Journey into Resurrection (Three Stories and a Point)
by Griff Martin
A Sermon for the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith
On John 20:1-18
For Easter Sunday
April 4, 2021
*This document comes from an oral manuscript.
Now Incarnate and Present and Resurrected God, we ask that you once again take the Word and transform it into a living and breathing reality we can all together experience. Make us attended to your presence here in this space and in these words God for if we are aware of your being here then nothing else will matter, but if we are not aware of your being here then nothing else will matter. In the name of the Creator, the Christ and the Comforter.
He is Risen! (He is Risen indeed)
Story One:
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the heck is water?”
This is water.
He is Risen! (He is Risen indeed)
Story Two:
Abby and I were in Gulf Shores, Alabama which is just your perfect American beach town. When we go to the beach our kids are very big on you only need two types of clothing- swimsuit and pajamas, so we had decided to go get dinner and bring it back to not upset their rule. We went to the Shrimp Basket, which is your perfect American beach town restaurant, everything is golden fried and perfect.
We were sitting at the bar waiting for our takeout when the Shrimp Basket phone rang and one of the waitress picked it up.
“Shrimp Basket… this is Wanda,” she said.
And then the got quiet and thought and said, “No one has ever asked me that, let me go in the back and check.”
She went to the back and was gone for a full two minutes and the returned, picked up the phone and says (I promise, I could not make this up if I tried),“Mam, I have talked to the fry cook and looked around the kitchen and we don’t see any gluten around here, we don’t put fancy stuff in our food so yeah come on and dine here, none of our food has gluten.”
Y’all, literally gluten is the main ingredient at the Shrimp Basket, she just had no idea what gluten was.
This is gluten.
He is Risen! (He is risen indeed!)
Story Three:
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”
So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.
Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).
Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.
This is resurrection.
Can you imagine the rest of Mary Magdaelene’s life? She must have been the most wonderful, joyous, hopeful and good person to be around. She would light up a room. She never let go of hope. She always saw the possibility of good. She was as faithful as faithful can be… because she had seen the resurrection and once you see the resurrection, well you see it everywhere you look.
It’s like one of the those art image, illusions that used to be so popular where you had to cross your eyes and turn upside down and front and back to see if it was a dolphin swimming in the ocean or the Mona Lisa… full disclosure, I never saw anything in them, but I have a real fear of crossing my eyes bc my grandmother told me if yo do it they might not ever uncross and I barely pull off bald much less bald and cross eyed.
But from reports of everyone around me who could always see the dolphin, once you saw it you could not unsee it.
I think that is resurrection. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Which is just about the best news I have ever heard in my entire life.
Mary Magdelene is central to the early church and Jesus following community and I can imagine exactly why, she had the right vision.
When someone got a medical diagnosis that they did not want, they went straight to Mary who reminded them of the truth of resurrection, which is that in the end love wins, in the end all will be well, in the end resurrection.
Or when someone’s children were behaving just as poorly as possible and about to ruin the family name, off to Mary they went. Or when someone’s lover died and they believed they might as well die as well because life was not worth living alone, someone sent them to Mary. Or when the world was falling apart and it seemed like there was no hope, off they went to Mary. Or when the early church was scared that they were not going to be able to make it because they had no funds and no one wanted to go to church anymore, Mary was always the first to speak up at that meeting.
Sometimes she was quiet about it, at funerals this was always appropriate, a silent witness of faith and more. Sometimes she was really loud abut it, usually in political discussions which were going nowhere. Sometimes she was joyful about it, she could never see a sunrise or sunset without dancing and cheering. Sometimes she was contemplative about it, letting this truth fill her heart back up like a glass of cold water on a hot afternoon. Sometimes she wrote about it, painted it, sang about it, gardened about it (God did she love the garden and gardener).
It was always there, everything she saw she saw through resurrection.
And it’s that simple, really.
The great buddhist teacher Ram Dass said once that all you really need to remember in life is your buddha nature and your social security number. I want to change that a bit today and I think he would be okay with that, all you need to remember in life is resurrection and your social security number, they will get you everything you really need.
Once you see it, you will see everything though it. Because this is water, this is glutton and this is resurrection. The catch is you see it everywhere because it is everywhere once you see it.
Let’s practice….
Look around right now for new growth. Focus on it. This is resurrection, the plants that were so frozen, covered in snow and ice and so dead are coming back to life and kinda showing off doing so.
Look at the face of someone nearby, if you can lock eyes with them and if you can make it be someone you have not seen in a while that will be even better. They are here and you are here, after a year of being apart and thinking we might not make it, we are here this moment. This is resurrection.
Look at your hands, let your hands represent your whole body. Find a scar you carry. Think back, to how you got the scar, what surgery or fall or accident and how your body has healed and gotten you to now. This is resurrection.
Or close your eyes and think about that thing that you once went through that you thought might kill you- a divorce, debt, depression, grief- and realize that you are here today which means you made it. This is resurrection
Look at the cross. Focus on it. Remember just a few days ago that was where Jesus hung, bloody- bruised and beaten- but look at it today with flowers all over it and no body up on it. This is resurrection.
And once you see it here, you will see it everywhere you look. Which again is just the best news I have ever heard.
He is Risen! (He is Risen indeed).
Amen and Amen.
*artwork: Resurrection, by Guy Pickford
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