April 8, 2012
Gone to Galilee
- Mark 16:1-8
- Dr. Teri Thomas
If you are visiting with us this morning, or if you just haven't been around in a while,
we want you to feel welcome.
We are glad to have you here and hope you'll come back for more.
If you are just going to drop in once a year this is a good Sunday to do it.
This is Easter, the big one.
So we have hired a couple of extra musicians,
we've had a few extra rehearsals for the choir,
we polished the pews, and we have a couple of extra flower arrangements.
So what you experience here today may be a little out of the ordinary for us.
But isn't that as it should be? After all, what could be more out of the ordinary than Easter?
Jesus,
arrested on Thursday,
crucified on Friday, dead and buried in a tomb,
coming forth from the tomb early Sunday morning.
What could possibly be more extraordinary?
Resurrection.
In the Gospel of Mark we have an account of Jesus life and ministry.
Mark goes to great lengths to try to help readers understand
that Jesus is the son God.
He tells of miracles, exorcisms, healing, miraculous feedings, cures,
even raising Lazarus from the dead-
and Mark tells us all this so that we might believe.
So that we might understand that Jesus is not an ordinary man,
he is the Messiah, and he is extraordinary.
Mark records all these phenomenal events
and then after Jesus has been in the tomb for three days,
the women come to the tomb.
Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome
bring spices, so that they might anoint him.
When they arrive at the tomb they discover that the stone has been rolled away.
They look inside and see that the body is gone, only the folded grave clothes remain.
A man, all in white, tells them that Jesus has been raised.
He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.
If you want to see Jesus, go to Galilee.
Do you know where Galilee is? It is in the middle of nowhere.
Nazareth is there but other than that it is pretty ordinary, nothing special.
Most of the disciples were from Galilee or thereabouts.
So the extraordinarily raised from the dead Christ
returns to the ordinary Galilee.
But why Galilee?
Jerusalem would have been closer, an easier walk from the tomb,
more sophisticated, better restaurants and lodging.
But the messenger said "he is going ahead of you to Galilee;
there you will see him, just as he told you."
Galilee, the middle of nowhere.
Ever been to a place like that?
Galilee is where the ordinary people live, the outsiders, too.
It is where the sick people all gathered around Peter's house to be healed.
It is where Jesus was tormented by demons.
It is the place where the hungry people surrounded him asking for something to eat.
Galilee is the place where the paint is peeling,
where the china is chipped,
where hearts are broken,
and where lives are not always what we planned.
Galilee is where life is ordinary.
Where people get sick and suffer and never experience that miracle touch.
It is a place where people die and then stay dead.
And we are left behind to grieve and to cry.
It is where relationships are tested and troubled and sometimes torn apart.
Most of life is like Galilee, ordinary, mundane, typical.
This is where we make our home day in and day out.
Look at your loved one with Alzheimer's,
bewildered by forces beyond human control. That is Galilee.
See those three scrawny kids,
bug-eyed and bellies swollen with hunger. That is Galilee.
There is a teenage boy,
cowering in the corner,
bruised because daddy has been drinking again. That is Galilee.
Where the widow is standing next to the freshly dug grave,
having lost more than she can imagine. That's Galilee.
Or the young professional juggling the smart phone and the I-pad,
nice home, nice car, good life, but an emptiness somewhere deep inside.
That's Galilee.
And that is where the risen Christ calls us to join him,
as he continues to confront everything that harms human life.
If we continue to look for Jesus in the extraordinary celebration outside the tomb
we probably will not find him.
If we only seek him in the big miraculous events that change the world-
we will miss him in the ordinary everyday events that change our lives.
We need to follow him to Galilee. And he will meet us there.
He will meet the women who came to the tomb,
the faithful ones who never stopped loving him even when they thought he was dead.
He will come to the believers who follow him and stand with him.
He will come to Galilee, to meet those who gave up and ran away.
He will come to the disciples who betrayed him and denied him.
He will come to the ones who didn't follow, those who lost their faith,
those who found it just too hard to believe in the midst of all that pain and suffering and death.
He will meet the politicians and the religious leaders who killed him.
He will come to those with no room for him in their lives,
those with no place for him in their world, those who never believed.
He will come anyway.
He will come to Galilee and meet us there. All of us.
The man in the tomb said to Mary- He is going ahead of you to Galilee.
I agree with John Buchanan when he said
What Jesus means, "I think is,
Regardless of how you try to understand and explain this, regardless of all the wonderfully bizarre ways you will try to celebrate this down across the years
(the eggs and flowers and Easter bonnets),
he is always ahead of you,
out in front of you in the future.
He will be there in your future.
And what that means is
there is no tragedy so great
that he cannot in some way redeem it,
there is no personal loss so profound
that he cannot overcome it,
there is no pain so deep
that he cannot bear it with you,
and there is no cause so hopeless
that he cannot fill it and us
with new energy and hope and passion and life."
He has gone into the world-
To meet you there.
And so may the blessings of the day be yours.
May you know, in your heart and soul and mind—
that you live in a new world now,
and that when things are not right,
God has put something very right.
Christ is risen.
He is risen indeed.
Alleluia.
Amen.
Resources:
A Fearsome Wonder, by Bill Carter
A Pulpit Resource, by William H. Willimon
Preaching Easter from the Gospel of Mark, by Thomas G. Long
Easter 2003, John Buchanan