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   Easter Vigil readings

We know the answer, don’t we?  We know what to expect, coming here to church tonight.  In the last few days we lived through Christ’s betrayal and crucifixion; and we asked each other “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?”  And then we lived through the in-between time of Holy Saturday.  And now the sun has set, and the Sabbath is over. And we come to church as early as we can, not content to wait one minute more than we must, to see what awaits. Just like Mary Magdalene and the other Mary as they came to the tomb, but on that first Easter they had no idea what lay in store for them.

They probably arose early that morning, while the men were still asleep. They hadn’t been able to come the day before, such were the Sabbath laws. And so they came as soon as they could, as the day was dawning, to remember Jesus, to try to begin to understand what life would be like without Him. They probably anticipated standing before the tomb, recalling, weeping, wondering.  And then they would go home, without him, for the rest of the lives.

We know that Jesus rose from the dead. We know what happened to the Mary’s that day.  And we know what will happen here, now.  We can say “Alleluia.”  We proclaim mightily, “The Lord is risen indeed.”  We kneel at the altar, taste the bread and wine, the body and blood, and know that Jesus lives, for if He did not, our hope would be in vain. 

But not so for the two women named Mary that morning 2000 years ago. They approached the tomb, and then the earth shook, and the light shone bright.  And while the guards who had been stationed by the tomb to make sure that none of Jesus’s disciples stole his body cowered in stunned fear, the women listened. “Do not be afraid,” were the first words from the angel’s mouth. “I know why you’re here,” he says. “But He’s not here – come see for yourself.  And go tell His disciples that He has been raised from the dead, and He can be found in Galilee.”

Just a week before that Jesus had triumphantly entered Jerusalem, and the hopes of His followers were high – perhaps the world would be changed, and God would be made known. But within a few days He was convicted in a mock trial and sentenced to death, dying slowly and agonizingly on the Cross.  Their hopes had already been tragically dashed once that week, and it was natural to be confused by what the angel said. 

The women were probably afraid – afraid of the earthquakes and lightning and angel, afraid that what the angel said might not be true, perhaps even afraid that what he said was true – for it’s frightening to hope sometimes.  But they were also greatly joyful, and they ran home. Having walked there sullenly and with heavy legs, now they bounded home, in awe and hope.

And then occurs what might be the most interesting thing of all in this passage: Jesus meets them and says, simply, “Greetings.”  All that He goes on to say to them is stuff the angel has already said to them, almost word-for-word:  “Don’t be afraid. Tell my disciples I’ll see them in Galilee.” They already knew that, so Jesus’s appearance to them seems redundant. They knew He’d risen from the dead, they were told to fear not, they had a message to give to the disciples, and they were on their way to give it.  So why this redundant appearance?

I think that God likes surprises.  In fact, it was the surprising nature of God that was the starting point of my spiritual life some years ago.  I was doing graduate study in England, and I approached two Anglican priests whom I liked (one of whom now happens to be the Archbishop of Canterbury), and told them that I was interested in pursuing a more intentional spiritual life, and asked if they had any suggestions about what I might read. Independently on separate occasions, each responded without hesitation, “God of Surprises by Gerard Hughes.” And so I read that book, and have since re-read it several times, and have been moved each time by its central thesis: “God … is a beckoning word.  He calls us out of ourselves and beyond ourselves, he is the God of surprises, always creating anew.”

The surprises in the Bible are too numerous to count:  the youngest son continually being favored over the eldest son; the heroes of the Bible, ranging from uneducated nomads to prostitutes to adulterers; and, ultimately, God incarnate, taking human form, plain in sight and simple in life, ultimately dying, exploding the pagan idea of an omnipotent, never-suffering, aloof God above.

Those are theological surprises, and they are profound.  But today’s Gospel reveals something about the personality of God, and it’s a personal surprise.  Jesus, risen from the dead, knew that the angel had told Mary and Mary what they needed to know.  And He could see them running down the path, hopeful yet scared. Everything that needed to be done had been done, and it would have been fine to have met them and the disciples in Galilee. But that’s not what He did – He met them “suddenly,” like a child at a surprise birthday party who for utter joy can’t contain himself any longer and has to blurt out “Surprise!” way before he’s supposed to. Such is the enthusiasm of God – seeing the people He loved overcome with an as-yet-unfulfilled excitement, He couldn’t let them stay that way. He let the cat out of the bag, He spilled the beans, He took away their fear, and He joined them again, and He missed them no longer, nor did they miss Him.

About five years ago I went to hear a man named Tony Campolo speak.  Now he is an earthy, ruddy, bald pastor from Philadelphia.  Socially conscious, which I like, but a little too evangelical for my blood.  I didn’t know what to expect, but I certainly didn’t expect to love what he had to say as much as I did. It was a great talk. And one of the images I took away from that talk is this one – he was talking about creation.  He was drawing an image of God making the world in all its wonder and diversity.  And the picture of God that he drew wasn’t one of calculated design, carefully plotting what the optimal creation would be and then proceeding according to plan. 

No.  He described God as waking up one morning, looking out the window on the formless world, and deciding with enthusiasm unbounded to make one flower.  And then God looked at that flower, and said, “Cool!  Let’s make another one.”  And so He did, and that was even better, and so He couldn’t stop Himself from making another, and another.  And so the world was made, in all its splendor, out of God’s enthusiasm, and constant surprise.

We might not be surprised today. Chances are, none of you nearly fell off your pews when I said that the Lord had risen.  But the two Mary’s were very surprised that morning 2000 years ago. And Jesus just couldn’t wait to tell them, to show them, to put their fears to rest. So we might not be surprised that Jesus rose on that first Easter morning, but I’m sure that, if we have the eyes to see, there are surprises that await us today.  Risings and resurrections that we might not be able to foresee, and that God is so excited about showing us that He’s just bound to jump out from a bush on the side of the path and show them to us first-hand, that’s how cool they are.
 

Today, may our prayer be that of Gerard Manley Hopkins:  “Let [God] easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east.”  [1]  And let us be surprised with the wonder of God.

Amen.

[1] Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The Wreck of the Deutschland.”

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