John
20:1-18 Easter B – Easter Taxidermy 4/8/12
(The underlining is just to help me preach it.)
How
would you feel if I put the stuffed bunny on the altar? - Maybe peaking out
from behind the cross…?
It
just feels wrong to have the bunny in Easter Sunday worship, doesn’t it?
It
seems Sacrilegious because a ‘stuffed bunny’ is as much like the characters in
our Easter story as this ‘Jesus action figure’ is like the real Jesus.
Just
as this stuffed Lion is NOTHING like the real thing. (Children’s comments: )
Certainly
we wouldn’t leave our children with a real Lion, but we’d gladly give this one
away to make someone happy.
(In
fact, I got this LION out of our nursery.)
The
stuffed version of anything can’t compare to the original –
And we are usually
quite glad they do not equal their ferocious equivalents. We can turn our backs
on a stuffed Lion and then put him up on the shelf when we are done.
Just
like a toy Jesus can be put away to play with another day . . . Unlike
the real Jesus, who demands our attention . . .
Yet,
often it is the "stuffed Jesus" that we prefer – because he is
safer, much safer – and easier to deal with.
- you know what I mean,
don’t you?
- We love the Jesus
that stares at us from the wall with those big brown eyes. He
always listens and never makes demands on our time.
- Sometimes we feel a
little guilty and attend another church service or set aside a little more for
the offering or a special emphasis like disaster relief.
- But
the ‘safe’ Jesus is easy to walk away from when life gets too busy to think.
But
I can’t remember any gospels stories about the ‘safe Jesus’. I don’t recall any
times when he gathered his disciples together, gave them a hi-five, and went
down to the corner to just hang out with the guys. (Perhaps those stories just didn’t make the final cut of
any of the gospels.)
Actually,
I’m pretty sure that there was nothing safe about hanging with Jesus.
Maybe
we should call the real Jesus, the ‘ferocious Jesus’ or the ‘dangerous Jesus’
to make the distinction between the one up on the shelf who gets set out on
Sundays and the real thing,
because
the ‘real Jesus’ IS dangerous.
It
is easy to tell them apart. The Real Jesus is the one who got in trouble and
was executed by the state. The ‘dangerous Jesus’ seems to want US to get in
trouble too.
This
Jesus won’t stay up on the shelf. He is the one who was raised on the 3rd
day and began a WORLD of trouble – it’s the Dangerous Jesus’ Resurrection that
we celebrate today.
(The
real Jesus is alive and loose in the world. )
It
never was safe to be part of the Jesus’ Way. Maybe that is why so many sinners
applied for the role. His followers were often confused by his outrageous
behavior and confusion continued to the 3rd morning after he was
crucified. Did you notice that the first friends to arrive at the empty tomb
get the explanation all wrong?
Mary
Magdalene, is out in the dark before dawn (when only troublemakers are
around) and gets close enough to see the stone has been removed from
the tomb. She runs off and tells other disciples, “They have taken the Lord
from the tomb and we do not know where they’ve put him.” - "She was wrong,
she couldn’t see the radical truth."
But
she knew the dangerous Jesus. She loved and trusted him.
Mary's
story in John is not a historical report, it tells of relationship and of
dawning faith.[i]
Like
many of John's stories, Mary's is a story following and later seeing clearly.
Even tho she understood so much about Jesus before his death, she still had to
learn to see the new Jesus on that morning - for he wasn’t brought BACK to the life
she knew, he was raised (by God) to a new order of being.[ii]
And
resurrection brought a new kind of danger to the world.
. . But
for Mary, everything came together when Jesus called her name . . .
It’s
not the imagined voice of a stuffed person on a shelf she hears, but a real
person whom she knows and has risked loving . .
Mary's
meeting with Jesus is just what we need to replace our stuffed, safe Jesus with
the real thing.
She
even helps our rational minds from making Christianity into an intellectual
endeavor[iii]
that dissolves into arguments about what doctrines to believe.
In
order to SEE the ‘real Jesus’
· We -
like Mary, need to hear the sound of his voice.
Truly,
We long to be known by God - as scary as it can be. "We want to be seen for who we are in the most
intimate, far-reaching corners of our interior lives.."[iv]
· When
we listen THRU our experiences, we can hear Jesus call our names because he
really does know each of his ‘sheep’ by name.
· We
need to hold onto the experiences where we see & walk with him because
holding onto a ‘stuffed Jesus’ just won’t do.
Mary’s experience in the garden was enough
to keep Jesus alive long after he ascended and she was no longer able walk
beside him in the garden.
To know the REAL Jesus, we need the
personal experiences that come when we risk living the dangerous life he
demanded of his followers.
We need the Easter morning surprise to
stay with us so we don’t replace him with a stuffed version or fall back into
the despair of Saturday, before he was raised.
Story
–from The Orthodox Heretic
I read a story about a group of unknown
disciples of Jesus who packed their belongings on the day after Jesus
was crucified and left for a distant shore. They couldn’t bear to stay
another moment in the place where their Messiah had just been executed.
“Weighed
down with sorrow, they left that place, never to return. Instead they traveled
a great distance in search of a land that they could call home.
After months of
difficult travel, they finally happened upon an isolated area that was ideal
for setting up a new community. Here they found fertile ground, clean water,
and a nearby forest from which to harvest material to build shelters. So they
settled and founded a community far from Jerusalem, a community where they vowed
to keep the memory of Christ ALIVE. They would live in simplicity, love,
and forgiveness, just as he had taught them.
The
members of this community lived in great solitude for over a hundred years,
reflecting on the [very real] life of Jesus and attempting to remain faithful
to his ways. And they did all this despite the overwhelming sorrow that
remained at their core.”
“But
their isolation was broken when, a small band of missionaries reached the
settlement. These missionaries were amazed at the community they found. What
was most startling to them was that these people had no knowledge of the
resurrection of Christ, for their founders had left Jerusalem before he was
raised by God on the third day.
Without
hesitation, the missionaries gathered all the community members and recounted
what had occurred after the crucifixion of their Lord.
(as
you can imagine) That evening there was a great festival in the settlement as
people celebrated the good news the missionaries brought.
Yet, as the night
progressed, one of the missionaries noticed that the leader of the community
was absent. This bothered the young woman, so she set out to look for this
respected elder.
She
found him crouched low in a hut - praying and weeping. “Why
are you in such sorrow?” she asked in amazement. “Today is a time to celebrate
the resurrection!”
“It
may indeed be a day for great celebration, but this is also a day of sorrow,”
replied the elder.
“Since the founding of this community
1. we have
followed the ways taught to us by Christ.
2. We have been
faithful even though it cost us dearly, and
3. we remained
resolute despite the belief that death had defeated Jesus and would one day
defeat us also.”
The
elder slowly got to his feet and looked the young woman in the eye.
“Each day we have forsaken our very lives
for him because we judged him wholly worthy of the sacrifice, wholly worthy of
our being.
But now, following your news, I am
concerned that my children and my children’s children may follow him, not
because of his radical life and supreme sacrifice, but selfishly,
because his sacrifice will ensure their personal salvation and eternal life.”
(The
elder turned and left the hut to go to the celebration and left the young missionary stayed
crouched on the floor of the hut in tears. . .)[v]
Community Keeps
Jesus Alive
These
solitary Jesus’ followers knew the ‘dangerous Jesus’ and they kept his ways in
spite of the cost.
They
never domesticated him into the safe-stuffed Jesus who, with
non-threatening smiles, offers US eternal life.
For
too many people today, Easter’s resurrection story is simply a guarantee of
eternal life – without the dangerous personal relationship that challenges
our day to day living.
We
need the REAL experience of the Living Lord and our world needs his
resurrected presence, not a stuffed replica.
In
order for the world to MEET and truly ENCOUNTER the Living Lord, the Dangerous
Jesus, WE HAVE TO BE THE TESTIMONY TO HIS PRESENCE.
- It is IN OUR LIVES, that the “resurrection is made manifest.”
The
thing is - we need encouragement too.
We
need to be reminded of the personal relationship we have so we can risk
living the way Jesus requires.
Encouragement
is why we come here, to today to hear the story again.
"We
do not come to church simply to remind our conscious minds that Jesus
lives."[vi]
We
come to be prodded to take ‘safe Jesus’ off the shelf.
We
come for the courage to go with ‘dangerous Jesus’ into the world and to BE HIS
LIVING PRESENCE TODAY.
(put away stuffed
animals)
We
do not worship a stuffed Jesus & we don’t need stuffed reminders him.
We
worship the Risen Lord, raised to a new order of being and who
gives us new life; life to be lived right now with all its danger and risk.
‘Dangerous
Jesus’ is alive and loose in the world!
We
proclaim him when we say,
the
Lord is risen...he is risen indeed.
Amen
2 comments:
Nancy, thank you, thank you.
"For too many people today, Easter’s resurrection story is simply a guarantee of eternal life –" ... the real Jesus is so much more...
Blessings as you preach
Wonderful, potent images. Thank you.
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