"Resurrection"
A Sermon by
The Reverend Bill Clark
While attending seminary, Holy Week celebrations, throughout the hallowed halls of Harvard were always an interesting experience. Each day of Holy Week a different denomination would offer its service in the Divinity School Chapel. Monday was the Episcopals, Tuesday, the Catholics, Wednesday was the community service led by the Divinity School Chaplain, Thursday the Lutherans and Friday, the Unitarian Universalists. There were the typical side comments and questions of why the Unitarian Universalists got to have their service on Good Friday. Why, they don't even celebrate the Easter holiday. The seminarian who had signed up for the service that Friday found him/herself fretting over what should they would preach about on Good Friday.
Often the more telling conversation would occur in the weeks prior to Good Friday and Easter. Over lunch or coffee, ministerial interns who happened to be preaching on Easter Sunday could be found discussing their sermon topics. I am a Unitarian Universalist preaching on Easter Sunday, what do I talk about? Generally the topics ranged from the color white and its significance to Spring or the pagan celebration of Ostara, the goddess of Spring. Curiously, there was never any mention of the resurrection of Jesus. "It's Easter," I recalled piping up once, "talk about the resurrection of Jesus Christ." There seemed to be this deadly silence, no pun intended.
"We're Unitarian Universalist," someone stated, "We don't believe in that, do we? Do you believe that, Bill? Do you believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ?"
There. It had been asked. The question was out on the table. So amidst our eating and drinking we talked about the resurrection. There often occurred deep theological discourse far outside the classrooms of the hallowed halls of Harvard.
So today is Easter Sunday - my first Easter Sunday as your minister. The question remains to be answered. Do we, as Unitarian Universalists believe the Easter story? Do we believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Do I, as an ordained UU minister believe in the resurrection? I figured our first year together we should get these tough questions out of the way.
The Easter Story, told and retold for generations, is one of the most profound and prophetic in human history. The question remains, yet, what is our role in this story? As free-thinking religious liberals what is our interpretation of the Easter Story? How do we view the resurrection narrative?
First, it must be said I do not think there is any "we" in our response to theological inquiries. As each of us has been called to this faith and this community we also have been called to use our rational thinking minds to view theological issues. The "we's" in our thinking, if you will, the collective conscience of our thinking minds, come together around our common set of values and not our theological beliefs.
As was seen in the children's conversation, some of us gathered here today wholeheartedly believe in the resurrection of Jesus and the Easter story. Others do not. Others have doubts. "Cherish your doubts," Robert Weston reminds us, "for doubt is the attendant of truth. Doubt is the key to the door of knowledge; it is the servant of discovery." It is through our doubts then that perhaps our truth will be discovered.
And what is the truth of the resurrection? Truth, according to Gandhi, is "like the fire at the heart of a many faced jewel. Each angle shows a different aspect and different color." There are varying aspects and angles to the truth of the resurrection. Each of the four gospels offers us that different angle and different color to this truth. I choose the reading from the gospel of Mark, because Mark, is historically the first gospel and was initially passed down through the oral tradition. The original ending of the gospel is that of which we heard, the young man telling the women to go and tell Peter and the disciples that Jesus will meet them in Galilee. They flee from the tomb in terror and amazement and tell no one. Perhaps they, too, had doubts.
Further along in scripture we read another interpretation of the resurrection. Offering yet another angle, aspect, and color to the story. In Paul's first letters to the Corinthians he compares the resurrection of Christ to that of a seed that perishes in order to bring forth grain. He writes in 1st Corinthians 15, "there are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies...So also is the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised imperishable; It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body."
And then with a tremendous emphasis, as if he wants to make the nature of the resurrection clear for all times, he repeats; "There is a physical body and there is a spiritual body," thus, Paul points to the essence of the resurrection.
Sociologist Peter Berger, offers another explanation of the resurrection that I, as a Unitarian Universalist, can also embrace. "The resurrection," states Berger, "is no longer regarded as an event in the external world of physical nature, but is 'translated' to refer to existential or psychological phenomena in the consciousness of the believer."
The question, then, as dismissed by Paul the apostle and Peter the sociologist, is not whether there was a physical resurrection. There is a physical body and there is a spiritual body. The question to be pondered on this Easter Sunday 2000 years later, is what the resurrection story - the Easter story - means to us? What does the Easter story have to say to us? And what new truth does the Easter story proclaim to us?
Now first, you cannot get to Easter Sunday without passing through Good Friday. As Martin Luther King Jr. stated, "there is something at the very center of our faith which reminds us that Good Friday may occupy the throne for the day, but ultimately it must give way to the triumphant beat of the Easter drums."
What occupies us for that one day is this notion of death. Be it the physical death of the physical body of the physical Jesus, or the spiritual death amidst a spiritual crisis, in a spiritual dilemma - that death will ultimately give way to the triumphant beat of the Easter drums. A physical death will lead to a spiritual resurrection. A physical death will lead to spiritual transformation.
This is the profound and prophetic message of the Easter story. This is what the Easter message invites us to hear. That the resurrection symbolizes death's transforming power, the transforming power of the birth of the new out of the death of the old - the message of our ability to die, be it physically, spiritually or emotionally and to be reborn, to be transformed and to be renewed over and over and over again in our lifetime.
French writer, Andre' Maurios alluded to this when he wrote, (partir cést mourir un peu) "to leave is to die a little bit." To leave home and go out into the world, to leave for college, to leave one's family, is to die a little bit. To leave the pain of childhood memories, to leave one's addictions, to leave one's friends, is to die a little bit. To leave the faith of your upbringing, to leave your job, to leave a marriage, is to die a little bit. To leave the security of all that has become familiar is to die a little bit. To leave unfulfilled hopes, to leave unfulfilled dreams, to accept defeats, failures or sickness is to die a little bit. To die a little bit is to experience, what Annie Dillard calls the itsy-bitsy deaths along the way - "to stand at the gaps where the creeks and wind pour down and to be prepared to leave, is to die a little bit."
And following each and every one of these deaths breathes the transforming power and possibility of resurrection. Unitarian Universalist minister David Rankin, writes, "a resurrection is always a mystery - though it happens every day."
It does happen everyday. I know he is right. I have seen it. We all may have seen it. We all have experienced it. Look into the eyes of anyone struggling with a life-threatening illness and see the smile of transformation and renewal as they are told their t-cells counts have tripled or their tumor has disappeared - there lies the resurrection. Note the transformation of the addict's life when struggle and strength has triumphed over delusion and despair - there lies the resurrection. Bask in the peaceful serenity of a dying friend's acceptance of disease and feel the transforming power as they let go - there too, lies the resurrection. In each and every death there lies the power and possibility for renewal and resurrection. This is the truth I glean from the Easter story.
I experienced this truth once again when I attended the Follen Unitarian Universalist Community Church Tenebrae, Good Friday service.
There through powerful readings and candlelight the suffering and death of Jesus as a metaphor for all the suffering in the world was held up. The suffering in the Sudan, the suffering of a mother watching her child die, the intense agony and suffering that surrounds us all. I sat there with tears flowing down my face almost unable to comprehend all the suffering around us.
We then departed in silence and in the dark. It felt overwhelming and extremely hopeless. Hope died that night. Love died that night. The truth is that we all must sit in the dark, sit in the tomb of our own despair and hopelessness. And then when we can sit no longer, cry no longer, grieve no longer, then and only then, comes the great and triumphant cry of No!
No we are not left in the tomb. No we are not left in the dark. No this is not where the Easter story ends. It ends with a YES!
Wallace Stevens writes, "After the final no there comes a yes." After the final no to hopelessness and despair, after the final no to drugs and alcohol, after the final no to abuse, after the letting go, the final good-bye, the final giving up, the final meeting, the final discussion, the final decision, the final death, there comes a movement. There comes a yes! And on that yes the future of the world depends. For it is on that yes, the possibility of rebirth begins. Yes, I am willing to leave. Yes I am ready to let go. Yes I will live through this. Yes I will die this death. "Unto your hands I commend my spirit".
Jesus had to die on Good Friday to be raised on Easter Sunday. Yes, I will let go, relinquish, give-up and give over to make way for the new. This is the process of renewal. This is the mystery of resurrection. It is that rebirth of new hope and new life and new dreams and new visions and new missions and the possibility of a new vitalized church home with the leaving of the old and the rising of the new - "roots hold me close - wings set me free!"
My friends, the world is wilder than this in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, but more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee. We are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus, or ourselves.
The Easter story that invites all people of all faiths to celebrate, is this message of the resurrection of hope and wonder. There is new life after each death. At the time of our deepest despair, at the moments of our darkest hour, at those days of sadness over the leaving and dying a little bit, let the resurrection of new life and new hope be raised from the depths of our spirits. In that moment of rebirth and renewal we sing praise for that day of joy and gladness. This is what the Easter story invites us to believe.
Do I believe the Easter story and in the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Absolutely I do! To me it is not a story of a man's victory over a physical death rather it is the story of humanity's capability for spiritual renewal, resurrection and transformation from darkness, defeat and despair. The resurrection awaits us all. It was not a once-in-a-lifetime miracle. It does happen every day. In it the future takes over the past, hope triumphs over despair, and the grace of the new rises over the ruin of the old.
My friends, in this our first Easter together, may we be forever grateful and forever blessed for these new and renewed days ahead - for these are the days of light and gladness. Happy, happy Easter. And may the peace, joy and possibility of what this Sunday represents remain with us all throughout our times, our discussions and our decisions ahead. I thank you God for this most amazing day!!
Blessed Be.