God’s love cannot be stopped by anything we fear: Christ is risen, God’s love is for the whole world, and we are witnesses with our love to this great news.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Resurrection of Our Lord, year B
Texts: Mark 16:1-8; Isaiah 25:6-9

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

There are electric lights in the tunnels now.

But the air is bone-chillingly damp. Deep under Rome in the Catacombs of Priscilla, you can sense how frightening it would be in such darkness with only your torch or a few oil lamps.

Step down off the tunnel into a small family tomb. In the dim light you can see three frescoes on the back wall – on the left, a young woman and man being married; on the right, the same woman with a child in her lap; in the middle, this woman standing with arms raised. These pictures are deeply moving, speaking to us from between 1,500 to 1,850 years after her death.

And she was a Christian. Look up to the ceiling at the fresco of the Good Shepherd, with a sheep over his shoulders.

Now, turn to your right in this very small space, to a fresco of three young men in flames; above them, a dove with an olive branch. And on your left, a fresco of an old man, a young boy holding a bundle of sticks on his back, and a ram. Now, turn to leave and you see it on the ceiling near the opening: a long sea-serpent, coiled and deadly, with a man partially out of its mouth.

These are the images this faithful woman’s family painted on her tomb – in the center, Jesus the Good Shepherd, surrounded by three Hebrew stories of deliverance from death – Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who should have died in the fire but were saved by God; Abraham and Isaac with wood for the sacrifice, and the ram who died instead of Isaac; and Jonah, being spit up after three days in the belly of the fish.

But they painted a great sea-serpent, not a fish. Because the Jewish translators from Hebrew into Greek didn’t use the words “great fish” as the Hebrew does. No, the Greek Old Testament has the same word in Jonah that was used in Job 3 to translate Leviathan – the great sea-monster of the deep, the symbol of chaos and destruction.

And it’s not just this faithful woman’s tomb. These images are spread throughout early Christian sites.

Jonah’s picture survives in 60 frescoes in Roman catacombs. Isaac’s redemption survives in 23, and the three young men 22 times. When these ancient Christians contemplated death, and remembered the saving power of Christ’s resurrection, they chose images of great terror where God intervened and brought life out of the mouth of death.

And that is exactly what we need. In our world, cute bunnies and duckies at Easter won’t cut it. We need to know if God can be trusted. We need to know that there is no terror, no chaos, no destruction, that can stop God’s love for us and for the world.

Because this world is filled with death, and we’re terrified.

We fear facing our own death, avoiding that it’s our future. And every day death spreads across this planet with no boundary, no limit.

Human sin has brought greater suffering and pain in the last century than we can begin to understand or deal with. Thousands die every day of hunger and hunger related disease. Thousands are killed every day in wars all over the planet. Uncountable people are touched by suffering, illness, pain, grief, loss, in every corner of the globe. Systems and structures become agents of death, crushing lives without pity.

And death’s touch infects our own lives: our hearts, our relationships, even our faith.

Isaiah today describes our world with painful accuracy: he sees a death shroud stretching over the entire planet. A burial sheet enwraps our earth in death.

But in our fear, we find companions this morning in the faithful, dear women who came upon a frightening scene in Sunday’s early hours.

When Mark tells the Easter story, he ends his Gospel there, abruptly, in fear.

Mark says that after being told Jesus was risen, the women left the tomb seized by trembling and amazement, and said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

They weren’t afraid of their own death. They were shaken and terrified by all that had happened since Thursday, and by all they now unexpectedly found: a stone rolled away, a strange person in white telling them news they couldn’t begin to process in their shock and grief and loss.

And their fear silenced them. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

Now, Mark knows this didn’t last. Writing years after the Resurrection, everyone knew the women broke their silence. They found the other disciples, told them, started a morning-long run back and forth to the empty tomb.

But ending this way, Mark places us with these women in our fear. Mark says they were frozen, they couldn’t do anything out of terror. So Mark is saying to you: what’s your next step? Will you live in fear? Or can you live as witness to a God whom death cannot stop?

Go back into that family tomb beneath Rome once again.

Facing the death of a beloved mother, her family claimed God’s power to bring life out of death, claimed hope for a life to come.

But those images aren’t limited to confidence about our future after we die. They are images promising what God can do right now to bring life into a world filled with death. We need these images to help us live our lives now.

Isaiah’s proclamation about the planetary death shroud is just such an image. Because his promise is that in days to come God will destroy that sheet spread over all peoples and nations. God will swallow up death forever.

This is the God to whom you belong. A God who doesn’t supply a ram for a sacrifice, but becomes the sacrifice. A God who, in human flesh, lives divine life into this world, and serves you in love, drawing you into God’s heart, until you kill him on a cross.

But this God isn’t stopped by fiery furnaces. This God isn’t stopped by great sea-monsters or chaos. This God isn’t stopped by planet-sized death shrouds. And this God cannot be stopped even by death.

This is the marvel we celebrate this morning: the love of God that takes the path through death and explodes into new life. Christ is risen, and now you know death has no power over life, over you, over anything. So you don’t need to remain immobile in fear.

This is why Mark stands us with these beautiful Easter women.

As afraid as we are of so many things, so were they. Whether it’s our pain, or the pain of the world, we know fear, like they did. And yet, filled with God’s love and courage, they began to speak. Disciple after disciple heard the good news, and started losing their fear. Jesus himself appeared to them and breathed the Spirit into their lives and hearts.

And they began to live as God’s embodied love in this world, unafraid. Because if God can’t be stopped by furnaces or monsters or shrouds or even death on a cross, then nothing is impossible for God. Love can heal this world. Life can rise out of death and renew your heart, renew families and relationships, renew whole cities and nations and cultures. Jesus himself, risen from death, meets you in Word and Meal, giving you courage and strength for your journey of faith and life.

What would life be if you lived without fear? If you trusted in such a God, with such a love for you and for the whole world?

What would change? And what’s stopping you from joining these women and living as if Christ really is risen, and death is dead, and God’s life is healing all things?

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

 

This night the Son of God shows us the full shape of love, the way God envisions the whole world living and moving, the path of our life and hope.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Maundy Thursday
Texts: John 13:1-17, 31b-35; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

“Do you know what I have done to you?”

Hands still wet from washing his followers’ feet, Jesus asks his most important question ever. “Do you know what I have done to you?”

No question is more critical to life. Do you know what Jesus has done? Do you know what God is doing in Christ? Do you know what this week means for your life, your faith, for the world? All Christian theology begins and ends with Jesus’ question on the night of his betrayal.

Jesus opens up this question with two deepenings. First, he says he is setting an example. What he does, you do. This is always the center of Jesus’ message: Follow me. Do as I do. Walk where I walk.

Second, it is this night when Jesus makes his great commandment. Only in the context of the events of these painful days does he make this absolutely clear: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

“Do you know what I have done to you?” he asks. I have set you an example. I have commanded you to love as I love. Do you know what that means?

Everything Jesus does tonight leads to the answer. So watch, see, learn. And then follow.

Watch Jesus tonight: he shows you that love serves.

The Son of God, God’s Eternal Word, kneels before his followers and washes their feet. Those not preparing the meal arrived at the upper room, tired and dirty from the road, arguing an old fight over which was Jesus’ favorite. Even children know to wash for dinner, to use the basin and pitcher at the entrance. Everyone knew dirty feet needed to be cleaned before eating.

Yet the Master shows what love is. Putting aside any hierarchy, or proper order, not chiding his disciples for their neglect, Jesus simply loves them. Jesus becomes a servant, a slave, and carefully, gently, washes their feet.

Do you know what I have done to you? he asks. I have shown you the shape of love. To love as I love is to see yourself the servant of all your sisters and brothers. To love as I love is to set aside what’s right and who’s first and what you think you’re owed, and offer yourself as servant to all.

Watch Jesus tonight: he shows you that love offers itself completely.

After this washing, they moved into the meal. It was Passover, so they drank four cups of wine at the prescribed places. They passed around unleavened bread, remembering their ancestors.

But in the middle, Jesus gave them a way to understand what would happen tomorrow. The cross at this point isn’t a surprise to Jesus, but his disciples don’t know it. So, stepping away from the words of the Seder, he said “this bread is my body. Take it. Eat it.” “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, a drink of forgiveness. Drink it.”

They couldn’t have understood. Even the next day, as they saw him horribly killed, they didn’t get it. But after Easter they started to remember, and understand.

Do you know what I have done to you? he asks. I have shown you the shape of love. To love as I love is to offer yourself fully to the other, to be vulnerable, to risk everything, even death. The one you love takes in all you offer and is changed, like this bread and wine will fill you with my body and blood and life and love and forgiveness and all I do on this cross.

But also, Jesus says, do this to remember this death, to remember what love really is. “As often as you eat of this bread and drink of this cup,” Paul says, “you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” To love as I love, Jesus says, is to remember this death, and to offer yourself fully to the other, as gift, as forgiveness, as vulnerable grace.

Watch Jesus tonight: he shows you that love surrenders to God’s vision.

We leave the supper to go to Gethsemane. Here Jesus will face his betrayer, be arrested, and begin the humiliation that leads to torture and death.

Before that, he will pray to his Father. In the internal mystery of the Triune God, the Son will ask the Father if it is possible to avoid this death. The Son came as one of us to reveal God’s heart to us, to draw you into the heart of God, and the cross will be the moment of deepest revelation. But now there is this moment of hesitation.

Do you know what I have done to you? he asks. I have shown you the shape of love. Love is not unafraid, and love isn’t free of doubt. Love is often terrified of following through, wonders if there are easier ways to be.

But not my will be done, that’s what I said, Jesus tells you. Love is always shaped by God’s vision for how the world works. Not by your own real needs, or self-concerns. Love follows the path of servanthood, of vulnerability and loss, and now chooses to be shaped by God’s will.

To love as I love, Jesus says, is to trust God and follow. No matter the cost. No matter the fear. No matter that you can’t see how this will be a good thing.

“Do you know what I have done to you?”

This is the only question that matters. We long for love, for connection with others. We struggle to know if we are loveable, valued. We seek ways to fill our emptiness inside.

But here you have looked at your feet and seen the God of all time and history kneeling there in love. Here you have looked toward a cross and seen the God who made all things facing death out of love for you. Here you have watched a struggle within God’s own Triune life over living out this love, and have seen the Son of God choose to love you, even if you would kill him for it.

Here you have seen the shape of God’s love, and have found yourself forever wrapped up in it.

So, now: Jesus has set an example. Will you do as he does? Jesus has commanded you to love as he loves. Will you follow this love you have seen, this love that has changed your life and given you faith and hope?

Because when you love in this way, follow this example, you will be a witness to Christ. You will begin to understand what it is Jesus has done to you, and to the world.

And eventually, God’s deepest vision will come to pass, that the whole creation will know of God’s love and live it, for the healing of all things.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

 

Even as they are killing him, Jesus’ accusers are half-hoping to witness a miracle – some kind of marvel that will help them “see and believe.” In Mark’s Passion, Jesus has no more teachings or miracles, but the cross shows us a God worthy of our faith.

Vicar Jessica Christy
Sunday of the Passion, year B
Text: Mark 14:1-15:47

Even as they were torturing and killing him, they were hoping to see a miracle.

Throughout his ministry, people were drawn to Jesus because of his power. Massive crowds in search of healing and hope chased him across the Galilee. The press of people was so eager that they forced him to preach from boats and to retreat to remote places. They were desperately hungry for a demonstration of God’s might.

Even though the crowds have turned against him by the time he is arrested, things haven’t really changed. “Prophesy!” his tormentors shout as they beat him. “Prophesy!” – show us your power, if you are so powerful. And then as he is being executed, they jeer, “Save yourself, and come down from the cross! Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.” Yes, they’re mocking him with these words. They’re taunting the helplessness of this man who said he would forever change the world. But in his final moments, they show their hand, and reveal that there is a core of truth in their taunts. As Christ is dying, he cries out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and the people who have gathered to gloat over his death mishear those words. “Elahi, Elahi” – “My God, my God.” They think he’s calling out for Elijah. And this excites them. Suddenly, they rush to try to prolong his life, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to bring him down.” They despise him, and yet they can’t look away because they still think that Jesus might show them God in a marvel. They’re still looking and longing for something to see and believe in.

Jesus, of course, doesn’t give them the show that they’re half-hoping to see. Not only does he deny them signs and wonders, he barely even speaks. Pilate is amazed by his refusal to say a single word to defend or explain himself. In Mark’s Passion, Jesus has no more teachings, no more wonders, no more prophecies. If the people at the Crucifixion are hoping to witness something that will help them believe, they will only see an ordinary criminal dying a shameful death.

As we enter this Holy Week, what are we hoping to see? What are we hoping to believe in? Because if we are hoping to encounter Christ in great marvels and miracles over these next days, we are going to be disappointed. Jesus will be revealed to us in the ordinary – in struggle and in suffering. We will see Jesus anointed for death by an unnamed woman. We will see him breaking bread with his disciples, then going to pray in sorrow in the garden. We will see Jesus abandoned by his friends to die alone and in agony. And even on Easter, we will hear the good news, “He is risen!” but Mark will deny us a glimpse of the risen Christ. There is little glory to see in this story. If we call on God’s power, we will find a God who chooses to be powerless. If we call on God’s eloquence, we will find a God who chooses to be silent before his accusers. If we call on God’s salvation, we will find a God who refuses to save himself. The only Son of God that we can proclaim will be the one who subjects himself to suffering and death on the cross.

This might sound like a bleak picture, but it is far better news than any God of power and majesty, because in this week, we see a God who knows us. We meet God in weakness and despair because that is where God comes to meet us. We are reminded once again that there is nowhere we can go in this life where Christ cannot journey with us. There is no fear that is foreign to him, no hurt that he cannot bear for our sake, and for the sake of the whole world. Christ intimately knows our worst pains and sorrows, and takes them on himself so that he might raise us to new life. A God of perfect, shining glory couldn’t do that. Only a king who wore a crown of thorns and a savior who emptied himself on a Cross could know and love us like that. But that’s not all that we see; we see a God who knows what it means to suffer betrayal and humiliation and death at our hands, and who forgives and saves us anyway. We see a God who would rather be broken than break us. We see a God who has promised to never abandon us, even in the moments when we turn from God. We see a God who would do anything – suffer any indignity, endure any pain, harrow Hell itself – anything to bind up our wounded world.

This is the Son of God we can expect to meet. It isn’t going to look like much, at least not to the eyes of the world. There is no wondrous spectacle, no heavenly proofs to win us over. There is just incomprehensible love, and the promise that Christ can make even the worst instrument of death blossom into the tree of life. This is what we can see. This is what we can believe. And this is how we can live.

Amen.