HOLY ABSURDITY

Easter Sunday – March 27, 2005

            As is so often the case, children help us see more clearly what we need to see and, in their own innocence, they often help us understand what we sometimes don’t understand.  This was true for a pastor who asked a group of second graders “What did Jesus say right after he came out of the grave?”  Without any hesitation a little girl answered saying, “I know.  Jesus said, ‘TAH-DAH!’”  Easter is a “TAH-DAH” kind of day!

            Did you know that Easter is the only day in the Christian year that is determined by the moon?  Unlike Christmas, Easter is not the same day each year.  It always falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the spring equinox.  In speaking of this fact, Barbara Brown Taylor suggests that… “As complicated as that sounds, it makes ancient sense, since it means that Easter coincides with the greening of the earth.  Christ is risen and the whole earth comes to life.  Sap rises in dormant trees, spring peepers start their peeping, and trumpet lilies spill their sweet smell on the air.  The connection is a happy one, guaranteed to renew our faith in the creative power of God.”*

            When I planted new tulip bulbs last fall along our walkway they looked nothing like the beautiful tulips that are bringing joyful color to our yard today.  But if you have any experience at all planting bulbs in the fall, you don’t even question the possibility of flowers in the spring.  It just makes sense.  You know that all you have to do is wait and even before the winter is over, those tulips bulbs will begin to poke up out of the ground and soon their vibrant red and yellow, pink and purple blossoms will explode with color.  As miraculous as this seems, when you consider that bulb you held in your hand so many months ago, this cycle of life is completely natural.

            But from a faith perspective, this connection between Easter and the natural cycle of the seasons can also be a misleading one.  For you see, the resurrection of Jesus is “entirely unnatural.”  Some have even called it “a holy absurdity.”  From a scientific perspective it doesn’t make sense.  Think about it, in our leave-no-questions-unanswered-world, we cannot prove beyond any doubt that Jesus was raised from the dead.  There were no eyewitnesses that Easter morning.  And the people who did see the risen Christ were certainly not disinterested or objective.  They were all disciples.  They were all followers.  When it comes to Easter, we can either reject the idea of the resurrection based on the unlikely facts of the story or in faith we can discover the creative presence of God in Jesus Christ.  It is our choice.

            But this holy absurdity isn’t anything new.  The same can be said of the entire life story of Jesus.   “From the first whispered angelic invitation to… Mary, to a star lighting a path to his birthplace, to refugee status in Egypt, to the sweep of the descending dove as he and John stood in the muddy waters of the Jordan; all of these are part of the greatest story ever told.  Or, some would claim, the greatest hoax.  Jesus, son of Joseph, a boy raised amid wood-shavings in Nazareth, lived a remarkable and unlikely life.  His life and ministry, with its wonders, it miracles, and its capacity to turn the world upside down, carries with it a holy absurdity.”**  We can either reject the whole story based on its unlikely facts or in faith we can discover the presence of God in Jesus Christ.  It is our choice. You see, the “TAH-DAH” of Easter is ours only if we are able to hear its message in faith. 

Oh, if we want to, we can consult calendars and almanacs that will tell us for the next fifty years exactly when Easter Sunday will come.  In fact, I did just that and I know that next year Easter is on April 16^th and the year after it is on April 8^th and in the year 2020, Easter is on April 12^th.  But it is possible that these Sundays are really little more than occasions for coloring eggs and biting the ears off chocolate bunnies and dressing up in new clothes unless the power of the resurrection takes root in our hearts and then becomes evident in our lives.  For Easter to be a “TAH-DAH” kind of day we have to choose to live as people with a resurrection faith.  As we continue to experience Christ as a living reality, we have an opportunity to be changed… to be different… to live in a brand new way.  In his book The Substance of Faith, Clarence Jordan writes: “The proof that God raised Jesus from the dead is not the empty tomb, but the full hearts of his transformed disciples.  The crowning evidence that he lives is not a vacant grave, but a spirit-filled fellowship.  Not a rolled away stone, but a carried-away church.”***

Today, more than any other day is the day when we can believe… when we need to believe in this holy absurdity of Easter.  Today, more than any other day is the day when, together, we can shout that Christ is risen.  Christ is here.  Christ is still with us.  For Christ will always be with us when we, the beloved community, take our place in his spirit-filled fellowship…his carried-away church.  And even though we are hard pressed to live consistently as a community of  believers, we can find strength and hope for our lives and for our world through our resurrection faith.

The powerful presence of God in Jesus Christ can be ours today as we walk out of the doors of this sanctuary and out into this glorious Easter day.  Like Mary Magdalene in the resurrection story from John’s Gospel, we have the opportunity to tell the world that the Risen Christ is present in our lives, right here and right now.  We can tell this holy absurdity to the obvious and the unlikely.  We can speak to friend and stranger alike.  We can offer this hope to those who believe in the same way we do and to those who have other ideas.  Together we can tell of the presence of the Risen Christ to the successful and the defeated, the wealthy and the poor, the young and the old, the popular and the marginalized.  The presence of the Resurrected Christ has no limitations. 

But choosing to follow Christ means not only celebrating this Good News on Easter Day, it means living it everyday.  With responsibility and courage, with wisdom and vision, with justice and mercy, with joy and with hope, we as God’s beloved community can open ourselves to that loving presence wherever Christ appears. Ann Lamott offers that “In Jesus’ real life, the resurrection came two days later, but in our real lives, it can be weeks, years, and you never know for sure that it will come.”****  As Easter people, we must trust that it will come.  We must live knowing it will come.  As hard as it is to experience resurrection in the midst of some of the chaos of this world that threatens to overwhelm us, we must trust that it will come. 

            Six weeks ago, as we began our Lenten journey to Easter, I shared with you my decision to give up chocolate for Lent – not because chocolate is a sin but as a way for me to become more aware of the God’s loving presence in my life.  For the past six weeks, each time I have had a craving for chocolate, I have spent a moment or two thinking about how much I am loved by God.  I want to close with a story of resurrection that comes as a result of my going public with my choice to give up chocolate. 

            For years, my sister and I have struggled to be close.  We have made different decisions in our individual lives that have led us apart.  I believe in my heart that we love each other but we have drifted away from each other.  Even though we are both trying to reconnect, we don’t always know how to really talk to each other anymore.  I am sorry to say that we can go for many months without really sharing in each other’s lives.  On Thursday, I received a special delivery at my home.  It was a bag full of dark chocolate cashew clusters from Euphoria Chocolate.  It was from my sister.  Unbeknownst to me, she must from time to time visit our church website.  And she must have read the Lenten message where I shared my love for dark chocolate cashew clusters from Euphoria Chocolate.  There is really no other way she could have known.  The note that came with the gift simply acknowledged the presence of our loving God in all that life has to offer and then my sister said that she loves me too.  A moment of resurrection… a once almost dead relationship coming to life again… forgiveness and grace offered with love… God’s creative power at work.

            My heart is full.  I hope yours is too.  Today really is a “TAH-DAH” kind of day.  Let us go out into God’s world and celebrate Christ’s Resurrection.  Let us live as the beloved community with that holy absurd belief… the belief that… “On  the morning of the resurrection, God put life in the present tense, not in the future.  God gave us not a promise but a presence.  Not a hope for the future but  power for the present.”***   

*From Home By Another Way by Barbara Brown Taylor

**From January/February/March “AHA”

***From March/April 2204 “ALIVE NOW”

****From Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith by Ann Lamott