Wandering Heart: “And I Hope!”
Resurrection Sunday: March 31, 2024
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!
On this lovely spring day, it is easy to understand and see resurrection, because it is all around us! On this Resurrection Sunday everyone is welcome – doubters and faithfilled, dreamers and realists, whole and broken, leaders and followers, believers and unbelievers. Welcome. Christ is risen whether we believe it or not, whether we understand it or not. All we can say is Alleluia!
March 31, 2024: Resurrection Sunday
Reading from the Gospel: Luke 24:1-12
24 But very early on Sunday morning the women went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. 2 They found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. 3 So they went in, but they didn’t find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 As they stood there puzzled, two men suddenly appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes.
5 The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the men asked, “Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? 6 He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! Remember what he told you back in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again on the third day.”
8 Then they remembered that he had said this. 9 So they rushed back from the tomb to tell his eleven disciples—and everyone else—what had happened.10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and several other women who told the apostles what had happened. 11 But the story sounded like nonsense to the men, so they didn’t believe it. 12 However, Peter jumped up and ran to the tomb to look. Stooping, he peered in and saw the empty linen wrappings; then he went home again, wondering what had happened.
[Moment of silence]
Listen to the voice of the Spirit speaking to the Church. Thanks be to God.
Message
I wonder if Peter even heard the women when they first came running into the room where he and the other disciples were huddled together fearful, miserable, and full of grief. Peter was buried inside himself, in a deeper level of grief than all of the others combined.
The events of the week since they had come to Jerusalem kept playing over and over in his mind. The way the crowds had welcomed Jesus into the city – like a king. The way Jesus had washed their feet when they gathered for that last supper together and how Peter hadn’t wanted him to wash his feet, but then changed his mind and wanted Jesus to wash all of him. How Jesus had told them he was not going to be with them much longer and how he, Peter, had asked him where he was going and then why he couldn’t go with him, then how he had said he would die for Jesus. How Jesus had told Peter he would deny Jesus three times before morning. But then they had gone to the olive garden and Judas (Judas how could you?), Judas had shown up with the temple guards to arrest Jesus. Peter had grabbed one of their swords and had struck the guard’s ear off. He’d been aiming for his neck, but he was a fisherman, for God’s sake, not a soldier. He didn’t know what he was doing. He just knew he had to defend his rabbi. He wanted to prove he would die for him, would never deny him! Violence wasn’t Jesus’ way. Peter should have known that, but what was he to do? He couldn’t let them arrest him.
That’s exactly what happened, though. Jesus had told Peter to put the sword away, had let the guards take him away. Peter had followed them as they took him to Annas, the high priest’s father-in-law. First, the woman at the gate had asked Peter if he was one of Jesus’ disciples. Peter cringed inside as he remembered how quickly he had said no. Then as he stood at the fire trying to stay warm, trying to stay close, to listen for any news of what was happening inside, another had asked him wasn’t he one of Jesus’ disciples. Again, Peter had said, no, he wasn’t! Then one who had been at the Olive grove said he remembered seeing Peter there when they arrested Jesus.
Peter sank deeper into himself as he recalled how he denied knowing Jesus one more time just as he heard the rooster declaring it was morning. It was true. Jesus was right. Peter not only couldn’t go where Jesus had gone, he couldn’t even stay loyal to him. After how much he had learned from Jesus, how Jesus had helped him to have new insight into who God is, how he had seen Jesus care for the least of them, even him – after all of it, Peter had denied even knowing him!
Now Jesus was dead. Peter would never see him again. He would never have a chance to tell him how right Jesus was about him, never be able to tell him how sorry he was, how ashamed. He would never see again the love in Jesus’ eyes as he looked at Peter and really saw him. Peter groaned inside, “How will I go on? If only I could take it all back! What do I do now?”
Finally, Peter would have realized all the commotion in the room. He would have heard Mary and Salome and the other women telling them about going to the tomb, about seeing the stone rolled away from the opening, the dazzling men and their message. He heard the other disciples telling the women they must have gone to the wrong tomb, that what the women were saying was a load of rubbish.
But the women seemed unperturbed. They seemed certain of what they had seen. In fact, they seemed incensed that the men didn’t believe them. He thought he heard Mary say, “Men!” She was right. They could be obtuse at times, dismissive of the women. He’d been as guilty as any of them.
Then, as he realized just what they were saying about Jesus, he knew he had to see for himself! He leapt from where he had been crumpled in the corner – let’s face it, feeling sorry for himself, feeling all kinds of despair – just moments before. But now, now he was scrambling to get his feet under himself, then running for the door, for the path the women would have just taken, back to the tomb.
As he ran his mind raced. What if what the women said were true? What if those dazzling men had been messengers from heaven? What if Jesus were somehow alive? His legs racing along with his mind brought him to the tomb, the stone rolled away. And there ,on the ledge where Jesus’ crucified body should be, were the linens that would have been hastily wound around him as the Sabbath had approached.
Peter’s breath caught in a sob. Could it be? All those times when Jesus had told them he would die, be buried, and then rise on the third day. This was it! This was the third day! Could it be true? Peter’s thoughts went round and round trying to remember everything Jesus had said. Why hadn’t he listened more and opened his big mouth less? As he made his way back to the others, his mind became full of wonder.
As Brian Bantum writes in his article, “Life after Resurrection,” in The Christian Century,
But the promise of new life is never straightforward, is it? We don’t always recognize liberation when it is announced to us or believe what we hear about good news. We have become accustomed to loss, have seen the sheer power and spite of empire strike down those we love and believe in. Sometimes the trauma and the struggle change us deep down in ways that make it seem impossible to go back to how things were.
The trauma of that week and especially how it had ended had changed Peter deep down. That a new reality, new life, might be possible was hard to imagine.
We know what that’s like. We’ve all lived through trauma. All of us lived through the worst of the Covid pandemic. Some of us have lived through the trauma, like Peter, of losing someone we dearly loved. Some of us have experienced the trauma of losing a job, a relationship, an unrealized future. It’s hard to imagine on the heels of any of those things that new life could be possible.
It's especially difficult when we blame ourselves for what’s happened or we look back and realize we could have handled things so much better – even if what happened wasn’t our fault.
As Peter left the tomb, he still didn’t know what to believe. He was still unsure.
The longer I live, the more things I’m unsure about when it comes to matters of faith. You might expect me, your pastor, to have all the answers. I wish. I don’t know half the things I thought I did when I was younger. I thought Baptists were the only ones who were truly saved. Once saved always saved was my mantra. I walked the aisle, I was baptized – that was it – I was definitely “in.” I was amazed to learn that not everyone believed the same way we Baptists did and doubly amazed that not everyone would jump at the chance to do so!
It's not that I don’t appreciate that grounding in my faith, but I keep learning that there is so much more to learn. For instance, I think salvation is a process. It’s not one and done, and I no longer believe you have to walk an aisle to profess your faith. Faith can be professed in so many other ways.
And when it comes to things like the resurrection, I have to admit, I’m not so sure as I used to be about what that was all about. And I’m learning that that is ok. After all, Peter was right there and heard all those things Jesus said about what was going to happen, and he still wasn’t sure. He heard the women that day and still ran to see if the tomb was really empty.
Perhaps, as Brian McLaren said in his book Faith after Doubt, “Acknowledging how little we know is…at the core of mature faith.” Dr. Karoline Lewis writes, “We are not asked to explain the resurrection.” Perhaps on this Easter Sunday we can say, “I don’t know” and live with wonder and gratitude for the gift of new life wherever it arrives. [from the sermon planning guide for Wandering Heart: Finding Faith with Peter]
American Symphony on Netflix documents a year in the life of musical artists Jon Batiste and his wife Suleika Jaouad. That year the same day Suleika began treatment for the return of leukemia after being 10 years in remission, Batiste received 11 Emmy nominations. The night before her bone marrow transplant, she and Jon were married. He told her, “[W]hat I do want you to know is that this diagnosis doesn’t change anything. It just makes it all the clearer to me that I want to commit to this and for us to be together.” [from “’American Symphony’ on Netflix Documents Suleika Jaouad’s Cancer Journey: How Is Jon Batiste’s Wife Health Now?” by Samantha Nungesser]
In the documentary Jaouad said she and Batiste shared an understanding of “Survival as its own kind of creative life.” [from the Netflix documentary American Symphony] Despite the difficulties they both experienced – facing the effects of the treatment Suleika was undergoing, the panic attacks Jon had been experiencing for many years, the work Jon had to continue on the production of his symphony at Carnegie Hall while Suleika was going through her treatment – they both lived into hope. Glimpses of resurrection kept breaking in.
Peter might have been in the depths of despair, but he still ran to see the empty tomb. He still had hope, and he was filled with wonder after seeing the tomb’s emptiness. Glimpses of resurrection kept breaking in.
In the midst of the troubles of this life – all the division, the chaos, the despair – there is hope. Glimpses of resurrection are all around. It’s just waiting for us to jump up and run towards it.
Will you pray with me?
Resurrecting God, we don’t always see the new life that is trying to break in. Open our eyes. Help us to see what is right before us. We pray in the name of the one who was crucified and yet lives. Amen.
An Invitation to Hope
Are you wondering about what to believe about resurrection? In the midst of every traumatic experience, there is the possibility of new life. Perhaps you are in the midst of one of those experiences even now. Maybe it is impossible for you to see any glimmer of hope, but don’t despair. Even now, there is new life just under the surface, waiting to break in. As Emily Dickinson wrote,
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
Listen for that tune perched in your soul. Amen.