.
When Jesus ate with sinners, he forced people to rethink what it meant to show hospitality to
strangers.
When Jesus was captured and tried and tortured and whipped and beaten and abused he forced the
world to rethink our concept of God’s love.
When he died he forced us to rethink our understanding of God’s will.
When God Eastered Jesus from the grave on the Sunday morning so long ago he began a
rethinking of what death and life are really about.
And we have been rethinking, reimagining, recommitting and renewing every day since.
Today I want to challenge you to rethink a lot of things.
Rethink Easter.
Rethink your faith.
Rethink church.
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