Wednesday, April 7, 2021
Mary Watts
Resurrection
Scripture reference Hebrews 5: 7-9, John 5: 1-18, Mark 8:31, Matthew 17:22 , Luke 9:22
Hebrews 5: 7-9 In the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the One who was able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverent submission. 8 Although He was a Son, He learned obedience through what He suffered; 9 and having been made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him.
But before that, before He became recognized as the source of eternal salvation, there was more to the story: Please read John 5: 1-18
This has been an overwhelming time of year, liturgically speaking, for priest and lay person alike. We have, by now, experienced Easter’s joy complete with chocolate bunnies and yellow chickies and watching our beloved children with baskets on egg hunts. The weather is improving daily and (at least in years past) we have been thinking of Easter dresses, new hats and white patent Mary Janes for our (grand)daughters to wear to church. We are yearly given beautiful images and traditions of the Easter event which celebrates our own salvation, our own new, improved and renewed affiliation with God through the resurrection of his Son! And yet, I faced Holy Week again this year almost dreading what was to come. There isn’t enough Cadbury’s chocolate in the world to sweeten the path from that fateful day in Jerusalem to Calvary. Each year, before we can arrive at Easter Sunday and the pure truth of resurrection, we are offered, one more time, a chance to learn, to see, to understand what we did to Him. Yes, we. That would be me and you and the next door neighbor. We are all part of the centuries old collective population of humankind whose lives and decisions and actions ultimately crucified our Lord Jesus on the cross. Even though we are not the ancient Jewish institution cited in John, we are, nonetheless, part and parcel of all humanity whose sin brought God to make a sacrifice of His perfect Son. The difference between our lives here in 2021 and those of the Jews cited in the above scripture is that His death and subsequent resurrection have saved us from ourselves. We have the rather odd benefit of historical 20/20 hindsight, and the symbolism behind the bunnies and chickies and egg hunts all has to do with rebirth anew, our own little individual resurrections from a Lenten fast as we face the new season when the earth itself is brought out of dormancy into renewed life. Beautiful, yes, but does little to assuage my horror each Good Friday watching the priest at my Episcopal church reenact, prostrate on the church floor in front of me, what we actually DID to Him. There it is, not Hollywood, not romanticized in any way, no cast of thousands or mighty crescendos of music, but the priest you see every week handing you the stark reality. My first time witnessing the Good Friday service I was literally brought to my knees in grief and sorrow for MY part in what we DID to Jesus.
And for what? He healed a man who had been ill for 38 years. The rub was that He did it on the Sabbath Day. The Jewish church elders seized upon this infraction of the letter of the Law. Questioned by the authorities Jesus responded, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.” His very simple answer was all they needed to pursue His death, the justification to kill Him.
And kill him they did, in a terrible, agonizing way. Any suffering we may experience in our lives, even the associated pains of disease or terrible accidents, somehow pales, in my mind, with the hours of what He endured executed on the cross. And He went, of His own free will, confident in His Father's grace and care. In three of the Synoptic Gospels Jesus tells us that He will be raised from the dead in three days time. He knew the glorious finale of the story, but He also knew what would transpire before.
In one of the churches we attended over our 42 years of marriage and travel there was a tract rack which contained a leaflet entitled, "No Friday, No Sunday." Without the crucifixion there could be no resurrection. When the Temple veil was rent asunder and the sky darkened do you suppose those Pharisees trembled in their closets with any cognizant grasp of what they DID to the Son of God and how the moment of His death was a total game changer?
As you revel in our improving weather and the sweet days of Spring, as you mentally prepare for the rest of this year of (perhaps) only semi-pandemic living, expanding contact beyond the doors of our homes, and maybe even in-person church services, however those may present themselves, please recall the scripture from Hebrews and the story from John 5, and then look up the relatively short scriptures cited above where Jesus tells us He will be raised to life again. When your cross is too great to bear, when the glory of the resurrection has faded into the daily grind, go back there again to be with Him. Spend some stormy July night keeping watch with Him in Gethsemane.Take a moment to kneel at the foot of the cross with His mother and weep. (Can you even imagine her unspeakable anguish seeing that done to her boy?) Turn off the TV, curl up with your Bible and read the story again, rejoice that the stone has been rolled away!Feel the shock and awe Mary Magdalene must have known as she ran to tell Peter that He was risen.Experience again what we DID to Him so that each of us may somehow, in a small, personal way, be able to understand what He DID for us.