"A Six Word Idle Tale" March 27, 2016 Easter Morning

Isaiah 65:17-25 Luke 24: 1-12 “Former Things Shall Not Be Remembered” “Jesus Christ, Resurrected From the Dead” There is a popular tradition on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday of preaching Jesus Seven Last Words from the Cross: “My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?” Seven is a number of wholeness and completion. As far as his humanity, this is “The End.” In answer to which, Easter morning has these Six words, six not seven, because six is an incomplete number, yet to be finished, pointing to the new Sabbath! Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to write the shortest of all stories, he used six words: “For Sale Baby Shoes, Never Worn” In those six words, we know the characters, we know what happened, we know resolution. We each fill in our personal interpretation of why, and whether this resolution ended the couple's relationship, or if through crisis and hardship created a commitment that had not been. "Improvisation" is what we do, making the story our own. Improvisation, much like musical instruments improvising in jazz, says a great deal about us as players: that we thoroughly know the story and its author and can be trusted to fill in, adding, making the story our own. Whether we are Optimists or Pessimists, whether we have hope, or believe in disappointment all depend upon our appropriating the story. A popular Internet Website has been created, identified as SMITH MAGAZINE, where people post their life own stories, the rule being that like Hemingway it must be in six words. Their first posting was “Not Quite What I Was Planning.” Their most recent post was “It All Changed In An Instant.” Steven Colbert submitted: “Well, I Though It Was Funny.” Two other submissions on a similar theme were: “I Cannot Sleep Without His Snoring” and “I Still Make Coffee For Two.” Some are clever: “Told to Marry Rich, Found Richard.” The late Screenwriter Nora Ephron wrote: Secret of Life: Marry An Italian.” We cannot control how people will react, what they may read into your life, but the six words we each choose to write say volumes about who we are and what we believe. The Bible contains over 775,000 words, all of which are turned inside out and upside down by the six words for Easter. There are over 2 Billion Christians in the world today, for whom these are the most important six words ever spoken: “Jesus Christ, Resurrected From the Dead” or as described in six words by Isaiah “Former Things Shall Not Be Remembered.” Each of the Gospels has a different jazz Improvisation on this dominant theme. Mark says A Young Man dressed in a White robe was sitting there. Matthew describes the women were greeted by an Angel descending from Heaven. John's Mary was greeted by two angels in White along with Jesus whom she recognized as a Gardener. Luke, today's Gospel has the women in the dark, before dawn, reaching the tomb they find it open and peer into the hole behind the rock. That is how death often feels to us. Holy, Mystical, Primordial, Earthy, but frustrating blackness and shadows we cannot see clearly, we do not understand. All they see at first, all that their minds can allow is “He is Not Here: Stole Him.” For all of us there is a piece of that with death too. We had them, we loved, comforted and held them, then they are stolen by death. Luke says “Two dazzling men stood with them.” What a marvelous description, not men in robes, not simply in white... “Dazzle” like a pressed white shirt, like new Tennis shoes on the first day of Spring, like the finest Table cloth at the finest meal, Brighter than anything we have ever seen. Dazzle is disturbing, but in a good way. In Greek, verbs are very important, and here, the strangers do not sit on a rock or fall from heaven, Dazzle and Bedazzle stood with the women. Death can make us feel alone and isolated and vulnerable. When others stand with us, we feel in solidarity, we feel empowered by being with others. Luke claims the women had been terrified, when the two men asked “Why Seek Life Among the Dead? Jesus Is Resurrected From the Dead.” The idea is as simple as being hopeful instead of depressed, as simple as believing instead of doubt. Suddenly, the women no longer assumed he must have been stolen from us, instead they believed he was no longer dead, he was alive, because dead bodies can not move, the living move and breathe and eat and drink, and we can seek him. They required no greater explanation, God Resurrected Jesus from the Dead. Different from Lazarus being brought back from death. God conquered death! Through the covenant commitment of Jesus with God, God conquered anything that could separate us from the love of God. Christ came. Christ died. LIFE again! Now to be certain we knew who this happened to, Luke names it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the Mother of James, and also the other women, who ran to tell the disciples, but they dismissed what they said as an idle tale. Dead is dead. Dazzling Men. Resurrection. It is all illogical. This must be silly. But Peter needed to believe. Everyone always blames Judas as betraying Jesus, but Peter, Peter denied Jesus, denied being one of Jesus' Disciples, Peter denied even knowing Jesus. That is a pretty dark place reflecting on the final words we said to someone. Peter ran to the tomb, Peter peered down into the darkness of the grave, and although he did not see two dazzling figures in white, he did see Jesus was gone and the White cloths that had covered Jesus dead body were not where they had been, not bunched up or thrown aside as grave robbers might do, but folded up in a place as no longer needed. Peter went home, amazed by what he had seen and heard. Have you ever been where Peter was... sitting with death? Sitting in doubt, wondering if life after death could be possible, if God could be possible? Sitting alone, grieving what has been taken from you, you feel anger, you feel doubt, you want control, You certainly cannot see God, or believe God is going to sit with you. I have been there, been right here, sitting in tears questioning God, challenging reality that you have nothing to learn from his situation. Just because we pray, does not mean we get answers, not the answers we expect or want, and not right away. But I have found there can be answers that undercut the reality I thought I knew and give hope for a different future. Isaiah's prophesy, which undergirds and explains the Gospel is “God Creates New Heaven, New Earth. The Former things shall not be remembered.” What if you had assurance that all the stuff in the past, the words of anger and pity, and hurt, the things we left unfulfilled... What if you had assurance, not that it did not matter (because it did at the time, it did to us) but what if you had assurance all those former things were forgiven? If all creation, everything on earth, everything in heaven, were changed into something new by God, and stepping through into this new reality, the past shall not be remembered or brought to mind by anyone.