We've Heard It Before

The Readings for the Easter Day can be found here.

Easter Day – Year A

April 20, 2014

The Rev. Christopher Caddell

A few years back I spent my summer as a chaplain in a medium-sized nursing home in the middle of rural Tennessee.  It’s the summer that every first-year seminarian looks forward to with grand ideas of ministry outside the bounds of academic rigor, but it is also the summer everyone dreads because of the intense emotional toll it takes to be a chaplain in a health care setting.

For the first few weeks, I would go by rooms, introduce myself, spend some time talking, praying, holding hands.  I learned quickly there were to be good days and bad.  Some patients welcomed me, others were ambivalent, and still others were not at all interested, even hostile.  Depending on the day, any one patient could fall anywhere on that spectrum.

I still remember the day I met Amy.

Amy was delightful. She was cheery, upbeat, and seemed to be very interested in visiting with me.  I learned about her family, where she grew up, what she had done in life, how old her kids were, the names and ages of her grand children . . . On and on, I heard about Amy’s life. 

Then she started to ask about me.  When I told her that I was in seminary training to be an Episcopal priest, she said, “well I’m an Episcopalian.”

We talked about the church and what she loved about the liturgy.  We talked about my diocese and my bishops.  I told her what brought me to seminary, and how I looked forward to going home to my diocese to begin a new ministry there.

As our conversation came to a close, I prayed with her, and before I left, I asked if I could come back the next day and pray Morning Prayer with her.  She said that she would delight in that and look forward to it.

The next morning I arrived and headed straight for the dining room where we agreed to meet. When I got there, I couldn’t find Amy.  I waited for a moment, and then decided to go look for her.  I finally found her sitting in her room.

“Amy?,” I said.  “It’s me, Chris. We met yesterday, remember?  Do you still want to read Morning Prayer with me?”

She looked at me, a little puzzled, and nodded.

So I pulled up a chair beside her and began Morning Prayer.

I still remember the reading from that day.  It was from Matthew.  You know the story.  Jesus is teaching his disciples about the kingdom of heaven and he compares the kingdom to the vineyard owner who goes out to hire laborers for the harvest – he hires early in the morning, then again at midday, and again in the late afternoon.

About half-way through the reading, Amy stops me and with a little frustration and even some hostility in her voice looks at me and says, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I’ve heard this one before.” Then she proceeded to roll her wheelchair out of the room and left me sitting there holding my bible.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I’ve heard this one before.”

I wonder how many of us, once again, on hearing the story of the empty tomb, found ourselves saying that in one sense or another.  Of course, none of us would really say it in this setting, or I hope you wouldn’t.  I’m thankful that none of you walked out after hearing the gospel, leaving the church empty.  But I still wonder that if somewhere deep down inside we hear the story and think, even if it is for a very brief moment, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I’ve heard it before.’

Our familiarity with the Easter story can, ironically, strip the awe and wonder of what happens to be the central and most important claim of the Christian faith.  Without Easter, without the empty tomb, all that comes before can only be described as tragic and without meaning.  But just like reading a mystery novel for the second time, without the element of surprise, something is lost.

Yet what God did is the surprise ending.  No matter how familiar we become with this story, the basic fact is that God acted in a way that was unexpected, seemingly impossible, and in a place where all hope was lost.

There’s more.  In the weeks and years to come, the apostles began to see the resurrection not only as the surprise ending to the death of Jesus, but also the very way that God was working in their lives.  Things did not end with the empty tomb.  It was rather, quite the opposite.  Things began with the empty tomb.  Resurrection was not just the way God had worked that first Easter day, but the way God was working in their lives, here and now.

Their message was not because Jesus was raised from the dead, they would go to heaven.  Instead, their message was because Jesus was raised from the dead, they too have been raised to new life with Christ – not at some distant point in the future, but here, now, today.

The empty tomb was not something just to be witnessed, but also something experienced.   This is the new creation.  This is the way God acts.  This is the way God brings forth new life.

And just like that first Easter morning, it’s surprising.  It’s unexpected.  And it often happens in places where resurrection seems impossible and all hope is lost.

It is interesting to note that John does not say why Mary Magdalene went back to the tomb.  We tend to merge the stories and think that she had gone back to finish burying Jesus properly, but that comes from Luke and Mark.  In John’s gospel, Jesus has already received a proper burial – Joseph of Aramathea and Nicodemus had seen to that.  What makes Mary goes back to the tomb is unknown.

I like to think it was that in her grief, there was no place she would rather be.  She didn’t want to move on.  She didn’t want hide from the tragedy. 

Whatever the case, it was her choosing to be present in the place of deepest pain that made her the first to witness the empty tomb.  She saw resurrection because she placed herself in and opened herself up to the place where God was most likely to act.

I think the piece of us that says, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I’ve heard that before,” is the piece that doesn’t know resurrection.  It’s the piece that isn’t looking for God’s activity in our lives.  It’s the piece that tries to say, “Everything is fine.  I can do this on my own.  God couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything anyway.”  It’s the piece that doesn’t want to linger in those dark places.

But resurrection doesn’t happen in the middle of the beautiful city of Jerusalem, but rather on a hill overlooking the trash heap, where all hope is lost, and where death is all that can be seen.

There is another piece of us that knows this story to be true.  There’s a piece that remembers when we thought all hope was lost and were given new life.  A piece that remembers a time when we thought we would drown in our tears and were surprised to find joy again.  A piece that said tragedy and death has the final say, but found that to be a lie.

The truth is, to hear the story of the resurrection is to hear our story.  It is a reminder that it is our story that is being recounted to us. This is how God works again and again, surprising us in our darkest moments, lifting us up from the depths of despair, and raising us to new life.

Remember that story.  Remember that Jesus lives!  Remember that in him, we are raised to new life.  And remember that resurrection is not something that happened but something that happens, here, now, today, in my life and in yours.  Amen.