A
sermon preached Easter Sunday, March 23, 2008
The
Rev. John Ohmer, Rector
St.
James’ Episcopal Church
Leesburg,
Virginia
“Out
of Death: New Life”
In John’s account of that first Easter morning, Mary
Magdalene discovers that the stone sealing the tomb in which they had buried
Jesus had been rolled away.
She ran back to where Simon Peter and another
disciple were huddling in fear and tells them the tomb is empty…Somebody’s
taken him out of the tomb, she says, and we don’t know where they’ve put him.
Peter and another disciple – he’s not named – run toward
the tomb. They reach the tomb and sure enough: no body, just the linen cloths
lying there…
The disciple sees this, and believed…
Oh, he’d believed before, but not like this:
he’d
believed that Jesus was great,
could
heal people with his touch,
could
stand up to the religious authorities,
was
not just closely in touch with God but
was himself the touch
of God: God himself.
But the past week must’ve challenged his belief: there’d
been no healings, no victories…but a string of failures.
This Jesus whom he had grown to love, he was
betrayed, by one of his insiders…arrested…bound…denied…put on trial...slapped
around, tortured – mocked with a crown of thorns and fake robe, paraded in
front of the lynch mob…made to carry his cross up the hill, nailed him to
it…he’d suffocated to death…his body taken down, wrapped in these cloths, laid
in this tomb.
Those.
were. the. facts.
That was the reality
he’d woken up with that morning, and the two previous mornings.
He’d been through three gut-wrenchingly sad days.
…but then this report from Mary
Magdalene of the tomb being empty…
why?
How?
WHO?
And so he’d run here, to this tomb, to see for
himself. And sure enough, the tomb, empty. The cloths, rolled up by themselves.
The ideas he might’d been entertaining…that some grave-robber had come
in and taken the body – suddenly did not seem like a good explanation any more.
No: he saw, and
believed that something else has happened.
Some new idea starts to
bubble up inside the disciple…some new hope, some new belief:
out
of this tomb,
out
of this place of death,
out
of this darkness,
God
has brought life. [1]
The tomb has become a womb,
and
out of it has come life –new life, into light.
He saw and believed.
Could it be for us?!?
Could it be that
just
when we don’t think things can get any worse,
just
when we’re about to surrender to defeat and despair,
just
about to give. up. …
That’s
when we hear strange words that the stone
has been rolled away,
And rushing out to see for ourselves – bending over
and looking in, daring to go down into our tomb of despair, once there, we see
that something not of our doing – not even of our understanding – has happened,
something is, in fact, different.
Some new hope, some new belief begins to well up in
us:
out
of our tomb,
out
of places of death,
out
of our darkness’s,
God
brings something new: new light. New life.
n Three
years ago – the summer of 2005 -- it looked like the Carlheim
Mansion in Northeast Leesburg was facing demolition from a wrecking ball, with
the rest of the Paxton property to be sold off to developers.
n Last
Saturday, the horticulturalist and beloved teacher at the Jackson-Feild group home for girls, where our middle schoolers were to go on April 11 to plant a garden--the
horticulture teacher working with our group was killed in a car accident.
n Right
now, villagers living in El Zompempero in the
mountains of Western Honduras, have a choice when it comes to getting water:
either hike several kilometers each way to collect water from a stream and carry
it back, or settle for the manury, stagnant pools of
water that are nearby.
Dark days…great sadness…impossible
odds.
Lots of hard work, political pressure, organizing,
and fundraising, patience, and prayer has gone into the efforts to re-open Paxton,
plant hope at Jackson-Feild, and bring water to El Zompempero, and lots more is required.
But what causes real change – what brings life out
of death – has nothing to do with what we human beings do.
Real change, new birth, creation, – resurrection
life – comes from beyond us, is out of our control, comes
as a surprise:
Our efforts count, but it is not our efforts
that break the logjams of hardened hearts, crushed spirits, or impossible odds.
It is God’s holy and life-giving Spirit: the same
Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead and gave new and eternal life to him,
and the same Spirit that blows through this congregation right now!
That same spirit
Rolls away our stones
Gives us new hope,
New belief,
New light,
New life.
I share the stories of the Aurora school, the
Jackson-Feild Home for girls, and the villagers who
live in El Zompempero, Honduras, partly because those
organizations and people have been chosen by our outreach committee to receive
monies collected at all four of today’s Easter services.
But, more to the point, I share their stories
because they are really our stories.
Just as communities
struggle through times of frustration, disappointment, and grief, so do
individuals.
Just as communities wonder if the time has come to
give up hope, sometimes, so do we.
Just as communities stare a wrecking ball in the
face, and think that there is no possibility for an alternate ending to the
story…..so, too, do we sometimes feel like there is no possibility for an
alternate ending to our stories.
And so: if you are living, right now, in the face of
a wrecking ball—if you are living a Good Friday —
Then …
Wait.
Lean
heavily on your friends, your family, and your faith,
Trust
that one day,
our
of your tomb,
out
of places of death,
out
of your darkness’s,
the stone will be rolled away,
God will bring something new:
new light,
new Life,
Easter Joy.
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