First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS
Easter Sunday, April 16, 2017
When my children first learned to step onto a moving escalator, they balked - as I’m sure many kids do. An escalator is a thing of mystery. Why is the ground MOVING? And why do the adults seem so calm about it?
As I watched my kids learn to trust that they, too, could move effortlessly up or down stairs by trusting the moving ground beneath their feet, I suddenly remembered my own childhood apprehension about escalators. I can remember my parents waiting patiently beside me, giving me tips, coaxing me to trust that it would be okay.
And I can remember even further back, before I learned to ride an escalator on my own. Digging deeper still, I can remember the joy of riding an escalator in a stroller. I remember how my mom or dad would turn me around backwards and rest the stroller on its back wheels only, propping me upright as we glided through the air together. It was a mystery to me how this all worked, but I remember it being a fascinating change of movement. Held securely in my parent’s grip, I felt safe even as the ground shifted and changed beneath us.
Shifting and changing ground has always seemed problematic to me. Tornados are worrisome but I can prepare. Ashes dropping out of the air every spring seems normal. But earthquakes? No thanks. I really get stressed out about the idea of the actual GROUND shifting beneath my feet. The ground should STAY STILL at ALL TIMES.
Except when it doesn't.
Like in the Resurrection story in the Gospel of Matthew. Each Gospel has a slightly different take on Jesus’s death and resurrection. Matthew’s version, the one we heard today, is the one with earthquakes. As Jesus breathes his last on the cross, there is an earthquake that rips the curtain in the temple from top to bottom. Tombs fly open and those “saints who were asleep” were raised from the dead. The soldiers at the crucifixion were so distressed by the earthquake and the resulting zombie apocalypse they shook with fear and proclaimed, “Truly, this man was God’s son!”
And then...at the scene of the empty tomb, another earthquake. Another shaking of foundations and upending of expectations. Early in the morning when Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (quite possibly Jesus’s mother) went to the tomb, we are told that a second earthquake shook Jerusalem. This aftershock brings with it an angel who rolls away the giant stone covering the door to Jesus’s tomb and perches on it like a bird. This time, the soldiers are so scared that they quiver with fear and are suddenly fall down, paralyzed by fear. The author of Matthew’s gospel says they “became like dead men.”
Given my general sense of anxiety over the ground moving and shifting beneath my feet (an anxiety that is perhaps shared by the soldiers at the tomb - or maybe it was the angel that set them off).....I find the first words out of the angel’s mouth to be somewhat hilarious.
The earth is shaking, the stone is rolled away, the angel is perched on the stone like “no big deal,” the tough guys who are supposed to be guarding this place have fallen down like dead men and this angel’s opening line is this: “Do not be afraid.”
Excuse me, what?
And yet that is what the angel says. He says, “Do not be afraid. Jesus is not here. He has been raised.”
There are times in life when the foundations beneath our feet shake and flex in ways that seem absolutely unsustainable. Whether it’s a quick tug of the rug from beneath our feet or a slow and steady unraveling, we look around and suddenly realize that we are on shaky ground.
It seems to me that we - and I mean we in the broadest, global sense - are perhaps living in such a time. There is a lot of fear these days. We look at our institutions and wonder if they can withstand all the shaking. We look at the seismic shifts in international relations and wonder what the future holds. We weep when we see the violence in the world and we weep again when we realize our inability to fix it all.
I am reminded of a poem that is nearly 100 years old. In the aftermath of World War I, the Irish poet William Butler Yeats looked around at the world with its shaken foundations and proclaimed that all was in ruins.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
“Things fall apart.” Surely these words, or some version of them, echoed in the women’s ears as they slowly walked to Jesus’s tomb that morning. Two things in life are certain, right? Death and taxes. And these women had not only witnessed a gruesome state-sponsored execution but had been there when Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus’s body. They had seen the large stone rolled in front of the tomb and they knew everything was over. Dead bodies don’t get up and walk again.
Except when they do.
Except when the foundations are pulled apart. When the rug is yanked from beneath our feet. Except when the very earth shakes and quakes. Except when the temple veil is rent in two. Except when tough guys fall down in fear. Except when an angel appears and perches like a bird.
Except when everything we previously believed to be true is suddenly called into question and the world is turned upside down as swiftly and simply as a snow globe and suddenly nothing is certain anymore. Not even death.
It was in the middle of that great “except” that the women heard the words of the angel, “Do not be afraid. He is not here, for he has been raised as he said.”
Things fall apart. On that much, I find myself in agreement with Yeats. But I have to wonder about the next part. Can the center hold?
I have to tell you, it was challenging to get myself in an Easter mood this week when I looked at the world around me. Stories of violence in far off places like Syria and Egypt and Afghanistan and Chechnya. Violence in nearer-by places like San Bernadino and United flights. And the unrelenting news of planes, ships bomb, sabers being rattled by world leaders...these stories beat at us daily and cause us to wonder, “Can the center hold?”
I guess it depends on the center, doesn’t it?
If the center is well-functioning democratic systems, well I don’t know that I’m going to put my money on that forever. If the center is a Pax Americana held together by other nations’ fear of our military powers, well I don’t know that I believe that will hold forever. If the center is my very-human desire to keep me and mine safe for ever and ever amen with no pain, please….well, I think we all know that there are times when that just isn’t possible.
Things do fall apart. And it is into those fallen-apart times, those broken spaces, those moments when everything seems unstable, uncertain, messed up, shaken beyond the point of stability that the Spirit of God blows with a new breath, reminding us to re-center ourselves in Christ.
Reminding us that God’s love for creation cannot be stopped. Reminding us that every end is also a beginning. Reminding us that even death falters at times. Reminding us that the call is always to new beginnings, fullness of life, Resurrection, More.
And I have to think that it was with that reminder breathed into their very beings, re-centered, the women at the tomb did something I find shocking: they did what the angel told them to do. They didn’t ask any questions, in fact, they just ran. The text says “They left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell the disciples.”
And it was in that state, fear-and-joy-mingled-together-as-one that Jesus met them. The text says he called out to them, “Greetings!” The Greek, chairo, literally means “Rejoice.” So when used as a greeting, it might be better translated into English as “be well!”
“Be well” - Christ says to us. Even death cannot stop God’s love. God still reaches out to us despite shaky foundations and very real anxieties.
Even when things fall apart. Even when we wonder if the center can hold. Perhaps especially when we wonder if the center can hold.
Christ meets us this Easter day in the midst of uncertainty. Christ meets us in the midst of joy and fear and offers himself as our center. A center that can hold.
“Be well” our Center says to us.
May it be so. Amen.
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