Sermon Seeds: Easter Day
Sunday, April 4, 2021
Easter Sunday Year B
(Liturgical Color: White)
Lectionary citations:
Acts 10:34–43 or Isaiah 25:6–9
Psalm 118:1–2, 14–24
1 Corinthians 15:1–11 or Acts 10:34–43
John 20:1–18 or Mark 16:1–8
Sermon Seeds
Focus Scripture:
Mark 16:1-8
Focus Theme:
Reveal: Easter Day
Reflection:
By Cheryl Lindsay
The Story We Complete
There’s good news in-between the bookends. The Gospel of Mark makes a unique choice among the gospel writers. There’s no birth narrative and no resurrection sighting. This assumes acceptance of our focus scripture as the intended conclusion of the gospel (from the four possible choices). If the storytelling ends at verse eight rather than twenty, we might consider it a cliffhanger, inviting a sequel in much the same way as the Acts of the Apostles continues the story begun in Luke’s narrative. The different ending could also be attributed to the choppiness of Mark’s writing; he’s not concerned with literary style or convention and brings the take to a rather abrupt conclusion.
Another possibility exists however, when we consider that Mark opens with “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, Son of God” (Mark 1:1) and immediately recounts the story of Jesus’ baptism. That baptism serves as Mark’s representation of Christ entering into the human condition. It stands to reason that the empty tomb, for Mark, represents Christ leading humanity into the resurrection condition.
Hearers and readers of Mark’s account will not be confused by the doubts of the disciples, including but not limited to Thomas. They need not worry about who sees Jesus and the manner of those encounters. No, for Mark, the empty tomb and the assurance that Jesus had moved forward provide the revelation.
The women, who came to the tomb concerned about who would roll away the stone, found that time wasted as the stone was no impediment to their purpose on that Easter day. Yet, even as they articulate that concern, as Racquel Lettsome notes, “They do all the preparations for the anointing and depart for the tomb, thinking about the stone only as they arrive.” They expected to find Jesus there, and they did not anticipate any hindrance to providing this care for him. Upon hearing that Jesus has gone to Galilee with an expectation that his disciples would follow, the women respond with both emotion and action. They feel both fear and amazement, which is reminiscent of other heavenly appearances recorded in the biblical text and lends additional credence to the popular description of this as an angelic encounter even if Mark describes the announcer as a “young man.” They act by fleeing the scene…in fear and silence (as Mark notes, they do not share this experience as directed).
Yet, these were the same women named by Mark who followed Jesus to Jerusalem and who followed him to the cross. Peter also followed Jesus and accompanied him to Jerusalem for the Passover observation; however, unlike these women who braved public association with the Jesus who hung on the cross, Peter predictably denied his affiliation with Jesus three times. Is this why Peter is the only disciple explicitly named? Peter is invited, like all who fall short in their walk with Jesus, to resume the journey.
The other Evangelists have something to prove. Matthew makes the case that Jesus is the promised Messiah who fulfills the covenant; his genealogy points back to the line of David. Luke’s goes back to the first human and expands the reach of the good news to all people. John starts at the beginning and proclaims the divinity of Christ at a time when that was questioned. Mark tells the story, and sometimes the story speaks for itself.
And, sometimes, it doesn’t…completely…but that also forms and informs the narrative.
Easter is mystery, and we covet answers. The other resurrection narratives tie up the loose ends, either in response to rumor, speculation, or even apostasy in their time or in order to frame their narratives for their respective audiences. Mark invites the hearer to fill in their own blanks and to sit with the incomplete ending. Mark allows the story to end without resolution. “Mark’s earliest audiences would have experienced the Gospel narrative through performance, whether through public reading or a more dramatic affair.” (Michael R. Whitenton) The gospel writer crafts the story to be received in this way.
Imagine a great, cinematic song rising in crescendo to that climatic moment and ending there. How would you respond? You’d probably hear that moment repeating in your mind for hours or days.
Christ has risen. Let it echo for a bit.
Don’t worry about the next actions of the first witnesses or the reaction of the disciples. We can even wait to consider what Jesus does next. Stay here for a moment. Don’t take the empty tomb for granted or rush to post-resurrection events, sightings, and encounters.
Life has transformed death.
The young man tells the women that Jesus has gone ahead of them to Galilee. The expectation is that the disciples will meet him there. Mark reminds us that Christian discipleship entails following Jesus. The season of Lent reminds us that choice exacts a cost.
After a year living in pandemic, we have a greater understanding of Lent. It seems like we’ve been living it for that year–sacrifice and reflection. Emptiness and uncertainty. Physical and social distancing that has diminished our lives and challenged communities to remain connected and to redefine belonging. In some ways, we’ve become acquainted with tomb dwelling. Guy Willliams reminds us that tombs, in the time of the resurrection, tombs were dangerous places. By attending to his body, the women would have subjected themselves to the pollution of a dead body, become ritually unclean, and exposed themselves to those who embraced dead places. Presumably, Jesus might have been anointed prior to being placed in the tomb, which was sealed with the stone. They knew the seal was in place by their question.
These women, who also journeyed with Jesus on the cross were not afraid of touching death. They watched him die and went to his grave. Perhaps they were like the woman who anointed Jesus with her tears…just wanting to do something for him. The first mention of fear occurs when they realize the tomb is empty. Many of us have personal experience that fear and excitement can reside alongside each other at a time of great transition. Resurrection is life made new and transformed.
Maybe the women weren’t afraid of the angelic young man and his pronouncements. Maybe they didn’t not fear the uncertainty of a risen Jesus. Maybe they were afraid…in awe…of an ending they would need to resolve themselves through their own transformed lives.
Transformation can be terrifying. It forces us to encounter dangerous places and face the death of something closely held. Over the last year, we have heard the end of the pandemic–and its hold on our lives–as a return to normal. That’s not happening. We move through our lives from one normal to the next. We change and adapt, however reluctantly or excitedly, to new circumstances. Those stimuli originate from without and within us. That’s the nature of the life cycle, constant change with ups and downs. So little of life is level, but we often delude ourselves that a normal is available and accessible rather than allusive.
We weren’t created for normal. We have been crafted for transformation. We are capable of making extraordinary adjustments. Resilience grows in us when exposed to pressure and challenge. Like the metamorphosis of the caterpillar to the butterfly, a good thing can become a great thing when it enters into a process and changes location. The caterpillar is a fine creation, but the butterfly takes our breath away. Too often we settle for comfort when we should strive for an uncomfortable flight that will take us to places beyond our imagining. We’re content as caterpillars when we could become the butterfly if we’re only willing to complete the story and enter into uncomfortable places.
I recently re-read The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. The book tells the story of a young man transformed into a horrible creature. Ultimately, the young man, encased in the body of the new creature, dies, but it isn’t the change that kills him. He starves to death because those around him cannot adapt to the shape of his new life.
The changes the church has undertaken during the last year won’t destroy the church of Jesus Christ. They invite us into the resurrected life, encourage us to eschew our comfort, and push us to become, live, and move as the body of Christ we were always intended to be transformed by what seems like a year of Lent.
Mark’s gospel takes us to the climax of the empty tomb and then leaves the rest of the story for us to tell. We, like the women witnesses, encounter the empty tomb and receive the message that Jesus is not there and has gone ahead with an expectation that we will follow:
Jesus’ promise—which the young man in the tomb echoes— that the disciples (we!) can meet Jesus in Galilee, in effect says that the crucified and risen Jesus is found in the everyday world, where there is illness, demons, oppressive political powers, poverty, and the need for a transforming word. It is difficult to see the crucified and risen Son of God in this everyday world. Indeed, the nightly news seems to make a nightly argument against it, with news of political scandals, international skirmishes, refugee crises, mass gun shootings, and the like. But, into this everyday world, the young man in the white robe says, “This newscaster is unable to tell the end of the story.” To see what Mark saw, we must look at the world through the lens of a christological parable that has the ability to turn our worldview on its head. Then, standing upside down and twisted all around by Mark’s narrative, we can see the Son of God anew and move a little closer to the boundaries of the reign of God. (O Wesley Allen, Jr.)
We can enter the resurrected life. I wonder if the women kept silent, not because they did not believe, but because they did. I wonder if the women said nothing because they knew that the others, who couldn’t face the tomb and the grave, wouldn’t not be ready to face the resurrected life. Perhaps they needed time and space to build their strength and begin to write the rough draft of the next chapter.
We too craft an ending to this Easter Day good news. It’s okay to take a moment, to be silent in the face of the empty tomb. There’s something very human about being struck by awe and fear in anticipation of Christ at work in and through us.
Jesus has gone ahead of us and is waiting for us to arrive…and complete the story. It’s Easter Day! Alleluia!
For further reflection:
“Jesus takes the Resistance beyond prophecy, beyond songs of hope and lamentation, beyond satire and mockery, and beyond apocalyptic visions to declare the inauguration of a new kingdom. With his birth, teachings, death, and resurrection, Jesus has started a revolution. It just doesn’t look the way anyone expects.” — Rachel Held Evans
“Easter is always the answer to ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!'” — Madeleine L’Engle
“Jesus’s resurrection is the beginning of God’s new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord’s Prayer is about.” — N. T. Wright
Suggested Congregational Response to the Reflection:
Invite the congregation to enter into the delighted joy of discovering the empty tomb.
Works Cited
Allen, O Wesley, Jr. “Easter Sunday: Mark 16:1-8.” Currents in Theology and Mission 44, no. 4 (October 2017): 20–24.
Lettsome, Raquel S. “Mark.” Gale A. Yee, Ed. Fortress Commentary on the Bible: Two Volume Set. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014.
Whitenton, Michael R. “Feeling the Silence: A Moment-by-Moment Account of Emotions at the End of Mark(16:1-8).” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly
Williams, Guy. “Narrative Space, Angelic Revelation, and the End of Mark’s Gospel.” Journal for the Study ofthe New Testament 35, no. 3 (March 2013): 263–84.
The Rev. Dr. Cheryl A. Lindsay, Sermon Seeds Writer and Editor (lindsayc@ucc.org), is a local church pastor and worship scholar-practitioner with a particular interest in the proclamation of the word in gathered communities. You’re invited to share your reflections on this text in the comments on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SermonSeeds.
A Bible study version of this reflection is at Weekly Seeds.
Lectionary texts
Acts 10:34–43 or Isaiah 25:6–9
Psalm 118:1–2, 14–24
1 Corinthians 15:1–11 or Acts 10:34–43
John 20:1–18 or Mark 16:1–8
Acts 10:34–43
34 Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36 You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. 37 That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. 39 We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; 40 but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, 41 not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. 43 All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
Isaiah 25:6–9
On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines,
of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.
7 And he will destroy on this mountain
the shroud that is cast over all peoples,
the sheet that is spread over all nations;
8 he will swallow up death forever.
Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces,
and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the LORD has spoken.
9 It will be said on that day,
Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.
This is the LORD for whom we have waited;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
Psalm 118:1–2, 14–24
1 O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
his steadfast love endures forever!
2 Let Israel say,
“His steadfast love endures forever.”
14 The LORD is my strength and my might;
he has become my salvation.
15 There are glad songs of victory in the tents of the righteous:
“The right hand of the LORD does valiantly;
16 the right hand of the LORD is exalted;
the right hand of the LORD does valiantly.”
17 I shall not die, but I shall live,
and recount the deeds of the LORD.
18 The LORD has punished me severely,
but he did not give me over to death.
19 Open to me the gates of righteousness,
that I may enter through them
and give thanks to the LORD.
20 This is the gate of the LORD;
the righteous shall enter through it.
21 I thank you that you have answered me
and have become my salvation.
22 The stone that the builders rejected
has become the chief cornerstone.
23 This is the LORD’s doing;
it is marvelous in our eyes.
24 This is the day that the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
1 Corinthians 15:1–11
15 Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, 2 through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain.
3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.
Acts 10:34–43
34 Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36 You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. 37 That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. 39 We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; 40 but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, 41 not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. 43 All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
John 20:1–18
20 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples returned to their homes.
11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
Mark 16:1–8
16 When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6 But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” 8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.