Easter Sunday
Rev. Susan Gilbert Zencka
Frame Memorial Presbyterian Church

Texts: Mark 16:1-8; Acts 10:34-43

Sometimes it just seems as if the world will never move forward. We humans just seem to fumble and tumble and occasionally rumble from one discouraging development to another. This week’s Christian Century magazine reported the following: “A peace conference in Johannesburg, intended to highlight the way sports can promote peace (the soccer World Cup will be held in South Africa in 2010), was canceled after the government refused a visa for the Tibetan exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and two Nobel Peace Prize winners threatened to boycott the event. Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former South African president F. W. de Klerk had said they would have to reconsider their decision to attend the conference if the Dalai Lama, a fellow Nobel Prize winner, was not granted a visa for the meeting.” Great… the peace conference was canceled because of conflicts over which peacemakers could come. I can understand why Anne Lamott would say, as she did in her most recent book, Grace, Actually, that being human is often a dispiriting experience.

As we think about that which is discouraging and dispiriting, the story of Easter in Mark’s Gospel surely comes to mind. After chapter upon chapter of Mark relating miraculous and defining events: healings, exorcisms, mass feedings, walking on water, transformed people and a transformative messiah, finally the authorities had put Jesus to death. And then, the women came to the grave – grieving, and timid, and worried…they want to do what should be done for the body of the One they loved, but they haven’t a clue whether they will be able to, for the grave was closed with a large stone, and they don’t know how they will be able to open it.

And then, the grave is open! The body is gone! And the young man says that Christ is risen! And he tells them to go, tell the disciples and Peter that he has gone ahead of them to Galilee.
Go…Tell…. This is is stark contrast to what Jesus has said all throughout Mark’s Gospel. Every time something amazing has happened, he has said “Shhh, don’t tell anyone….” But the people always told. And the telling created crowds, and notoriety, and it made it harder for him to travel, and it aroused the concern of the authorities. They always told.

“Go and tell….” And what do they do? The last verse of our reading does tell: “So 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 end.

Not much of an ending for a story whose first sentence was: The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It began with a bang…and ended with a slow leak.

The Gospel of Mark as we know it now has another ending likely added in later editing, a more satisfactory one, where Jesus also appears to the disciples, and they listen to him, and they go and spread the good news everywhere. But most scholars believe that the shorter ending is the original one. And in many ways it is consistent with the whole gospel of Mark, in which the disciples repeatedly fail to understand who Jesus is and what he is teaching. This, by the way, should be very affirming to those of us who find ourselves wondering about Jesus – what he meant, whether his miracles were really real, what his resurrection was really like. People at the time wondered too. His closest friends had trouble really understanding what he was all about.

The thing is – although this ending was likely the original ending, the ending Mark intended – it certainly leaves some important questions out there. I don’t wonder why the women were afraid – of course they were afraid. They were already afraid on the way to the grave. After all, Jesus had been executed, and they all had to be concerned as to whether the authorities would be rounding them up next. But then, to find the body missing, and this strange young man saying Jesus has been raised and would meet them in Galilee? After they already saw him suffer and die? Maybe this was just some kind of trick…and who would believe them if they told this story? Going straight home and not saying anything was the prudent thing to do.

Let’s look at our other story this morning. The other story comes in the book of Acts – the story of the early Church. The apostles are preaching boldly, and accomplishing their own miracles. There have been healings, but the first martyr, Stephen, has been stoned to death. And even so, they keep preaching. And then in Acts 10, we get the story of Peter and Cornelius. This is a marvelous story – very important in the development of the church. So let me give you the backstory, before we read the passage. Cornelius is a Roman centurion – a Roman military officer commanding a cohort of 100. Cornelius is described as a “devout man who feared God with all his household… gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly.” The earlier part of the chapter describes a vision he receives at about 3 in the afternoon – an angel tells him that God has taken note of him and that he should send someone to Joppa to get Simon Peter to come to him, although he would be unlikely to come, as Jews were forbidden to visit Gentiles, and visiting Roman military officials wasn’t on any disciple’s wish list. So Cornelius sends two slaves and a soldier to get Peter, a day’s journey away. The next day, before they arrive, Peter went up to the roof to pray. He has a vision: he sees something like a large sheet being lowered from heaven, full of all sorts of animals, mostly non-kosher animals – forbidden to be eaten under Jewish law. He hears a voice saying “Get up, Peter, kill and eat.” But Peter answers, “No way, God, for I never eat unclean or profane food.” Then the voice says, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” This happens three times, and then the sheet is taken up to heaven. Then Peter hears the Spirit saying “Look, three men have come for you – go with them for I have sent them.” And at this point, the men from Cornelius arrive, and ask him to come with them. So Peter goes with them, taking along some other believers. When they get to Caesarea, Peter goes into Cornelius’ home, and reminds the people there that it is forbidden for Jews to visit Gentiles, but that God has shown him that he must not call anyone profane or unclean. Cornelius also explains his vision, and asks to hear what Peter would say to them, and this is where our reading begins. [Read Acts 10:34-43]

After this, the Holy Spirit falls upon the Gentiles, who come to faith and are baptized. When he goes to Jerusalem, they are very critical of his having stayed with Cornelius, and hearing that he has baptized them only makes things worse. He explains the vision he had, and everyone comes to understand that the Word of God is also for the Gentiles. As Peter said, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”

This is a huge turning point in the early church. Up until this point, they have been preaching only to the Jewish community, but now they realize that God wants everyone included. As Methodist bishop William Willamon points out, God not only reached out to convert Cornelius and his household, but also to convert Peter and the other disciples. It’s huge. And it has come through confident prayerful discernment, and preaching…an awfully long way from the disciples hiding after the death of Jesus .

The big question this raises for me is how did we get from the women hiding after visiting the grave, and the men to afraid to even get to the grave…. to a story so compelling that it empowered Peter and the other disciples to preach it and reach out, even to enter the home of a Roman military commander?

This is the story of Easter. This is the power of the resurrection. This is the power of God’s love that wouldn’t give up – not on Jesus, not on those who were trying to understand and follow him, not on us. This is the power that raised Jesus and transformed those who had encountered him as well. This is the new life, not only of the One who was crucified and is now alive, but the new life of those who permitted themselves to encounter him, who found themselves experiencing not only the risen Christ, but their own transformation in experiencing the Living God.

Something new began – something new, and powerful, and compelling, that changed lives, and eventually transformed an Empire. But those who were inspired, enthused, and transformed had to be willing not only to open their minds and hearts to God, but they had to be willing to let go of old ways of thinking. And that can be a kind of dying too – letting go of “The Way it Has Been” and the way we have been in order to let ourselves be transformed – that takes a special kind of courage. The courage to hope.

These days, there’s a lot of talk about the post-modernism, and even about post-Christendom. This is, by the way, not about the end of Christianity, but the end of our culture being defined by Christian norms. Newsweek’s cover story this week is “The Decline and Fall of Christian America”. The author, Jon Meacham, is quite clear that he is not talking about the end of Christianity, but the end of the cultural dominance that Christianity has had in America.

Some people find this a troubling idea. Others of us find it exciting – an opportunity to re-engage our faith, and see how the Spirit leads us when following God is not reduced to fitting in. As I read about the people of God from Noah to Abraham to Jeremiah to Jesus to Peter and Paul, if one thing is clear it is that God has rarely called people to fitting in.

Phyllis Tickle is an Episcopalian who has written an important book for those of us who find the potential transformation of the Church intriguing. It is called The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why. In it, she draws on the work of Anglican bishop Mark Dyer who explains that in order to understand what is going on in the Church today, we first need to understand that throughout its history (clear back to its Jewish origins), Christianity has undergone a major transformation and revitalization about every 500 years. From now, going back 500 years and you’re at the Reformation, when the Protestants emerged and Catholicism also was reformed and revitalized. 500 years prior to that was the Great Schism, when the Eastern and Western Churches split over their understanding of the Holy Spirit and each went their own way with new energy. 500 years before that, Gregory the Great led the church through a renewal following the fall of the Roman Empire. 500 years before that was the emergence of Christianity. 500 years before that was a period of rebuilding and renewal following the Jewish exile into Babylon. 500 years before that was the era of King David and King Solomon and the first building of the temple.

What will be the outcome of this period? What tired ideas and comfortable habits is it time to let go of in order to let God breathe new life, new understanding, and new energy into the Church? What certainties does each of us need to let go of in order to experience the power of the living God? What is emerging in the Church, and what is possible to emerge in each of us? While being human is occasionally dispiriting, being a part of God’s new creation can blow something new into our own lives, too.

Wendell Berry has a wonderful poem, too long to share, called “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front”. I’m going to share some of it, excerpting and skipping around. I’ll have copies of the full poem on the back table if you are interested.


Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it…
.

Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years….

Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts….
Practice resurrection.


That’s what we’re called to – we’re not called to belief in resurrection so much as to practice resurrection. I don’t want to settle for only a world that I can understand and manage, I want to practice resurrection, to live alleluia, I want to wonder and marvel and to be part of whatever God is bringing into being today. I don’t want to think about Easter, I want to live it out, every day. Practice resurrection, live alleluia. Amen.