The Day of Resurrection--2015

Easter Day 2015 April 5, 2015 “O set me as a seal upon thy heart. A seal upon thy heart and arm. For love is strong as death, as death. The seal of love forever more.” This little song has been going through my head this week, as we have walked the way of the cross together. It is a little round that is based on a passage from the Song of Solomon that I learned in choir in seminary. It’s a song I’ve sung to my children at bedtime, to people who are getting married, to people who are dying. It is a love song for us from God; a song of God’s grace; a song of resurrection. On this Easter morning, we hear the story of Jesus’s resurrection from the gospel of Mark. Now those of you who have been walking with us through Mark this year know that Mark is a strange gospel with an even stranger ending. In fact, there isn’t really an ending to Mark’s gospel, and there is also no appearance of the Resurrected Christ. Instead, we get the women coming in the wee hours to the tomb, preoccupied with how they are going to move the heavy stone to perform the burial rites. They are greeted by an empty tomb, with the stone already rolled away and a mysterious stranger who tells them not to be alarmed. He tells them that Jesus who was crucified is not there; he has been raised. And he gives them a message to give to the disciples and Peter: “that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” The women are gripped with terror and amazement, and they flee the empty tomb. And Mark ends by saying “they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” The gospel of Mark ends with no resurrection appearance from Jesus and with the utter failure of the women disciples, who fail because of fear. Where is the Easter song in that?! It is important to note, however, that just as the gospel of Mark is strange in its ending, it is also strange in its beginning. Mark begins with the statement: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ.” No birth narratives, no shepherds or wise men. Just that one sentence and then a fully grown Jesus already at work in the world. This is important for us today, as we read the strange ending of Mark’s gospel because it gives us a glimpse of what Mark is actually “up to.” If Mark’s gospel is only “the beginning” of the good news of Jesus Christ, and there is no ending, then what does that mean? It means the story is still going on, and we are part of it. Our faith, our proclamation of the good news of the grace of God through Jesus Christ, our very lives become part of the story, part of the love song of God; and maybe even that is still just the beginning? Two things I read this week that I want to share with you. First, I read an excerpt from an interview with NPR correspondent Scott Simon where he spoke about spending his last days with his mother as she was dying. He writes, “Mothers and fathers pour everything they are into us. And they stand us on our own. And they understand that we don't fully grow up until some day we lose them. There are some lessons that only grief and responsibility can teach us.” The second thing I want to share with you is an excerpt from a poem by Mary Oliver that is from her new book, Blue Horses. It is titled “To be Human is to Sing Your Own Song” In the song sparrow’s nest the nestlings,/ Those who would sing eventually, must listen/ Carefully to the father bird as he sings/ And make their own song in imitation of his./ I don’t know if any other bird does this (in/ Nature’s way has to do this). But I know a/ Child doesn’t have to. Doesn’t have to./ Doesn’t have to. And I didn’t. The empty tomb in Mark’s gospel does those things for us. It is, in a strange way, the gift of God who loves us and who has poured God’s very self into us, and who sets us on our own two feet. The empty tomb in Mark’s gospel is the love song that God sings to us, that God teaches us; and it is the invitation for us to sing our own song of resurrection, in our own way, through our own lives, in a new way, every single day. How will you sing this Easter song in your life in this world this day and beyond? “O set me as a seal upon thy heart. A seal upon thy heart and arm. For love is strong as death, as death. The seal of love forever more.”