SunApr122009
Scripture: MARK 16:1-8
I have an alarmingly clear memory of the only time I ever went to Disney World. During college, several friends and I went to Florida for spring break. While we were there, they all wanted to ride Space Mountain. I was saner than they were, so I politely declined. Firm as I thought I was, they nevertheless goaded me until I finally agreed to go with them. What a huge mistake! I will never forget getting into the car, being strapped in, and then beginning that apparently endless climb. If you’ve been on it, you know that you climb and climb in sheer darkness. And all I could think was: “Oh, no. Every foot I climb now I’m going to come hurtling down.” Which we did. I was utterly petrified.
Jesus rode his own Space Mountain. It was different, of course, but talk about roller coasters—this was a roller coaster of the soul! There’s nothing quite like that last week of Jesus’ life. Having lived an exciting and extraordinary thirty three years, and with quite a following having developed, Jesus finally arrives in Jerusalem one day, where he’s greeted like some sort of conquering hero. It’s as if the Jonas Brothers or Miley Cyrus has arrived. People go crazy, hooting and hollering, crying and laughing, treating him as though he’s the king or the pope.
Just a few days later, though, all that love vanishes. The fans turn on him. The bishops and ministers think he’s a fake. Even his best friends pretend they’ve never heard of him. Finally the ultimate dis: the government kills him. As quickly as it started, it’s over. The adored one becomes the buried one. Done. Kaput.
Or so it seems. What happens next rivets and startles the few of his followers—all women—who bother to pay their respects at his grave. Intending merely to anoint his body, they discover that the dead Jesus is nowhere to be found. They come to his tomb only to see that his body has vanished. All they find there is a strange messenger, an unknown person in a white robe, telling them that Jesus has gone on ahead of them. They will find him, says this mystery person, in their own communities, right there where they live and work, in Chagrin Falls and Solon and Bainbridge, in Hunting Valley and Shaker Heights and Cleveland—not in some special “holy” place, but at their desks and in their lunch meetings and during their lacrosse games and while sitting down to dinner with the family they sometimes love and sometimes loathe. Parade: huge upper. Cross: huge downer. Empty tomb: one final and culminating reversal on this Space Mountain that Jesus is riding. The roller coaster never stops. And its last stage is the journey up.
Just as it is in our lives. Here’s what Easter is about. If it feels to you as though you’re careening downward, if it feels as though you’ve lost control, if it feels to you that you’re the Cleveland Indians in freefall, take heart, because with God that is never the last chapter of the story. The Indians will win a game. And God will do something new.
It goes without saying that we all live under numerous clouds of anxiety. At or just beneath the surface rumbles a persistent low-level concern about the economy—about our jobs, our futures, our retirements. The ongoing unease shows itself in a little more nervousness and pressure and skittishness and temper than is usually the case. Add to that the family tensions and job pressures, the illness and divorce and shame and violence and failure and grief that are part of the daily landscape of our lives and it can seem pretty grim. The roller coaster sometimes seems about to be going off the tracks.
Easter is God’s declaration that “there is yet more light and truth to come,” that the next punctuation in the sentence of life is not a period but a comma, that from the fresh dirt of the grave emerges a bouquet of tulips and geraniums and azaleas and roses. When Jesus is raised from the dead, it’s God’s incredibly bold announcement that no roadblock is a real roadblock, that every apparent death spiral is but the prelude to a kiss of peace and hope.
This is true first of all, and most especially, with death itself. When my father died in January, I was heartsick. It was a shattering loss. That fact remains unchanged. But it’s not the only fact here. As much as I miss him, and as much as I hate the thief that death is, there’s another and even more elemental truth: I trust that in some way my father lives with God. I have no earthly idea what that ongoing life is like. And as my mother says, it’s really only metaphor that will do in trying to talk about it. “Leaning on the everlasting arms”; “the great cloud of witnesses”; “dwelling in the house of the Lord forever” (Ps. 23:6): these are some traditional images of what that ongoing life with God is like.
But we’re not restricted to those images, stirring as they may be. “Sitting in a first base box at Progressive Field”; “bobbing the balmy waves of Lake Erie”; “drifting among the stars that dot the heavens”: these are perhaps equally satisfying images to conceive of the life that yet awaits us once our earthly existence is done. The point is simply this: that the vice-like grip of death will finally be loosened and “all shall be well” in the room God has furnished for us. The ultimate sweep of life’s roller coaster is upward, full of hope and love and comfort and peace. That’s the Easter promise.
What we don’t want to miss, though, on this central day of the Christian year, is that that promise is not just an other-worldly one, one whose only fruition waits for our bodies to die. The Easter promise is that the same love that claims us at death is changing lives even now. It’s different for all of us, of course. In one family, a baby is conceived after years of trying. In another, a baby is adopted when conception proves impossible. For one person, the right job suddenly materializes. For another, it’s the losing of a job and years of searching that finally open up new horizons. God’s gifts come in all shapes and sizes.
Sometimes we simply have to get on the roller coaster or it will never do the climbing that’s promised. I can’t tell you how many people have experienced a taste of the resurrection as they have made the decision simply to do something for someone else. Try bringing your spouse or partner their favorite cup of tea or giving them a neck rub. Children, if you want to melt someone’s heart, try bringing a flower to your mother or father. Praise a co-worker for something they’ve done. Make a sizable donation to the Cleveland Food Bank. Call someone you suspect is lonely. Offer your services as a tutor. Decide to be part of Federated’s Angel Rides or Angel Foods or Angel Visits. These are all cars on that roller coaster going up. They’re the Easter promises taking shape.
Ultimately, though, that upward climb is not something we make happen. We can and must do our part and get on the train. But finally that Easter climb is God’s gift, and our job is but to recognize it. Let me tell you a story from my family’s life, a story about that roller coaster and the power of God in the midst of the losses that come to us all. It’s an average story about average people. But it says something about the power of resurrection.
Several weeks ago, our son Taylor, a college freshman, had the opportunity to run in the NCAA Division III indoor national championships in track and field. He was part of a relay team that had run an exceptional race in February, a race that had qualified them for nationals. My mother drove here from Maine, and Mary, our older son Alex, my mother, and I drove to Terre Haute, IN, for the meet. It was a once-in-a-lifetime thrill.
While we waited in the arena that afternoon, my mother found herself sitting next to a man who was the interim track coach for Eastern Mennonite University. He was a quiet, thoughtful man, and an utter delight to talk to. He asked us who we were there watching, and promised to time Taylor’s split in the relay.
As the race itself approached, the suspense built. Finally the gun fired and off they went. The first leg put Taylor’s team in great position. Taylor ran the second leg, and after he had completed the first of his two laps, he was running as well as he ever had. All of a sudden, the runner behind him inadvertently tripped Taylor, and down he went, sprawled flat out on the track. Up he got, but by this time his team was dead last and effectively out of the race.
Now let’s not pretend that this was any kind of tragedy. It wasn’t. People deal every day with news far more dire and terrible than this: lost jobs, negative biopsies, addicted children, sudden deaths. This was merely a blip on the screen of losses. Nevertheless, in the moment it was pretty devastating. All the team’s hopes were dashed, their dreams cut short.
But here’s what happened in the aftermath. And it’s where I again and again saw the resurrection taking shape. Shortly after the race, someone was teasing Taylor about his fall and the team’s loss. My mother was right near Taylor and Alex at that moment, and she heard Alex—evidently fearing that Taylor might take it personally—say quietly to his brother, so that no one else could hear, “It wasn’t your fault.” That’s a tender Easter care.
That night, twenty or so athletes, parents, and coaches went to dinner and sat at one big table. Mere hours after the race, the talk had turned good-natured—rueful, but happy. They all figured out pretty quickly that, despite the athletic stakes, this wasn’t the end of the world. Taylor himself said, “If I didn’t have legs and couldn’t run again, I’d be fine. There are so many other things to do in life.” That’s Easter perspective.
The next morning, Taylor said that, right after his fall, he had noticed a big cleaning machine, something like a Zamboni, out on the track. He was impressed that they’d clean the whole track after the first day’s events. The machine didn’t clean the whole track, though. Taylor burst out laughing. “It went right to where I fell and cleaned up the mess I had left,” he said. That’s Easter humor.
And then there was the attentive man, you may remember, who was sitting next to my mother during the race. We hadn’t known his name that day, but some Googling eventually revealed that his name was Lester Zook. A few days later, my mother e-mailed him just to tell him how much he had meant to her. “I write to tell you that I shall never forget you and your presence at that event. You had promised to give me the time of Taylor’s [400 meter] split. After the shock of his fall you waited quietly next to me and when it was over you said very softly before you left: ‘53.’ I shall never forget it or you. Actually 53 was pretty good after a fall, right?”
She told him that Taylor’s skin was healing nicely, and she finished by saying, “Fortunate are the young student athletes who perform under your tutelage. Thank you for being so engaged with us and for your kindness.” That’s Easter affirmation.
The next day, my mother received this reply from Coach Zook: “Mrs. Throckmorton: Thanks so much for getting in touch. I admire your persistence; I am beginning to see where Taylor gets it from! It was delightful to talk with you and your family at the NCAA meet. I felt horrible about Taylor’s fall; I was stunned when he went down, and I could tell you were, too. Yet, a 53 is admirable—I told my high school senior son the story and he said, ‘Dad, I can’t run a 53 when I stay on my feet!’ And initially I felt doubly bad that you all were there to see it happen. But reflecting later, I realized that in fact, that is why you were there. It is family we need at such times, to remind us, more than teammates and coach ever can, that our value as human beings is deeper and our identity and worth as children of God is far broader than our performance in one race at one meet during one season. So I believe God had a purpose in bringing you all the way from Maine—it was to be there for your grandson at that moment, and teach him something eternal. . . . At the end of the day and at the end of this life, what do we have but our character, and what we have received by grace?”
What more need I say? Coach Zook speaks the gospel. He affirms shimmeringly the power of God’s resurrecting love shining right here in the very midst of our lives. With Easter we are transformed and made new. With Easter, the roller coaster climbs to that rarefied height where hope and grace and joy are the watchwords of the day. With Easter, we know, as Frederick Buechner once wrote, that “Existence has greater depths of beauty, mystery, and benediction than the wildest visionary has ever dared to dream. Christ has risen” (quoted by John Buchanan, The Christian Century, April 21, 2009, p. 3). And let the congregation say, “Christ has risen indeed!”