Fourth Sunday of Easter (2007): “Why the Creed is Like Playing the Blues”

Fourth Sunday of Easter (2007): “Why the Creed is Like Playing the Blues”
Acts 9:36-43
; Psalm 23
; Revelation 7:9-17; 
John 10:22-30
preached by the Rev. Preston Parsons on April 19th, 2007

In 1971, Chester Burnett, better known as Chicago bluesman Howlin' Wolf, got on a plane with his guitarist Hubert Sumlin, and went to London England.

They went to London so they could do a recording with some blues-inspired English musicians, like Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts from the Rolling Stones, and Steve Winwood. Ringo Starr even sat in on one session. Guitar hero Eric Clapton sat in on all the sessions, and he’s the one that makes for the best story coming out of that London recording studio.

***

But first a word about the blues.

The blues is a relatively simple form; It's built around a chord progression only consists of three chords, a 1, a 4, and a 5 chord. These three chords are played in a repeating, 12 bar pattern, that has only a handful of variations. The blues is a relatively fixed form, without a great deal of variation within it. The form has rules, and if you want to play the blues, you stick close to the form. The form serves a regulative function: 12 bars, and three chords played in a particular order: you've got something close to the blues.

The strict rule of the blues, rather than being a hindrance to creativity, actually serves as a way of grounding creative work. It allows for a great deal of variation, even vastly different kinds of expressions, while remaining recognizable as the blues: you can have the Texas style of Stevie Ray Vaughn; the folk-rock style of Creedence Clearwater Revival; the psychedelic blues of Jimi Hendrix; you can have Eric Clapton on an acoustic guitar, playing in the style of Big Bill Broonzy.

All different styles; all recognizable as the blues, if you look at the simple underlying pattern: 3 particular chords, 12 bars.

**

This brings me back to Eric Clapton, and that London recording studio. Eric Clapton was a hot guitarist in 1971. But there he was, in a studio with a living legend, Howlin' Wolf. Eric Clapton thought he was hot stuff, but this old, grizzled, bluesman with failing kidneys kept grabbing Clapton's fingers while he played his guitar, saying "don't do it that way, you're doin' it wrong, c'mon, can't you play it right?"

The blues might be simple: 3 particular chords, 12 bars; with that you know it's the blues; but the simple rule doesn't mean it's easy to play.

Eric Clapton almost gave up. He almost left the studio. But Howlin' Wolf eventually picked up his own guitar, and played it himself. And we get to reap the benefit of an excellent recording of a Chicago bluesman playing "the Red Rooster" with a bunch of hot-shot young Englishmen.

***

I hope you have a question in your minds. What on earth or heaven does this have to do with the gospel? It has to do with one line, six words from our gospel: Jesus says: "The Father and I are one."

This was part of a significant debate in the early centuries of the church. How does Jesus relate to the Father? Here Jesus says that he and the Father are one, Jesus recognizing a kind of equality with the Father. But earlier on in the gospel of John Jesus said that the Father is greater than he is.

So which is it? Is Jesus equal to the Father? Or is the father greater than Jesus? How do you make a decision as to which is a faithful description of Jesus' relationship to the Father?

What Christians have done, since the earliest of times, is to understand scripture according to the Rule of Faith. There are fragments of Rules of Faith in the New Testament, there are fragments of rules of faith in the earliest Christian writings apart from the New Testament. Rules of faith serve a regulative function within Christian reflection on God and Jesus; they even help us understand scripture, because in rules of faith we already have the kernel of the gospel. Both the rules and the Scriptures proclaim salvation in Jesus Christ.

Just as we look back at the blues, and recognize it by the simple pattern of 3 particular chords and 12 bars, we recognize faithful Christian reflection according to the rule of faith. Just as anyone who wants to play the blues first learns the simple rule of the blues, in the same way the rule of faith, the creed we are about to say together, forms the foundation upon which we build what we say about God and Christ, allowing for a tremendous amount of creative reflection while remaining recognizably Christian.

***

The greatest of our Rules of Faith, the Nicene Creed that we will say in a moment, will help us with our current problem presented to us in John. Is Jesus equal and one with the Father? Or is Jesus inferior to the Father?

The creed, in its preservation of that driving force that arises out of Scripture, salvation in Christ, leads us to affirm that Jesus is one with the Father. If it is God that saves, and we proclaim that Jesus is saviour, then Jesus is equal, and one with the Father. At the same time, however, by affirming that Jesus became fully human, we can say that according to his humanity Jesus is less than the Father. By way of the creed we preserve the fullness of the proclamation of Scripture, because both Scripture and the creed arise from the same driving force: salvation in Christ.

Now I hope I didn't just lose too many of you. But I didn't say that this was going to be easy, did I! The blues was irritatingly hard for Eric Clapton to play in that recording studio with Howlin' Wolf that day in 1971, even if the form is simple. The creeds are simple, too, right? They're not that hard to say, and what they say is extremely important: salvation in Christ.

Even if the creeds are easy to say, I will grant that many find the creeds difficult to understand. But that doesn't mean we get to ignore them. Our creeds are the form upon which we build Christian reflection, and we need to be reminded of the form, despite the fact that the reflection, the life, the play, might all be difficult.

Just as you recognize the blues by the simple form, three particular chords, 12 bars; you recognize Christian reflection by fidelity to the form set out in the creeds. There's nothing to stop a musician from departing from the form of the blues; it's just that the farther you depart from the form, the harder it becomes to recognize the music as the blues. Similarly, the farther theological reflection departs from the creeds, the more difficult it becomes to recognize that reflection as Christian reflection.

This is no light subject, either, by the way; there is a lot at stake. What's at stake is the core of the Christian proclamation as it is found in Scripture: God saves us; he saves us in the person Jesus Christ; this salvation is total, and comprises the entirety of the human person, by his very taking on of our humanity in the incarnation; by the resurrection of his body we come to new life in the Spirit.

This is our proclamation; these are the words we live by; these are the words through which we play the Christian life. And for this: thanks be to God.

Third Sunday in Easter (2007): "Gone Fishin' "

Third Sunday in Easter (2007): "Gone Fishin' "
Acts 9:1-6, (7-20);
Psalm 30;
Revelation 5:11-14;
John 21:1-19
preached by the Rev. Preston Parsons

So – Jesus is crucified, and he rises again. He appears to his disciples, miraculously entering locked rooms, not as some ghost, but as a body that can be touched, a body that breathes. This Jesus is worshipped, called Lord. The world has changed, the renewal of the world has begun in the body of a crucified God.

So – you're the disciples of this God, and after all this, all these miracles, what do you do? Well, you go fishing!

We know that eventually the disciples do go all over the world, bringing the good news of God in Christ, the good news of the resurrection, to all sorts of people. They even they perform miracles. But for now? What do they do? They go fishing.

I love that, actually. I even think it's important. Not important because there is something special about fishing, but because what the disciples do is go back to the routines of life, the routines of life that includes work. And for these guys work is fishing.

Jesus doesn't appear, for this last time in the Gospel of John, in any special way. The resurrected Jesus comes while the disciples are simply going about the mundane routines of life. Kind of like Jesus showing up at the loading dock and giving some advice to the truck driver about backing up, or like showing up in the warehouse to help stack boxes, or showing up at the water cooler to tell you how to reboot your computer. Jesus said, "fishing not too good today, huh?" They said, "No." He said to them, "throw your net to the other side of the boat, and you'll catch some." So they did this, and they caught a whole lot of fish. Jesus appears to fishermen, by the sea of Galilee, and offers fishermen fishing advice, providing a working miracle.

You'd think there were far more important things for a risen Jesus to do, but I guess once you've risen from the dead you just want to hang out. "Whatcha doin?" "Going fishing." "Can I come with?" And in this miracle, through the catching of fish, the man on the beach is revealed to be Jesus, Lord and King.

***

But we know this, don't we? We know that Jesus is revealed to us especially in the mundane routines of life? Or do we look for the intervention of the divine only in the big stuff? Only in the miracles of healing, only in ecstatic moments of prayer? Surely Jesus is revealed in the big stuff, but do we believe that Jesus is revealed in the small stuff?

I'll make a confession. I've caught myself, when I'm really late, praying for a parking spot. I don't know that I should do that! But if Jesus is with us, at all times, in all the mundane aspects of our life, maybe it makes sense.

***

Whether Jesus ever helps me find a parking spot, I don't know, but as we read this passage we find that Jesus is certainly present in another of the mundane parts of the lives of the disciples. Jesus is concerned that they get something to eat.

"Jesus said to them, Come and have breakfast." "Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish."

Whether Jesus is my co-pilot and helps me find my parking spot I don't know. But Christians have been certain, throughout the centuries, that Jesus is present in at least one of the most mundane routines of life, that of eating. We are about to share a meal together, right? And celebrate the sign of Jesus' presence in the simple act of breaking of bread? We do this because of the stories that we have of Jesus breaking bread with his disciples at the last supper, on the road to Emmaus, and on the beach by the Sea of Galilee.

Jesus is present with us here, today, at the Eucharistic table, in order that he might inhabit all the mundane parts of our lives, our work, the most boring and (what seem to be) the most unproductive parts of our lives.

Jesus is present with us in the most ordinary of acts, the breaking of bread and the sharing of a meal, because by this he is revealed to be for us the risen Lord and Saviour.

Second Sunday of Easter (2007): "Revisiting Doubting Thomas"

Second Sunday of Easter (2007): "Revisiting Doubting Thomas"
Acts 5:27-32; Psalm 118:14-29 or Psalm 150; Revelation 1:4-8; John 20:19-31
preached by Jane Barter Moulaison on April 15th, 2007

The Easter appearance to the disciple Thomas is a much loved and a well-known story. Many times we have probably heard sermons preached on “Doubting Thomas.” In many ways, Thomas becomes the great patron saint of modernity. He is interpreted as doubting the authority of the disciples; of having a great scientific mind, wanting empirical proof of the resurrection which his friends proclaimed.

So, like the good rationalist he is, he declares: “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his ands, and pit my finer in the mark of the nails and my hands in his side I will not believe.”

And, of course, it is indeed possible that it was this kind of skepticism that made him a “Doubting Thomas”; but I am intrigued by his request.

• Why the nail marks in his hands?
• Why his pierced side?
• Why did he wish to touch those places of his Lord’s woundedness?
• Why did he not just wish to see him and to cling to him, as Mary Magdalene had?
• Why did he not long to see evidence of his glory rather than the marks of his crucifixion?

Let’s keep this question in the back of our mind for a bit while I tell another Easter story.

It is early morning on Easter Sunday just west of Kandahar. A caravan of Canadian troops are traveling; it has been quiet for some time now. Some no doubt are thinking about the holiday; remembering family traditions; thinking of their kids and hiding Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies. Wondering if it is Spring-time yet in New Brunswick. Then a thud and a sudden explosion. Then light, now panic, now terror. Then the silence. Six men killed instantly.

Their names flashed across televisions, were heard on radios, interrupting Easter holiday celebrations.
• Sgt. Donald Lucas, 31, of Burton, N.B.
• Cpl. Aaron E. Williams, 23, of Lincoln, N.B.
• Pte. Kevin Vincent Kennedy, 20, of St. Lawrence, N.L.
• Pte. David Robert Greenslade, 20, of Saint John, N.B.
• Cpl. Christopher Paul Stannix, 24, of Dartmouth, N.S.
• Cpl. Brent Poland, 37, of Camlachie, Ont.
Half a world away, in Gagetown, military officials spent most of Easter day tracking down the families of the soldiers killed in the attack. Three days later, more terrible, most un-Easter-like news. This time it comes to Petawawa Ontario. Master Cpl. Allan Stewart, 30, and Trooper Patrick James Pentland, 23. Also dead.
We can hardly fathom the loss of young life; we cannot make sense of the Easter message in the midst of continued violence.

Perhaps it was like this for the disciple Thomas two thousands years ago in that locked meeting place.

Perhaps it was like this for Thomas who had seen enough devastation, had witnessed enough terror that he could not imagine anything being otherwise.
As we hear the story of the empty tomb, we often forget the terror and the violence that gave birth to it.

We shut out the violence of our own world we become desperate for hope for a happier ending, but Thomas does not forget: “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hands in his side I will not believe.”

• Unless I know that the one whom you claim has appeared to you is no ghostly spirit, but still bears the marks of his vulnerability--
• Unless this man who has appeared to you still carries his woundedness and our own upon him--
• Unless this one whom you say has come can show me a way out of this endless cycle of violence and suffering, I will not believe.

Thomas’ doubt is not his intellectual curiosity, but his grief; his lament. Why else would he want to see his Lord’s wounds still?

And in the midst of Thomas’ grief, and our own, Jesus enters into the locked up places of our world, into our hearts broken in grief, into our battle zones, and proclaims, “Peace!”

What kind of a peace is it that he proclaims?

Certainly, it is not a peace that would suggest that after his appearance the disciples will live lives free of discord, freed from the threat of violence. Our Acts reading for this morning dispels such illusions. It is not the peace that is the achievement of political machinations; it is not the peace of a final military conquest; it is not the peace that the UN hopes for once the Taliban finally loses its power or resolve to plant one more road-side bomb.

Christ offers, instead, the peace that is himself. The prince of peace. The first fruit of a new creation. He offers Thomas his resurrected body, which Thomas, and we too will one day share. A body that has borne all the iniquities and violence that the world gives; and yet a body that lives. And so he invites Thomas to touch him, to probe his hand into his very wounds, and to know that he is no ghost—that his peace is no illusion. “Thomas, do not doubt but believe.”
• Believe that the kingdom is here in your midst, Thomas.
• Believe that the Spirit that I have sent is the pouring out of a new creation; a creation of peace that is waiting to be born.
• And receive, Thomas, this gift so that you and your friends might be emissaries of this peace. A peace that comes through the very wounds that you have touched. “Do not doubt, but believe.”

I cannot imagine how this very simple message, “Do not doubt, but believe,” is conveyed by the priests and pastors in Gagetown and Petawawa. I do not know how the good news of Easter is proclaimed meaningfully to those who have suffered such a loss, but I suspect that Jesus’ words to Thomas have much to teach us about suffering. There was a news story recently on the so-called collateral damage inflicted upon civilian families back home as children suffer the fear and anxiety of having parents in combat. And, as many of you have probably seen, the government has committed some money to bolster the scant resources for military families, particularly in Petawawa, so that they might learn to cope with their fear and loss. I was raised in a military family, and so I have a great deal of sympathy for the efforts of these counselors and family centres.

But what I would suggest is that what the church has to offer is something quite different from the capacity to manage or cope in a world of violence and in a world of grieving. What the church has to offer is the patient kind of ministry that Jesus has displayed in his care for Thomas.

Jesus does not deny Thomas or rebuke him in his doubt, but like his appearance to Mary, Jesus reveals himself uniquely to him; calling Mary by name, and allowing Thomas the time to touch and probe. In our doubt, in our suffering, in our anguish and loss of faith, Jesus calls us by name, and he says, “Do not doubt, but believe.” This is no rebuke but an invitation. And it is an invitation that is accompanied by various gifts so that the pain and doubt may not be unbearable.

First, the risen Christ offers his presence to the end of time through the power of the Holy Spirit. In a moment reminiscent of the book of Genesis, Christ breathes upon the disciples, just as God breathes life into Adam. In this new creation, the disciples are filled with the Spirit, and with the Spirit’s power to act in God’s name. This is the gift that we have been given as the church--to be agents of reconciliation in a broken world. Not so that we can merely manage our loss, but so that we might become whole, so that all might enjoy Christ’s peace.

***

The second gift is related to this. The Church is given the gift of Christ’s wounded body, just as Thomas was, to see, to touch to partake in. It is this body that we take into our hands as we participate in our eucharistic meal. And it is through this body that we are transformed, as our world awaits transformation. To partake in the eucharist in a world of violence and terror, is to partake in a free gift of life, in which brokenness is made whole, in which the many become one. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing from his prison cell in the last days of his life, indeed the last days of the war, wrote these words to his friend:

Not only action, but also suffering is a way to freedom. In suffering, the deliverance consists in our being allowed to put the matter out of our own hands into God’s hands. In this sense death is the crowning of human freedom. Whether the human deed is a matter of faith or not depends on whether we understand our suffering as an extension of our action and a completion of freedom. (LPP)

There is something quite right that the church does when it remembers its war dead, because it acknowledges the courage of those who recognize that suffering for others is a way to freedom. Yet, that freedom is now only partially available to us; there remains in our lives, countless ways in which Christ still bears the marks of humanity on his hands, in his side. What we do when we proclaim the resurrection in the midst of war and strife is that we remember the wounds, of those who have died far too young, and we remember that those wounds are borne for us by God, and that God has given the Church the power to likewise transform that suffering into promise. Just as there is nothing in the lives of the young men that will not be taken up by Christ, their deaths, like ours too will be, represent a release from the terror and fear that is still part of the life in the times in between.

It is difficult to celebrate Easter when sometimes our world looks much the same. Yet we have before us a table, a sanctuary, in which Christ offers his peace, offers himself. Touch and see and taste how the world has changed, and become that peace that Christ grants. Do not doubt, but believe.

From Easter, 1916, by W.B. Yeats

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse -
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

The Resurrection of Our Lord (2007): "The Grafting of the Gardener of Souls"

The Resurrection of Our Lord (2007): "The Grafting of the Gardener of Souls"
Acts 10:34-43;
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; 1 Corinthians 15:19-26;
John 20:1-18
preached by the Rev. Preston Parsons, on April 8th, 2007

I’ve tried gardening. And I’ll probably try gardening again. I wouldn’t call myself the best gardener, though – there’s something about gardening that assumes you’re going to keep your eyes open, and be diligent. You’ve got to keep watering, and make sure you plant the right thing in the right season.

That part I can do well enough, most of the time. That’s not the part that I have had the most difficulty with. The hardest part for me is keeping my eyes open to what’s around me.

***

When I was about 12, a sapling started growing up in our yard. It was an elm sapling. I loved that little sapling. I was the one who mowed the lawn, and every Saturday, I carefully mowed around this sapling.

The rest of the trees didn’t matter to me at all, just this little sapling, this little elm tree. It took years for that little tree to grow to any height, and it was still there when I went away to university. But when I went away to university, someone else started mowing the lawn. So you know what happened, right? My precious little sapling got mowed over by someone with a little less love for that little elm tree than I did.

***

I lived in California for a few years, and Karen and I had our first back-yard there. So we thought we might do some gardening. One of my favourite herbs is rosemary, so I was particularly excited to grow some rosemary in our new back-yard. I gave that little rosemary so much attention. But it never grew. All I had was a little shrimpy rosemary branch sticking out of the mud, so small that to take enough rosemary off that shrub for any cooking, was to risk the life of the poor little guy. So we cooked without rosemary.

That rosemary never grew, and Karen and I left it to die when we left that house.

***

And so we find Mary Magdalene in another garden, in another time, looking for her Lord, the one who was going to save her, but who died an anonymous, wretched, and torturous death on a cross, just three days before. She went to the tomb to visit a dead man, but what she was looking for wasn’t there; and she discovers that her Lord and saviour is not only dead, but his body has disappeared: “They have taken my Lord out of the tomb,” says Mary to Peter and the beloved disciple, “and I do not know where they have laid him.”

Her saviour is not only dead, he’s dead and gone.

***

You know that little elm sapling that I so lovingly mowed around, only to have it get mowed over by a reckless gardener? If I had taken a minute to look around I would have realized something. Let me say a bit about where I grew up: I grew up near the centre of the city, in a neighbourhood where old old trees grew on the boulevard all the way up and down the street. Think about it for a second – I was worried about a little elm sapling (as beautiful as it was), but if I had only looked up to what was there – I grew up on Elm street, it wasn’t called Elm street because poplar grew on it! Great, hulking, cathedral elms swung over my head every day I mowed that lawn. Seeds had already been planted,
and the fruits of someone else’s labour swung above me, and if only I took a minute to look up, my pet project would sure have been put into perspective.

And in California, while I agonized over that little shrimpy shrub of rosemary, if I had taken a minute to look around, I would have seen that rosemary grows like a weed in that little California town. If I had taken a good look, I would have seen that people grew rosemary for shrubs on their front lawns, and that I passed rosemary bush after rosemary bush every day on my way to the bus stop. If only I had looked, I would have seen that the fruits of the seeds that someone else had already planted were already there, the fruit was available in abundance – and my little pet project would have come into perspective.

And when Mary Magdalene, who is looking for a dead man, when she looks up,
it turns out she is as dense as I am. Mary is looking for her Lord, who she thinks is a dead man. But she finds a gardener. And Mary says to the gardener, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Mary couldn’t see what was right in front of her, as concerned as she was with her nearly meaningless errand.

But the gardener says to her, “Mary!” And in a moment Mary understands; what she has been looking at, but not seeing, was that this man, the gardener, is the man she thought was dead; her Lord, the gardener, the first fruits of her salvation, this gardener is her Lord. Mary doesn’t finally see her Lord in a fit of ecstasy; she is not in some kind of deep prayer; she only needs someone to tell her who she is: “Mary!”

Jesus the gardener calls out her name, and in this calling of Mary she finally sees the gardener for who he is; Mary was looking for a sapling, but found a cathedral elm;
Mary was looking for a sprig, but found a field full of rosemary; Mary was looking for the dead, but she finds a living God, a living man.

And this living God, this living man, is the gardener of souls, the one we see for who he is when he calls out our name. This gardener of souls is calling out Mary’s name;
he’s calling out my name; this gardener of souls is calling out your name; and when we hear our name from his lips we call out to him “Teacher!”

***

But this gardener of souls offers us far more than the friendship he spoke of at the last supper; he offers far more than being our Teacher, though this gardener is both of these things: he is our friend, and our teacher.

But this gardener of souls, the man who is God, the crucified one, the risen one, says to Mary: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” This gardener of souls offers to us participation in the divine life of the Father, participation in the divine life of God, through the work of our brother, our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. The world has been pruned and is ready to bear the fruit of everlasting life because this gardener is himself the first-fruits of the salvation that we will know if we believe in him. He has died, yet he is not dead; he is risen and has ascended, yet he is here with us in the power of the Holy Spirit. Through death and resurrection the gardener grafts us to himself, saving us and bringing into the fullness of life through participation in the very life of the Holy Trinity.

***

So what have you come here looking for? I don't know exactly why you're here, but if your looking for anything less than the living God, open you eyes! The living God has walked among us as a man; the living God suffered death on the cross in Jesus of Nazareth; the living God in a living human body has risen to the fullness of life in the Father; and the living God leaves us signs of his presence in the fruit of the field and the fruit of the vine made true by the Holy Spirit.

Feed on the fruit of salvation made known to us in the one who offers himself on this table, the salvation made known to us in the crucified one, the risen one.

Easter Vigil (2007): “Why do you look for the dead among the living?”

Easter Vigil (2007): “Why do you look for the dead among the living?”
Genesis 1:1-2:2; Exodus 14:10-15:1; Isaiah 55:1-11; Ezekiel 37:1-14
Romans 6:3-11; Psalm 114;
 Luke 24:1-12
Preached by the Rev. Preston Parsons, on April 7th, 2007

When Moses arrives at the edge of the Red Sea with the rest of the Israelites, the Egyptians are very close at hand. And the Israelites start complaining. So Moses offers some advice to the Israelites: “The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.” Which is kind of funny, because the Lord is hardly happy with this advice.

The first thing the Lord does is, well, complain a little too. “Why do you cry out to me?” Stop complaining, says the Lord.

But then the Lord, seemingly unhappy with Moses’ advice to the Israelites that they ought to keep still, the Lord says don’t keep still. “Tell the Israelites to go forward!” says the Lord.

The Israelites are asked to go forward right into the Red Sea, without knowing that Moses was about to be given the power to divide that very same sea. I don’t care about this keeping still business, says the Lord, go forward – and I don’t care if you think you’re going to get a little wet.

***

So we can give some credit to St. Mary Magdalene. While the eleven were elsewhere (we’re not sure where, but perhaps they were heeding Moses’ advice, hoping that the Lord would fight for them, if only they kept still), St. Mary Magdalene, and a few other women, went ahead and did something.

There’s a lot to be said for keeping still. Most of us are like St. Mary Magdalene, at least in some respects. We just want to do something, to keep busy with unimportant things, distractions. There is something important about knowing that the Lord will fight for us, if only we keep still.

But St. Mary Magdalene didn’t go to the tomb because unimportant things distracted her. Her friend, her teacher, and Lord had died, and she did him a great honour: she brought prepared spices in the hopes of paying her deepest respects to a dead body. That is what you expect to find, when someone dies and is put in a tomb, right? A dead body? St. Mary Magdalene was acting in good faith according to what she already knew and expected. This was no busy work, no distracting task- it was an errand of mercy, affection, and adoration of her dead Lord.

Many of us do the best we can in our tasks of mercy and affection, and adoration of our Lord, according to the knowledge we have on hand. And this is good – mercy, affection, and adoration, are good things! But what do we do when something new comes to pass?

Sometimes what we know changes deeply, as it did for St. Mary Magdalene that early dawn. St. Mary Magdalene went looking for a dead man, but what she found was something entirely different: she found an empty tomb with two angels standing there.

Now we can do two things when such an event happens: we can cling to what we once knew, and continue believing that our Lord is a dead man; we can keep up our acts of mercy, affection, and adoration as we had once done according to what we once knew.

But St. Mary Magdalene does the more difficult thing. She changes her mind. She acts differently. She finds no dead man, and discovers that this particular errand of mercy, affection, and adoration actually makes little sense anymore: because only dead men need burial spices.

Living and risen saviours ask something different; they ask for conversion, they ask for a turning of the mind, a changing of what we do and how we do it, because all things are new, all things are changed – “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

Good question!

“Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, he has risen.” But by the resurrection, abd by our distance from the grave, we can now ask the question a little differently: “Why do you look for the dead among the living?” Look for dead men somewhere else. They won’t be found here. Here is not the place to go on an errand of mercy, or affection, or even adoration of any dead man. Here – in this church, in this worship, in this liturgy, you will find no dead man. You will find the living God, our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ, at once man and God, the one who, through his empty tomb and the resurrection of his body (the one in whom we will partake at this table), this is the living God of wondrous possibility, the one who makes all things new.

Let us let the Lord do this work through us; let us leave old things behind; let us imagine (because it’s true!) that all things are made new through this, our risen and living Lord and saviour Jesus Christ.