So What I Said Was: "He Has Risen, He Is Not Here -- Or Is He?"

It’s hard to imagine the despair they felt that morning as they made their way to the tomb in pre-dawn darkness. Their hearts were breaking. The one they loved was dead. Worse than dead – murdered, murdered by those who couldn’t accept him and his message. Executed on a cross as an outlaw, he died between two outlaws. Most of his followers went into hiding, figuring they might be next.

They came out in that blackest hour before daybreak. Their grief was tearing them apart, yet love compelled them to go on.

When they get there they see that the stone has been rolled away from the front of the tomb. What now? Tentatively they enter the open tomb. There they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting there. The Bible, with its typical understatement says “and they were alarmed.”

Well, who wouldn’t be? The events of those past few days would overwhelm most of us. Imagine having someone you loved unjustly accused, summarily executed and you go to the cemetery to find the grave opened, the casket lid removed and a young man in white sitting on edge of the open grave, feet dangling into the abyss. Who among us wouldn’t be alarmed?

The young man says “Don't be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.”

They don’t find this pronouncement all that comforting. “Trembling and bewildered,” the gospel writer relates, “the women went out and fled from the tomb.”

The story of Easter and the trip to the empty tomb is a familiar one. It has become so familiar and we cease to be moved by the wonder of it all. After all, Christians have been telling and re-telling this story for around two thousand years.

But the Easter event is more than a tale, full of pathos and high drama. The Easter event is the basis for our faith. Paul says “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. … in that case we had better cast off this unreal Christianity as soon as possible and go back to those who have chosen the watchword, which seems so openly cheerful and yet is so full of hopeless resignation: ‘Let us eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.’”

In those words, Paul lays it out. Either the man in white’s statement that “Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified … has risen! He is not here.” is true or Christianity is false. If it is not true, then we might as well all leave and go home to our families and dinners and find more fruitful pursuits than this with which to fill our Sunday mornings.

But if it is true, then what? Then we live, too. Not just later, when this mortal life is ended, but here and now with purpose and meaning that we’ll not have if there was no resurrection.

You see, the story of the crucified God who did not stay dead and came to the garden to be with his friends that morning, is for us today. It is a message of eternal hope. I cannot explain the resurrection to you – how it happened in terms of scientific knowledge or historical documentation. For the Easter event is not about science or history. It is about faith and promise. Jurgen Moltmann, in his book The Crucified God, says “The resurrection of Jesus from the dead by God does not speak the “language of facts,” but only the language of faith and hope, that is, the “language of promise.” Easter is about “Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here.”

“He has risen! He is not here.” is true about that rock hewn tomb in which he was laid. But, at another level, “He is not here” is not true – for he is here – in this room this morning. In our hearts and in the very air. “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.” He is the presence in our midst. Because “He has risen! He is here and here (point to heart)” He lives today. He lives so that we might have purpose, meaning and hope in our lives. He lives to bring us back to the right place, our place in the family of God.

The poet Carolyn Keefe writes:

A woman with shoulders bowed only since Friday

steps deep into death’s lair.

Stupified by guilt or sorrow or not caring,

the town had been silent as she passed.

Behind the hedges insensible cyclamen

and violets drink life from the dawn,

giving their moisture back to the sky.

They too should have perished with Him,

blasted to very root hairs

tenacious in the ground. Gather

some for Him and with the aloes

make an ointment for His bloodied brow.

Oh joy! Her bitter myrrh

had become obsolete at daybreak.

Through ground and rock,

sky, sea, and stars,

He bursts His putrid casing

and confronts the universe!

She folds the linen, taking it home
to wash from it the stench of death,
joyfully she shakes it out in the forever sunshine.

“He has risen! He is not here.” Let us this Easter day, remember that One who brings us life by refusing to be bound by death, that One who stepped out of the grave and lives in and among us. Step into that forever sunshine He makes possible. “He has risen! He is not there – He is here.”

An Easter meditation I gave at West Newton Friends Meeting this morning (3/27/16)

Christ Came Juggling: An Easter Sunday Poem

Christ came juggling from the tomb,
flipping and bouncing death's stone pages,
tossing those narrow letters high
against the roots of dawn spread in cloud.
This Jesus, clown, came dancing
in the dust of Judea, each slapping step
a new blossom spiked with joy.

Hey! Listen -- that chuckle in the dark,
that clean blast of laughter behind --
Christ comes juggling our tombs,
tossing them high and higher yet,
until they hit the sun and break open
and we fall out, dancing and juggling
our griefs like sizzling balls of light.


-- Eugene Warren, from The Risk of Birth, poems selected by Luci Shaw

Christ Came Juggling: An Easter Poem

Christ came juggling from the tomb,
flipping and bouncing death's stone pages,
tossing those narrow letters high
against the roots of dawn spread in cloud.
This Jesus, clown, came dancing
in the dust of Judea, each slapping step
a new blossom spiked with joy.

Hey! Listen -- that chuckle in the dark,
that clean blast of laughter behind --
Christ comes juggling our tombs,
tossing them high and higher yet,
until they hit the sun and break open
and we fall out, dancing and juggling
our griefs like sizzling balls of light.


-- Eugene Warren, from The Risk of Birth, poems selected by Luci Shaw

Association of Bad Christians

Well, I was outed recently. Actually, I guess I outed myself. I picked up a copy of Diana Butler Bass's new book A People's History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story and, while reading along, found this "'When someone asks me what kind of Christian I am,' says Brent Bill, a Quaker writer, 'I say I'm a bad one.' He goes on to say, 'I've got the belief part down pretty well, I think. It's in the practice of my belief in everyday life where I often miss the mark.'"

While it's probably not the smartest thing for guy who writes books on spirituality to admit, the above quotation is accurate. I am a bad Christian. By bad, I mean, just not very good at it. In spite of just shy of 60 years of attending Sunday School, worship services, summer camps, revivals, prayer meetings, religious colleges, seminary, being a pastor, reading books, memorizing Bible verses.

I mean, I know what a good Christian should look like -- she or he exhibits the fruits of the spirit:

• Love
• Joy
• Peace
• Long-suffering
• Kindness
• Goodness
• Faithfulness
• Gentleness
• Self-control

But often, when I look in the mirror (even if it is looking through a glass dimly to quote St. Paul), I see a man who believes those things but doesn't always live them out very well. I want to be loving, joyful, peaceful, long-suffering, kind, good, faith, gentle and full of self-control. But I am just not any of those things nearly enough of the time.

Which, in the past, has been awfully discouraging. Every day in every way I am not getting better and better. Or am I?

That's what I've been thinking about these past few days. As I told Diana when she interviewed me for her book, "I see myself as a pilgrim -- traveling the faith path to the destination of being a good Christian -- and into the eternal presence of God." Since today is Easter, I decided that, instead of the faithful women who went to the tomb and heard the GOOD NEWS, I would have been one of the fellows on the road to Emmaus, heading away and thinking about all the happened. It takes Jesus to come walk alongside me and instruct me before I get it anywhere close to right. And I don't think I'm the only one.

A number of us, even on Easter (or maybe especially on Easter) recognize that we are bad Christians. We want to be like Jesus, we try to live in the way of Jesus, we know that we believe in Jesus -- but we mess up a lot.

So perhaps we need to band together and support each other on this pilgrimage together (less for protection from bandits and baddies who would attack us on our way, than from "good" Christians who like to take potshots at us for not being good enough). So I propose forming an "Association of Bad Christians" -- A group for folks who are just not very good at being Christian -- who don't always do do what Jesus would do and aren't always peacemakers, humble, kind, loving, truthful, ... and know it. But who wish they were.

Members must self-nominate. After all, part of being bad is recognizing one's badness. Denominations, theologians (Calvin, Luther, or anybody dead or alive), judicatories, local congregations and their officials are not allowed to name prospective members.

In fact, I've set up a group on facebook for anybody who is interested. Perhaps we'll have a membership card and motto (in Latin? Greek? Hebrew?). An official Bible verse? Who knows? The only thing for certain is that a bad Christian knows he or she wants "to be a Christian inna my heart" -- and does so only by the grace of God. On Easter or any other day.

He is risen. Risen indeed!

-- Brent