The Earth Moved - Resurrection Sunday Year A
Christ is Risen! Christ is risen indeed.
Christ is Risen! Christ is risen indeed.
Alleluia!
Every year at Easter we “remember” the story of an empty tomb.
Remember is a funny word – we think of remembering as the act of calling to mind something, some event, or someone that that we’ve encountered in the past.
But I want to encourage us to think about the act of “remembering” today as something far more active. Perhaps you have heard me talk about how, when we gather at the table for communion, we are “remembering” Christ’s body – and when I say that, I often emphasize a more “literal” interpretation of the word remember – “re – member.” As in “to bring the parts of the body back together – re - member.”
That kind of remembering is active, present, intentional.
So today, I want us to bring that activity, that presence, that intention to our remembering the resurrection.
In today’s account from Matthew, two Mary’s are going to SEE the tomb where Jesus was laid after the crucifixion. Recalling what they have been through over the last few days, I imagine that they are in rough emotional shape – trauma, violence, grief – these take a toll on a person. With that as an emotional landscape, they are going to the tomb to see it with their eyes, carrying all of the emotional stuff with them.
And suddenly there is a great earthquake. Along with the appearance of an angel of the Lord who rolls away the stone. And we know this story – the angel tells them Jesus is not there, encourages them to come see for themselves, reminds them that this is all as Jesus said it would be, and charges them with going to tell the other disciples what they have seen and heard.
This detail about the earthquake only appears in Matthew’s account of the resurrection. And it says a great deal about the impact of what is happening.
The earth is moving. The tectonic plates are in motion. There is ground shifting beneath feet. The world is physically changed.
You’ve probably recently seen the frightening images out of Syria and Turkey recently. An earthquake is a powerful natural SHIFT that changes the landscape.
Forever.
It’s not a temporary change. The land doesn’t “go back to the way it was…”
The choice of recording this story to include the movement of the earth is intentional on the gospel writer’s part. It is important that his readers know that this was an event that changed the landscape.
Forever.
That has me wondering….
Does the resurrection continue to change the landscape?
It probably should. But does it? And what responsibility do we have for that ongoing earthquake?
This is where I need us to engage in the active work that I described earlier as re-membering.
Because the resurrection continues to change the landscape if we continue to move the world because of it.
By that I mean that we have to be doing the work – each day – of living into what Jesus’ life meant and what his resurrection continues to mean.
On Maundy Thursday here at Faith, we recalled the three mandates / instructions / commands that Jesus handed down as he dined with his disciples in an upper room, even as he knew that he was going to die. Those three mandates are to:
1) humble yourselves,
2) remember Jesus and be renewed,
3) love one another.
We have been on a journey through the story of Holy Week – hopefully not JUST to recall events of the past…because that doesn’t actually do justice to or celebrate the LIVING Christ.
We have been on a journey to “re-member” all that happened and then to live as ones changed by Jesus’ life and resurrection.
If we are not acting day in and day out as if we are in awe of the risen Christ, I think we are failing to re-member Christ. We are failing to be part of the earth – shaking movement of the resurrection.
If we aren’t taking our awe of the risen Christ into our work, our schools, the local PTA meeting, our neighborhood association meetings, the grocery store, the gym, the voting booth and the sports field, I think we are failing to be part of the world changing potential of the resurrected Christ.
If we are not living into those last mandates – to be humble, to remember, and to love one another – then what good does our recall of the story actually DO?
Later in today’s reading, the risen Jesus appears to the two Marys as they leave the empty tomb to go and tell as they have been instructed by the angel. Again, let’s think about their emotional state – they’ve experienced violence, trauma, grief. They’ve been told by a dazzling white angel that Jesus is alive – and NOW so much better than being told that, he is suddenly WITH them.
They fall to his feet to worship.
But Jesus needs them to do something different – he needs them to go and tell others so that they will know and meet the risen Jesus as well.
We show up here to worship each week. But our work, our commitment, our call is so much more than to be merely a worshiping community. Our work is to keep shaking the very earth with the love that we offer one another and the people and the creation that surrounds us in every part of our lives. Our work is to let go of Jesus’ feet and DO something.
In doing that work, then we re-member the resurrection. We keep it alive. We keep it happening. We keep changing the world.
Christ is Risen! He is Risen, Indeed. Alleluia!
Amen.
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