Today's Sermon

 

“That Feeling” – Miracles 6, Resurrection of the Lord / Easter Sunday"

 

           

John 20:1-18
         20 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’s head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed, 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples returned to their homes.

         11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb, 12 and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not touch me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and she told them that he had said these things to her. THIS IS HOLY WIDOM, HOLY WORD. THANKS BE TO GOD.

That Feeling – Miracles 6

         A special welcome to those who may be visiting with us this morning. As I have said before, Easter is one of the hardest days to visit a church. I’m not speaking of the parking, but rather the fact that today we gather around a fantastical story in which someone who has been cruelly and unjustly killed rises from the dead.

         If it makes you feel any better, attending the last five weeks hasn’t been any easier. We have been doing a series on miracles in scripture. Miracles are a part of the Bible we might prefer to gloss over. Here we accept a modern scientific worldview—just as our ancestors accepted the best science of their age. We embrace questions and critical thought. Miracles? People walking on water, multiplying fishes and loaves, and rising from the dead? These are not the sort of things we see out in the world in our everyday lives. Yet, we have made the case that miracle stories are not to be dismissed, for they have something to teach us.

         Part of how we go astray is by starting at the wrong place. There’s an implicit pressure to start with conclusions in our faith, certain beliefs either about doctrines or biblical stories. Then figure out what that has to do with your life. That’s backwards. Our scholarly companion for this series has been New Testament Scholar Luke Timothy Johnson’s book on miracles. Johnson says that biblical stories are born of real, human experience of God’s activity in the world. People encounter the mysterious and try to give it voice. Human lives give birth to the stories and teachings which circle back and continue to form them. People turn to fantastical language, the language of miracles, when ordinary words just won’t do. Even if we don’t know exactly what happened, we know something happened to inspire these stories.

         In the days after Jesus’ death, people experienced his presence. That much is clear. The stories we have are the remnants of those experiences. Johnson says stories such as these give us a vocabulary, or at least some examples, as we try and articulate our own mysterious experiences or encounters with God’s presence. It’s like being given a language system to use to describe “that feeling” you sometimes have. Have you ever had a feeling of oneness or expansiveness? It often happens in nature, or maybe at the birth of a child, the look in an animal’s eyes. Have you ever felt a clear leading, a sense of direction you need to take? Have you ever felt an abiding presence of something or someone? Our ancestors did too. They merely had a different worldview and therefore different ways of talking. Some see these stories’ unbelievability to our worldview a detriment, Johnson contends their extraordinary nature is an asset. They push on the bounds of what we imagine is possible. The miracles invite us to recognize the unbelievable world that is trying to be born and collaborate with God to make it come true.[1]    

         Like any growth, stretching our imagination, expanding our consciousness, is hard. It involves growing pains, exposing tensions within us and between us. In today’s story, when Mary of Magdala arrives at the empty tomb, she assumes that the body has been stolen. Simon Peter too. That makes sense; it’s how the world works in their view. Then something miraculous happens. As the men run on, Mary stays with her grief, and she is visited by angels, messengers of God, and then the risen Christ himself. It’s the inbreaking of another world. There’s a lesson in that. If we can stay with what we’re experiencing in the moment instead of always rushing off to the next thing, we can make room for what is trying to be born. We can allow our worldview to be stretched and at the same time sharpened. At first, Mary doesn’t recognize Jesus. She is looking through her old eyes. When he addresses her, “Mary,” she responds in recognition, “Teacher!” Do you ever get the feeling of being addressed? Do we have the courage to respond, “Teacher” and be taught?

         Once she is in touch with what’s happening, Jesus intuit Mary wants to hold onto it. He says, I can’t stay. I’ve got to go. That’s how it is, isn’t it? We have these experiences and we want to hold onto them forever, but they slip away. Jesus tells Mary to go to the others, go back to her world, and tell people that despite what appears to have happened, Jesus is still here. Those who trumped up lies to put you and others down, who sold their souls for power and would sell yours if they could, who tried to rule through fear and intimidation, have failed. The killing didn’t take. Love and life did not and will not stay buried. Mary proclaims, “I have seen the Lord,” and now she sees everything differently.

         That’s what we’re here to do, to see the risen One in our midst and therefore to see the world differently and thus be in it differently. We are to be for one another place and community to talk about what we have seen, what we have experienced, what leadings we’ve discerned, so that we might better recognize and join with God, Spirit, Way, love, light, healing in the world. We treat it as a communal project in part because, as we have seen, sometimes in religious fervor, any one of us can get it wrong.

         Mary didn’t conjure Jesus, but she was somehow in a state of being to receive him. Similarly, we cannot manufacture an experience of God. The best we can do is likewise put ourselves in a position to receive what the divine has for us in the moment. We’ve seen a real shift toward spiritual practices for this reason, and I’d call spiritual what a lot of religious and non-religious people are doing. Anything that gets us in touch with our highest power or deepest selves, our most loving and compassionate selves, our most deeply joyful selves, I’ll call spiritual. It’s whatever ripens us for transformation for the better. For Christians, it’s striving to be as in the flow of the Spirit as Jesus was. That’s why they called him son of God.

         Flow is a good word, and a good segue. In her book The Flow Habit, Laurie Smith talks about that state we get into when we lose track of time, are totally focused, connected, free of those critical voices that shut us down (our ancestors might call those “unclean spirits”). Flow doesn’t belong to any one religion or spiritual tradition—it belongs to us all—though religion done well can help bring you to a flow state, and we would say connect you to the One from whom all blessings flow. Smith says spending time in a flow state, even in little bits, becomes a pathway to emotional wellbeing and transformation, and I’d say not just for the individual but for the community. The more individuals who step into the best and happiest versions of themselves, the healthier our communities will be. What’s great is that whatever you do to get you there – writing, painting, walking, sitting, carving—works. You just need a few minutes here and there, hopefully regularly, and hopefully with a community that helps keep you going and gives you opportunities to share.[2] Smith actually hosts online groups to do just this. Maybe we should some here.

         In fact, you could think of prayer as merely the attempt to get into a flow state. Jesus was always going off on his own to get back in the flow. We don’t know what he did. The great traditions are full of diverse practices to try and get us there, to tap into this reality dancing just beyond the veil. We go there not only to escape, but also to be transformed for this world.

         Similarly, Johnson reminds us the miracle of the resurrection is not confined to the past, but is a present reality that shapes us. He calls the resurrection, “the existential truth concerning the present that forms the basis of all proclamation and Christian practice.”[3] We don’t say “Christ rose;” we say “Christ is risen!” At the heart of the moment, it’s ready to teach us there is something new trying to be born of the old. The Apostle Paul, the quintessential of a transformed life, writes of “leaving the life of malice and evil”—the way of crucifixion—for “one of sincerity and truth”—the way of resurrection (1 Corinthians 5:8).

         The question of Easter is not do you believe in the resurrection; it’s do we want to be resurrection. Smith writes in another book, “I believe we have the opportunity to undergo thousands of little deaths and rebirths everyday. Each time we do, we free up space to live more fully in tune with who we really are, and to go where we are being called to.”[4] Go where we are being called to. We’re being addressed, just like Mary was addressed. Can we put ourselves in a place, as Mary did, to receive the divine address?

         Do you know what Smith’s other book is titled? It’s called, A Guide to Miraculous Living, just as the subtitle of The Flow Habit is Creating Peace, Passion, Purpose, and Everyday Miracles. The whole point of our series has been to reclaim miracles for our own lives. They don’t just happen in the fantastical tales of gold-edged books. They happen whenever and wherever we open ourselves to the inbreaking of heaven. In that sense, miracles are exactly what we see in our world and everyday lives. When we have eyes to see them and hearts to be touched by them, we have the possibility to create a world made in their image instead of the cruel and unjust one we often find.

         Today is not just the day you remember what happened; it’s a day you start to make something happen, the day you get to start showing up to your calling. Today is the day you too get to leave the tomb. Today is the day you get to go tell the world with your life that cruelty and injustice have lost, love has won, for Christ is risen! Christ has risen indeed!

         Amen.

[1] Luke Timothy Johnson, Miracles: God’s Presence and Power in Creation Interpretation Series (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2018).

[2] Laurie E. Smith, The Flow Habit: Creating Peace, Passion, Purpose, and Everyday Miracles (Carlsbad: Hay House, 2025).

[3] Johnson, 127.

[4] Laure E. Smith, Spirit in Disguise: A Guide to Miraculous Living, Book 2 (Spreading Sunshine Books, 2007).