Meeting the Risen Lord?

Easter homily
by Carrie Eikler
John 10:1-18

Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. You don’t have to be a classical music buff to know it [pianist plays first eight notes "buh buh buh BUH. buh buh buh BUH!].

Even if you couldn’t put the name of the piece with those first notes, most of us recognize it. While Alistair and I were puttering around the house on Monday,
wishing it wasn’t raining outside so we could be doing things in the garden,
the radio program we were listening to was about to play Beethoven’s 5th..

The announcer gave this prelude:
“Those opening four notes. They're so familiar that they're almost a cliché.
How many times have we heard them and thought, oh, that again?
We've heard it so many times before.” (Peformance Today, NPR)
But he promised that we were about ready to hear a performance like none other by the Dresden Staatskapelle conducted by Paarvo Jarvi.

[pause]
And I had to wonder, would I really notice the difference?
I mean, I’m familiar with your basic classical music,
I could name Beethoven’s 5th if I heard those first four notes,
but unless they played it on the kazoo… I doubt I would be able to really tell the difference.

Not that I would say it would be a cliché.
But it probably wouldn’t move me terribly.
I might think “Oh, that again, that’s nice” and go on puttering with my rainy day.

[pause]
Mary went to the tomb on that first day of the week.
If it was raining, it didn't keep her away.
Nor did the dark
We don’t know exactly why she went
but in the Easter story told in both Luke and in Mark said the women were going to take spices to the grave.
They were going to do funeral rites.
Perhaps they were eager to finally be close to the body,
to help Jesus, even in death.
To tend to him, to simply do what needed to be done,
maybe it was routine but at least they could do something
…which was more than they could do for Jesus in his hour of need the day before.

Maybe Mary was going to do these things. Maybe she was simply going to weep.
This…this is what you did for the dead.
She probably did it other times before with others who have died,
at least witnessed other women doing it since she was a girl.
It was probably a familiar routine.
Perhaps, a bit… cliché… just the motions one went through.

But she could have also gone for another reason.
... Because his death was anything but cliché.
It’s not that it was uncommon. People were crucified. Capital punishment happened in the public eye.
But she really believed him to be the Messiah, and that sort of death for the Messiah…?
This was someone who had seen her.
Who affirmed her.
Who let her love him and experience love from him that was not just about the body,
but about the spirit.

So I wonder if she went with just a little bit of curiosity.
After all, didn’t he say that he would rise again?
He brought other people to life: the centurion’s daughter, Lazarus.
They were dead, and they lived.

Even if she suspected something might not be routine with Jesus’ death, she still was amazed he wasn’t there. She seems a bit flabbergasted, doesn’t she?
(quickly speaking)
She looked where he should have been
and then looked all around her
and [sigh] wasn’t it just like the men to run and hide leaving her to deal with
the crisis
and what are those angels doing there?
and who is this guy who is asking such ridiculous questions? and why does she have such a strange feeling about him,
(gasp) it’s probably because he stole Jesus!!! and…
…this is no routine sequence of events.

Because then the dead… calls her name. [pause] Mary.

And she has met the Risen Lord.

And 2,000 years later, the church, on this day like no other, asks that question.
Have you met the Risen Lord?
And I have to say, that question, like many other questions Christians often ask each other, starts to sound...
... a bit like Beethoven’s 5th.
A bit, cliché. Something overused. Even to me.
Because I don’t know what we mean by it.
I’ve heard it so many times that I can’t see through the popular worn out answers.

Obviously, we know we’re not talking about the physical, flesh and bone Jesus.
This is where most Christians are happy to throw around metaphors,
even for Christians who don’t think they like metaphors…
What do we mean we’ve seen the Risen Lord?
Our mind quickly tries to answer the question with more obvious questions…
Where have we seen something powerful that we believe God is behind it?
When have we had an experience that made us feel good, and loved, and saved?

But, as much as I love metaphors, I can’t quite then sift my way through the metaphor into the stuff of real life.

So I’m not going to ask you this morning the typical Easter question:
have you seen the risen Lord?
Because I think I would get a lot of blank stares, even from myself.
Something that was so radical, and political, and spiritual sadly, doesn’t reach us anymore.

And I wonder if it is because we are looking for our answers about Jesus in all the familiar places.

It’s easy to say we see God in people who have helped us along the way. And that’s true. I’m sure the Risen Lord is there.
We search for the places in our lives where that positive experience points us to the fact that Jesus rose—
when things go our way,
when circumstances work out for the best,
when the heart of Jesus message of compassion and peace and mercy are lived out.
It’s easy to see the Risen Lord then.

But what about the harder places.
Those places, where Jesus was also very present. in his life. In his life after death.
What about when we see a father weep for his son killed by artillery fire?
A woman suffering from sexual abuse.
What about when the powers that be, begin to consume us, crucifying us with
job loss, increase of food prices, and endless warfare.

I’d have to say the Risen Lord is there but not like we’d expect.
Not making things easy for us or giving us easy answers.
And, yet, in these hard moments, we meet him.
...unsuspecting
...a bit flaggergasted.
...proably still wondering "where is Jesus?!"
even though he is right in front of us.

The French composer Hector Berlioz took a friend to hear Beethoven’s 5th symphony in Paris.
At first a bit skeptical about this crazy new music by Beethoven, Berlioz’s friend had to leave the music hall during the performance.
Berlioz found him pacing madly outside muttering to himself , saying
“Let me get out, I must have some air. It’s amazing. I was so upset, so moved, so disturbed I came out to put on my hat and I couldn’t find my head.”

When we meet the risen Lord, I think it has been, is, will be like this.
We won’t see the empty tomb,
or the dirt under the nails of the man we think is the gardener,
or even hear our names clearly spoken.
I think when we meet the Risen Lord we’ll be so upset,
so moved,
so disturbed
that we won’t be able to find our heads.

When you meet the risen Lord, choose the living over the dead.
the next encounter over the familiar cliche,
Choose the freeing rather than the clinging....
each and every time he calls your name.