Seeing with Easter Eyes: A Sermon for Easter Sunday

 

If my sermon for the Easter Vigil encountered a hiccup because of the shorter ending of Mark, at least my sermon for the 11am Easter service was the well-worn story from John's Gospel. Trying to figure out a different approach into the story...just like trying to preach a meaningful and not sappy sermon at Christmas Eve...is always a challenge. This is the day churches are likely to have people other than their usual attendees present, some of whom might be coming to church out of a family obligation. It's not that I change my preaching style for these occasions; it's just that I feel a little extra need to be mindful that there are going to be people there who may only hear this one sermon. And so, I pray. Even more. Help me, God, to make this crazy tale accsessible even to the most skeptical and cynical person who might be out there this morning.

Text: John 20:1-18

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About nine years ago…there was this huge controversy that erupted in popular culture.

It was all over social media…about the colors of a dress.

Some people saw this photograph of the dress worn by the mother of the bride at a wedding in Scotland and insisted that the color scheme was white and gold.

Others saw it and determined it was black and blue.

And very quickly…something as innocuous and

fairly trivial… became a raging argument.

As the New York Times said…it became the dress that melted the internet as people feuded over what color is this dress.

Fashion bloggers…celebrities…your next-door neighbor…everyone had an opinion about this dress.

And scientists became cool…noting that what people saw in the color of the dress said more about the neuro-receptors in their eyes than the fashion decision of some British dressmaker.

Apparently…we have certain cones in our eyes that read the color blue.

If a person saw the dress and thought, ‘that’s gold,’ it meant they had fewer of these blue receptor cones in their eyes.

Because the dress was…in fact and in truth…black and blue.

Fascinating…this thing about what we perceive and how we respond to the things that we see.

And living in our world where people can manipulate images…we all have to be careful with those random photos that get shared across the internet.

Back in the world of the First Century…in the days prior to all our super-connectedness through our phones and watches…this idea of “seeing is believing” was all they had.

And when things were more than just a little “off”…it must’ve caused quite a stir.

Nobody was there to take a photograph of that empty tomb, the wadded up linen wrappings.

And we can only imagine how freakish this must have been for Mary Magdalene to show up at the tomb…and find it unsealed and Jesus’ body gone.

She did what anyone of us might have done:

She ran.

She probably ran faster than she’d ever run before.

She had to tell somebody…someone who she trusted to see what she’d seen.

She finds Peter and one of the other disciples.

All her words come spilling out of her mouth…

And of course they ran!

Like Mary….Peter and this nameless disciple… still processing their fear and disillusionment at knowing their friend and teacher Jesus had been killed by the state…are now full of adrenaline…sprinting to the tomb.

And when they get there…what do they see?

First…they see that Mary was right: the stone had been removed so they could go into the tomb.

There’s the linen wrapping that was on his body.

Over there…that’s the cloth that had been on his head…in that corner…

What in the world??

Oh, no…not in the world…no this is something other-wordly.

So…Peter and Disciple No-Name…their minds now blown wide open…decide they better go home….give this new information some thought.

Meanwhile…Mary is weeping outside the tomb.

Was it not enough that one of his twelve friends had betrayed Jesus?

Had the Roman Empire…and their fawning collaborators…had they not made their point by crucifying this innocent loving Jewish man?!

She dares to peak inside.

But unlike Peter and Ol’ No-name…Mary perceives something different.

Instead of noticing a discarded linen wrapping and such…she sees two angels.

“Woman, why are you weeping?”

“They’ve taken him!” she bawls, “I don’t know where they’ve taken him!”

She is beside herself with grief and fear and maybe even some rage.

From behind…she hears a kind voice.

That voice repeats…

“Woman, why are you weeping?”

Ah-hah! A human! A gardener.

Was this culprit who stole Jesus’ body?!

We can imagine that in her own adrenaline rush…in her own shock and fear and horror at the possibility that something terrible has happened to Jesus’ body, we can hear her desperate demand:

“Sir, if you have carried him away….tell me…tell me now…I want him back!”

“Mary!”

A pause.

Another shift in her perspective.

Is this? Could this really be?

She gasps, “Rabbouni!”

How could she have not recognized him?

How did she not know this was Jesus?

And what about Peter and the other disciple?

Could it be that in their haste to get home…they ran right past Jesus and never noticed that he was there the whole time that they were looking around inside the tomb?

Could they only perceive the linen wrapping and the head covering and not get a sense that God could bend the rules of nature… and perhaps a new reality is taking a dramatic Godward shift…where Love claims victory over death?

She remembers what Jesus once said, “I am the resurrection and the life.”

And now…here he is.

And her perception…through tears…and sense of reality has shifted.

As she processes this incredible event…Jesus tells her to go tell the others…let them know that he’s not ascended to heaven but is ready to meet them…and reassure them…that all those things he had done and all those words he had spoken…they’re for real.

We tell this wild and fantastic story every year.

And we tell it in the face of things in the world that feel not right…not loving…not life-giving or liberating.

Our lives are punctuated by things that hurt…and losses on the personal and the global level that can make us doubt the reality that God is love and desires for us to experience goodness and love every day.

We still face challenges from forces that seem determined to keep crucifying God’s creatures…both through destruction and degradation of the planet…and the people.

There are those who seem to wish to use power and privilege to keep others from being able to pursue their own happiness in this world.

And I think that’s why we need to keep hearing this Easter story every year.

Because this is a story of God bearing witness to the absolute worst of humanity…and with greater force and confidence…saying a big ol’ “Nope, not today Satan!”

This is a story of God showing us that we can overcome those obstacles thrown in our path…we can survive hardships…and we can…with love in our hearts…ascend to greater heights…and—yes—we can make a difference.

With Easter eyes…perhaps we can see each other as God’s beloved children…treat the people we meet with the dignity and respect they deserve.

However we take the message of Easter out of this building today…may our vision be clear…our hearts be full…and may we have the courage to live and pursue that Love revolution that God has been dreaming for us to experience.

In the name of God…F/S/HS.