Fourth Presbyterian Church: A Light in the City

Easter Sunday, April 17, 2022 | 10:00 a.m.

What We Hold

Shannon J. Kershner
Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 118:1–2, 14–24
Luke 24:1–12

It has been three years. Three years since we were last in this sanctuary as a community to celebrate this Easter day. Three years since all of you here could see the Easter flowers for yourselves. Three years since I had the opportunity to look you in the eyes as I read these Easter Gospel words. And I am not meaning to discount all of you who are joining us online today. It is a gift to know so many of you are in the virtual pews, week after week. But as we walk through this Easter story, I must tell you, it is a long time to be apart.

Last year, Dr. Christine Hong, a professor at Columbia Theological Seminary, was one of the speakers who led the virtual NEXT Church National Gathering. Before she began her address, she, too, desired to name the pandemic reality in which we were all living. So she invited those gathered to hold space. She encouraged them to hold space for the things, the people, the places, and the losses everyone has been grieving over the past two years.

Here is how she put it, and I use her words as an invitation for all of us, both in here and online:

You might be carrying anger. You might have sorrow that has been so deeply embedded in your body you might not recognize it anymore. You might just feel empty. So, if you’d like, close your eyes for a brief moment and picture what and whom you are grieving. Pay attention to what is rising up in you. And as you notice what’s coming up, cup your hands and hold those feelings. Hold in your hands your feelings of grief—any pain and trauma these past years have brought to you. Hold them and acknowledge them. They are a part of you too. (Quoted by Carla Pratt Keyes, A Sermon for Every Sunday)

Let’s us do that for a moment.

Now, take a deep breath in, let it out, and release your hands. For a while, let God carry all you are holding.

The women who were on their way to the tomb that day also had hands full of grief. Deep grief over the death of their beloved rabbi and friend. Deep grief over what was supposed to have been, the future they had once imagined. Deep grief over a significant loss of routine, of normalcy, of community. As they made their way on that very early morning, their hands were full of all the anger, sorrow, and emptiness that loss and grief can birth. And they probably did not consider letting God carry any of it. After all, God had not protected Jesus, not in the way they had hoped.

Their hands were also literally full of the signs of all those things. They were carrying the oil and spices traditionally used to anoint a dead body for burial. Because of all the chaos and violence that had swirled around Jesus in his last moments on the cross, the women had stood at a distance and were unable to do as they desired—to immediately tend Jesus’ body. So this was their time now. In that span of deep dawn, that moment between the beautiful darkness of night and the piercing rising of the sun, they walked together, hands full of the signs of grief, unwilling to let it go, so they might finish their work of discipleship by caring for their Jesus.

I have often wondered if they spoke along their way. If they did, it would not have been small talk. Small talk would have felt far too superfluous for such a tragic day. Rather, any conversation might have been full of things like “if only.” If only Jesus had stayed in Bethany instead of coming to Jerusalem. If only Judas would have had the courage to say no to betrayal. If only Peter would have finally done as he promised and stood up for and with Jesus in his time of trial. If only we, the women, had not remained so far away, watching from a safer distance. If only.

We can relate to their questions, can’t we? How many times have we, in our own grief, gone through our own “if only” moments? If only he had gone to the doctor sooner. If only she had worn her mask and gotten boosted. If only the license plates had matched the car. If only they had finally gotten sober. If only I had noticed how depressed they truly were. If only I had said “I love you” more often. If only. Yes, I imagine many “if onlys,” probably punctuated by tears, were their primary companions on their walk to the tomb through that time of deep dawn.

And when they arrived and realized nothing was what they expected, they grew terrified. For they made not just one but two unanticipated and perplexing discoveries. First, they found the stone covering the tomb’s entrance already rolled away. And second, they did not find the body on which they desired to place their anointing perfumes. Furthermore, what else happened at that exact moment? Two strangers showed up and had the nerve to ask them why they were there. “Why are you looking for the one who is alive among the dead?” they asked.

Now, notice that in Luke’s telling of this story there are no words of assurance. There is no “be not afraid.” There is only the naming of an unexpected truth, a direct challenge to all the assumptions they had been carrying with them on that day. Those messengers get right to the point, rather abruptly if you ask me.

Biblical scholar John Carroll states that’s because the messengers knew the women needed to be reeducated. They needed to be shaken out of their grief-filled, traumatic state so they might receive a corrected perception (John Carroll, Luke, p. 477). And how do those two teachers do that? They appeal to the women’s memories. Remember what all he told you? Remember how he said he knew that death was on the way but that it would not win? Remember how he promised you that no matter what, his story would not be done, not even on the cross? Remember how he testified to the truth that though we humans can kill God’s Love, we would never be able to keep it dead and buried? Remember?

Apparently, the women did. And as they did so, I imagine they, too, let go of everything they were still holding in their hands, allowing it to fall to the ground. For the next thing we see is that they take the initiative to immediately turn around and head back to the others. They clearly felt compelled to not simply tell them what they had just witnessed, but to also try and rekindle those memories for their friends. For even though the women could not verbally explain it, they had remembered enough, they still trusted Jesus enough, to be able to lean into the promise that it was all true. They were willing to stake their lives on it and to give it voice, whether they could prove it or not.

For that is another thing we need to notice in this text. Unlike in the Gospel of John, none of those women encounter the risen Jesus. Jesus does not show up for any of the disciples until that evening. Their Easter moment did not arrive until after the male disciples had blown off the women’s testimony as a bunch of nonsense and after the risen Jesus had appeared to Cleopas and his friend on the road to Emmaus. If we follow Luke’s timeline, we realize it is only that Easter night when Jesus finally appears to his disciples and they finally begin to consider that the Easter promise could indeed be true. Luke phrases it this way: “While in their joy, they were still disbelieving and wondering.”

That is one of my favorite lines in any Gospel, because we can relate. Even as joy entered into their midst, the disciples still struggled to trust it was true. Even as joy settled into their hearts, they still had a difficult time releasing all the grief and endings they carried in their hands. While in their joy, they were still disbelieving and wondering. Isn’t that the way it always is?

My friend Agnes Norfleet says it best:

If you ever find yourself having a difficult time trying to assimilate the idea of resurrection into your own experience of faith, then you are in good company here, because those who were there when it happened didn’t believe it either—that is at first. What is clear in Luke’s account is that faith in the resurrection is no instantaneous, lightning-bolt conversion kind of belief. Nor is it something that can be explained by mere words—no matter how powerful the testimony.

Rather, faith in the resurrection comes through confusion and perplexity; through pangs of sorrow until a peace settles in. It is jogged by a memory of something once said. It comes over us slowly as the darkness of dawn gives way to light.

“And yet,” she concludes, “when that light, finally, begins to dawn on us and we [find ourselves deciding to] trust the Easter story to be believable and true, something astounding begins to happen. By the power of the Risen Christ . . . what [begins] as mere rumor of an idle tale [becomes] a living faith that permeates every aspect of [a disciple’s] life,” of our lives (Agnes Norfleet, Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, Easter 2019). To use the words of C.S. Lewis, “I believe in Christianity, as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else” (C.S. Lewis, “Is Theology Poetry?” from The Weight of Glory).

Today, we claim it is that resurrection light, that Easter vision, that has the power to change our world. That has the power to change us. That has the power to shine a brand-new light on all we see that unfolds around us daily.

Remember how we began this preaching moment holding in our hands all the grief and loss, all the anger and sorrow, we have collectively experienced over these last two years? Because of what they remembered and what they later experienced, the women who encountered the empty tomb would challenge us to see through the power of resurrection light, through Easter vision, all that we carry. But hear me on this: That does not mean that all the sudden, we have to pretend that everything is fine and good or that we will never again encounter despair or grief.

Seeing through the power of the resurrection light, through Easter vision, everything that we carry does not mean that we act like the last two years have been a walk in the park. It does not mean we ignore how a minor traffic stop in Grand Rapids ended up in the death of another Black man. It does not mean that we pretend not to see our neighbors sitting on the streets because they have nowhere else to go. It does not mean that you force yourself not to cry because you deeply miss the one who used to accompany you to Easter worship. Not at all.

Seeing what we carry tinged with the power of resurrection light, with Easter vision, does not call us to deny our humanity and all the complexities that come with it. Jesus didn’t. Rather, it means that we do our best to recognize that all we see, all we carry, all the grief and the pain and the trauma, all the death—all of those things no longer have the power to define us. All of those things no longer have the power to determine who we are or what kind of world this can be.

Brian Blount preaches it this way: The promise of the Easter story is that “Jesus came back. And the figurative and literal power of Life came back with him. With Jesus, in Jesus, and through Jesus, Life is coming hard after Death, and no matter how fast Death runs, Life will catch it and kill it. Even in the middle of literal and figurative death, life is coming. [Because of what we know of God in Jesus, especially on this side of the empty tomb] that is the future vision. That is the plan. For you, [for this church], [for the church], for our community. Believe it. But even more importantly,” he continues, “Live like you believe it” (Brian Blount, Waking the Dead, p 76). Be “resurrection-infused followers of Jesus” determined to pray for and work for the world God intends.

Friends, it has been a hard two years. There is no denying that, and we will continue to have our hands full. And for some of us, it has been a hard ten, twenty, thirty years. But no matter what has happened or will happen, we, alongside those women, are charged to remember—to use a phrase my Black preaching friends have taught me—that early on that Easter morning, he got up, with all the power in his hands. And because we can remember the power, the promise, and the presence of God (an Easter call and response in the historical Black church tradition: Marvin A. McMickle, Journal for Preachers, 2022, pp. 17–19) that continues to accompany us, to infuse us, to challenge us, to carry us; nothing will ever be the same. So don’t just believe in the power of the resurrection light, of Easter vision, live it.

For the Lord is risen. He is risen indeed.