God’s grace, peace and
mercy be with you. … My sermon is entitled What Are You Doing Here? and
my focus is our Gospel (Mark 16:1-8). Let us pray. Heavenly Father, the
psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’”
Now that our feet are within your gates, we rejoice to hear your Word. As we
listen, may your Spirit enlighten our minds and move our hearts to love deeply
as Jesus loved. This we pray to you, Most Holy Trinity. Amen.
Everyday we meet
people we know in likely settings – the grocery store is always a place where
we would see a family member, friend or neighbor and never think to ask, “What
are you doing here?” There are places where we would ask that question – the
hospital would be one. A few years ago, when I was working for Jubilee Soup
Kitchen managing a program for mothers incarcerated at the Allegheny County
Jail, I was approaching the door of the jail when out walks a friend of mine
and his wife. Each of us asked the obvious question – What are you doing here?
Of course, my response
was work. My friend’s response was, “My son’s here.” My friend explained the
circumstances leading up to his incarceration. I open with that incident
because it is a good question that helps us examine our Gospel today and allows
me to ask you, “What are you doing here?”
What were the women
doing at the tomb? Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and
of Joses, and Salome were all present when Jesus died. They were among the
women looking on from a distance when Jesus breathed his last. And as the last
verse of chapter 15 tells us, the two Mary’s saw where the tomb was.
In the first verse of
chapter 16, Mark reports that the three of them bought spices to anoint him,
indicating the reader already knows who he is. Obviously, Mark does not have to
explain that the time in between the burial of Jesus and the opening verse of
our passage was Passover. What were the women doing between Friday afternoon
and Sunday morning? Well, at first, nothing. No one was working. No markets
were open. They simply observed Passover and bided their time until the feast
had ended. During their first opportunity, the women bought spices from the
merchants, and prepared them to anoint Jesus’ body.
What was Jesus doing? He was dead. What was
happening? I mean, what happens when people die? They decompose. After 4
minutes decomposition begins. If you want to read more about this, check my
sermon footnotes.[1]
My point is that the women hurried to the tomb. The tomb was not right around
the corner. It was outside the city. Our best guess is that Jesus’ tomb was
several miles outside Jerusalem. If you are young and jog, how much time would
it take you and a couple of friends to travel there at night while carrying
spices and cloths?
So, the women were
preparing to anoint Jesus’ decomposing body, travelling on foot to his tomb. My
follow-up question, “What else were they doing?” is more about what we all do
when someone dies. We grieve. We cry. We want to be alone or we seek support.
In short, these women were among the many who followed Jesus and ministered to
him while he was alive. They were part of his entourage that entered the city
triumphantly. By Sunday morning, they were an emotional trainwreck. No one
could have ever prepared them for what they were to experience when they
reached Jesus’ tomb. Jesus’ prophecy of his resurrection eluded their grasp,
just as it did their male counterparts.
At one point, it
dawned on them that none of them would be able to move the stone. This then
became their preoccupation because all together they could not budge this huge
stone. Miraculously, the stone had been rolled back, and they step inside. What
would you expect to see and smell? Certainly not a young man dressed in a white
robe! Of course, they were alarmed. Who was he? How did he get here? What was
he doing here?
To answer the first
question, we must return to chapter 15. The moment Jesus was arrested, all of
his disciples fled, but vv 51-52 tell us that “a young man followed [Jesus],
with nothing but a linen cloth about his body. And they seized him, but he left
the linen cloth and ran away naked.” And here he sat in radiant, intensely
white clothes (Mk 9:3). Revelation tells us that those who were slain for the
word of God and for their witness were each given a white robe. Those who stood
before the throne and the Lamb were clothed in white robes (6:11; 9:3).
Mark does not identify
this young man, but given the Evangelist’s gift for linking examples, such as
the inability of the disciples to perceive Jesus’ teaching and the ability of a
blind man to suddenly see, it’s no stretch to believe that these two passages
are about the same man.
What was he doing
here? He was proclaiming the heart of the Church’s preaching: Jesus of
Nazareth, the crucified … has been raised! His message stresses the reality of
Jesus’ passion: it is the same Jesus who truly suffered and died on the cross,
who now is truly risen from the dead.[2] Jesus’ agonized question
on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” has received its
answer. God did not forsake his beloved Son but vindicated him with a triumph
far greater than any of his enemies could have imagined, an everlasting triumph
over death itself. Jesus did not escape death any more than any of us will, but
Jesus destroyed death from within it. As an ancient hymn goes, by trampling on
death by death.
Back to the women. The
women were told to look at the empty tomb, in itself not as proof, but as a
sign received in faith, confirming testimony that Jesus did rise from the dead
(Acts 13:30-35; Rom 10:9; 1 Pet 1:21). The faithful women are divinely called
to be the first witnesses of the resurrection, and sent as apostles to the
apostles.
Now it seems that they
thwarted Jesus’ promise that after he would be raised up that he would go before
his disciples to Galilee (14:28) because they fled and said nothing to anyone
because they were astonished and afraid. They were seized by a holy awe at the
overwhelming power of the resurrection. The irony is that where Jesus imposed
silence on those he healed (1:44; 5:43; 8:26), which was sometimes ignored
(1:45; 7:36), now that the time had come for the mystery to be made known, the
response is silence.
Now that we have some
understanding of what these people were doing at the tomb of Jesus, let me ask
you: What are you doing here? But before we can address that question, we must
ask why this Gospel’s original ending is marked with silence? Its ending brings
us face to face with the announcement of Jesus’ resurrection, and leaves us to
ponder how we have responded.
Have you remained
silent? Have you announced to others that Jesus Christ has been raised from the
dead? The first Christians proclaimed the Gospel to an empire that killed
people for doing so. We live in a culture that only cancels people for their
beliefs. So, what will you do – remain silent or proclaim your belief that
Jesus Christ is risen? Jesus kept his promises for you and me, for us as
Church. His promises were fulfilled not because the women succeeded in carrying
out their mission, but by the power of God who is able to overcome every human
failure – yours, mine, ours. And now, you are invited to accept in faith the
testimony to his resurrection through the life you live.
So, what are you doing
here? There are many good reasons for being here. In addition to attending
church with family on Easter, you may have other reasons. Maybe some miracle
occurred recently in your life. Maybe a tragedy struck your family and you are
asking God for a miracle. Some of us are here because we are almost always here
on Sunday mornings. I may be here because it’s about time I started attending
church. In a word, we are all here to worship.
What is worship? Showing
honor and reverence for God. As Lutherans, what are we doing here? Those of you
who have been attending our Small Catechism classes know that our worship
occurs through the means of grace, that is, God gives us gifts. The gifts God
gives us when we worship are the forgiveness of our sins and the promise of
eternal life. What we do when we gather here for worship is simple: we receive
gifts.
When we receive those
gifts from God because of the Paschal Mystery, the suffering, death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ, we experience joy deep in our souls. We may not
act as excited as my grandchildren act whenever we give them gifts on Christmas
or their birthdays, but receiving forgiveness of our sins and eternal life when
we hear a pastor proclaim the Words of Absolution, or the Word of God, or the
words he speaks when he takes bread and wine and gives us Christ’s Body and
Blood to eat and drink – all of this – renders a deep, satisfying joy in our
souls. And all we have to do is receive.
Being Lutheran is
simple. We do not have to get emotional. We don’t have to weep or shout, wave
our arms or clap our hands. Being Lutheran is knowing that when we worship
together it is all about receiving God’s gifts through the means of grace
(Baptism, Confession, Absolution, Holy Communion). It is all about God and what
God does for us. You don’t need a pastor to entertain you. You don’t need a
praise band or magnificent choir. You don’t need a youth minister dressed as an
Easter bunny.
Knowing that, what do
want to be known for? I ask that because we become known for what we do. For
example, Mary Magdalene was the first to share the Good News of Jesus’
Resurrection, and she is known for that. Peter was the one who denied knowing
Christ, but repented, and then led the Church. The women in our Gospel today
are known for their faithfulness. They are all known for what they did.
Numerous others are known for what they did – Paul, Philip, Martha, Mary,
Timothy, Titus and on and on.
But you? What will you
be known for? Here’s an example from a blessing service of a woman who died in
Swissvale 30 years ago. I was asked to conduct the blessing service at Nied
Funeral Home in Swissvale for the aunt of a man who was employed there. The
woman’s nephew, Tony, was in his 60s, and rather brusque even on his best days.
After reading the Gospel and commenting on the passage, I asked if anyone in
the small crowd would care to say anything about the deceased. After a moment
of silence, Tony spoke up. He said, “I guess not.” We erupted in laughter.
My point is, that
could be you. That could be any of us. We could be remembered for nothing. At
the end of our lives, people will remember us for nothing or something.
Depending on what we do, we can be known for nothing or for something. What do
you want to be known for, not only as individuals, but also as a congregation?
Now, there’s a question to discuss over Easter dinner.
Let’s focus not on the
past, but on the future. We have been in this building for one year. I ask you
to consider what do you want to be known for today? In a year? In a decade? I
can offer some ideas, but not a definitive answer. We can be known for being
faithful. We can be known for living by the Spirit (Gal 5:25) or known for
living the fruits of the Spirit (5:22-23) because we who belong to Christ Jesus
have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (5:24) There’s
something to consider. There’s something to be known for. But to be known for
that, each of us has to be about doing or living the fruits of the Spirit: love,
joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and
self-control.
If we want to be known
for that, we can simply receive God’s gifts and ask the Holy Spirit to guide us
into a life lived according to its fruit. To be known for that, I must answer
the question – What are you doing here? – with “Living the fruits of the Holy
Spirit.”
Live that, and may the
Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead mark your Easter and your life, and
may the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds
in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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