I KNOW MY FATHER IS IN HEAVEN

A Sermon by Rev. James D. Brown

Market Square Presbyterian Church

Easter, March 23, 2008

 

  Isaiah 25:6-9 and Matthew 28:1-10

 

Last Sunday I noted that today would be the earliest Easter has fallen in almost 100 years, and that it won’t be this early again for over 200 years.  I also mentioned that due to following different calendars, our Orthodox brothers and sisters will be celebrating Easter much later than we are.

 

Sunday afternoon I received an email from the pastor of our sister church on the West Bank in the Holy Land, Father Emil Salayta.  He sent us Easter greetings from St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, where a number of us had gone last summer and stayed in homes of parishioners and participated in a summer camp for over a hundred young people.  Father Emil sent us best wishes and best regards for a Blessed Easter.

 

He then made this interesting comment.  “Well, this week you are starting the Holy Week of Easter, as are the churches in Jerusalem but not in Jifna and Ramallah.  For some years now we agreed to unite with the Orthodox community—they join us for Christmas and we join their calendar for Easter.  So actually, we just started our Lent and today (March 16) was the first Sunday of Lent.  Our Easter will be by the end of April, over a month later than yours!”

 

With  our beloved friends in Jifna very much on our minds and in our hearts, we now turn to the Easter narrative in Matthew, seeking signs of hope for us and for them as they continue their faithful witness in a part of the world that has been engulfed in conflict for the better part of a hundred years.  

 

As I said last week, it is a good thing Easter is early for us.  Who among us has not had the sense over these past weeks that we are poised on a brink of some sort—that divergent paths are in front of us, and that serious obstacles confront us whichever way we turn.  Mortgage papers that seemed so full of promise have become missives of sorrow.  We’re just now getting the hang of the fact that seeming panaceas like fuel made from corn for our cars has a flip side of skyrocketing food prices that are especially catastrophic for the poorest of the poor in our world.  There are no easy paths in front of us, not a one. 

 

This was o so true for the two Marys who made their way to Jesus’ tomb that first Easter.  We have much to learn from them, so let’s join Mary Magdalene and the other Mary—who is described elsewhere as the mother of James and Joseph.  This second Mary might have been Jesus’ mother, but it’s more likely that she was another of the faithful women who stayed with Jesus until the very end, even as his stalwart followers like Peter ran off in fear and bewilderment.

 

The text says quite simply that the two Marys “went to see the tomb.”  Here we need to scratch beneath the surface a bit.  The Greek word for “see” used here means a lot more than to take a peak.  It means they went to study, to watch expectantly the place where Jesus was buried.  Here are no sad women carrying spices to anoint a dead body, but believers who went in anticipation that Jesus’ promise would come true—that on the third day he would be raised from the dead by God.  Here’s how Kimberly Clayton puts it:

 

These two women, along with many other women who had followed

Jesus from Galilee to Golgotha saw him teach and heal; saw his crucifixion; and because of all that, at least two of them came to see the tomb.  They came to see that it was empty—just as he had promised….[i]

 

Next they hear an angelic voice telling them that the news is good—very good—and that Jesus will be meeting his friends in Galilee.  Jesus greets them in what must have been a lightning quick moment of transcendent love.  “Greetings” he said.  Once again our English word doesn’t do the text justice.  The Greek word is akin to Hello! or even Hi!  It’s the way we greet those closest to us.  It’s no wonder they fell at his feet, reaching out to embrace him. 

 

Then he is gone, after a tantalizing statement to tell “my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”  Brothers—he can only be referring to Peter and James and John and all the rest who had headed for the hills after the horrors of Golgotha.  This short encounter takes us to the very heart of what we believe about Jesus and about God.

 

There is nothing here that follows are regular thought process, our moral reasoning.  Hmm, we say.  Jesus’ key disciples have a lot of explaining to do.  They chickened out.  They owe Jesus a zillion apologies.   They should be begging forgiveness.  Instead, the resurrected Christ is about the joyful business of rounding them up, of welcoming them the way the father raced to meet the prodigal son who was returning home. 

 

Don’t you see, the central figure in Easter is God.  God raised Jesus from the dead.  The resurrected Jesus did not return to time and space as we know it.  He is no longer bound by time and space.  He has entered eternity, which is to say he has gone home to God.

 

We are dealing here with a great mystery.    The Catholic theologian, Karl Rahner, once wrote that “death does not mean we only change horses and ride on.”  To be in heaven is to be with God.  That’s the essential testimony of the Easter story.   The resurrected Christ is fully with God.   That’s why the glimpses of the early witnesses like the two Marys are so fleeting. 

 

We’re now at the crux of the matter.  So what does this say about us, about our living and our dying?  Agnes Norfleet, the pastor of Shandon Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South Carolina tells a story about two young girls whose father had died suddenly of cancer.  “Three months earlier,” she writes, the older sister “had knelt before me on her day of Confirmation, and I had anointed her forehead with a cross smelling of frankincense and myrrh.   Little did I know she would so soon taste its bitter perfume.[ii]”

 

Agnes Norfleet met with the girls and their mother to plan the memorial service.  The two girls, ages 11 and 14, said they wanted to speak at the service.  Their mother tried to talk them out of it, as did their pastor:  “Are you sure you can do this?”  The look of fierce determination on the girls’ faces settled the matter, and on the day of the service the older sister spoke for the two of them.  She thanked everyone for coming, and then she astonished everyone there with her testimony:

 

“I know my father is in heaven with God and Jesus because he has been

raised to live with God.”  She told a story about getting stitches in one hand and how her father asked her to squeeze his hand hard to take her mind off being sewn up.  “I squeezed so hard I know it hurt him, but I will never forget his holding my hand that day,” she said.  “My love for my father and his love for me will never die, because he is alive with God.  I believe in the resurrection, and I know that in heaven Jesus has prepared a special place for him.”[iii]

 

This young women, wise in faith way beyond her years—maybe this is why Jesus wanted the children to come to him—has deciphered the essence of the Easter message—that in our living and in our dying we are alive with God. 

 

A few weeks back we had a Sunday morning class on the accounts of the resurrection found in the four Gospels, Matthew (from which we read today), Mark, Luke and John.  Each of these accounts has its own nuances.  For example, folks don’t arrive at the tomb in the same order and their encounters with the Risen Christ are varied—with joy predominating in some cases and fear in others. 

 

We also learned that the Gospels say absolutely nothing about the “how” of resurrection, with no analysis or even speculation about what happened between Good Friday and Easter.  There is no eye-witness testimony to how Jesus escapes the bonds of death—only testimony to brief encounters on Easter and for a while afterwards.  It is this testimony to which we cling, along the testimony of a 14 year-old girl whose Dad squeezed her hand so hard that love became indelible and eternal because of her conviction that her father was alive with God.

 

In the class on the resurrection we talked about how mysterious this whole matter of resurrection really is.  I quoted Karl Rahner, the Catholic theologian, to the effect that “we have to learn to think of eternity without imagining it.”     

 

A few days later a member of the class sent me an email that, with her permission, I’d like to share with you this Easter Sunday.  It resonates with both wonderment and affirmation akin to the mix of fear and great joy experienced by the two Marys:

 

Hi Jim—just a note to tell you how interesting Adult Forum was today with

the discussion of the resurrection.  I appreciated you helping us take time

during Lent to really think on this.  You were right.  I’ve never really

pondered it quite like I did today.  I was struck by your comment about

nothing being written that provided any account or explanation during thetime from burial to finding the empty tomb.  Perhaps it hit them the same way as it does me today—it’s hard to explain or account for something so totally mysterious.  One can’t help but be at a loss for words.  As I think more about what it means to pass from this earth, reflecting on my parents age and approach to this last phase of life, I can say that without a doubt—I don’t totally get it but I don’t need to in order for it to bring me comfort and I’m sure glad about that!   Thanks again.

 

When you get right down to it, Easter is all about testimony like this.  Our faith hangs on the testimony a handful of persons in an out of way country in the Roman empire 2000 years ago.   But this testimony does not stand alone.  It is being buttressed every day by believers who have their own Aha!  moments as they make their way along life’s path.  William Wilimon, formerly of Duke and now a Methodist Bishop in Alabama, tells of visiting a dying man.  He asked him what he was feeling.  Was he fearful?

 

“Fear?  No,” he responded, “I’m not fearful because of my faith in Jesus.”

“We all have hope that our future is in God’s hands,” Wilimon said, somewhat piously.

“Well, I’m not hopeful because of what I believe about the future,” he  corrected me, “I’m hopeful because of what I’ve experienced in the past.”

I asked him to say more.

“I look back over my life, all the mistakes I’ve made, all the times I’ve turned away from Jesus, gone my own way, strayed and got lost.  And time and again, he found a way to get to me, showed up and got me, looked for me when I wasn’t looking for him.  I don’t think he’ll let something like my dying defeat his love for me.”[iv]

 

This takes us right back to where we started—at the tomb with Mary Magdalene and the other Mary—watching intently  for the One who had promised them that in following him they would be led home to God.  He said Hello, and that’s all they needed to know.  “Hello.  Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”  

 

We best be on our way.

 

MARKET SQUARE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

I Know My Father is in Heaven