Matthew 28:1-10
April 9. 2023
Being married to Brent Stoker means
that great music is a huge part of our life together. Brent has introduced me
to some wonderful music since we’ve been together, and alone with all the other
things about him and our family that I am grateful for, I am especially
grateful for the music. At some point in the last two years, Brent played songs
for me by Levon Helm. If you know the group The Band, you know Levon Helm’s
music. He was their brilliant drummer, songwriter, and one of the main singers.
I knew The Band, but I didn’t know
Levon’s solo work. So, one day in the car, Brent played me some of it. While I
liked everything I heard, I was floored by the song, “When I Go Away.” A simple
summary of the lyrics is that it is a song about dying. Levon didn’t write the
song, at least the lyrics aren’t credited to him, and I don’t know if he
recorded it as he prepared for his own death, but this is a song about dying.
And yet it is the most joyful, uplifting, exuberant, spiritual, faithful,
hopeful song I’ve heard in a long time. We listened to it, and I was
overwhelmed. I’ve given strict instructions to Brent that if I should die
first, “When I Go Away” is to be played as the finish to whatever service there
may be.
You would think that a song about
dying would sound like a mournful dirge. But this song rocks! It’s part gospel,
part rock n’ roll, part country. The opening verse is,
“Early in the morning, a-when the church bells toll,
The choir’s gonna sing and the hearse will roll
On down to the graveyard where it’s cold and gray
And then the sun’s gonna shine through the shadows when I go
away.”
I think the point being made is that
dying is a gift not a curse. Dying is just the entry point to the next life, a
better life, when all the sorrows and troubles and trials of this world are
left behind. Whenever I listen to it, and I’ve listened to it a lot at this
point, it makes me feel happy and hopeful and glad. I play it when I’m sad or
discouraged, and it lifts my spirits. The next verse of the song is this,
“Don’t want no sorrow for this old orphan boy
I don’t want no crying only tears of joy
I’m gonna see my mother gonna see my father
And I’ll be bound for glory in the morning when I go away.”
As much as I love this song, when my
mom died a few months ago, I found that I couldn’t listen to it. That verse hit
too close to home. My faith and hope are grounded in my belief that I will see
my mother and father again someday; but I knew that my heart wasn’t ready to
hear that verse. So, I stopped playing Levon for a while.
Until a couple of days ago. I was
driving home, and I found myself longing to hear Levon. It was on one of those
rainy, gloomy days that we’ve had lately, and I longed to hear a song that
would make my heart glad. This song makes my heart glad. I knew that if I
listened to it again, I would also have to hear once more the verse about
seeing his mother and father, but I felt like could handle it. So I played it,
and I sang. And when I heard those lyrics about an old orphan boy seeing his
parents one more time, I cried. But I kept singing. My tears were tears of
grief, true, but they were also tears of joy. And I realized as I sang that my
heart is healing a little, and I am grateful.
Since I’m jamming to this wonderful
song again, it’s message has been on my mind especially considering today,
Easter Sunday. Certainly, the ultimate message of “When I Go Away” that death
of this life, in this world, is just the gateway to glory is one understanding
of resurrection. Through Jesus’ resurrection, death for all of us has been
overcome. We may die to these earthly lives, but we will live again on the
other side in glory.
But I think this understanding of
resurrection needs to be held in tension with another understanding of
resurrection, and that is that God gives us new life now, not just after death.
Resurrection happens in the present, not just in the future. Matthew’s gospel
tells of Mary Magdalene and the other Mary going to the tomb early that
morning. There is no mention of them bringing spices to anoint his body. They
knew a stone too big for them to roll away blocked the entrance, and guards had
been posted to make sure no one went in or out. They went to the tomb, maybe to
sit by it as we might sit by a graveside. They went to grieve, to remember, to
wonder, to wait. But the descending of an angel caused the earth to quake and
the ground to roll. The angel himself moved the stone away. Dread at the
appearance of the angel caused the guards to fall into a dead faint, and surely
the women must have been frightened too. But the angel uttered the same words
to them that had been proclaimed to others at the birth of Jesus, “Do not be
afraid.”
Do not be afraid. Jesus was
crucified, but he has been raised. See the spot where he lay. He isn’t there.
Go quickly and tell the disciples that he has been raised from the dead and he
is going ahead of you to Galilee. Meet him there. “This is my message for you”
And the women, filled with both fear
and joy, run to do just that. And it is on the way to share this good news with
the disciples that they meet Jesus. Alive, risen, resurrected. They meet him in
the present, not in the future. They witnessed the resurrection while they were
still alive and able to tell the story. They were able to see him, talk to him,
touch him. They saw the resurrection in their present long before they saw it
in the future.
And that’s what I mean about holding
these two understandings of resurrection in tension. Yes, our faith tells us
that resurrection is something we will all experience on the other side of the
veil when we are taken up to glory. But resurrection is also right now and
right here.
It seems to me that the resurrection
was God’s great “Yes” to life and to love, and God’s great “No” to the powers
and principalities that tried to stop love from winning. The forces that put
Jesus to death on the cross were people who were afraid; afraid of losing their
own power and fearful of what the power of love could and would do. Kill him,
they thought, make sure he is dead and gone and out of our hair and out of our
way. But they miscalculated and underestimated the power of God and God’s love.
Their plans to stop God’s love by
stopping Jesus backfired. They backfired spectacularly! Instead of stopping
this love that Jesus embodied and preached, that love grew and spread and
claimed people’s hearts and minds. It was not just about resurrection sometime
later; it was about resurrection now.
That’s this tension that I’m talking
about. When I was able to listen to Levon again, when I was able to belt out
the words, “I’m gonna see my mother, gonna see my father,” I knew, and I
believed that something within me had been resurrected. It’s not that I’m over
the deaths of my parents, it’s that listening to that music and singing along
with Levon reminded me that there is joy to be found in the now, even as I
anticipate seeing my mom and dad again in the future. When joy can be born out
of grief, that’s resurrection.
When hope can rise from despair,
that’s resurrection. When anger gives way to forgiveness, that’s resurrection.
When empathy and compassion bridges division, that’s resurrection. When the
fullness of peace is prioritized over the emptiness of war, that is
resurrection. When we see one another through the eyes of God rather than
through eyes clouded by distrust and suspicion of the other, that is
resurrection.
The abundant life that God offers is
not just a reward upon death, but a gift and a promise now. The resurrection
does not take away the sorrows of this world. It does not magically make grief
and trouble and trials disappear. But resurrection reminds us that new life is
ours now. God is making all things new, right here, right now. Our incarnate
God who willingly took on our flesh, and in doing so our suffering, is alive
and in the world and in this place and in our midst. The stone has been rolled
away. The tomb is empty. Love and life have been let loose in the world, so do
not be afraid. When fear is released and love is embraced, that is
resurrection. That is my message to you.
Let all of God’s children shout,
“Alleluia!”
Amen.
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