Easter - April 8

April 8 – Easter Sunday

Anchor: The Way
Frame: We are invited to experience resurrection, continuing our pilgrimage of life
Question: Is resurrection for real?

Mark 16:1-8

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’ When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.’ So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

                OK, here is my bottom line belief about Easter: Easter is something that happens to us, one that continues to happen, and not some isolated historical event locked away in the past. I do not know if the tomb was empty, or if there even was a tomb, but it seems to me that people have experienced the life-giving presence of Christ ever since the first century. Lots of people think Easter is something that happed to Jesus, but I believe it happens to us. Easter happens when we experience the life-giving-restoring-renewing presence of the Spirit of Christ.

                Mark’s gospel tells the story this way. The risen Jesus is never seen. The youth delivers a message that Jesus will meet the disciples (all disciples?) back in Galilee – back where the story began. The story of “The Way” ends by saying that the way continues, get back on the road.

                Which brings us back to the movie, “The Way.” Tom thinks he is taking his son’s ashes on the pilgrimage his son was unable to complete. The camino de Santiago ends at the cathedral of Santiago. But after an episode where a gypsy boy steals Tom’s pack (and Daniel’s ashes), the boy’s father tells Tom that he must continue his journey beyond the cathedral and go to the sea shore. There he can put Daniel’s ashes in the water. “You must do this for you, and for him,” says Ishmael, the boy’s father. When Tom shares this with his traveling companions, to a person they say that they will go as far as the cathedral but then they are done. Eight hundred kilometers is enough to walk. But after arriving at the cathedral, they laugh at themselves and the next scene shows them all walking with Tom to the sea shore. It is at the sea shore that these 4 characters really discover life, and find real acceptance of who they are: The author finds a story, the smoker accepts names her denial, the man wanting to change accepts his life, and Tom gives his son to the sea.

                A symbol given to the pilgrims walking the camino de Santiago is a small sea shell. Since the earliest days of the church, Easter has been a time for baptism, which os often symbolized with a sea shell. I don’t think that we will have an actual baptism to celebrate this Sunday, but we can all remember that we are baptized, and maybe we can give out sea shells to remind us that we are still on this pilgrimage called life.

                One unrelated thought: Back at the beginning of Lent we ran a video featuring Diana Butler Bass talking about hospitality as salvation (http://www.theworkofthepeople.com/index.php?ct=store.details&pid=V00722). In that video she is askedif she believes in the resurrection. She quotes a friend of hers who said, “Yea, I’ve seen it too many times not to believe it.”