“Special Delivery” – Sermon on Easter Sunday 2014 (April 20)
April 20, 2014
Scripture: Matthew 28: 1-10
Early on Sunday morning, as the new day was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went out to the tomb. Suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and rolled aside the stone and sat on it. His face shone like lightning and his clothing was a brilliant white. The guards shook with fear when they saw him, and fell into a dead faint.
Then the angel spoke to the women. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified, but he isn’t here! For he has come back to life again, just as he said he would. Come in and see where his body was lying. . . . And now, go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and that he is going to Galilee to meet them there. That is my message to them.”
The women ran from the tomb, badly frightened, but also filled with joy, and rushed to find the disciples to give them the angel’s message. And as they were running, suddenly Jesus was there in front of them! “Good morning!” he said. And they fell to the ground before him, holding his feet and worshiping him. Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t be frightened! Go tell my brothers to leave at once for Galilee, to meet me there.”
“Special Delivery” – a sermon for Easter Sunday 2014 (April 20)
Reverend Doreen Oughton
So let’s talk about angels. Now when I call someone an angel, what do you think I mean? Someone who is good, right? Someone who does kind things, helps people. The opposite of an angel would be a devil, right? When wrestling with a temptation, we might conjure the image of an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, with the angel guiding us to do the good thing. And we talk about guardian angels also – perhaps a loved one that has passed on that we imagine is looking out for us and protecting us, maybe bringing good people and events into our lives.
Is that how angels are portrayed in the gospels? Do they focus on kindness or protection? What stories do you remember that include angels (An angel to Zecheriah, John the Baptist’s father, Gabriel to Mary, an angel to Joseph in dreams, tell the shepherds of Jesus’ birth, sing about Jesus’ birth, minister to Jesus in the desert after his temptation, hold coal to the lips of Isaiah). I think of them primarily as messengers for God. Even the story of ministering to Jesus after his temptations, I wonder if their ministry was in the form of bread and water, or words of affirmation – you did good, your father is well-pleased. I suspect that, like all of God’s creation, there is a great deal of variation in angels, that they have their own personalities and gifts, that they each bring something unique to their service to God.
How I would love to meet this angel. I think I have a little crush on him. Such a flair for the dramatic – an earth-shaking, flash-of-lightening appearance, the grand gesture of pushing the stone aside, the satisfied leap up to sit on it. Can’t you just picture him crossing him arms, with a look of pleasure and excitement on his face. I love how he completely ignores the guards, who have fallen into a dead faint with fear of him, and turns his attention to the women, Mary and Mary. This is who he has come for, on behalf of God. He has a job to do, a message to deliver, in fact, more than one message. What is his first message? The messenger angels say it quite a bit: “Don’t be afraid.” I wonder why they say that so much. Do you think they understand how often fear is our default setting? Fear, not just of earth-shaking, lightening flash appearances of angels, not just of Roman guards, or the loss of beloved ones. But fear of what others think or might think of us, fear of being hurt by someone we care about, fear of being alone, fear of not being good enough, of not having enough. We walk around in fear all the time, don’t we? And so what a wonderful message this is from God. “Cut it out. Don’t be afraid.”
“But God,” we might argue, “our fear is based on reality, our fear is based on experience. Look – people have hurt my feelings, left me alone, judged me as unworthy, treated me as if I do not matter. Look, I have been hungry, struggled to pay bills, been let go from my job, been physically assaulted, emotionally battered.” Doesn’t God get it?!
I think we can trust that God gets it. Look at when this message comes, right after God’s beloved, God’s own son, has been killed – falsely accused, beaten and battered, mocked and taunted and finally killed in a painful and humiliating crucifixion. God gets it. But God knows something that we don’t know. God has experience that we have not opened ourselves up to. I think God would argue back that we are the ones who don’t get it. So God sends messengers to tell us what is possible. All that stuff that has happened to us, all the so-called realities that teach us to be afraid? God knows that that is not what is real at the deepest level. That is surface, that is temporary. Those things don’t tell us who we really are. It is possible, the angel proclaims, to let go of our fear, and perhaps we ought to try.
What is the angel’s next message? “Jesus isn’t here. He has come back to life again.” And he adds, “just like he said he would.” Again he is proclaiming a message of possibility undreamed of. He’s alive. The angel has rolled the stone away. Why do you think he did that? Was it to let Jesus out? No, it was to let us in, to let us see, to let us confront our beliefs about death and what is real. The angel invites Mary and Mary to go in and look. What do they find? That the tomb is empty, at least empty of a body. But it holds something too. It holds a promise, it holds a reminder of Jesus’ words. “On the third day I will be raised.” And in case the women cannot hear those words for the shock of the emptiness, the angel reminds them – “as he said he would.”
But the angel doesn’t allow the women to linger long at the tomb – take a peek, let yourselves be challenged, but then go, quickly – go and be messengers yourselves. Tell the others what I have told you, and that all of you should go to Galilee, where Jesus will meet you. Then the angel says, seems like to himself, “that is my message to them.” Seems like he is saying, “there, my work is done.”
I read a commentary on this passage that I really loved, by Alyce McKenzie. She said the angel reminds her of her UPS guy. He has a job to do – deliver a package. He’s not there to sell the package, to reassure the receiver about the package, see that we open it and use it properly. No, his job is to deliver the package. Sometimes we have to sign for it to confirm that we received it. Then it is up to us what we do with it. We could leave it unopened, on the front porch if we wanted. And still the UPS guy’s job would be done.
Is it like that for the angel? Message delivered? His work is done, the job is delegated as he tells the women to go and give the message to others. They leave, with joy, and a little fear, still, in their hearts. They have not only signed for the package, but welcomed it. And as they rush off, Jesus comes to them. To me, this is a case, not of seeing is believing, but of believing is seeing. They have received the good news and they believe it. They know they will see Jesus, and so they do.
So what does all this mean to us. In a way, Gospel-writer Matthew is our angel, our UPS guy, for he has given us a message from God. Jesus is alive, Jesus will meet you. Look, and you will see him. What will we do with this special delivery? Can we try not to be afraid? Can we trust that our hardships and challenges and sadness and sorrow are not the truest things about us? Can we quickly look at our illusions about death, then turn quickly to focus on life? Can we become messengers ourselves? Can we look for Jesus, alive and among us? In closing I’d like to share a poem by Jan Richardson, called Easter Blessing.
“If you are looking for a blessing, do not linger here. Here is only emptiness, a hollow, a husk where a blessing used to be. This blessing was not content in its confinement. It could not abide its isolation, the unrelenting silence, the pressing stench of death.
So if it is a blessing that you seek, open your own mouth. Fill your lungs with the air that this new morning brings and then release it with a cry. Hear how the blessing breaks forth in your own voice; how your own lips form every word you never dreamed to say. See how the blessing circles back again, wanting you to repeat it but louder; how it draws you, pulls you, sends you to proclaim its only word: risen risen risen.”
