Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
Easter Sunday
27 March 2016 11.00am
Mark 15.47-16.8a
Daniel 7.9-14
Listen to this sermon here:
https://soundcloud.com/bloomsbury-1/2016-03-27-am-simon-woodmanmp3#t=33:30
Listen to this sermon here:
https://soundcloud.com/bloomsbury-1/2016-03-27-am-simon-woodmanmp3#t=33:30
There
are some days
when it can seem as if death has had
the last word.
Just
this week, yet another dark day dawned
as news broke at breakfast of
terrorist attacks in Brussels,
leaving
many dead, many more injured,
and
a city in mourning and fear for the future.
We
live in a world where death, and terror, and oppression
seem constantly to get the last word
on life,
and it is, truly, deeply depressing.
And
after all, none of us are getting out of this alive,
and for much of our time here
we are party to the desires
of others
to make life far less than it
could and should be.
People
kill people, people terrorise people, people bully people.
And it has always been so.
But
what are we to do?
How are we to respond to the darkness of our world?
Denial
and business-as-usual can only get us so far,
and yet reality is too hard to face
for any sustained period of time.
So
what is the path through the valley of death?
How are we to negotiate these
treacherous waters of chaos?
Well,
it seems to me that for much of the time,
both as individuals and as a society,
we
just stare ever deeper and harder
into the murky depths of the
tomb.
Our
media holds the dark cavern of death before our eyes
and invites us to look long upon the
monsters
that inhabit the labyrinthine
passages
of our darkest fears, and
nightmarish dreamings.
The
rolling news agenda of analysis and voyeurism
keeps the darkness alive in our
imaginations
and the light of life dimmed to the
point of being extinguished.
It’s
the Easter story,
re-visited in each of our lives, day
by day, week by week.
We
stare death in the face on Friday,
and we sit in horror and shock on
Saturday,
and
then on Sunday
we set out to revisit the grave of all
our hopes and dreams.
Like
a child who cannot leave alone the scab on their knee,
we pick away at our pain,
we subvert our capacity to heal,
and we scar ourselves further.
We
keep going back to the tomb.
This
is why terrorism works, of course.
This is why the Romans crucified their
criminals,
and it’s why there were bombs in
Brussels this week.
The
symbolic death of the representative few
kills the life in the hearts and souls
of the many.
Those
who have stood and gazed upon the cross
cannot rid themselves of the visions
of horror that haunt their nights.
Those
who have seen videos of beheadings in the desert,
and read news reports of bombings in
airports and subways,
cannot rid themselves of the terror.
And
so we keep going back to the tomb.
We
construct a narrative of fear
and then we step into that story
and we live it into being in our lives
and in our world.
We just
keep on going back to the tomb.
But
here’s a thought:
What if the greatest force of evil in
our world is not Isis,
what if it’s it is not fundamentalist
Islam,
what it's not even homophobic
evangelical Christianity?
What
if the greatest force of evil in our world
is the capacity of human beings to
deceive themselves
into believing that truth is
a lie
and that a lie has become
truth?
What if the greatest force of evil in our world
is
how easily we exchange the truth of God for a lie,
worshipping
and serving the creature rather than the creator. (Rom. 1.25)
What I mean by this
is
that we idolize our fears,
and
we allow them to control our actions,
and
in so doing we make ourselves subservient to our own creation.
We
convince ourselves that the tomb contains terrors,
and then we construct our lives around
that lie.
We
live the lie of fear into being,
and we live out that fear in our
thoughts and our actions.
I’m
thinking of the Baptist pastor who said to me recently
that he would love to welcome gay
people into his church,
but that he is afraid of being judged
if he does so.
I’m
thinking of the person who seeks to control and manipulate others to their will
because they are deeply afraid of
being wrong.
I’m
thinking of the person who is afraid to speak out against injustice
because they are afraid of the
consequences
for themselves and those they love.
I’m
thinking of me, and I’m thinking of each of us;
as we all, in our own ways, allow the
terrors of the tomb
to dictate our thoughts and our
actions.
We
keep going back to the tomb.
And
then, in an attempt to live with ourselves, and our fears, and our guilt,
we scapegoat those who do not fit our
own construction of reality.
We
put our fears onto the weak and the vulnerable,
and then we put them out of our camp
in a desperate attempt to sleep easier
in our beds.
Whether
it is the scapegoating of those with minority sexuality,
or those of a different complexion,
or those of a different
gender,
or those of a different nationality,
or those of a different
social standing,
or those of a different religious
belief,
or those of a different
political opinion....
We
take some of the fears and lies
that inhabit the sephulcres of our
minds
and
we place these deceptions onto those who are not like us,
in a vain attempt to rid ourselves of
that which haunts our dreams.
And
yet in all of this we miss the simple truth
that was revealed to Mary, Mary, and
Salome that first Easter morning:
The
tomb is empty.
The monsters are not real.
The
decomposing corpse
of our shattered dreams and
nightmarish fears is not there.
The
tomb, is empty.
The
women hadn’t gone to the tomb of the crucified Jesus
to encounter an empty tomb.
They
had gone to pour oils on a dead and broken body,
as one final act of love and devotion
to their shattered dreams and crushed
hopes.
They
knew Jesus to be dead;
they had seen him die.
They
knew him to be in the tomb;
they had seen him laid there.
They
knew that the stone was firmly across the entrance
and that they would not even have
enough strength
to roll it away to see once again the
corpse that lay within.
Yet
still they went to the tomb, in despair and fear and futility;
as we all go, in our own ways, to gaze
again upon the tomb of our own fears.
But
at the tomb of Jesus,
the women discovered that the tomb
itself was a lie.
The
stone was rolled away,
and the body they feared to find
wasn’t there.
The
simple truth that confronted the women
is the same truth that confronts us:
The
tomb is empty.
It’s power is void.
It’s
deception is exposed,
and it’s hold over us is broken.
This
is the message of Easter.
But
how are we to hear this message?
How do we take deep within ourselves
the revelation of
resurrection;
that offers us a way through the
valley of death,
and guides us through the
waters of chaos?
Mark’s
gospel tells us that when the women got to the tomb
they looked up, they looked again (15.4).
It
was on second sight
they saw the tomb to be empty.
Like
the blind men, earlier in Mark’s gospel (8.25, 10.51)
it was a miracle of seeing that opened
their eyes
to the reality of the new world of the
empty tomb.
And
we, like the women, need to learn what it is to look again,
we need to learn to see through the
lies and deceptions of death,
to the truth of new life that lies
beyond our mortal expectations.
In
our fears and our imaginations the tomb remains filled with horrors,
and we are prevented from seeing
reality
by the stone of impediment that blocks
our sight.
It
is only when we are enabled to look again,
that we can see the stone to have been
rolled away,
and experience the reality of the empty
tomb.
But
this is not something which we can do for ourselves.
Like
the women at the tomb of Jesus,
we do not have the strength in
ourselves
to roll away the stone and
let in the light
that will reveal the cupboard
within to be devoid of terror.
The
intervention we need in our lives
is the same as that experienced by the
women.
There
is nothing we can do to move the stone;
but by grace it has already been
rolled away for us.
We
need only have eyes to see it.[1]
We
live our lives out of our narrative of fear and death,
afraid of the darkness within
ourselves,
and
yet if only we could have the eyes to see it,
the doorway to the darkness of our
souls has already been opened,
and the light is streaming in to
banish the terrors of the night.
This
is an invitation to a radically new way of being human.
It
is an invitation to learn to live in an entirely new way,
where our thoughts and actions are
determined not by darkness but by light,
not by death but by life.
It
is an invitation for us to step across a threshold
and discover the true life that awaits
us
when we confront our fears and find
them groundless.
Maybe
we, like the women, need to hear the divine messenger
telling us to not be afraid.
Maybe
we need our own moment of divine encounter,
to open our eyes to the reality of
life reasserted in the face of death.
Maybe
we need to meet the risen Christ for ourselves,
present by his Spirit in the place of
our deepest fear,
speaking words of peace and new life
to our troubled souls.
But
see what happens to the women next…
Their
fears are confounded, and they discover the empty tomb.
They encounter the messenger who seeks
to calm their troubled minds.
And
then they are told to leave the tomb,
and head back to the real world,
back to Galilee, back to normality,
to encounter the risen Christ in their
homes, and families, and communities.
We
are not called to sit and stare at the empty tomb,
any more than we are called to linger
our gaze forever on the cross.
Because
new life is for living,
and if we allow our fears to silence
our witness
to the good news of the empty tomb,
then
we simply roll back the stone
and fill the void once again with the
terrors of our imagination.
‘Do
not be afraid’, says the messenger,
‘Go to Galilee and meet the risen
Christ’.
But
Mark tells us that the women fled from the tomb, seized by terror,
and said nothing to anyone, for they
were afraid. (15.8).
And
there, in its original form, Mark’s gospel ends.
The additional ending, we will come to
next week.
But
for now, the story stops where Mark intends it to stop,
and the rhetorical force of the
hanging ending is compelling.
Those
of us who read Mark’s account of the empty tomb,
are invited to identify ourselves with
the women.
We
are invited to see ourselves in their desire to revisit the tomb,
and to gaze once more on the death of
hope.
We
are invited to share with them their futility
in the face of the immovable stone.
And
we are invited to look again with them
and to realise that the tomb of
terrors is thrown open
and revealed to be empty.
But
we are also invited to consider what we will do next.
Will
we, like the women,
go from here in silence, struck dumb
by our encounter?
Or
will we go seeking the risen Christ,
and meeting him on the way.
New
life does not come easy to the world,
we do not leave our fears behind us
without a struggle.
But
there are days when life springs unexpectedly
from the barren soil of existence,
and
hope is reawakened in the souls of those who thought faith had long gone.
Death
and resurrection,
brokenness and healing,
marginalization
and empowerment,
sin and reconciliation,
injustice and transformation:
All
these shape the very pattern of the Christian life.[2]
And
our experience of resurrection, healing, empowerment,
reconciliation and transformation is a
pure, unearned gift of God.
But
it is also the ultimate test of,
and the only hope for, a disciple’s
faith.
What
difference will the empty tomb make for us tomorrow, this week, this year?
Where
will we face down our fears and find them to be groundless,
where will we speak words of new life
to those trapped in cycles of death,
what
opportunities will we take to breathe new life into those we meet,
knowing that Jesus has gone ahead of
us to meet us there.
How,
I wonder, will Mark’s story of the empty tomb
find its completion in the narratives
of our lives,
as
we re-write our own stories
based on life rather than death.
As Desmond
Tutu puts it in his book, ‘An African Prayerbook’
Victory is Ours
Goodness is stronger than evil;
Love is stronger than hate;
Light is stronger than darkness;
Life is stronger than death;
Victory is ours through Him who loves us.
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