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While It Was Still Dark
The Rev. William A. Kolb

Gospel: John 20:1-18

The Easter Gospel reading this year is about Mary Magdalene's cosmic surprise at what she had expected would be a visit to the body of her Lord Jesus. It begins with the words, "Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark..."

And that got me to thinking. "...while it was still dark." Our lives have times of joy and fun, but they also have times that are dark.

Since we gathered last year for this major celebration, many people have faced the suffering that comes to most lives sooner or later. Some have lost loved ones, others have become ill where before there was wholeness and health. These are sadnesses that have been part of the human condition since the beginning of time. And, in this past year, there has been a horrific increase in the perpetration of terrorist murders of civilians for the achievement of political ends—especially in the United States and Israel. This has constituted an all-out attack on Western civilization itself, and on the ideals and principles taught and lived by Jesus Christ.

My question for today was going to be: How is Easter different this year for you after 9-11? But I don't think that is necessarily any different than asking the same question of one whose beloved has died since last Easter, or asking that question of someone whose child has died or whose career has been shattered or whose health has gone from good to suffering and/or terminal.

And it is no different, really, than asking anyone, anywhere, "What does Easter mean to you?" Because sooner or later tragedy visits the lives of all of us. Sooner or later our hopes come up against times of brutal reality. This past year may seem different to us Americans, but in the large picture over the sweep of the ages, it is not so. Pain and suffering are part of life. But when it is most pronounced in our lives is the most urgent time, when we need Easter most.

I have seen tragedies that have caused regular churchgoers to stop going to church, and tragedies that have caused people to start going to church. And I think which way we go depends on our expectations of God. Some folks are taught to live a life that, in effect, is a bargaining process with God. They try as hard as they can to be whatever "good" means to them, and in return they expect God to prevent harm and hurt from coming into their lives. Those folks will surely meet great disappointment and probably disillusion, sooner or later.

If, on the other hand, we expect God to walk beside us and help us survive times of pain, and to help us grow as a result of it, then we will probably be one of those who start going to church following a loss, or who become more confident in our faith, following a loss. Because God surely will walk with us when nothing else can help our pain, our ache of loss or great sadness. God will hold us up when we are sure we can't help but fall. As Mary Magdalene learned to her great surprise and joy in this morning's Easter Gospel reading, we are each called by Name by a loving Lord.

How do we know God is with us even when we don't get what we want—when the illness is not cured, when we don't like the way our life is going, or when a loved one dies? How is it that countless billions of people have continued to know the peace and power of Christ's presence even when he has answered their prayers with a quiet "no."

I know a man in Memphis who lost his voice. One day, years ago, he just, for no scientifically explainable reason, lost his voice. Today he speaks in that gravelly voice of one who has had perhaps cancer of the voice box. One must listen very carefully, and perhaps ask him to repeat his words in order to understand him. Now this man attends the regular Thursday "Healing Service" at Calvary Church. He attends it faithfully 52 weeks each year. Hands are laid upon him and he always prays for the exact same thing: he asks God to give him what he calls "a new voice."

Perhaps when he started going to that service and saying that prayer, he was literally asking for his vocal chords to be miraculously healed. Perhaps. But over the years he has learned that there are many kinds of healing, and many kinds of voices. He has found peace with his condition. His anguish has been healed. He has deeply dear and close friends that he met at these services. His witness to trust in God has spoken volumes more than his old voice could have spoken about faith.

So how do we know God is with us even when we don't get what we want? Maybe God changes what we want, if we are blessed. Maybe our prayers come to include listening to God. But most of all, we know God is with us because of the great Easter promise. Jesus' resurrection from the dead is not only a promise of raising our mortal bodies and those of our loved ones after physical death, but more to the point for living, it is a promise of the resurrection of our spirit when our spirit is in danger of death in the here-and-now.

Because Jesus lives the Holy Spirit is a real and divine force that keeps us safe, way down deep, when all worldly happenings would seem to defeat us. The Resurrection is the center of all of Christianity. St. Paul says, "If Jesus was raised, then we shall be raised. If he was not raised, we shall not be raised." Without the Resurrection, all Christian hope is just the same as worldly hope. With the Resurrection, it is a sure and certain hope, resting on the foundation of God's action on that first Easter morning.

Think about the disciples on Easter Eve. So far as they knew, Christ had been executed and that was the end of that. They were despondent. They despaired of their great leader. Now, think about those very same people the next day: exuberant, exceedingly joyful. Their Lord has been raised and they not only have him back, they have some promises and portents, which are all so good as to be believable only through faith.

We find that there are still those Christians who fear that all the miracles and resurrections are in the past, way back then in the first century. And there are those who live lives based on a quiet joyful belief that Christ lives now, that we are upheld by his Spirit, and that we shall live forever in the glow of God's love.

Is it for us to choose? Do we elect to have faith or not to have faith?
I don't think so; I believe faith is a gift. But we do our part by being open to it—by not allowing the pain of life to close us up to hope. God does not force us to believe. He stands ready to shower on us the gifts of faith, hope and trust.

Early in the fifteenth century, Dame Julian of Norwich survived what had appeared to all to be a terminal illness. In the process of her recovery she experienced visions of Christ, about which she wrote and for which she has been the spiritual anchor for millions over the millennia. For Julian, according to Thomas Merton, the "heart of theology [is] not solving the contradictions and pain that come with living, but remaining in the midst of them, in peace, knowing that they are fully solved, but that the solutions are secret, and will never be guessed until they are revealed". She was told in one vision that whatever God does is done in Love, and therefore "that all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well."

That is the gift of the Resurrection, the deep and quiet conviction that "all manner of things shall be well." Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Amen.

Gospel Reading: John 20:1-18
20:1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 20:2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." 20:3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 20:4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 20:5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 20:6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 20:7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 20:8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 20:9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 20:10 Then the disciples returned to their homes. 20:11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 20:12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 20:13 They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." 20:14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 20:15 Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." 20:16 Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher). 20:17 Jesus said to her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" 20:18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord"; and she told them that he had said these things to her. NRSV

Copyright ©2002 The Rev. William A. Kolb

This homily was delivered at Calvary Episcopal Church, Memphis, Tennessee, on March 31, 2002, Easter Sunday.


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