Destination Galilee?

Easter 2009, April 2009

Mark 16:1-8 with I Corinthians 15:1-11 and Isaiah 25:6-9 in the b.g.

The women were looking. Nor was their looking mindless. They were also feeling, thinking, remembering – him. But he had been killed – in such a way, with such haste – literally ripped from their hearts and minds. Now because they love him, they are on their way to his tomb. They are going to do what needs to be done, what they so desperately wanted to do, the only thing they still think they can do. They are bringing spices. They are going to personally care for his dead body.

 

Have you ever been on that kind of a journey – doing what little you could  – all that you could for a friend who was dying, for a loved one whose mother or father, sister or brother, son or daughter has died? Have you ever been on that kind of a journey to be with one you deeply care for – whose marriage has just ended – or whose job has just been eliminated? Friends, people who care, make those journeys whatever their personal feelings,  thoughts – because they care. Friends, loved ones, seek out the others who are in pain, who are suffering loss, whose cherished ones have died.

 

So, in the wee hours of that morning the women – Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome are making their way to Jesus' tomb. They haven't worked it all out yet. How can you? The power of death is like that. It opens whole new realities for us – and closes, no, literally slams other doors shut. They would never hear his voice again, feel the touch of his hand on their face, meet his eyes – observe him eating with others, that they would have kept away from… Now they are nearing the tomb. Practical questions begin to emerge. Who will roll the stone away from the entrance? No answer. There are so many unanswerables. Still, they keep on moving – because they are looking for him, doing what little they can.

 

Now they are there, at the tomb. Finally, if only for just a moment they look up. Amazingly, the stone has been moved. They can enter. They can do what they have come to do. What a relief. They step forward. But He isn't there! His body has vanished. Instead, there is a young man, clothed in white. He already knows why they have come. "Don't be alarmed! You are looking for Jesus, who was crucified." Yes, all of that's true! The young man proceeds –with words that resonate in the depths of their being: "He has been raised. He is not here!"

 

Do we dare look – I mean really LOOK?

 

What are you looking for in life? Success, ease, friends, purpose, hope, merely survival, a warm-weather holiday? I cannot and do not  know what you are looking for. You may not even know yourself.

 

But the women know. They come out of love to this place of his death. Their hearts are broken. They had hoped – and their hopes have been dashed. Jesus had been killed, eliminated by an empire and people that did what empires, nations and many people have always sought to do. If someone gets in your way, espouses something that threatens you or your security, your place in the scheme of things – overcome them; and if they persist eliminate them. Ah, yes death- be done with that person and move on! Ah yes, but doesn't death and its power come to all of us claiming us in so many ways – and eventually, ultimately?

 

That's what the women thought. They weren't dumb. They knew about life. In spite of their love for Jesus he had been killed. He is dead just as surely as they are alive. And so, they come with spices looking for Jesus' dead body.

 

We aren't dumb either. Most of us know a thing or two about life. At some level we realize that even though we may attempt to avoid the power of death and death's agents of hatred and greed, it's forerunners of closing ourselves off from vulnerability and love, that sooner or later death will come and place it's claim on us. We try so hard to avoid death. We are tempted to run towards any kind of promise aimed to make us look younger, even sometimes towards surgical procedures. Entire industries are devoted to our attempts to deny the reality of death. Regardless, DEATH STILL COMES.  And that's it….

 

The women knew this too. At least until that morning when love compelled them to look for Jesus' dead body. That young man gave them the most incredible news. Some still cliam that his news was and is far from credible. He proclaims it anyway: "Jesus is not here. He has been raised!"

 

Could the women take this in? Even as they were standing there, even as we are sitting here, can we take such news in? The young man moves beyond the incredible to call the women to action. "Go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee, there you will see him, just as he told you."

 

Now their minds and hearts must have been racing. Galilee – that place where so many of their group had come from. They are to go back there and see him? How can, how could any of this be true?

 

Mark gives us the women's immediate reaction. Who could blame them? Who knows if we would have acted any differently? "So the women went out and fled from the tomb, for TERROR and AMAZEMENT had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid". Nothing, nada, squat!

 

Terror had seized them. What if it was – what if it is true? Jesus has been raised from the dead! Then the powers of empire, of all the powers that wreak hatred and death, hopelessness and despair, that shout might is right and do as I say or die struggle, none of these powers individually nor collectively could hold Jesus. Oh, yes they conspired to kill him. In that regard they succeeded. BUT, they couldn't hold him. He couldn't be kept forever in that death holding container. Now He goes ahead of the disciples back to where they came from, back to where they need to live and move and have their being. If they dare go there, they will see Him.

 

Do we dare go to Galilee? Galilee isn't only north of Jerusalem. Galilee is also in Vancouver, Richmond, Surrey, Vancouver Island. Galilee is in our homes and places of work. Galilee is Darfur, Iraq and the Downtown East side. Galilee is where our marriages, our relationships with those we love, with those we so terribly struggle with are lived.

 

Jesus is no longer dead. God has raised Him. Because Jesus is alive God wants us to look for him, to follow him, to trust him in all that we say, do and think. Death – our own death and the death of those we love; the powers of death that seek to claim us and our relationships, that try to convince us that neither we nor anything can change, all these powers still kick and scream trying to have their way with us. However in raising Jesus GOD DEFEATS SUCH DEATH giving us a foretaste of the feast to come. Even now God is working to ultimately defeat the powers of death.

 

So, God calls us to trust Jesus, to keep on looking for him, not as one who is dead, or who was only an amazing historical person –but as the risen living God in the flesh who reaches out to care for and free all people and all creation from the powers of death right now. 

 

This morning if we are only looking for things that don't have the ability to go at least 6 feet under, if we are hoping to keep things the way they are, we are of all people most to be pitied. Listen to the young man in the tomb. Dare to go to all our Galilees. We are promised that as we go trusting the One who has been raised, that we will meet Him. He is alive! Because He lives we too can live.

 

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! ALLELUIA!