"But he did not go in . . ." Easter Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Donald L. Hamer, Rector
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Trinity Episcopal Church, Hartford, Connecticut
Year A – Easter Sunday
April 16, 2017
John 20: 1-18
“But he did not go in. . .”
There is an awful lot of activity going on at the beginning of this morning’s Gospel. Mary arrives at the tomb to discover Jesus’ body is gone – and she runs to tell Peter and the disciple that Jesus loved. The two disciples run to the tomb to check it out, and Mary with them. The disciples leave, and Mary has her encounter with the angels. But as I read this familiar passage again this week, I was struck by something that does not happen. In verse 4 we are told that the two disciples were running together to the tomb, but the disciple that Jesus loved got there first. In verse 5 we read: He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Peter, of course, who was never particularly troubled about just barging into something, walks right in and observes the cloths that had been covering Jesus’ body. And then we read in verse 8, “Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.”
What can the Gospel be telling us here: on the one hand, the disciple saw and believed, but yet they did not understand? What are we to make of this?
You know, it has been observed, correctly, I think, that there can be no resurrection without Good Friday. And since I don’t recall seeing this many people at our Holy Week services this week, I think it is valuable for all of us – whether we were there or not –to revisit how we have journeyed with Jesus through the events of this past week.
We began last Sunday, Palm Sunday, when we recalled Jesus’ being hailed as a savior as he entered into the City of Jerusalem from the east, even as the Roman Procurator, Pilate, was entering Jerusalem from the west – Jesus on a donkey, surrounded by people crying, “Save us!” Pilate on a .warhorse, surrounded by a cavalcade of soldiers whose purpose was to keep the Jewish population in line by force if necessary. It sets up the trial that will take place later in the week.
Then this past Thursday, nearly 80 of us celebrated a unique Maundy Thursday, one in which we shared a common meal that some of us share each month with the guests of the Loaves and Fishes Ministry on the corner of Woodland Street. Over dinner we heard the Gospel stories about Jesus’ institution of the Holy Eucharist, the giving of himself as servant to his own disciples as he insisted on washing their feet.
There followed Good Friday, enshrined remarkably as a state holiday here in Connecticut, where we again heard the story of Jesus’ trial, passion, death and burial. The story ends with Jesus’ words almost breathless words, “It is finished. . .” And so it seemed to be to his disciples and close companions.
But were we ready for the resurrection yet? No. Last night, as we observed the Easter Vigil, we heard the stories of the Hebrew Bible that were the very seeds of Jesus’ own tradition, his own life and ministry. We heard the story of God’s creation, passionately related in the words of James Weldon Johnson by Michael Okeke – the story of how God took a formless void and created beauty and life out of nothing. Next we heard the story of how God made a new creation out of the devastation of a flood, giving the sign of the rainbow as God’s assurance of hope for the future. Next we heard the story of the Exodus, God’s miraculous act of rescuing the Israelites from their bondage in Egypt by parting the Red Sea to make a way for them. And the final reading was from the Prophet Zephaniah, writing about how the Lord rejoices in the gathering of God’s people, safe from adversity and poised to enter into a new sense of community.
Do you see the pattern here, my friends? Each of these stories in some way relates the saving acts of God that bring a people from bondage to freedom, from peril to safety, from physical or spiritual death to physical or spiritual rebirth. And we remember those stories because between the experience of Jesus’ death and the realization of Jesus’ Resurrection, it is important – spiritually important – that we pause and reflect on the context of this central belief of the Christian faith – that Jesus, the Christ – the messiah that the Jewish people had long-awaited – actually died and was resurrected from the tomb.
And it is hard to get our heads around, isn’t it? It’s ironic, I think, that on the biggest observance of the Christian year, we are asked to embrace what is certainly one of the most difficult affirmations of the Christian faith. But then again, maybe that’s what the Gospel writer was getting at when he writes in verse 8, “Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.” I think there are a couple of important lessons for us here.
The first is to understand the difference between belief and understanding. You know, it was St. Anselm, an archbishop of Canterbury in the 11th Century, who defined the practice of theology as “faith seeking understanding.” Anselm assumed, as does the writer of this morning’s Gospel, that faith must be a basis for understanding, and not the other way around. Understood this way, we can now make some sense of the statement that the disciple saw and believed, but as yet he still did not understand.
It’s a good lesson for we who live in a world defined by the Enlightenment, a movement of the late 17th and 18th centuries that emphasized reason and individualism and thus placed faith in an inferior position. It is the influence of the Enlightenment that makes us in western society leery of things we don’t understand. We make like the idea of faith in Jesus as the resurrected Christ, we may even profess it; but when it comes to actually act on that belief, to go somewhere or to do something that actually requires us to put our trust in God, then we pull back, hesitant to take that step when we don’t know the pre-determined outcome.
And that brings us to the second important lesson from this morning’s Gospel. The disciple whom Jesus loved initially just looked into the tomb – he didn’t enter in. But until he took that step, he was just an observer. It was only when he took that step into the tomb – to meet the reality of Jesus’ death – that he was able to believe what Jesus had promised would happen – he was no longer there, but was risen, and going on a head of them to Galilee.
On this Easter Sunday 2017, Jesus invites us to take just such a step. We can celebrate the holiday of Easter and, like the disciple, remain an outside observer, safe and secure in our own little world. OR, we can take that step to meet Jesus where he calls us. We can confront those part of our lives that we would like to change; those habits or aspects of our lives that draw us away from Jesus and one from another; avoiding those choices that on the one hand pose some risk, and on the other offer the promise of living more deeply into the promise of Resurrection Life that Jesus offers, the possibility of growing to be the person God desires for us to become rather than settling for things as they are.
My prayer for each and every one of us this day, and throughout this Eastertide and beyond, is that we take that step forward, following in the footsteps of Jesus’ beloved disciple. Let’s take that step out of our heads and allow the risen Christ into our hearts. Let’s commit ourselves in this holy season to move beyond simply celebrating Easter and truly embrace the new life to which Jesus calls us in the Resurrection.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
AMEN.