26March2000sermon.htm

"A familiar stranger"

Sermon for Easter Night, Year B, April 23, 2000

Episcopal Church at Princeton University, NJ

Reading: Luke 24:13-35

Even now
it seems a long time ago.
Was it only this morning
that we huddled together in the unexpected cold
around a small fire
blazing in a steel bowl?
Was it only then
that we followed a single flame
through the cavernous dark of the chapel?
Then that we heard the recital of the acts of God
creation, flood, Red Sea, dry bones...?
Then that we watched the slow dawn
feeling its way through the blue stained windows?
Then that we witnessed
the water of life
poured over the heads of Peter and Melanie?
Then that we heard the blast of the fanfare
and "Welcome happy morning", we sang,
proclaiming the risen Christ.

Was it only this morning?

A day can be a long time
and sometimes what looks certain in the bright early light of morning
has lost its shine by evening,
and the first excitement of hope
fades away
into the all too familiar
fogginess
of doubt.

I don't know about you, but I feel kind of flat now.
The euphoria of this morning
has left me to crash down again
into the middle of my overcrowded schedule,
and I'm not so sure
what the point of this Easter thing
is anyway.

*****
I imagine
it was that way
for those first
disciples.

They had woken that morning
to strange stories,
hysterical women
babbling about an empty tomb
and white bright angels
who told them
that their friend was not dead but alive! There was a moment of hope,
like the catching of breath,
but so soon
it began
to fade.
The tomb was empty, to be sure - Simon Peter had checked on that -
but long hours followed
with never a sign
of this supposedly resurrected
Christ,
and they began to wonder.

For they had smelled the blood
which ran from his side
and had heard his groaning
as he died,
they had seen his agony
and the chill of the body
laid lifeless
in the tomb.

That
was certain.

But this? This was just a story
itching to be true
but so impossible
it hurt to imagine it.

And so they headed out of town, Cleopas and his friend,
resolved to put the past behind them,
their foolish hopes and dreams of glory,
determined to live
by good sense
and fierce logic,
they headed back home to take up their lives once more,
seven miles back to their village
step after step
heavy with failure.
And the only thing making it bearable
even though it was gut-wrenchingly painful at the same time
was to be able to tell the story,
to share their memories
to ask their questions,
to see if somehow
they could have predicted
what would happen.

And in the middle of this
came a stranger,
clumsy in his ignorance of those dreadful events,
he came and walked beside them,
and before long they were telling him,
and the laughter and tears
came all at the same time. At first
he just listened,
but as they went along - seven miles is a good long walk, you know, and you
can do a lot of talking in that time -
as they went along, he began to ask questions
and soon his questions became stories too,
stories reaching back to the beginning of time,
stories about God
and their ancestors,
and a Messiah
who they had just seen crucified.
He told them the stories
they had known since their childhoods,
but as he told them
they became somehow different,
filled with a significance far beyond the childhood story books,
almost as if
God himself
were telling them.

An hour passed,
and then another
and the village was in sight.
Dusk was falling, and suddenly their resolve faltered,
and good sense
and fierce logic
could wait, and there was time for just one last night
to savor their lost hopes and dreams
in the company
of this
strangely familiar
stranger.

He went as if
to go on,
but they pressed him to come in
to take advantage
of clean sheets
and a simple meal
with new found friends.
And as they sat down to eat
he took bread
blessed it, broke it
and gave it to them.

And suddenly they knew
that this stranger
was no stranger at all,
this stranger
was the very Christ
who they had been mourning.
And then
he was with them
no longer.

But the bread was there,
warm and fragrant,
hollows
where his fingers had pressed it,
grainy
under their tongues.
"This is my body," was what he had said
the night before he died,
and as they ate
the taste and smell and feel of his life
were just as real
as they had been
of his death.
"Do this
in remembrance
of me,"
he had said,
and suddenly
this was not just something to repeat
so as not to forget,
a visual aid for fading memories,
but the place
where Christ himself would meet them
time
after time
after time.
The disciples knew the risen Jesus
in the breaking of the bread.

*****
Easter
is a time when we proclaim with a peculiar certainty
that great miracle of faith.
That Jesus Christ
whose death we watched
in such intense detail in the gospels
witnessed by the crowds
and the soldiers,
the disciples
and his mother,
that Jesus Christ
suddenly
inexplicably
is alive.
The tomb is empty,
the grave cloths lie flattened in a corner,
and a familiar stranger
with holes in his hands,
a great scar
under his ribs
mysteriously appears
and disappears and reappears again
for six long weeks
until the news of his resurrected life
can no longer be contained, can no longer
be denied.
Christ is risen, we shout.
He is risen indeed!

But if you are anything like me,
the shout is fleeting.
Twelve hours from now
I'll be back to my ordinary life, worrying about papers to write,
exams to prepare for,
and jobs to do,
let alone the longer term question
of a future ahead of me.
Perhaps I'm unusual,
but to be honest, I have no major problems
with the concept of a resurrected Christ. It's just one of those things
beyond my limited capacity
to understand - and there are a whole lot of things that fall into that
category for me. Things like how it could be
that we live on this habitable earth
in the midst of billions of stars
that would just as soon burn us up,
things like why a little girl called Caroline
who I barely know
throws herself at me
as soon as she sees me come into church on a Sunday morning,
and wants nothing more
than to be held closely
with her head on my shoulder
during the sermon.
There are lots of things I don't understand, lots of things I can't prove.
And in the end, I'm not sure
that it matters so much
whether I understand them or not.
For their existence
doesn't depend
on me.

But the problem of the resurrection
it seems to me,
it not so much the physical facts
so much as
what it could possibly have
to do with me,
other than providing a brief window in my life
for celebration.

In twelve hours, in twelve days, in twelve weeks
what will it matter
that the disciples
knew the risen Jesus
in the breaking
of the bread?

Let me tell you
about a friend of mine.
We were in seminary together,
and I guess it was about our second year
when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
She'd had it before,
and though she tried chemo
and we prayed for her healing
it gradually spread,
and by the time of our ordination
she was in a wheelchair
with an oxygen tank
for breath.

She was ordained
and went to work in a nursing home
with those who were nearing death.
Two months later
her sister went into her bedroom -
it was Easter morning -
and said
"Christ is risen."
"He is risen indeed!" she answered.

Those
were her last words.
Soon afterwards
she took her final breath
and died.

That's why it matters. Because Christ is risen,
my friend no longer feared death, and it came to her
as a gift.

But it wasn't just about her dying. You see, because Christ is risen,
she chose
not to simply let that cancer tear her life apart, she could choose
to continue with the ordination process,
even though
everyone would have understood
why she might want those last precious months
for her own.
Because
Christ is risen
she could choose
to accept a position
where she would have to face death
every moment
of every day,
and not just the death
of others
at the end
of this natural
lives,
but her own death
staring her blankly
in the face.

If you had met her in the street,
you would probably
have passed her by. She was one of the most ordinary
people I know. With an extraordinary resurrection
faith.

What does it matter
that Christ is risen?

It matters
because in Christ's resurrection
God has turned the tables on death.
And that doesn't just make a difference
in 50 or 60 or 70 years when you die,
it makes a difference now.
It God has turned the tables
then that means everything has changed, everything
is up for grabs.
The hungry are fed,
the poor raised up,
and the Lord
becomes a servant.
This is the gospel,
this is the Easter message,
this is why it matters!

We might not see
all the evidence now,
but we have the promise.

And so
we are called
to live out
that Easter gospel,
as we write our papers and study for our exams,
as we look for jobs
and grow into long term relationships.
We are called
to live knowing
that God has turned the tables,
not just knowing it, but living it.

When we break bread together tonight,
and every time we break bread together
as a community
of faith,
we
are in the presence
of the living, risen
Christ,
Christ who loves us,
Christ who calls us.

Amen.

Raewynne J. Whiteley
23 April 2000

Back to Home Page