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Searching For What You Already Have |
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Written by Everett J. Bassett
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Sunday, 16 April 2006 |
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Mark 16: 1-8
Some years ago, I attended a course on world religions taught by a person of the Sikh faith. Every class was interesting - he covered Buddhism, and Judaism, and Taoism, and so on. I was very interested ill how he would approach the Christian faith. I give him credit for even trying, with several Christians in the room. He taught about Jesus' miracles, teachings, the Golden Rule, the Prodigal Son story, and the healings. He taught about Jesus giving his life on the cross, and Christians believing that this was for the forgiveness of sins. When it was over, everybody, Christians and non-Christians alike, seemed very satisfied with the class.
I knew, however, that he had left out the main point. And when someone asked me what I thought, I had to be honest, and raise the big question about his presentation - where was Easter? All the stuff he mentioned was good stuff, but you can't talk Christian faith without Easter. It's the Resurrection of Jesus that sets Christianity apart. And I realized from that experience that much of our faith is compatible with other faith - but non-Christians, and even many Christians, have a hard time digesting the most scandalous and outrageous part - Easter.
I was reading someplace a list of famous tombs - the Pyramids, Westminster Abbey, Arlington National Cemetery, the tomb of Mohammed, the tomb of King David. These are places where rest the remains of famous people. I have visited some of the places on the list.
I have also visited the tombs of Jesus. I have to say 'tombs' there, because if you go to Jerusalem today, there are two locations that claim to be the place where Jesus was buried. That could not happen with most any other person. We know exactly where Washington is buried; where King Tut was buried; where Mohammed is buried - why? Because there's a body there. We even have the technology now to dig up bodies and identify them positively. I think about that when I think about the movie that's coming out next month - The Da Vinci Code. Just in case there are a few people hearing my voice who have not read the book - it's been on the best seller list forever - I won't give away the plot. I'll just say that there is some question in that story about whether Jesus might have relatives walking around today.
And when I was reading that in the book, I thought, "Well, that's easy. Just dig up his body and do the DNA test." And then I remembered - we can't. There is no body. We can do that for any identified tomb in the world - except the tomb of Jesus. That is the difference. We know where others are buried - but we can't even say, "It's here," or, "It's there," with Jesus. Because there is no body to identify. All those other tombs are full; the tomb of Jesus alone is empty.
This is the outrageous claim that brings us here this morning - we read it from the
Gospel of Mark. Joseph of Arimathea went to Pontius Pilate after the crucifixion of Jesus, and asked for the body. Pilate made sure that Jesus was dead. Then he granted Joseph's wish. Joseph buried Jesus in a tomb hewn out of rock, and rolled a great stone over the entrance. In the morning, three women brought spices to anoint the body, so befuddled in their grief that they came despite having no answer for the obvious question - how in the world would they possibly get past the great stone that sealed the tomb? But when they arrived, the stone was moved. And there was no body to anoint. And the young man in the white robe they found there said to them:
"Do not be alarmed; you are seeking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Behold, there is the place where they laid him."
The tomb is empty; there is no body to be found there. So where then is Jesus, if he is no longer in the tomb? Well, in the Bible he seems to be everywhere. Those women, and the disciples, would see Jesus again. But it would be different now. He could appear in a closed room; he could eat with them by the seashore; he could suddenly be with them on the road. And the odd thing is, usually they didn't know it. Even the people who had known him best didn't recognize him. Mary Magdalene thought he was the gardener; the men wa1king down the road to Emmaeus were talking about Jesus to Jesus and didn't know it. The disciple Thomas would only acknowledge it if he could feel the wounds. They were talking about Jesus; they were seeking Jesus; they were mourning after Jesus - and he was right there with them, and they didn’t know it. They, too, could not imagine the outrageous truth of Easter, and so they couldn't possibly imagine the Savior they longed for right there with them. And so, they were searching for what they already had. I think we do a lot of that; and I think we miss out on the best things in life because of it.
I heard a story once about a prospector who wore himse1f out prospecting for gold, and never finding any. When he died, a very unhappy and frustrated old man, they went to bury him in his back yard and found a strong vein of - you guessed it - gold.
And I think many, many people are just like that prospector. They are searching in this life. Sometimes we can't even name what we ate searching for - we just have this unsettled feeling inside us that there must be something more than this day-in, day-out life. I remember a character played by Danny DeVito in a movie, exclaiming in frustration, "This can't be my life!" meaning, there must be something more to my being here. It can't be just about this stuff that I do to survive; it can't be just about what I can earn or buy, or how many gadgets I can own.
Sometimes the search is very personal. A major Spanish newspaper ran a personal ad that translated out to this: "Dear Paco, meet me in front of the newspaper office at noon today. All is forgiven. I love you. Your Father." 800 young men named Paco showed up. Many, many people today are searching for forgiveness, searching for parental love, searching for a place to belong.
Some years back the rock group U-2 scored big with a song that went way beyond the usual love lyrics that make the Top-40 lists. The song talks about climbing mountains, running through the fields, holding the hand of the devil, all the while searching, searching - and then declaring at the end of each verse: But I still haven't found what I'm looking for. And that song can fit all of us to some degree. What Easter announces to us is that we don't have to climb mountains or run fields or hold the hand of the devil to find what 1ife offers us. It is a1ready here; it is all around us. You seek Jesus, said the young man in the tomb. He is not here, confined to this funeral bed. He has been raised! He has been released! He is a spirit of hope and grace and power that is everywhere in this world that people embrace the Easter victory. You already have what you are looking for.
The great novelist Marcel Proust said something that really shook my thinking. He said, "The... real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." And 1 think that is what Easter offers us, is new eyes to see something that God has already given us. We don't have to wonder if we are forgiven, or if God loves us, or where we need to go to find happiness in this life. We just need to open our eyes. The gold is in our backyards. The Risen Christ is all around us, and no longer confined to a tomb.
We miss that, in part, because we miss the true meaning of this holiday. It's not just people from other faiths who don't grasp the meaning of Easter. One Jewish man once told me that he used to hide on Easter in the neighborhood where he grew up, because when the church service let out, Christian boys roamed the streets looking for Jews to beat up. How can you miss the meaning so thoroughly? Columnist Cal Thomas wrote about a town that didn't want to force Christianity on anybody, so they banned decorations featuring Easter eggs and the Easter bunny. Is that what Easter is about - bunnies and eggs? Someone else wrote ironically about the fact that you can go to the store and buy an Easter basket with an Army action figure, or a toy combat vehicle inside. Is that fitting in with the meaning of Easter?
None of this surprises us; we know how warped things can get. But it still challenges us, year after year, to sort through once again and find the true meaning beyond the bunnies and eggs, and Army figures, and arrogant Christian violence represented by those boys searching for Jews to beat up. We believe Easter means something beautiful, something life-changing, something eternal.
I suspect that there are, in this room, a whole spectrum of reasons for being here this morning - custom, pleasing someone, wanting to see the beautiful decor, hear the music, a true sense of celebration of the resurrection - and dozens of more reasons I haven't thought of. I suspect, too, that there is a whole spectrum of faith here today. Everything from absolute conviction about the truth of the Resurrection of Christ to deep doubt and skepticism. Probably most of us have some mixture of faith and doubt going on inside us.
But as diverse as we are, and as wide as those spectrums may be, we all have in common the search - the longing within for meaning, and for belonging, and for pardon, and for peace. And Christ-within-us says, "Look. I'm alive. I'm with you. Open your eyes and see." That's what God wishes for you and me today.
I have read about a small church on the Isle of Capri near Naples, where people come on Easter Sunday with birds in cages. At the end of the service, they go outdoors and set the caged birds free. We won't be releasing birds today. But maybe we can release our fears, our prejudices, our anger, our guilt - all those messengers of death that keep us from fully realizing the life that God has placed within our grasp. Maybe we can walk from this place as those who have been set free by the power of the Risen Christ, and have finally drawn near to what we have sought for so long.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 05 February 2007 )
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