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WHAT DO YOU EXPECT
Isaiah 65:17-25; Luke 24:1-12
Peter Gomes tells of riding in a taxi in London on July the fourth. As
they pass Buckingham Palace a band is playing brightly “God Save the
Queen,” the tune of which we may also recognize as “My Country ‘Tis of
Thee.” In his excitement he exclaims, “Why it’s the fourth of July,’ to
which the cab driver responds, “That’s right mate, and yesterday was the
third of July, and tomorrow is the fifth of July.”
Today is Easter Sunday. By church tradition, every Sunday is a
celebration of Easter—last week was an Easter, next Sunday is an Easter.
But today, we want to hear the bands play, to remind us in the biggest
way that Jesus Christ was risen this very day, the Sunday after Passover,
the Sunday after he was crucified. Music should play today.
It isn’t casual news, you know. We didn’t wake up this morning, however
early we awakened, expecting to see one risen from the dead, one who
was not captive to death, who somehow broke through every expectation
in life, and death, and through death. Is it another day? Just another
day? Or is it the day of days, the one day when God showed us something
very different; when God broke through and said, This is what you can
expect. This is what you should expect.
“Why do you seek the living among the dead?” The words of the two
messengers at the empty tomb are not so much comforting as they are a
bit scolding. Why are you so surprised? Why is it that you came to a
tomb where they had laid the one whom you loved and expected to find
him just as you left him? Well, we know why, because we would expect
precisely what they expected, a corpse to anoint with spices.
What would you expect? Well, the words are perhaps a little more
scolding than we would like, but they are words that say something to us
who have tried to follow Jesus about what we should expect, who wonder
why we do it, because it can be tiring, doing what we Christians believe
we ought to do. What do we expect? Do we expect results? Do we expect
real change to come about in this world we keep trying to change and
help?
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So, here is our answer, and while a bit scolding, there is something rather
inviting about those words—what did you expect, to find a corpse, to find
the one who lived out the very saving purposes of God, defeated? He told
you, maybe not in so many words (I think sometimes the gospel writers
like to put extra words in Jesus’ predictions because they think we aren’t
getting it). In point of fact, Jesus need not have said any words about his
being raised from the dead so far as this account goes, they should have
known, they should have believed, they should have got it because they
heard it and saw it from the beginning.
-------------------This all started, you know, in Nazareth, in Jesus’ home town, started with
his very first sermon, when he read the vision of the prophet, “The Spirit
of the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim
release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the
oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
But when is this going to happen? Maybe that should be the question that
follows the scripture reading. We don’t do much of that in our church,
break in with a question (and I suspect we’ll keep it that way). But, there
surely is a pause after Jesus reads the scriptures before he is seated to
deliver the sermon as was the custom; and one can almost hear that
question, when will this be? When does this come about?
When does that vision of Isaiah manifest itself, not to mention the other
vision of a heavens and earth in which former things are forgotten, where
there is no more weeping or cries of distress, or those who do not live out
a lifetime, where everyone has a place and it is never taken away, where
there is no more hurting or destruction. When will this be?
“Today,” Jesus responds, “Today this scripture is fulfilled.” Today. Today
captives are being released, today blind are given sight, today the poor
have good news, today the oppressed go free, today God shows favor to
all whom the world seems never to notice. Jesus allows no excuses, no
quietism, no let’s do nothing because the task is too great, too many poor,
too many hungry, too many imprisoned, too many fighting each other—
and, too much death. Well, says our risen Lord, today is the day, and
even death will not stop him.
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It may be why the early church lived the life they lived, because they
heard Jesus tell them that today was their day to live this life, just as he
lived it. We read that the earliest church, rooted in the witness of those
first ones to see him alive from the dead, gathered in one heart and soul,
where, as Luke’s second book, the book of Acts, describes it, no one
claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned
was held in common.
And when the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the
Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all, there was not one needy
person among them; for as many as owned lands or houses sold them
and brought the proceeds of what was sold, they laid it at the apostles’
feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.
It’s the vision of the prophet, but no longer is it far away, for if we believe
he is raised, then we cannot help but try to end hunger and oppression;
cannot help but try to eliminate the violence, the guns, the wars; cannot
help but try to show a better way than simply hiding our problems
through prisons or executions or any of the ways we are told to give a
thoughtless shrug toward those who are carrying heavy burdens.
Says Richard Hays, Luke is always about setting the world right. “The
unexpected keeps happening in Luke’s story.” Luke is the gospel that
declares what can be, not some day, but today. Do not seek the living
among the dead, he is not here, but has risen, not some day, but today.
To any who would declare that everything must remain in its place,
unchanged, unmoved, unaffected, they’d better not go to the Easter
tomb, for they will not find death there.
To some maybe it is an idle tale. That’s what the apostles thought when
those first Easter witnesses came to them to tell them what they had
heard. Is it chauvinism that caused them not to believe? Maybe, it
wouldn’t be the first time that Jesus in Luke’s gospel sides with the
marginalized, with women who were overlooked, to shame those men in
authority. It may be a way of warning against ignoring the voices of the
outsiders or the lesser esteemed, as if somehow the only proper
preachers and proclaimers of our risen Lord are male.
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The messengers may be telling us to stop ignoring the voices of those too
long ignored, the outsiders, the outcasts, because there is God’s message,
there is God’s living presence, there is the power of the resurrection,
demanding that we hear, believe, and act like people who expect nothing
short of life from death, nothing short of mercy instead of cruelty,
nothing short of setting prisoners free and giving sight to the blind, and
good news to the poor, and the year of God’s ever abundant favor to every
single one of us.
If it’s just an idle tale, we’ll just go on expecting to find death as the final
and constant word. There are those voices out there—to many. After the
senselessness of Newtown I was sorry to read one reflection on the
problem of gun violence which said, “There’s really nothing we can do
about it.” Nothing. Really? Is that the response of someone who has
seen the risen Christ, himself a victim of state sponsored execution, who
rose to conquer it and all of the violence that led to his crucifixion?
--------------------------On this past Maundy Thursday newly elected Pope Francis, instead of
observing that service at a local basilica, chose to observe that solemn
occasion at Casal del Marmo, a youth detention center near Rome. There
he washed the feet of twelve detainees to replicate Jesus’ own gesture of
humility toward his own disciples the night before he was crucified.
In a homily prior to the service the Pope urged priests to do less "soulsearching" and engage more with parishioners. "It is not in soulsearching... that we encounter the Lord," he told hundreds of cardinals,
priests and bishops in St Peter's Basilica. "We need to go out... to the
outskirts where there is suffering, bloodshed, blindness that longs for
sight and prisoners in thrall to many evil masters." He concluded,
worshippers should "leave Mass looking as if they had heard good news.“
Maybe that’s how our Easter expectations can be changed. Maybe that’s
how we can begin to believe this good news. Maybe when we go to the
prisons, to the poverty stricken masses, to the refugee camps, to those
who suffer needless gun violence because of weapons that should never
be in our midst, to those without clean water to drink and enough food to
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eat, to those who live in substandard housing, who struggle to put a meal
before their families, to those homeless who have no place to live, who
are cold this Easter morning.
Maybe when we find them and help them and live out today this very life
Jesus has called us to, maybe then we will start believing that he is not
dead, but is alive, he is raised from the dead. And maybe if we do it
enough, we’ll expect it to be true for each one of us, for all whom we love,
for all whom we miss, maybe then each day of service will become a day
of believing, hoping, even expecting to see the living Christ, raised from
the dead.
William H. Berger
Historic Franklin Presbyterian Church
March 31, 2013
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