Losses at the End of Easter

There are no two ways about it… life involves loss. Graduation arrives.  Jobs change.  Favorite jeans wear out.  Children grow up and move out.  Dreams pass us by.  Friends move on or away.  Loved ones die.  There are two kinds of losses, those that are necessary and those that are not – the ones we could have avoided.  A Christian clinical psychologist by the name of Archibald Hart writes,

“Whenever we suffer a loss we are designed to become depressed.  It is part of the ‘grieving process’ that helps us to say our good-byes.  It serves an important function and is all part of God’s design.” 

Every loss brings pain, but it is a pain that gives birth to maturity, insight, and wisdom if it is processed in a healthy manner.  It transforms us, but sometimes at a very heavy price.  Who am I?  Who are you?  Well, in part, we are the sum of our losses and the resurrections that have come from them. 

The theme of loss marks the last few weeks of the season of Easter as Jesus prepares his followers for his eminent departure.  This Thursday will mark 40 days since Easter Sunday.  It is the Day of the Ascension when Jesus’ followers witness him ascend into heaven.  Never again will they fellowship with the one they love.  It is a necessary and painful loss. 

Jesus promises not to leave those who love him as orphans.  The image of an orphan hints at the depth of this loss in the life of his followers.  Jesus keeps his promise by sending the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday, 50 days after Easter.  The loss of Jesus opens the way for something new: the creation of the Church and the personal empowering of each believer to live in the fullness of life, loving as Jesus loves.

The experience of loss has been a significant feature of our Easter season here at St. Paul’s, with four burials in the last month, three in the last two weeks.  Learning how to grieve our losses well is an essential skill in life.  Some are better at it than others. 

We first begin to develop this skill as infants.  From the moment of birth we are a “being-in-relationship”.  We require attention, care, and the touch of another.  All of our needs are met relationally.  Unmet needs evoke in us frustration and fear.  We experience separation as a loss and it elicits in us anxiety and anger.  When the parent returns, the child expresses what one theorist calls the anger of hope.  The child hopes that his or her anger will make the parent feel repentant for the separation and as a result will not leave again.  The more inattentive the parent is the more the infant will experience an anger of despair.  Carrol Saussy, a professor of pastoral theology writes, “The major thread weaving through both anger in children and anger in adult life is the experience of separation and loss, which can be misinterpreted as the experience of rejection and abandonment.”

Necessary losses are often thought of as occurring “out of necessity” or as “a taking away.”  “She is moving on to greener pastures.”  “The good times can’t last forever.”  “Well, the Lord called grampa home.”  In each case there is a reason for the loss, perhaps even a higher purpose.  Unnecessary losses, on the other hand, evoke feelings of rejection and abandonment.  “There must be something wrong with me.”  “I must have done something to deserve this.”  “I am not lovable.”  Examples abandonment:  LaBron James leaves Cleveland for Miami, the paper mill moves out of Franklin, a family member takes his life.  The anger of despair may be focused on the abandoner or it may be transferred to something or someone else, but almost always we turn at least a part of its venom inward on ourselves.

Think about Jesus on the Cross wrestling with the ambiguity of what is happening to him.  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  Has he been abandoned?  Is his death pointless?  Or is it out of necessity?  “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”  “It is finished.”  The answer will be apparent three days later.

Archibald Hart describes another challenge associated with unnecessary losses, which he labels “reactive depression.”  He writes,

“In reactive depression the real problem lies not with the absence of the lost object but with our attachment to it.  In other words, depression continues because we will not let go of the loved object; we will not free it to be dead, lost, removed, or not materialized.” 

Reactive depression finds its roots in overattachment.  It can be overattachment to a thing (“I can’t get over losing my house), a relationship (particularly the death of a loved one), or something abstract (such as the loss of one’s reputation).  When you are overattached you experience a loss of something in the external world as a loss of a part of your own self.

Healthy grieving gives us a space to relinquish and release what we have lost.  This is not possible if we feel abandoned by or overattached to what we have lost.  Hart observes “when our losses are not ‘clean’ our grieving becomes confused and distracted by anger and resentment at what has happened to us, and our depression becomes intense and even incapacitating.”  Significant or on-going depression needs to be taken very seriously and requires professional help.

I have told many of you privately about my depression.  It has been with me most of my life, but I did not recognize it or seek help for it until after my marriage ended.  I did three things.  First, I initiated a relationship with a professional counselor.  Over time, our conversations helped me to see and think in new ways.  Second, I talked to my doctor and began to take an anti-depressant.  I feel blessed that it has changed the chemistry in my brain and makes it possible for me to see and think in new ways.  All of this unfolded in my life while I was pursuing a Doctor of Ministry degree.  I used the opportunity to do a directed study on anger and depression, which included reading about a dozen books and integrating what I learned with the events of my life – a process resulting in a 125 page paper.  These experiences have changed who I am as a person and as a priest.  The unnecessary death of my marriage and the grieving that followed transformed me; giving rise to insight, wisdom, and deeper maturity. 

Today’s reading from John hints at how we learn to let go of a loss as something new enters into our lives.  It may be better than what we lost or it may simply be good enough or it may be a reason for us to reemerge in the world of hope and begin to live again.  The loss of Jesus leads to the gift of the Holy Spirit. 

Hart writes, “Life is a journey, and what makes it a miserable or a happy one is how you master the skills you need to live with your losses.”  One thing you can count on: God will never abandon you in the depths of your grief.  “I am with you to deliver you.”  “I will wipe away every tear from your eyes.”  “Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.”  “Come to me, all who are weak and burdened with heavy labor, and I will give you rest.”

Just One Picture...

If you could hang just one religious picture in your home, a picture capturing the essence of your faith, what would it be? 

We had just one picture of Jesus in our home as I was growing up.  Know as the “Head of Christ” or as “Sallman’s Head”, it was a wildly popular depiction of Jesus painted by Warner Sallman in 1950.  It portrays Jesus as being strong, serene, and compassionate.  He is facing the right hand side of the painting and gazing slightly upward as light comes down to illuminate his face and blondish-brunet hair.  Over 500 million images of the painting have been sold worldwide, making it the single most reproduced piece of art of the 20^th Century.  It was especially popular during the Cold War because it served as a reminder Jesus is watching over us.  Our picture hung in the hallway leading to all of our bedrooms. 

Years ago I came across an obscure novel by Elizabeth Goudge called The Dean’s Watch.  One of its main characters, Isaac Peabody, was the son of a clergyman of the Church on England in the eighteen hundreds.  His family had one religious picture in their home.  It hung above the mantel of the fireplace and depicted the Final Judgment.  Can you imagine?  It was under this stern rendering that Isaac’s father administered equally stern discipline.  It is no surprise Goudge portrays Isaac Peabody’s adult character as having lost his faith.

I suspect many of us, if we could have just one religious picture in our home – a picture somehow capturing the essence of what we hold most dear, most essential about God and the Christian faith – might choose one depicting Jesus as the Good Shepherd.  If we had to focus in on just one aspect of God – the God we know and love – this might be the best choice for us to make. 

Today is informally known as “Good Shepherd” Sunday because each of the readings gives us a glimpse of God’s shepherdly care.  And even though most of us don’t have firsthand experience of shepherding, it is an accessible image because it captures how God relates to us and how we trust ourselves to God when we are most in need.

From the beginning of the Bible, our ancestors in the faith, who themselves tended herds, have used this image as a way of describing their relationship to the Holy One.  The first reference to God as a shepherd is found in the Book of Genesis.  Jacob, having discovered his son Joseph is alive after many years of thinking him to be dead, blesses his newfound grandsons with these words:

The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked,

The God who has been my shepherd all the my life to this day,

The angel who has redeemed me from all evil,

Bless these boys, and may my name live on in them…

Today’s readings remind us that God’s shepherding is manifested to us in two distinct ways.  The first is personal, the second communal.  In the Book of Genesis, God’s care comes directly to Jacob.  It is not mediated through other people.  It is the sense of the 23^rd Psalm: “The Lord is my shepherd.”  It is also conveyed through Jesus’ teaching: “My sheep know my voice.”  The readings affirm that it is possible to have a mystical, personal experience of God’s care coming from beyond to bring comfort, healing, and protection in the here and now.

When have you experience God’s shepherdly care?  Was it a spiritual comfort when you were grieving?  Perhaps a calm certainty when you were anxious?  Maybe it was a sense of direction when you were lost or a conviction when you were uncertain?  Such experiences of the Good Shepherd come to us quite apart from anything or anyone in this temporal realm.  It is a sensing of God’s presence we feel in our heart, in our mind, in our soul, in a place where we know that a Mystery from beyond has joined us in our time of trial or moment of need.

The reading from Book of Acts highlights a second way through which God’s care is manifested.  In addition to coming directly to us in a spiritual way, it is also mediated in real, physical, practical ways through a community of faith. 

Last Sunday we read that over 3,000 people were baptized after hearing Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost.  Today we learn about their common life.  They devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers – a pattern so basic to Christian living it is the first thing we pledge to do in the covenant we make with God at baptism.

· The Apostles’ teaching – molding our beliefs to the mind of Christ as it has been revealed through his earliest disciples. 

· The Apostles’ fellowship – being a member of a community in relationship with Christ’s earliest disciples.  Are you familiar with the phrase “Apostolic Succession”?  Jesus’ earliest followers are also referred to as “the Apostles”.  They choose their successors by laying hands of them to invoke God’s blessing and the power of the Holy Spirit.  These successors soon became known as “bishops.”  In our Anglican tradition, a person becomes a bishop through the laying on of hands by one or more bishops who have received the laying on of hands by other bishops whose lineage of this sacramental act is traced all the way back to the first Apostles.  When you are confirmed or received by a bishop of the Episcopal Church, the person placing his or her hands on your head and praying for you is a direct sacramental descendent of Jesus’ earliest followers.  This is just one of many ways we cherish what it means to continue in the Apostles’ fellowship.

· The Breaking of Bread:  Every congregation I have served has been what I describe as a “parish with two tables.”  One table is in the worship space.  The bread we break here is sacramental.  The other table is in the Parish Hall.  The bread we break there is in fellowship.  Both speak to the mystery of Christ’s love and presence in our midst, each in its own essential way.  A parish with only one table is missing something.  A life lived without either table lacks something central to the Christian faith.

· The Prayers:  I worry I am always picking on those who say “I can worship God just as easily in _________, as in church.”  While I understand what they are saying – and believe me, it resonates with a part of my own experience – here is my testimony: I pray and worship more fully, more completely, and more deeply when I am in the presence of others than when I am by myself.  Communal worship blesses, enlarges, deepens, and challenges me in ways not possible when I worship on my own.

Just as each of us has known the personal presence of the Good Shepherd, so too many of us can name at least one time when, we might say, “the church was there for me.”  It is a phrase and feeling acknowledging God works through the community to meet our needs. 

Perhaps more difficult to name, but surely just as real, are the times when you have been there for a member of the church… when God’s shepherding has been manifested through you.  It comes through a card or a hug or a listening ear or the gift of food or a flower delivery, or simply by showing up at the hospital or calling hours or memorial service.  Only rarely does it require heroic sacrifice on our part.  More often than not, God is working through us in ways we neither notice nor understand. 

This is why commitment to our faith community is so important.  God cannot use you if you are not present.  God cannot use you if you do not make an effort.  But when you do, God does.  Your inch becomes God’s mile.  Your ounce of effort becomes God’s ton of love. 

Very few, if any of us, have direct experience with shepherding.  Still, it remains perhaps the most endearing image of the Christian faith because we have personal experiences of God’s care for us.  And because, when you make yourself available to a person in need, he or she will sense the Good Shepherd in you.  Show up, make yourself vulnerable to a person in need, and the Mystery of God’s care will be manifest in the moment.

Octave or a Rush to the Resurrection

Easter Sunday is always the culmination of a lively liturgical season that seems to begin in Advent, picks up pace in Lent, and becomes a full on sprint in Holy Week.  For many of us in the church the joy of Easter is accompanied with a sigh of relief.  Easter afternoon is for clergy what seeing its shadow is for Punxsutawney Phil: give us a nice six-week nap and we will be good to go again.

Given all of this, I am loath to even mention something called the Octave of Easter.  It is an ancient tradition of celebrating Easter over eight days – the first being Easter morning and the last being the following Sunday (known as “low” Sunday because it signals the end of eight days of festivities).  I don’t know many churches that do much with the Octave of Easter, but a quick glance at the prayer book reveals there are collects and assigned readings for each day of the week following the Resurrection.  And, as I noted last Sunday, the Octave always ends with the story of Thomas touching the wounds of Jesus and coming to believe.

Think about how much energy we put into Holy Week compared to how little we put into the Octave.  Now, I am not suggesting we start a new liturgical tradition here at St. Paul’s, but observing the Octave might help us to do one thing.  It might help us to experience Easter more in alignment with how the disciples experienced it.

That first Easter morning the disciples are not flowering a cross or singing Jesus Christ is risen today.  Most are in hiding, seeking safety behind locked doors.  A small group of women go to Jesus’ tomb early in the morning, perhaps to tend to the burial needs of the corpse.  These women discover the tomb empty and receive a message from an angel telling them Jesus is risen.  They leave the scene to pass on the message, but do not seem to believe its content until they encounter Jesus. 

Now the women dash to where the disciples are hiding, but the men dismiss what they have to say as being “idle talk”.  From John’s gospel we learn two disciples go to the tomb to see for themselves.  They look inside and find it empty, but there is no indication they believe Jesus is risen.  The disciples do not even leave their hiding place to fan the city in search of their resurrected leader.

Today’s reading takes place on Easter day sometime after all of this unfolds.  Two disciples decide to leave Jerusalem, perhaps to return home after the Passover.  They are talking as they are walking.  At this point a stranger approaches and asks what they are discussing.  They lay out the story of Jesus concluding with the “astonishing” report of the women.

The story they tell provides an important clue into their mindset.  They say, “We had hoped he was to be the one to redeem Israel.”  “We had hoped...”  As a fan of the Cleveland Browns, you have no idea of the number of draft choices we can say, “We had hoped he would be the player to turn around our losing franchise.”  “We had hoped” stands for putting your faith and trust into something, only to have it fail.  “We had hoped this investment would provide for our retirement.”  “We had hoped this time he could stay clean.”  “We had hoped this new treatment would be the cure.”  For the two disciples walking that day, the events of the past three days brought an end to their habit of hoping in Jesus.

Easter Day for the disciples is a day marked by fear, uncertainty, grief, and dashed hopes.  For one or two of the women it must be a day of total frustration – they can’t get anyone to believe they saw Jesus – and perhaps self-doubt – maybe they didn’t see what they thought they did.  In our rush to celebrate the Resurrection we skip past all of this.  We miss the opportunity to connect our own experiences of fear, uncertainty, grief, frustration, self-doubt, and dashed hopes with theirs.  The Octave of Easter is designed in part to help us walk with the disciples through this day and all its perplexing elements. 

Perhaps no Easter story is more bewildering than the one we read this morning.  The Risen Jesus walks with two of his followers and describes in great detail how the last three days need to be understood as a fulfillment of Scripture, but they never suspect who he is because “their eyes are kept from recognizing him.”  Only at a meal through the sacramental moment of breaking bread do they come to “see” Jesus, but then he vanishes.  By the time they return to Jerusalem, the other disciples now believe Jesus has risen because he appeared to Peter, but the details of this encounter are not recorded in the bible.

As we read last Sunday, at some point Jesus himself appears in the room and imparts the peace of Holy Spirit by breathing on them.  This is another element to add to the Octave: a calmness and tranquility emerging from a time of chaos and fear.  You will remember Thomas is not present for this incredible moment and refuses to believe unless he touches Jesus’ wounds.  He will get his opportunity on the eighth and final day of the Octave, giving us a whole week to ponder our own doubts and to reflect on the building block experiences forming the bedrock of our own faith.

We were deeply moved on Palm Sunday by the reading of the Passion and our own participation in it by shouting, “Crucify him!  Crucify him!”  It connects with a deep realization we are not as faithful as we ought to be and there are moments when we turn our back on our Lord.  I wonder what it would feel like on Easter morning for us to participate in the story of the Resurrection by saying something like, “It can’t be, can it?” or “It just isn’t possible.”  What would it be like to come to the service fully aware of all the things giving you pause in life – all your fears?  What would it look like to bring your sadness and grief, your confusion and uncertainty, your frustrations and self-doubts?  What would it look like to bring with you all of your dashed hopes?  What would it look like for you to sit in the pew just to see if maybe something might happen to eclipse it all with joy and calm?

Perhaps one thing these stories tell us is hearing about the resurrection is not enough for the transformation to happen.  It requires a personal experience with the Risen Christ.  This moment may come through the studying Scripture with others.  It may come through receiving the bread and wine.  Or it may come in so many other ways that are deeply personal.  My hope and prayer for each of us is we will have moments when our eyes are able to recognize Jesus is (or has been) in our midst.  Encountering the Risen Christ changes everything.

Why the Wounds Matter

Some things are constant in the three-year lectionary cycle of assigned bible readings.  Today is one of them.  Every year on the Sunday after Easter we hear the story of the resurrected Jesus appearing to the disciples, however, one disciple – Thomas – is not in attendance.  He can serve as the patron saint for all the parishioners who were here last Sunday, but not today!  The bible does not tell us why Thomas is not with the group or what he is doing, only that he is not in the room when Jesus appears.  By the time he arrives Jesus is gone, but the disciples are ecstatic.  Thomas says he will not believe until he sees Jesus for himself.  He famously states, “Until I touch his wounds.”

Docetism was one of the early heresies rejected by the church.  Derived from the Greek word for apparition or phantom, docetism held Jesus only appeared in human form while on earth.  His ‘human’ body was just an illusion.  Adherents rejected the idea Jesus, being fully divine, could suffer.  In early Christianity, as doctrines and ideas emerge in many different places and settings, some are persuaded by this notion, however docetism is soundly rejected at the Council of Nicaea in 325. 

Yes, Thomas wants to see Jesus before believing he has risen because I think it is important for him to see the wounds to verify Jesus’ whole life has not been just a cruel hoax.  Do you remember when Thomas asks Jesus, “We do not know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” and Jesus responds, “I am the way, the truth, and the life”?  Well, it is easy to be the true and living way if you are removed from human limitations.  If you are just a holy apparition, it is easy to talk a big game.  But we are human and we are limited.  Jesus cannot show us the way to live if he is not one of us. 

St. Paul’s is not a large parish to be sure.  Our congregation consists of about 150 households (that is, families and individuals) and, of course, some are more active than others.  As your pastor I can tell you very, very few of our households are not at this present moment coping with one sort of crisis or another.  The breadth of the challenges we face is huge.  The depth of our challenges is beyond imagining.  We are a wounded people.  We come here this morning not to hear about a Savior who stands above us, or to learn of a Savior who stands apart from us, but to find a Savior who stands with us; who knows what we know, who experienced what we experience, who overcame what we are trying to endure, whose triumph might just give us hope.

The Christian tradition associates Jesus’ various wounds with specific aspects of human suffering.

· The nail wounds to his hands and feet have come to represent our broken bodies.  They speak to our need for physical healing.

· The spear wound in Jesus’ side has come to represent our broken relationships.  Many of us long for reconciliation with someone estranged.

· The whip wounds on Jesus’ back have come to represent all the broken promises we endure.  Promises are the building blocks forming the foundation of our lives.  When one breaks, the structure of our being is shaken at the core.

· The wounds inflicted by the crown of thorns have come to represent our broken thoughts.  We each have an inner voice telling us about ourselves and the world we live in.  For many of us wounded people, this voice is terribly cruel and unrelenting.

· The final wound is to Jesus’ heart and it has come to represent broken faith.  Wounds and wrongs stick like burrs to the soul.  Eventually we give in to cynicism or anger or despair or fear.  We break off communication with God, with others, and even with ourselves, believing isolation is the only option for protection.

Thomas needs to know Jesus’ wounds are real because our wounds are real.  And when he meets Jesus one week later and sees the wounds for himself, he falls down on his knees and says, “My Lord and my God.”  Literary experts state his declaration forms the climax of John’s gospel.  Everything coming before builds to this crescendo of worship and faith.  Seeing the wounds is pivotal.

I like today’s reading from the New Testament because it has so much dynamic movement in it.  As we read it, I wonder what it would sound like if Al composed a hand bell musical score to accompany it.  It might begin with rousing, joyous, confident sounds to translate the letter’s incredible statement of faith describing how our new birth in Christ gives us a living hope of an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.  It sounds good, but is awfully far removed from the experience of those of us who are broken and wounded.  How would Al use the art of music to interject our reality?

Peter understands where we are because he acknowledges how, in spite of our future hope, we suffer various trials in the present moment.  Here, I image Al would queue the ominous deep bass sounds of the big bells.  Peter says our trials test us and they refine us.  And just as a bone is strongest at the place where it has healed, so too what we suffer and what we endure makes us stronger and better people.  How might Al use the bells to communicate this truth?

The passage concludes with Peter stating something about his readers each one of us here this morning longs to be true of us as well:

Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

We will have to wait for Al to give musical expression to how we come to rest in the consolation and assurance of our faith.

We read this morning about a disciple who has to touch Jesus’ wounds in order to believe.  Now we come to the moment where the wounded Jesus wants to touch our wounds.  Jesus accepts us – broken, limited, sinful, and struggling – long before we accept him.  Where we would put ourselves down, Jesus bends to lift us up.  Where we would heap judgment and blame upon ourselves, he tenderly forgives and accepts us.  Where we are filled with despair and overwhelming sorrow, Jesus loves us with a love that recreates us.  The broken condition of our humanity always elicits Christ’s redeeming touch.

At every service of public worship, in every moment of private prayer, and at every celebration of the Holy Eucharist, in one way or another, the question is asked, “Is your heart breaking?  Then let it break here.  Is your body broken?  Then bring its broken parts here.  Does your mind sometimes break down in a deep anguish you never knew was possible?  Then bring its broken fragments here.”  Then and only then can we say with Julian of Norwich, “All our wounds are seen before God not as wounds but as worships.”

Two versions of One Experience

Lets think about the scene Matthew sets in the reading we just heard.  It is early dawn on Sunday morning.  As few as two guards (if they are from the temple detachment) or as many as sixteen (if the outfit is composed of Roman soldiers), are keeping watch in a Jerusalem cemetery.  They arrived sometime on Saturday, inspected the tomb containing Jesus’ body, found it to be as it should, rolled a large stone across the entrance, and sealed it.  There is concern Jesus’ followers will unleash an attempt to steal the body in order to perpetuate a hoax about a resurrection.

Two women – followers of Jesus – approach.  Matthew tells us they want “to see” the tomb.  Unlike other gospel accounts, they are not carrying burial ointments.  They want to see the tomb.  Matthew’s lean description hints the women are not coming to the tomb to grieve nor are they here to tend to additional burial treatments.  They are here “to see”… presumably to see if anything has happened.  While the other disciples (and by other I mean the men) fail to grasp Jesus’ teaching he would die and rise on the third day, these women have heard it and are here to see… to see if only maybe, the horror they witnessed on Friday has been undone.

The approach of the women puts the guards on high alert.  This could be the first stage of an elaborate plot to steal the body.  Still, even if it is only two guards, the women in and of themselves do not pose a threat.  These men are trained security personnel who are more than capable of defending themselves against the women, or even a small band of Jesus’ followers.

What happens next would have been difficult for the women and the guards to process.

Forensic psychologists who attempt to understand why eyewitness accounts of a single event often differ provide critical insight.  When confronted with a sudden, dramatic event (such as a crime or accident or tragedy), the human brain does not record the experience in a way resembling a motion picture, but rather as a series of snapshots or snippets.  Years ago, I had the misfortune of navigating my mountain bike off a footbridge over a shallow ravine.  I still have a vivid memory of what happened, but not like that of a film.  It was snapshot – I have turned too sharply as I ride onto the bridge so I brake.  Snapshot – my bike has stopped, but my body has not.  I am flying over the handlebar.  Snapshot – twist and turn in midair.  I don’t have any conscious remembrance of making this decision.  Snapshot – it is dark, but my hands have caught side of the footbridge breaking my fall.  Snapshot – I feel safe, but wonder where my bike is.  Final snapshot – I am laying in the ravine after my bike come over the bridge and hits me in the head.  I am none the worse for the experience.  My bike, however, is beaten up pretty bad.

Have you ever had an experience like this - a snapshot, snapshot, snapshot moment?  If so, you have an insight into what happens at Jesus’ tomb.

As Matthew tells it there is a great earthquake as the women approach.  An angel descends from heaven.  Now, we may think of angels as being sweet little cherub-like creatures, but in the bible they are much more fearsome and intimidating.  Matthew describes it as being like a bolt of lightning.  Have you ever been close to a lightning strike?  It gets your attention, doesn’t it.  Your body reacts to it.  Your hair stands on end.  Your heart rate goes off the chart.  You duck involuntarily and turn away.  This angel event, whatever it is, stuns the guards.  They become like dead men.  The women are terrified and the first thing the angel says to them is “Do not be afraid.”  The angel then proclaims Jesus has risen and commissions the women to take a message to his disciples.

Here is what is interesting: up until this point in the narrative, the guards and the women have participated in the exact same experience.  The only difference is the guards are here to guard and the women are here to see.

The forensic psychologists who study the human brain’s processing under difficult circumstances note our tendency to fill in missing information lost in the gaps between the snapshots we remember.  It turns out the brain does not like an empty vacuum so it will manufacture information, or even appropriate the memories of others as its own.  Police investigators deal with this all the time when they interview multiple witnesses of a single event.  Discerning reality can be a tremendous challenge.  The two groups do not hang around to process their varying experiences and no investigator will be able to interview the women and the guards together. 

The women leave the scene quickly and then experience another “sudden” event.  Jesus meets them and speaks to them: “Greetings.”  They touch him and worship him.  They hear him speak to them.

“Some” of the guards leave the cemetery as well.  They report to their superiors the tomb is open and empty.  The superiors concoct a story about the body being stolen and pay off the guards.  I suspect the guards have no idea what happened.  They have mental snapshots of something like two women approaching, a lightening bolt, an open tomb, and an empty tomb.

On the other hand, the women have more mental pictures and are trying to piece together some kind of description of what has happened.  Matthew’s narrative reads like snapshots – angel, “not here”, “risen”, “go and tell”, “Galilee”, “greetings”.  Ultimately it is not the story they tell, but the experience they relate that becomes important.  Matthew’s gospel does not record the exchange between the women and the disciples, nor does it detail any encounter the disciples have with the Risen Jesus until they go to Galilee and see him there.  We can only surmise the women are very convincing.

Here is the irony of Matthew’s story.  In the courts of the day, a woman’s testimony is considered unreliable and therefore is not permitted.  On the other hand, the testimony of a guard is considered to be beyond reproach.  As we gather this morning, I invite you to consider one certainty and two possibilities.  Based on Matthew’s account, this much is certain: the tomb containing Jesus’ body is empty by dawn on Sunday morning.  No one in this account, or in any of the other gospel accounts, disputes this. 

How the tomb came to be empty is disputed.  Either the defeated, fearful disciples who fled at Jesus’ arrest on Thursday night reorganize, overwhelm the well-trained guards (who, by the way, have no wounds to account for how they lost such a skirmish), steal the body, move it to a secret location, never reveal to anyone where it is hidden, and travel the known world proclaiming a lie for which each is willing to die, or the dead body of Jesus is resurrected and released from the sealed tomb though a means which we cannot explain apart from the power of God. 

I am intrigued this morning by how different people can be at the tomb on Easter morning, experience much of the same thing, and come away with such differing accounts – and therefore differing meanings – of what happened.  Here we are, participating in that moment through our hearing.  We are being challenged to take these snippets and formulate some kind of sensible story.  Why is the tomb empty?  Why do Jesus’ dispirited disciples rally to change the world? 

Did somebody or some group overpower the guards and move the body to a secret location never to be discovered?  Or…

Alleluia, Christ is Risen!

  The Lord is Risen indeed!

"Let Us..."

It is so difficult to know what to say or do after reading the account of our Lord’s death.  It is somber and sobering.  It almost feels like the best and most appropriate response is silence.  Perhaps we all should just sit here together in a prolonged, shared moment of numbness.  What are we to do with what we just have heard?

Today’s second reading blazes a path for us to follow.  The Letter to the Hebrews probably was written to Jews living in Rome about thirty years after the Crucifixion.  Originally attributed to Paul, its authorship has been in question for a long time.  What is not questioned is the power and eloquence of the letter; exploring the person, work, and meaning of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

The author has had some time to digest the events we have just read and thus is in a position to give us direction on how to respond to Jesus’ death.  He tells us to do three things.  Each begins with two simple words: “Let us.”

After setting out an intricate argument for how Jesus replaces the entire system of the Jerusalem Temple by making the perfect offering of himself (cleansing us of all sin), and describing how Jesus forever takes the place of the high priest (thereby giving us access to God’s presence), the author writes,

Let us approach [God in God’s sanctuary] with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

So our first response is spiritual.  We are to be in this place in God’s presence confident in God’s love for us.  Good Friday is not a day about human failure, rather it is about God’s all-powerful, unfailing hessed – a Hebrew word meaning steadfast, covenant love.

My Jack Russell terrier has many different ways she responds to me based on the stimulation I give her.  If she has done something wrong and I have yelled at her, she slouches down, slinks forward, and gravels at my feet; wondering what she must do to get back in my good graces.  The author of the Letter to the Hebrews says this is not what Good Friday is to be like.  If I pick up her leash – signaling a walk – my dog begins to bounce and twist and yelp and basically loose her mind.  This is not what Good Friday is like either.  In the evening, when I settle down on the couch, I give my dog a bone and pat on my lap, signaling I want her to jump up and join me.  She eagerly obliges and settles down across my outstretched legs, comfortable and confident she is where I want her to be.  This is an image of Good Friday.  God has signaled us to come close.  Of this we are confident.

Here is the second directive:

Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. 

The readers of this letter lived in challenging times.  Both Peter and Paul are martyred in their city, perhaps by Nero, around the time the letter is written.  The readers know their lives are in jeopardy.  The author sets out to encourage the faithful.  Hold fast.  Do not be discouraged by all that is going on around you.  God is with you.

Our world today is a challenging place for Christians.  In some places, like Egypt, the faithful gather in fear for their lives.  In other settings, churches have grown apathetic and indifferent.  Here at St. Paul’s, as with many western churches, our mission-mindset seems thwarted by a society not interested in what institutional religion is selling.  Good Friday calls us to hold fast to hope because our efforts are not grounded in our success, but rather in God’s faithfulness.

Here is the final directive:

Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.

We all know people who say, “I don’t need to be in church worship God.  I can worship God in the mountains, or at the beach, or on the golf course, etc.”  To them I always respond, “I am glad you can worship God when you are at location X.  I wish everyone had a spirituality capable of being with God everywhere all the time.  But, when you are off worshipping God in your private way, how are you reaching out and connecting with others?  God is concerned with more than your worship.  God wants you to be in fellowship with other worshippers; offering your help and support and receiving help and support when you are in need.”

Good Friday is to be a day when good people come together to do good things.  I met with a group of local clergy a few weeks ago to learn more about Virginia Blood Services.  We are exploring the possibility of mobilizing churches in Suffolk for a donor drive.  One of our craziest ideas, which will have to wait at least until next year, is to organize a Good Friday blood drive.  Who could say no to giving blood on the day we remember Jesus shed his blood for us!  I think the author of the Letter to the Hebrews would applaud such an effort.  Can you imagine forty or fifty or more Christians coming together over the course of a day to do something so vitally necessary for our community.

So, this day we move from numbness to direction:

Let us approach God with confidence.

Let us hold fast to the hope of the faith.

Let us gather together, encourage one another, and do good things for our community.

This is the path we are to walk after hearing the Passion of our Lord.

A Violent Act & Its Impact

Crucifixion remains one of the most gruesome forms of execution in human history.  Most often, its victims died of asphyxiation; they simply lost the strength to pull themselves up to get a breath.  Others died of wounds suffered prior to being crucified or from sepsis or even from being attached by predator creatures as they hung exposed and helpless.  Practitioners developed many different styles and nuances.  For example, a cross could be T-shaped, X-shaped, or even Y-shaped.  A victim could be bound to the cross with ropes or nailed to it with spikes or metal shards.  A cross might feature a footrest, a comfort only prolonging the process, or it might not.  Typically, the person being crucified was stripped of all clothing, the ultimate humiliation of this degrading punishment.  No matter the variation, the experience was designed to be slow, painful, and “excruciating”, a word literally meaning “out of crucifying.” 

Crucifixions were very public events.  They always took place in areas where many, many local citizens could observe the execution or would pass by during the course of their daily rounds.  Often, victims were left on display long after death as a warning to everyone else to stay in line. 

I want to help us think about how the sudden exposure to such a violent act would have affected those closest to Jesus, especially those who gather at the Cross.  And I also want to help us think about the long-term impact this kind of public violence has on a society.

Keith Humphrey, a Stanford professor of psychiatry, writes of a time he and his wife were driving on a highway when a man wondered onto the road and was hit and killed by a car directly next to theirs.  The couple witnessed the entire tragedy.  Humphrey’s wife immediately began to scream and scream and scream whereas he turned to face directly forward, gripped the wheel tightly and stared into space, dimly aware that his wife was yelling somewhere in the distance.  In the face of this sudden traumatic event, his wife exploded with emotion whereas Humphrey became numb emotionally and detached from reality; a psychological response for self-protection known as dissociation. 

Humphrey’s experience illustrates how an initial response to a violent/traumatic act varies from one person to another.  The biblical accounts of the Crucifixion record the wailing of women and the fleeing of men.  This is not to suggest gender determines response, but it does mirror how Humphrey and his wife reacted.  However you want to describe Jesus’ closest disciples fleeing in the face of confrontation, and however you want to frame Peter’s denial, from a psychological perspective it is consistent with dissociation; a feeling of needing to hide from the unimaginable horror unfolding around you.

Have you ever experienced a moment like this?  I have.  I was with a female friend and loved ones, and while I don’t want to speak of the details, she responded with a angry, emotional outburst whereas I have a distinct memory of shrinking in the place where I was sitting and receding away psychologically from the painful event unfolding before me.  I recovered quickly, but eventually left the moment late in the evening and, coming back to Suffolk, I can still recall the feeling of how I wished the dark would not give way to the dawn so I could keep driving on forever as if nothing had happened. 

Based on that experience, you will never hear me criticize Peter or the other disciples.  In the crushing events unfolding before them, they reacted out of deep “fight or flight” response controlled by the most primitive part of our brains.  It is a process we neither control nor understand at the time.  Nor will you hear me praise or condemn the hysterical women.  We are who we are.  We act under crisis as we react.  We recover in our own way and move forward.  It is the moving forward and how we do it that matters most. 

For Jesus’ mother and the others who huddle beneath the Cross, what this experience means to them is far beyond my imagining.  Here is what we can know.  Here is what folks with comparable experiences experience in our own day:

· A profound sense of guilt: an irrational feeling you could have done something to prevent what happened, rather than accepting the terrifying truth you lack of control over many things that happen in life.

· Difficulty sleeping and nightmares.

· A heightened sense of alertness while awake.  Even mundane events will be interpreted as “fight or flight” moments, with all the body reactions associated with it.

Our present day understanding of human psychology provides a serious challenge to those who would deny the Resurrection.  A person exposed to such a horrific, violent act normally would exhibit the following:

· An inability to redevelop a sense of trust in others.

· A perpetual sense of victimization.

· A lack of personal empowerment.

· An intense desire to find meaning in life through revenge.

· A heightened sense of needing to protect self and loved ones from danger.

· A profound, debilitating sense of shame, guilt, powerless, and doubt.

These symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, chronicled in our day, would have been a part of the experience of Jesus’ family and closest friends, unless something else – something incredibly powerful – intervened; something beyond the typical way events unfold.  And the biblical record suggests something indeed does happen.  Jesus’ family and followers rejoice, trust, forgive one another and themselves, shed their fears and any need for revenge, and become incredibly empowered.

While they were transformed, sadly, our society is not.  We live in a culture marked by incredible violence.  Each year, perhaps as many as 2/3rds of our children and young people witness an act of violence in their home, school, or community.  Each year, 5% of our children and young people observe an event involving a gun.  Studies indicate this kind of culture affects our children in specific ways:

· a desensitization to violence

· a greater likelihood of using violence as a means of resolving problems or expressing emotions.

· a significant deficiency in resolving conflict through non-violent means.

· a heightened inability to regulate stress and emotional response.

· a recessive development of the brain’s ability to focus and develop essential functions such as planning, memory, focusing attention, impulse control, and an ability to integrate new information into the decision-making process.

Just as Jesus’ family and followers lived in an incredibly violent society, so do we.  It impacted them in very specific ways, as it does us.  However, their deeply personal experience of the Resurrection transformed how they viewed life and engaged society.  Do we have that experience and that vision?  Can we, like they, work our way into the fabric of our violent culture and plant the seeds of the Gospel’s truth?