Feast of the Resurrection, 2012

     Poet Emily Dickinson once wrote:  “Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without words, and never stops at all.”  “Hope” wrote Cardinal Basil Hume, “is the greatest gift of Easter.”

     You and I, the poet and the Cardinal, all have this in common with Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome---who went to the tomb:  We have hope.   Our friend, teacher, brother and savior, Jesus---had great hope that enabled him to do so much of what he did.   On this the great Feast of the Resurrection, we share something else: a trust  in God, and in Jesus the Christ of God, who through his own life, death and astonishing resurrection---has gone ahead of us, marked a path with hope on one side and trust on the other---and shown us the Way to go. 

    It’s also the way to come to him---as he invites us---all of us who are tired and burdened, to come to him.  So, see, this way---he has us coming and going!

     And we also share something else with those faithful women at the empty tomb, and with the disciples, and with Jesus: and that is woundedness.  Resurrection, yes.  But woundedness, too.   Jesus is wounded by the mockery and whipping the centurions were allowed for their sadistic amusement, and the horrible piercing wounds from hanging on the cross.   None of these wounds is healed to this day.  Jesus’ heart, too, is wounded by the betrayal and abandonment of his closest friends, the disciples who literally left Jesus hanging.   The women, who were there when he was crucified, saw it all-right down to his blood running freely down the length of the cross to the ground on which they stood keeping the death vigil with him.

      And this surely leaves the women broken-hearted and traumatized  too.  They are wounded.   The rest of the disciples, we know are in hiding – hiding in their own fear, guilt and shame – and this, too, is a kind of wounding.  No one can hurt us like we can ourselves, when we become our own worst enemy.  On this day of resurrection, everyone in the Gospel story is hurt, is wounded, and this is probably  true for many of us here this morning.  We can celebrate Jesus’ resurrection---but at the very same time, acknowledge that everything is not all right/ in our world/ or in our lives.   So as Christians we work to faithfully hold our ground in what Parker Palmer called, “the tragic gap,” that gap between where things actually are---and where things could be.  And God knows how very much we do long for our lives---and for the world---the way things could be.  

     This is why Saint Paul speaks of “the hope of the resurrection.”  He says, we have hope in the resurrection because we have--not yet--completely seen it.  We have some early signs of the resurrection from nature--- as night gives way to daylight, winter to the green of spring and caterpillars make cocoons, die and are transformed as butterflies;  and we have the testimony of our scriptures, and those first disciples--and we surely have a desire for resurrection---but meanwhile we have no alternative/// but to wait patiently for what Jesus’ resurrection will eventually, and fully, come to mean to each of us.  We hope for the resurrection of the dead--especially those whom we have loved.  We have hope that they will, as St. Paul says, be given new and improved bodies.  We have hope that they will know the healing/ in death /that they did not know in this life. 

    And we have hope that, in our own death, we will be reunited with those whom we love, and with all of God’s children. 

   In the Book of Revelation, which is the last and final word of scripture, we are assured that in the resurrection, our wounds will be healed: God will wipe every tear from our eyes.  Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more. This is a defining hope of what it means to be a Christian.

     We also speak about the hope of resurrection in the here and now, in the meantime; when life can hurt and bloody us, leave us with terrible wounds from which we doubt we can ever recover.   Our hope in the resurrection,  comes not only from what we is good and life-giving now,  but also from what we remember.  This morning we are invited to remember and renew our baptismal vows.  For us, this is a living reminder of our personal participation in Jesus’ death and resurrection. 

     In our baptism, we believe that Jesus has come to live within us, abides with us throughout our lives, and that we are being formed by Jesus through his death, resurrection and abiding Holy Spirit.  We trust that we are being conformed to Jesus. 

     The church calls this “the paschal mystery.”  The word “paschal” comes from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek words for Passover, when death passed over the ancient children of Israel.  And the word “mystery,” of course, is a hidden truth, revealed.  Paschal mystery: a hidden truth, that life comes out of death.  Archbishop Rowan Williams says the paschal mystery is our own awareness that life repeats a cycle of loss, then recovery, then transformation. 

      That is why we light the paschal candle again, but out of Easter season, and why, when we die and have our memorial or funeral service here in church---the pascal candle is again lit, just as it was at the Feast of the Resurrection--- and the pascal or Passover candle’s light is cast over the ashes or the body of the one who has died. The paschal mystery.  But sometimes, this is hard to believe---especially if you are living in the midst of loss---if you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death---any kind of death. 

     At this time in your life, if you are keenly aware of life’s wounds, there is only one way to understand the resurrection life, and that is by hope, the hope of the resurrection.

     When I say “hope,” I am not talking about optimism.  Optimism is based on what we can see.  Hope is based on grace that we remember. 

    We draw our hope for the present from our past experience of loss, then grace and recovery, then transformation.  Archbishop Desmond Tutu was asked whether he is optimistic that the Israelis and Palestinians will ever be able to live together in peace.  And he said, “No,” he is not optimistic.  But he is hopeful.  He said, “I am a Christian.  I am constrained by my faith to hope against hope, placing my trust in things as yet unseen.”  “Hope, he says,  “persists in the face even of evidence to the contrary, undeterred by setbacks and disappointment.” 

      Probably in the face of many odds, your own life has carried you on into this new day.  It’s not just Jesus who is a walking miracle; you also---are a walking miracle.  You can draw on the hope of the resurrection out of your miracle memory. 

     Christ has been with you, and Christ-is with you-yet: Christ before you, Christ behind you, Christ within you, Christ beneath you, Christ above you, Christ at your right, Christ at your left, Christ when you lie down,  Christ when you arise.

     This morning we arose from darkness, with the simple hope and trust that the sun would rise and day would dawn   When you are in the middle of the dark night, there is absolutely no clue to show that a dawning will happen, no reason to even imagine a dawning… except if you remember that, amazingly enough, it has happened before.  This gives us hope that the dawn shall happen again, miraculously. 

   In the early third century a revered Christian theologian in Alexandria named Clement said, “Christ has turned all our sunsets into dawns.”       

     The resurrection will dawn on you, as it has before, and that is the promise Christ leaves with us this Easter day.  This is the hope of the resurrection.  With the St. Paul, with the psalmist, with all who have gone on before---that great cloud of witnesses, many of whom are our blood relatives---and with Jesus himself---we can say, “In you Lord, is our hope.  We shall never hope in vain.” 

      All of this I say to you in the Name of the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit.

Alleluia, Christ is Risen!