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 Easter is God's "YES!" |
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April 2006 Jesus was crucified because he was seen as a threat to the Roman Empire. Can you imagine? Can you imagine the Roman Empire being threatened by a Jewish peasant? By someone who taught non-violence, who walked in the ways of God's justice, who brought healing and hope to an occupied nation chafing under the rule of an emperor who proclaimed himself to be god. Of course, in the Jewish mind, the idea that Caesar is God cannot be accommodated. There is but one God, the Lord. And if the Lord is God and God's realm is ushered in with Jesus, then the realm of Caesar no longer holds absolute power. And that threat to Rome's power of coercion and intimidation could not be tolerated. So Rome says "NO" as publically and as brutally as it possibly can. It refuses to tolerate a direct challenge to the hearts and minds of its subjects. Using state-sponsored terrorism to full effect, Jesus is put to death in one of the most gruesome ways possible. That should be the end of the story. The end of the Jewish peasant whose epithet on the cross reads "King of the Jews." Polished off; dead; buried. Certainly this is the message received, loud and clear by Mary Magdalene and Mary, mother of James, and Salome. They are heading for the tomb. Heading for that place in any culture where life is no more. Heading to pay their last respects with horror and grief heavy in their hearts. But what they find is not what they expect. They expect a stone-they don't expect it to be moved. They expect a tomb-they don't expect it to be empty. They expect death-they are told that Jesus, this same Jesus whom they saw crucified before their very eyes, has been raised from the dead. Then the man in the white robe commissions these women to go, to tell Jesus' disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of them to Galilee, where they will see him. But Mark does not end the story with that stirring, hope-filled commission from the young man in white. And it unsettles us. It would be so neat and tidy if the writer had done so. First, Mark tells us that the women are afraid-terrorized. Association with those executed for treason against the state is never a safe activity. Peter knows that. His courtyard denial echoes through the centuries. But the women cannot deny knowing Jesus-they are in his tomb. So in the face of their commission, they run away in terror and amazement, saying nothing to anyone. If we didn't know better, we'd think that the two Marys and Salome were twentieth century, mainline Protestants. You know what I mean. The folks who think that it's somehow impolite or rude to talk about our faith. The folks who think that faith is an internal matter between the individual and God, relegated only to private devotional practices and public acts of charity.[1,x] "Translated directly from the Greek, the last (inelegant) sentence of Mark's gospel reads...: '...and no one anything they told, they were afraid for...".[2,43] It's the granddaddy of all cliffhangers. There's a student who memorizes the entire gospel according to Mark so that he can give a Broadway-style reading before a live audience. He chooses the cliffhanger ending. But at his first performance, he ends, then stands there awkwardly, shifting from one foot to the other, the audience waiting for more, for closure. After several anxious seconds, he says, "Amen!" and makes his exit. The audience is relieved. It applauds loudly and appreciatively. But the student recognizes his betrayal of the text. So the next performance, when he reaches the final verse, he simply pauses for half a beat and leaves the stage in silence.[3,19] The audience buzzes in conversation about the non-ending long after the applause has faded. By staying true to the gospel, the student undergirds Mark's thrust. It is no longer the women who bear the burden of the commission, it is we hearers of the story. Will we make it into yet another tale of those raised from the dead, tales such as those of the only son of the widow of Zaraphath (1 Kings 17) or Jesus' good friend Lazarus? Surely these stories strike a blow at mortality. But Harvey Cox points out that restoring a crucified man to life does more than strike a blow at mortality; it strikes a blow at the system that executes him.[4] The message resonates even more deeply: this God, whose realm is of this world says "YES" to Jesus and "NO" to the powers that killed him.[5,197] This God is the God of justice, who vindicates "the victims of the callous and the powerful."[5,197] This God is not cowed by all the might Rome can muster. This God is the Lord, who rages against systems of injustice that brutalize the innocent. This God is not so neatly finished off with the period of capital punishment. This God takes the period of death and adds the neat little tail that becomes the comma of possibility: you will see him-back in Galilee, back where the gospel begins, back where once again you are on the Way that inaugurates the realm of God. This is the meaning of that empty tomb, the meaning of Easter. For all their life-denying possibilities, the powers of empire ultimately are no match for the power of our living, still-speaking God. We too have received the commission. The choice is ours. Will we choose to be members of the new community, returning to Galilee to follow Jesus? Or will we run away, back to the world the way it was? Will we say 'yes' to our still-speaking God? *** [1]
Diana Butler Bass, Foreward, Tell it Like it is, by Lillian Daniel,
The Alban Insititute, ©2006. |