Easter: Life and Death; Death and Life

This was my Easter message. The text was Mark 16:1-8:

It was five years ago now that Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris caught fire and nearly burned to the ground on the Monday of Holy Week. You may have seen in the news recently that they have just reinstalled the spiral that collapsed and also finished framing out the roof, using 800-year-old construction techniques, with the plan of reopening the cathedral later this year. But, after it burned there were many commentators who said that there couldn’t have been a worse time for the cathedral to burn since they had just celebrated Palm Sunday the day before and had been planning to celebrate Easter the following week, but now wouldn’t be able to. But, I thought that while there is never a good time for one of the architectural wonders, and one of the most famous buildings in the world, to catch on fire and nearly be entirely destroyed. But, if it is going to happen, Holy Week might actually be the best time for it to happen, because it’s sort of a reminder, a symbol, of this time. It’s after the celebration of Palm Sunday which then leads into the darkness of the week, of betrayal and denial and abandonment, and then the cross and the tomb; the reality of death and suffering and pain and grief and all the other things that get brought up this week, which then leads to the story of the resurrection.

But you can’t get to that part, you can’t get to the Easter story without the dark parts. We don’t have Easter because everything is hunky dory, we have Easter, we need Easter, because of the reality of death and pain and suffering and sorrow, we need Easter because of the tomb. You can’t just skip from Palm Sunday to Easter, from celebration to celebration, and have that make any sense. You have to have the other parts in between because you can’t have resurrection unless there I something to be resurrected, something that had withered, or something that has died, to be resurrected. And so, when the parishioners gathered outside Notre Dame, with the ashes still smoldering and the smell of burned wood still in the air, that call to resurrection and desire and hope for resurrection it was the perfect time to celebrate Easter, and I’m guessing that message, that reality, rang even more true, more meaningfully in that moment then maybe it ever had before. The same as this congregation hosting the memorial service yesterday for a longtime member of this congregation, also had a meaning and significance that was more alive because of today.

We celebrate the meaning and hope of Easter knowing that when the women went to the tomb on that first morning that the tomb was empty. But, without the tomb Easter makes no sense. Without death there cannot be new life. Without a need for hope, the hope of Easter falls short. And yet we also have to recognize that we know the end of the story, the disciples and the women didn’t. Just like those who worshipped at Notre Dame didn’t know what would happen to their beloved cathedral, how it would be repaired, or even if it could be repaired, because after all, it’s not like carpenters or stonemasons who know how to build using medieval building techniques are a dime a dozen. And so, they had to wait in anticipation and trepidation, wait with hope that something different, something miraculous could come out of this, that perhaps they might even find resurrection on the other side.

But of course, the women didn’t really expect that. Jesus had told the disciples that resurrection would happen, but it’s obvious that they didn’t actually believe him, and why is it obvious? Because they weren’t there; they had fled into the darkness of the night on Thursday night. And the women didn’t expect it either because they don’t go looking to see if Jesus has been resurrected, as he said. Instead they show up with spices in order to anoint the body, to properly prepare it for burial since there hadn’t been time on Friday between his death and the beginning of the Sabbath. They are coming to a tomb, to the ashes and darkness, not expecting to find light, let alone life. And so, they spend the sabbath in a time of waiting, maybe patiently, maybe not, but you can sense their urgency by what they do on Sunday morning. They don’t sleep in, spending a leisurely morning relaxing, going to brunch and having a couple of mimosas. Instead, we are told that they went very early to the tomb, with the rising of the sun. and what is their biggest concern? Who will roll away the stone, guessing that it will be too much for them to do. Death is their reality. The tomb is their finality. But, instead of finding death, they find life. Instead of finding a blocked off tomb, the find the stone has already been rolled away. They expected to be preparing a body and spending their time and the day, and the days to follow, in mourning for what they had lost, including their lost hope in the work of Christ and the coming of the Kingdom of God.

But there is a key piece here that might be easy to overlook, and that is what the women, and we should name them: Mary, Mary and Salome, when they see the stone rolled away, they don’t ponder what’s happening, they don’t run away to get help. Instead they enter into the tomb. Now this had been their plan all along, that’s why they were concerned about the stone, but that means they aren’t shying away from death. They aren’t afraid of it. Instead they look it straight in the face as a reality of life, and walk into the tomb, they walk into their grief and sorrow and suffering, but rather than finding a body they instead find life. By encountering the reality of death, they pass through to the other side and find resurrection, new life, new hope. They find what becomes the heart of the gospel message, Christ isn’t here, he has been raised, as the angel says. They find that while life leads to death, that death also leads to life.

Now in the earliest days of the church as it celebrated Easter, which did not include marshmallow peeps or Cadbury eggs, if you can believe such a thing, it did include the celebration of baptism. As many of you know, it was the only day, in fact, in which you could join the church, and it was this connection between life and death and death and life.  Easter was a day of celebration not just because of the resurrection which is at the heart of our story as Christians, because we are an Easter people. But it was also a symbolic action because one of the things that we believe that happens in baptism is that we die to our old selves and are reborn. As the apostle Paul says in his letter to the Romans, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (Rom 6:3) This was symbolically represented because the early baptismal fonts were formed the shape of a sarcophagus, or a coffin, or in the shape of a cross, and so it was symbolically acted out. You would enter in one side into the water, and then as you crossed through the waters of baptism, you would come out the other side. Moving from life to death and from death to life. We still issue baptismal certificates, the same way you are issued a birth certificate to represent this transition and transformation of dying and being reborn. And so, while we celebrate when baptisms happen, and we will have one today, and rightfully so because of the commitment that also comes with seeking to become baptized, if we do not also connect the waters of baptism with death, then we are missing something, just as if we do not connect Easter with the tomb, we are also missing something. In fact, we are missing the whole essence of the event. It’s like those who show up at a baseball game thinking it’s really all about the peanuts and cracker jacks, as the song says. Sure, you’re getting something, but you’re missing the most important part.

Baptism then is also a resurrection story. It is a story of hope. Through the waters of baptism, we are washed clean, not just for the sins we may have committed, or a better understanding is our areas of brokenness, but also for what we have not yet done. But more importantly, we die to our old selves and are reborn into God, adopted as beloved sons and daughters of God. When Jesus is baptized, there is a voice from God that says, “this is my son, the beloved, with him I am well pleased,” and the same thing happens to us. We are adopted by God and reborn as new creations in Christ. But for that to happen, we too have to enter into death, enter into the tomb, just as the women did, to die with Christ, so that we can be reborn into Christ and not just hear the good news of the resurrection but to experience it, to know it to be a reality. Which means it’s also a communal story, it’s done within community. And I will also note that as the roof was completed on Notre Dame cathedral, that the carpenter in charge completed the task along with his 19-year-old apprentice, and so the story continues on.

The women go to the tomb in a group. They are united in that experience, and they help one another in their grief, and presumably also reassure one another that they just saw what they just saw when the encounter the angel. And in the baptismal vows we say that we are going to support one another. That we are never going to be alone, because we are united as brothers and sisters, not by the church we attend, or the Sunday school class we are in, or whether we wear Easter bonnets or not, but we are united because we are baptized. That also means that we are united with God in that same moment. The protestant reformer Martin Luther, who faced his own trials and tribulations, including being basically being locked up in a castle because he had a death warrant issued for his arrest, said that there was no greater comfort than baptism, and when facing trouble or doubts would repeat to himself “I am baptized! I am baptized.” That is being baptized, although important in good times, was most important in the difficult times.

We begin the seasons of Lent, which is the 40 days before Easter, a time of preparation for the celebration of Easter, on Ash Wednesday of being reminded that from dust were we made and to dust we shall return. We lost a member of our congregation during that Lenten journey, whose life we celebrated yesterday, but the presence of the tomb and our sorrow and pain of them doesn’t lessen Easter, but heightens it, because we know that because of Easter they are not gone. That death has not won, that despair has not won, that sorrow has not won. That instead God has won, and life has won, and hope has won because the tomb was empty. And as the funeral liturgy also says as in baptism they put on Christ, so in Christ they will be clothed in glory because in dying Christ destroyed our death, and in rising Christ restored our life. and as we heard in the passage from acts this morning, that journey begins for us, as it began for Jesus, with baptism, in dying to our old selves and being reborn and claimed by God. For out of death comes new opportunities, new hope and new life.

The women went to the tomb on that first Easter expecting to find death, and instead they found life, they expected to find despair, but instead found hope, expecting to find a body, but instead they found an empty tomb. By entering into that tomb, they also found new life for themselves just as we find new life in the waters of baptism. Today is a day of celebration not because everything has been great. It is a day of celebration because of the darkness of this week, that without the tomb, resurrection is not possible, and without the waters of baptism new life is not possible. We enter the waters to be reborn and reconnected with Christ who has saved us from the slavery to sin and death because death has been overcome, so don’t look for the living amongst the dead because the tomb is empty, and Christ’s death leads to our life. So, let us rejoice in this moment, knowing the that journey is not easy, but that Christ is with us, for Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Amen.