Sunday, 27 March 2016 Luther Memorial Lutheran Church
+Easter, Series C Seattle, WA
Paul E. Hoffman, Pastor
Vivian Olson lived her last 20 years in solitude. Her only son, Merle, moved her 70 miles away from Seattle to his town up north when she turned 90. He came to see her once a week, on Wednesdays. But he died suddenly in her 97th or 98th year, leaving her alone in the nursing home surrounded by strangers in a town that was not her own.
Often I would drive to see here there. I would bring her the Eucharist and hopefully some news and cheer from her home church. The pattern of those visits was always the same. She would welcome me warmly, then she would tell me a series of stories that were always exactly – exactly – the same. Told in the same order, with the same inflections, same nuances, same laughter, same tears.
After the first year or so of our acquaintance, I began to know Vivian’s stories by heart. It made the visits less interesting for me, but certainly no less valuable for her. She was sharp and focused. Her Universe was a small corner of a three-bedroom unit at the end of the hallway. And that was our routine. Greeting. Same stories. Eucharist. Goodbye. This went on for seven or eight years.
The women came to the tomb of Jesus to do the routine. They were there
at their first opportunity to do the right thing, to spice up death a bit. From the Universe of their own understanding, the women came looking for their dead friend. One would expect them to carry out these duties in the same order, with the same inflections, same nuances, same laughter, same tears. They had done this before, for others, for years.
This is an incredible story, and it is anything but routine. They are met by a series of events that are both unexpected and troubling to them. For starters, there are two men in dazzling apparel. These men asked a simple question that turned the routine Universe of the women upside down. They came, remember, to look for the dead. The dead Jesus, in fact. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” But they aren’t looking for the living. They are looking for the dead among the dead. What could these men in dazzling apparel be thinking?
What they are thinking, of course, are the thoughts of The New Universe. Luke tells us that it is the first day of the week at early dawn. Translation: the first day of the week of weeks in the New World Order. “This is God’s new and restored creation you’ve stepped into this morning, ladies.” The dazzling ones have moved to a different place, a whole new way of thinking and being and they’d like to invite these friends of Jesus along.
Remember Vivian? One time I cam to see her near the middle of the day.
All the residents were gathered in the dining room for lunch, which was just concluding. I found Vivian in her wheelchair, just finishing up a Dixie cup of chocolate ice cream. I suggested that since she was already at the table, we just have our visit and together there. Fine with Vivian.
And then the most amazing thing happened. The stories that I knew I would hear, and which I was already rehearsing in my head, was changed. Dramatically. There in the new Universe of the dining room, she told me an entirely different set of stories from those that I had heard before. It was as if her world had shifted, and she was in a new place, a new Universe. I learned things about her that day I’d never heard about before or since. The old had passed away. Everything had become new.
Those same men in dazzling apparel are here today, leaping off the pages of Scripture to ask us, “Why are you seeking the living among the dead?” In which Universe are we? By which stories do we live? Are we in the Old World, or the New Easter Universe of dazzling men and empty graves?
My greatest fear is that we may be living in neither. Most of the time, we live in some dull gray band of oblivion in between these two worlds. We try the best we can just to ignore the world around us and stay focused enough on our own little Universe and it problems and challenges to make it out of bed in the morning and through one day to the next. It’s almost as if our world for all tis splendor and sophistication is little more than a small corner of a three-bed unit at the end of the hallway.
Christ is risen from the dead. Christ offers that new life to each of us, as a free gift. And our lives are mired in the insignificant details of whether this week is the one to put our just the garbage or the garbage and the recycling. We fret about how many frequent flyer miles we have. If I don’t get this project done at work by the end of the week, will I be replaced?
Benhard Schlink opens a chapter of his novel, The Reader, by saying it this way:
When an airplane’s engines fail, it is not the end of the flight. Airplanes
do not fall out of the sky like stones. They glide on, the enormous multi- engined passenger jets for thirty, forty-five minutes, only to smash themselves up when the attempt a landing. The passengers don’t notice a thing. It is quieter, but only slightly. At some point, the earth or sea look dangerously close through the window, but perhaps the movie is on, and the flight attendants have closed the shades. Maybe the very quietness of the flight is appealing to the passengers. (Bernhard Schlink, The Reader, p. 69)
Why do you seek the living among the dead? Do we even hear the question of the men in dazzling apparel? Our flight through this life feels the same whether the engines are working or not. And regardless of the doom to which we may be headed, the very quietness of the flight is appealing to the passengers. That would be us.
We live in a world where there is so much happening we have become numb. Numb, even to news as startling as that of the men by the empty tomb of Jesus. They have a story of a whole new Universe to tell us. And I think it’s a pretty safe bet that by tomorrow this time most of us will be gliding through the thick air of our everyday routines with the shades closed, doomed to live the same old set of stories. Told in the same order. With the same inflection, same nuances. Same laughter, same tears.
It’s time to move to the Universe of the dining room. Come to the table, and learn to tell some new stories. The stories of this New Age. Stories about the first day, at early dawn. There is life waiting, just waiting to be embraced. Life that carries us from the world, follows us to the dreaded grave, but beyond it. Christ is risen! CHRIST IS RISEN INDEED.
Go into the world, dazzling men, dazzling women, shiny children. And dazzle it with this good news. Live the good news. Be the good news. In Jesus Christ, God has brought us into the new and everlasting Universe of Easter joy. Pull up a seat at the table, and with your lives, tell a new, new story.
In the name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.