An Easter message: When fear and joy hold hands and walk us to courage

A blessed and joyous Easter to you! Christ is risen, he is risen indeed, Alleluia! 

After our Maundy Thursday service as we were driving home, I said to Omar, look at the moon!  It was a glorious and full moon glowing down through the trees at Horner park.  Easter is the only church holiday dependent on the moon. We celebrate Easter the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox.  Turns out our Muslim and Jewish siblings also observe Ramadan and Passover dependent on the moon and this year we have this rare convergence of Holy days. While it seems a little complicated and unpredictable to determine our religious festivals by the moon, there is some reason for it.  In the case of Christianity, Holy Week and Easter coincide with spring.  All around us everything is coming to life.  Tiny buds are appearing on trees, the parsley is starting to come back in my garden, flowers are pushing up through the ground. God’s creative power is on full display all around us. While this natural waking up of the earth makes sense and is predictable, resurrection on the other hand is natural.  

When someone is buried, they stay buried and, at least in this life, we don’t expect to see them again in any tangible way. While the gardens in the cemeteries come back to life in the springtime with flowers and grass, that’s about it and the best we can do is visit the graves of those we have loved and continue on. This is what Mary Magdalene and the other Mary did that early, early morning when then went to visit Jesus’ grave. But, what they encountered was anything but natural and predictable.

The way St. Matthew tells it, that quiet morning that they went to the tomb, as soon as they get there, an angel flutters in and makes such a thump of a landing that it causes an earthquake.  The angel then rolls back the massive stone and plunks down on top of the boulder. You can almost see that angel sitting there and grinning with their arms crossed while the guards tremble and then pass out. The two Marys are standing there stunned--taking it in. What in the world. 

You see, it had been a terrible last few days.  The entire city had been up in arms about Jesus.  The Romans and leaders of the day had done everything they could to get rid of him, smearing him, condemning his followers, launching a highly successful PR campaign against the charismatic, gentle teacher, and then publicly executing him. The governor, Pilate, was eager to quiet the uproar in the city, and he washed his hands of the whole debacle. Then he sent a couple of guards to the tomb to make sure no one tried to pull any monkey business with the body after Jesus was buried. The two women probably crept to the tomb that dawn still terribly afraid and now this! An angel!?  They must have been trembling or quaking in their boots because the angel says to them “do not be afraid.”  

That feeling of fear they’re channeling is right on par with how all the great biblical characters respond when there is big news to manage.  Remember Mary the mother of Jesus? “Fear not” the angel said to her, you’re pregnant (with the son of God) and unmarried which is about to get real fun to explain but God is with you, fear not.

Not only is fear the right response for ancient biblical people confronting big news, fear also happens to be the way that everyday people like us respond when we’re looking straight at something—at a new truth or a new reality that we know is going to change us forever. We feel fear when we’re standing on the edge of something new. It’s the fear you feel after the phone call you didn’t expect or the news you didn’t see coming that leaves a pit in your stomach.  But the odd thing is that right there with that pit in your stomach, somehow your priorities become clear and you sense that sitting right there next to fear is gratitude or even, joy.

It happened to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary: they were terrified, but at the same time they were overjoyed with the news that Jesus was alive.  And we know that feeling too: We feel fear of what might happen to our children when the world seems dangerous and then we feel joy when we think of that blessing they are in our lives.  There’s fear when someone we love is sick, and joy in registering what they mean to us and the gift they are to us.  There’s fear in leaving an old job, but joy in coworkers we love and the possibility of what could be. There’s fear when the end of life draws near, but joy remembering the life we’ve lived! There’s fear as we look at all the problems in our nation, world, neighborhood, and then joy to be here in this moment and with the ones that we love.  Fear and joy so often hold hands.

As Mary Magdalene and the other Mary process those twin feelings of feelings of fear and joy, the angel invites them into the tomb to have a look around and see for themselves that Jesus is not there. They poke around in that cold, damp cave looking at each other in wide eyed wonder and terror and then, angel, pipes up and tells them to, “go now quickly and tell the disciples, he has been raised from the dead and is on his way to Galilee” This show is on the road!”

I wonder if, before they took off running, they thought about it for a moment—grasping each other’s hands, leaning against each other trying to catch their breath--but then they run with  their hearts pounding. No sooner had they taken off when Jesus shows up there on the road.  “Greetings” he says and it’s just about more than they can bear and they grab onto his feet, beside themselves.  He also tells them not to be afraid—probably because new life is frightening.  

When you expect a sealed rock in front of the tomb and instead you find a big angel sitting on the boulder grinning down at you, when you’re spinning your wheels in the past and then suddenly, someone stops you points you forward and says look what’s coming in the future--when you’re searching around the tomb for something dead to hang on to and instead you find the risen Christ—the possibility of what could be is stunning and even frightening. It certainly isn’t natural or predictable.

What happens next is the stuff miracles are made of.  You see, something about that joy they feel pushes them through to courage and off the go to tell the disciples what had happened. Off they go to build a new world. 

And isn’t that the way with us too? The joy and hope we feel for what could be pushes us through to courage.

We are living in extraordinary times.  Sometimes it feels like the very world is shifting and quaking beneath our feet. And yet we hope for a new world.

What I know is that God is always pushing us to the edge of what’s comfortable or what feels predictable in our own lives and in society and asking us to imagine what could be. Right now, we have the opportunity to be a part of shaping the world into something new.  It is the honest truth that new life is frightening. It’s not predictable like the moon cycles, it’s not smooth like butter, but we must imagine what God is calling us to grow into.  We cannot stay looking at the cold, gray walls of the tomb. Sometimes, love will ask us to take a stand, to step out onto the road, and it will take us where we don’t think we can go. Real conversations about justice or equity or love or change in our selves or in the wider world cannot happen while we sit in our comfort zone. 

Just as God pointed those women and set them on the way we are sent to go and seek the love of God alive around us and to share the story of how we know God’s love is alive in our lives even while the very ground shifts and quakes beneath our feet.

For Christ is alive, he is risen!
He is risen indeed alleluia!