April 1, 2018 - Easter - Resurrection is a Messy Business

Today was the culmination of the theme of Holy Week this year where there was an emphasis on an understanding that religious purity does not need to constrain our celebrations that honor God's being there for us and for being the creator who made us who we are.

Pastor Ray didn't give his sermon on the Mark 16: 1-8 Gospel printed in the bulletin, He was spontaneous and instead preached on the Easter Vigil Gospel reading John 20:1-18 that spoke to his theme.

Pastor Ray preached about how messy the business of resurrection can be. His core insight came from Mary's mistaking Jesus as a gardener. This also cleverly played into Easter falling on April Fool's Day. Pastor Ray observed that Jesus was not playing an April Fools joke on Mary by disguising himself as a gardener.

Holy Week started with Maundy Thursday and the image of God loving everything about us, including our dirty feet. For Easter Pastor Ray presented us with Jesus who was so dirty, after what he had went through during the passion story and Crucifixion, that it would be natural for Mary not to recognize him as Jesus and, instead, mistake him for a gardener; an occupation involving dirt.

I appreciate the benefits of this insight. The beauty that Mary does not recognize Jesus until he calls her name is highlighted and the spiritual truth of that is an extraordinary take away for me of this Easter service. I also appreciate that a focus on not being dirty can keep us from Christian mission. We can see this coming up in Jewish purity laws because we do not follow them.

Unfortunately when the spiritual is explained in physical terms, physical credulity can quickly become strained. Whenever we come to faith by emphasizing the importance of the empty tomb truly being in the physical world, the result becomes messy.

Take this particular insight about the physical story emphasizing the dirtiness of the resurrected body of Jesus. First off, the body was prepared before the tomb and ,even if it were not, would dirt, bruises and abuses on a body coming through the resurrection be enough to obscure the identity of Jesus from Mary after a verbal exchange? Secondly, what is Jesus wearing for this mistake to occur (which begs the question was there a miracle as far as clothes to wear was concerned?) I could go on but a final observation on this. Jesus has gone through crucifixion. All the wounds and marks made must either no longer be on his body or they are ignored by Mary when she doesn't recognize Jesus.

Messy indeed. I do not argue against the empty tomb. At issue is how much life-experience reality must be either ignored or our focus turns to all these trivialities. We can simply try to dismiss them but when emphasis is given to physical body resuscitation as a central tenet of our faith, our Christian story must inherit this messier resurrection. We quickly are forced to fall back on the mystery and / or assert God can do anything. However, when we resolve the messiness in this way it limits the rational substance of any argument going forward.

Certainly something simpler is what Easter is primarily about for most people. There was our usual brunch between the 8:30 and 10:30 services where contributions go to sending our youth to the ELCA churchwige Gathering that is in Houston this year,

Creator sang many of the songs we traditionally sing on Easter. Jesus Christ Is Risen Today, All Are Welcome to open the service. Now All The Vaults of Heaven Resounds. Thine is the Glory and Alleuluia! Sing to Jesus are on our traditional list closing with Alleluia! Jesus is Risen.

The choir sang a medley of He is Lord, All Things New (which featured a solo by Sonnet), and Up from the Earth. Matt  did a great job choosing the material, rehearsing and directing the choir which was a little light in number this year.

So, once again I am reminded of past Easter sermons and something I truly believe - Resurrection is a gift from God and received by faith. The messiness remains but messiness does not need to deter faith