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| Matthias Grünewald's "Resurrection," from the Isenheim Altarpiece, 1512-1516. |
Resurrection of the
Lord/ 20th April 2014
Can I get a witness? It’s a question often heard in the black
church experience. In the middle of a
sermon you might hear the preacher shout, “Can I get a witness?” She’s looking
someone to testify, to agree with the message.
The preacher wants to know. Are you there? Do you agree?
Will you testify? Can I hear an
“Amen!”? Is there someone who’s with me?
The first witness to resurrection
was, of course, Mary Magdalene. She was first to the tomb, first to see the stone
rolled away. She was first to go into
the tomb; first to meet Jesus, first to say to the disciples, “I have seen the
Lord” (John 20:18). I have seen—with my eyes.
And she wanted the others to know what she came to know. She was witness to resurrection.
Periodically, the elders of the
church, the Session, will take time at a meeting, particularly after the end of
a season in the church, to ask the question, Where have you seen signs of resurrection in the life of the church? Or, where have you seen signs of the Holy
Spirit? Where have you witnessed
resurrection? And then we reflect upon
what we’ve experienced, what we’ve heard, what we’ve sensed. We describe, point, share, tell…we don’t try
to “prove” what we’re pointing to or sharing, for we trust the witness, the
person sharing, and we tell the story: I
have seen the Lord….here and here and here and here.
Now, this might sound like an odd
question to ask: where have you seen signs of resurrection? On this Easter Sunday resurrection means,
first, that the one who was dead for three days has returned in the flesh, with
the nail marks and bruises to prove what happened on Friday. That’s what the Gospels, each in their own
way, attest. The resurrection means that the one who has died has come back to
life. Or, we perhaps think of
resurrection as something that will occur after we die, that we will be raised,
like Jesus, into the dwelling place of God.
Jesus himself promised that in the Father’s house there are many
dwelling places and that he will take us there (John 14:2). That’s what resurrection means for some. For some, that’s what we’re celebrating
today, the promise of eternal life with Jesus because of that empty tomb. That’s Easter. But it’s more than that—remember, resurrection
of the dead was a tenet within Judaism long before Jesus said, “I am the
resurrection and the life” (John 11:25).
So what is resurrection? Words are
inadequate here. I should really be quiet about it and sit down. A lot of
preachers have made fools of themselves for saying things they have no right to
say. But since you came here expecting to hear a sermon, I’ll do my best and
hopefully won’t make a fool of myself. I’ll
it say again, words are inadequate.
Sometimes words get in the way. In trying to explain, we say too much or explain
it away. The late theologian Alan Lewis
wrote “perhaps the greatest threat to the gospel story…is the well-intentioned
effort of preachers and theologians to make these scandalous, mysterious
happenings comprehensible by suggesting that they mirror the familiar,” offering
analogies such as the rhythms of sleep and waking, death and rebirth, which we
experience night and morning or the cycle of the seasons, winter into spring….”[1]
That’s not what the Church gives
witness to today. It’s something far more
radical and grand and beautiful and terrifying. When we think of resurrection in
terms of cycles, such as winter and spring, it looks like resurrection is
something that’s continuous, flowing out of something else. Winter yielding spring. If…then. Cause and effect. There’s a kind of logic at
work here. One thing leading to the other.
It’s natural. But those daffodils
in bloom now—finally!—were not dead
all winter and the trees in bud throwing off their pollen today—God help us—weren’t
dead all summer. That’s not
resurrection.
Resurrection is not natural. It’s not continuous, it’s the opposite of
continuous; it’s discontinuous—always
discontinuous. The act itself is not
contingent upon what comes before it.
Nothing in creation prepares for resurrection. It’s is not about logic or what is
expected. Mary Magdalene didn’t go to
the tomb expecting resurrection. It was
beyond her frame of imagining. That’s
why, in part, she didn’t recognize Jesus.
He was “not known,” as T. S. Eliot (188-1965) said,” because not looked
for.”[2] What Mary experienced was beyond hope. And
yet that’s what the Gospels give witness to.
The poet Wendell Berry said, “Be joyful though you have considered all
the facts.”[3] Sometimes the facts of the present tell us
nothing about tomorrow. For both Jews
and Christian, history is never destiny.
Resurrection is a “horse of a different color,” it’s about a new experience
that enters into death and creates something never before imagined. Resurrection releases a new future. Consider
all the facts, nevertheless be joyful. The
resurrection, like grace, shatters the cold, if-then logic of our lives.
Dostoevsky (1821-1888) said: 2+2=4=death.[4] What if 2+2=8? Resurrection doesn’t add up. That’s the point. There is a different math at work in God’s
kingdom.
We might not see the dead come back
to life, it does happen. There are near-death
experiences. But that’s not what I’m talking
about here. I’m talking about the experience of resurrection, here and
now, in the lives of people who have encountered the Living God, people who experience
hope when they have no sound reason to be hopeful, people who trust in the
impossible when everyone around them says, be realistic. There’s nothing realistic about resurrection! Resurrection happens wherever life emerges
from where death reigned for a time. It
happens in people who have new futures given to them. When people can start again no matter how
terrible their lives were in the past or what had been done to them. Dead ends are not dead—new futures are
possible. I have seen this time and
again in the lives of people. To say we
believe in the resurrection is not simply an article of belief about something
that happened a long time again that we recite in a creed. To say we believe in the resurrection means
we are witnesses to the present life of Jesus who continues to bring us to life
beyond the death-dealing experiences of the past. Without this possibility, there’s no ground
for Christian hope. Without this
possibility we should stop talking about resurrection, because otherwise it
doesn’t make much sense.
It makes sense to Steven Gahigi. Steven
Gahigi is a witness to resurrection. He also looked into the face of hell. When the killing began in Rwanda, twenty
years ago last week, he was in Burundi. By the time he made it home the
following year, he learned that 52 members of his family were dead. The mass murder of the Tutsis and Hutus—almost all Christians—left at least 800,000 dead. How do you return to that? I have good friends, here in the U. S., who
lost family members in Rwanda. I can’t even begin to imagine. In time, Gahigi, faced his reality and soon felt
called to go to seminary. And then the Spirit sent him to visit the Rilima
Prison, where he met the people who killed his sister. At first the prisoners thought he was a spy. They didn’t trust him. Why would this man
come to their prison to preach when he knew what they had done? It didn’t make
sense.
Gahigi
knew that it was possible for perpetrators to be forgiven—in time. He slowly
became their pastor; the prisoners attended his services and Bible. Forgiving
the unforgivable is possible. This didn’t
come easy or overnight. It was an enormous struggle.
Then
one night Gahigi had a dream about a mob beating Jesus as he hung on the
cross. A voice told him, “Those people
beating Jesus are the ones Jesus helped.
They killed your countrymen and your family, but you can help
them.” When he woke up, he was
crying. “I cried all night,” he said,
“but when the crying stopped, I felt light and love.” Gahigi said he came to know that he had the
power to forgive and to help others forgive.
He began preaching reconciliation and he sought out the prisoners who
killed his family. Gahigi said, “That was Jesus’ mission. To forgive the sins of all men.”
You
see, with forgiveness life begins anew, a new future is given where before
there was only death. 2+2=8. It doesn’t add up. This is a witness to
resurrection.
What’s your story? What do you know? What did you hear in a dream from the Lord in
the middle of the night? How did the
Lord save you from the pit of death? How
is the Lord saving you now from death? Can
I get a witness?
Don’t
withhold what you know. “I have seen the
Lord,” Mary told the disciples. Say it.
Share it. This doesn’t mean you have
become all religious, become a Jesus-freak or something. We’re Presbyterians after all.
But
for God’s sake don’t be quiet about it.
Say it. Share it. Tell somebody. Embody it. Make it real, tangible. For
the love of God let people know that resurrection is possible because you’ve
seen it in your life and the lives of others.
It can’t be true only in the Church on Easter morning, it has to be true
all the time, just not here, but also out there, wherever people are living and
suffering and dying, caught by the past or sin or regret, people who are
waiting to know what you know.
You
have no right to withhold it. Why? It’s been given to you to share. For there are far too many people who have
been to tomb after tomb in their lives and have never seen resurrection of any
kind, they didn’t know it was possible because no one had ever told them. They’re
waiting to know what you know, to hear what you’ve heard, to feel what you
feel, to see what you have seen.
Jesus is saying to you and me, to
the Church, “Can I get a witness?”
What
will you say? Can I get a witness? How
about an “Amen”?
Christ
is risen! He is risen indeed.
Now,
go and tell it.
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