Overwhelmed

Sermon for SMHP, Year B, Easter Day, April 1, 2018

Mark 16:1-8

          When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. ²And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. ³They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” ⁴When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. ⁵As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. ⁶But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. ⁷But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” ⁸So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

          The tomb of Jesus sits within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  [First slide]  Today it looks like this.  Surrounded by pilgrims who wait in line, sometimes for hours, to go inside and touch the site of Jesus’ burial.  Which is pretty amazing, I must say. 

          Above it is a dome.  [slide].  All around it are chapels and paintings and mosaics.  [3 slides]  Multiple churches of different traditions, all Catholic and Orthodox, claim the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. [slide]

          It’s all a bit overwhelming, really.  The emotion and the bling and the people.  I went twice, and each time left and went a few hundred feet to a different church to decompress.  A simpler church.

          Maybe you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed today.  Easter is a wonderful day, but it has been a busy week, and there were planes to catch and bills to pay.  Some of you spent almost as much time here this week as I did, and maybe you just want to sit for a moment and take it all in.

         

          I imagine that is what happened with the women at the tomb.  I don’t know, but I imagine.  Let’s all imagine.  You’ve been in Jerusalem for the Passover.  You walked there from the Galilee in a large company of disciples accompanying Jesus.  It took five days. 

          When you got there, things got out of hand quickly.  Jesus decided to ride into the city on a colt, which garnered a lot of attention.  The attention wasn’t all good, and you heard rumblings throughout town about him.

          On the first night of the Passover, you cooked and served the traditional meal.  The men reclined at table and ate it, and you got to clean up.  As usual.  Then Jesus and the disciples went up on the Mount of Olives, above the city.  Most of them came back after an hour, but Peter and James and John stayed with Jesus.  Apparently they walked down to the pretty garden at the base of the Mount, which is really more of a big hill, truth be told.

          Sometime before morning, Peter, James and John came back, shouting that Jesus had been arrested.  The disciples conferred, and there was a lot of arguing.  They were still arguing when you and the other women of Galilee went to find Jesus.  The rest is a bit of a blur.  He was with the Sanhedrin at the temple.  They bound him and delivered him to Pontius Pilate, the Roman Prefect of Judea.  You were in the crowd when Pilate offered them the choice between releasing Jesus and Barabbas, a leader of the revolutionary forces.

          You were shocked when the cried out for Barabbas.

          You followed Jesus as he wound his way through the streets of Jerusalem to the Place of the Skull, and you felt his agony as he was nailed to the cross.  You watched him die. 

          You saw a man named Joseph, apparently a member of the Sanhedrin, take Jesus down from the cross, wrap him in linen cloths, and carry him to a nearby tomb.  Some of you stayed at the tomb.  Some went home to rest and make preparations.  All observed the Sabbath, as Jesus would have expected.  At sundown, you bought spices—frankincense, myrrh, cinnamon, cassia.

          As soon as the sun rose, you took the spices and went to the tomb.  You weren’t quite sure how you would get the stone rolled back, but there were Roman Centurions at the tomb when you left, and you hoped to enlist their help.

          When you arrived at the tomb, you figured they had anticipated your arrival and helped out, because the stone had been rolled away. 

          You went into the tomb and found a young man in a toga, looking like a Roman Senator.  You wondered what Rome might want with the body of Jesus now.

          Then the young man started to talk nonsense.  He said Jesus wasn’t there, which you had already noticed.  “He has been raised,” the man said.  What did that mean?

          He told you to tell the disciples, “and Peter” that Jesus would be in Galilee, and they would see him. 

          It all seemed like a trap, and as he talked, you became frightened.

          What if we tell the disciples and they don’t believe us?  What if they think we made the whole thing up?  Where is Jesus?  Is this a Roman trap?

          What if we tell this story and it just gets us in trouble?

         

          What if, indeed. 

          This telling of the resurrection story—this first account from Mark—confounds the scholars and the evangelists.  By the second century, scribes had already added to the story, because this ending was so unsatisfying.  Soon there was the ending, the shorter longer ending and the longer longer ending.  Stories borrowed from Matthew, and Luke, and John.  Stories no doubt true, but not told by Mark, who seemed fine just letting the story end with the overwhelming fact that Jesus had risen from the dead.

          Whether you told the story or not.  [slide of the beam of light]

          Christ is risen!  [He is risen indeed]

          Even if you tell no one, Christ is risen!  [He is risen indeed]

         

          If you need to just sit with that knowledge for a bit, that’s okay.  It’s pretty magnificent knowledge.  The first witnesses didn’t quite know what to do with it. 

          But it’s hard to keep something like that to yourself.  It’s hard to just go around whispering to yourself [whisper] Christ is risen…and not hearing anything back. 

          You might eventually want to shout it:  [shout] Christ is risen.

         

          Mary and Mary needed a moment.  But we know they told the story.  We’ve got the churches and the mosaics and the overwrought bling to prove it.  That kind of a secret is too hard to keep to yourself.

          But you can try.

          Or you can tell the story…and see what kind of trouble you can get in.