Luke 24:1-12

The Festival of Easter

What’s All the Shouting About?

Easter has finally arrived and, if you ask me, not a minute too soon. Breathe it in. Shout it out. Alleluia!

This is the day of joy when Christians, in a multitude of tongues, shout Christ is risen, He is risen indeed! Imagine this morning, this glad shout rising from people sitting on rough benches in simple sanctuaries made of cinder blocks and covered with tin roofs. Imagine this song of joy rising from people gathered in vast ornate cathedrals. Hear it rising on the lips of people in metal chairs in storefront chapels in the poorest sections of every city. Listen for it in the hospitals and the hospice centers where people gather quietly to raise their voices loudly. Yes, listen carefully and you’ll hear Christ is risen rising in prisons across the country. Surely it rises in places torn by violence where chaplains lead people shouting, Christ is risen!

Why all this joyful shouting?

The cynic will answer: indeed, why make such a foolish fuss over nothing?

Just so, in his disbelief the cynic unwittingly joins those first apostles who, when they heard the staggering news of the women, dismissed it as nothing more than an idle tale. Later manuscripts tell us that dear Peter ran, he did not walk or stroll, he ran, to the tomb to see for himself. When he finished, Luke says he went home, amazed.

Why all the glad shouting that causing cynics to gnash their teeth and roll their eyes? I think Peter holds a clue.

His stunning betrayal of Jesus is the most public and the weight of his denial most heavy. If anyone knows the cost of moral failure, and who among us doesn’t, it is Peter who knows it the best. Betrayal. Lying. Abandonment. You name it; he did it. And in the end, he wept a bucket of tears. Is it any wonder he went racing to the tomb, stumbling home amazed? Who wouldn’t? If anyone had reason to be amazed it had to be Peter. He assumed his life fated to carry his failure forever. Yet, imagine dear Peter is a stand in for you and me and all the rest of the human community. One moment confidently walking on the water, the next moment sinking; one day bold and courageous, the next day weak and cowardly, and, in the end, weeping over his sins.

The Good News the women delivered Easter morning means none of us is destined to carry forever the failures of our past. What is real is the forgiveness of sins. The future is open. This is what the shouting is all about. Let me give you an example.

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Providence House is a home for women who have been released from prison. Sister Elaine likes to tell a story about a bishop who made fun of an old woman because she claimed that when she prayed to God, God spoke back.

“Prove it!” said the bishop. Arrogant. Almost angry. “Ask God what are my greatest private sins. If you return knowing these, then I will believe that God speaks to you.”

The woman agreed and they parted. The following day she returned and the bishop greeted her with a smirk. “Well, did you ask God what are my most secret sins?” “Yes,” she replied confidently. The bishop hesitated, “And what did God say?” “God said…,” the old woman spoke softly but with assurance. “God said … He couldn’t remember them.”

Every time a woman arrives at Providence House - in her prison-issued trench coat, $20 in her pocket, a curious blend of exhaustion and bewilderment and hope on her face - she is almost at a point of Easter. Prison still lingering in her eyes, she mysteriously brings a whiff of Easter. She carries good news of the God of forgiveness and new beginnings and a hundred chances.1

As the prophet Isaiah said, the former things shall not be remembered or brought to mind.

_________

Let’s put it this way, if Jesus is dead then we can all go home without hope. If he is alive, power the power of God, then everything is open to God's transformation, including you and me, this battered world, and the whole company of those who live in the power of his resurrection.2

On Friday I received a note from a friend who this year has traveled a path much like Peter. The note said simply:

“It is Good Friday: the day of darkness, death, betrayal, loss, forsakenness. I've never quite gotten why we call it good, except because, I suppose, we know the next chapter of the story.

Easter comes. New life happens. Things resurrect. Betrayers become leaders and hope begins again.

Thank God!”

Isn’t this what the shouting is all about?

The women on that first Easter were perplexed and disturbed. Peter stumbled home amazed. Yet, no one stayed the same. Slowly but surely everywhere they began to proclaim by their words and their deeds the good news. They called this News the gospel of the resurrection. Since then, communities around the world, including Saint Mark, continue to practice resurrection, welcoming all people to the feast of forgiveness, loving our neighbors, speaking truth to power and seeking to be servants of the One who died and was raised in the power of God. These practices remain the most convincing evidence of the resurrection.

For the cynic and the atheist, the hope we speak of here is an illusion. For the faithful, this hope is a way of life that leads to practices of mercy, love and compassion. Absent that, Christians have no answer for the cynic or seeker.

At St. Joseph’s Home for Boys in Haiti, hundreds of orphaned boys are being rescued from the brutal streets and given new beginnings. They have formed a dance troupe and called it the Resurrection Dance Theater that performs around the world. How on earth does this happen? If you ask them they will say it’s the power of the resurrection at work in their lives.

At Miriam’s Kitchen in the heart of the District, where some of you have served, over 200 folks have been fed daily for the past 23 years at Western Presbyterian Church. That means more than 1.2 million meals! The pastor said, “some people ask us why we still bother to feed folks since it doesn’t seem like anything is changing. Others ask us how we have the institutional stamina to continue this work for over two decades. I have one answer to both questions: the resurrection of Jesus. Indeed, the resurrection gives me the courage to believe that one day our entire society will emerge from the dark, dank tomb of economic inequality and end this disgraceful situation called homelessness and poverty.”3

This is what the shouting is all about.

Christ is risen! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.