01 Easter 08
March 23, 2008
Jeremiah 31:1-6
Psalms 118:1-2, 14-24
Colossians 3:1-4 (NRSV)
Matthew 28:1-10

The Hidden Nest

How can we see Jesus? Where do we look?

At Richard and Maryanne Willis’ house, they have made a space in their sun room, a rather big space, for a telescope. There’s enough space there for both of them and a friend to stand around the telescope and look out the window across the creek. Now there’s a lot of things you can see there with that telescope, but the main reason it’s there is to watch a certain eagle’s nest across the creek.

Of course, if you didn’t know where the nest was, you’d probably never be able to pick it out. You can barely see it, high up there in the trees, a dark smudge in the darkness of the branches. If Richard and Maryanne didn’t point it out carefully, you’d never see it. But once you do, why, it’s as if you’ve found another world. You quickly see why it’s become so important to them, why it has become a part of their lives.

The women went looking for Jesus on that morning two thousand years ago, when the light was barely coming into the world. They knew right where to look. The execution and burial of Jesus had been a very public event. A great rock had been rolled up to seal the tomb and guards had been posted to make sure nothing happened. Jesus had made some predictions about coming back that the Romans were a little worried about.

Cemeteries are public places, obvious and well-marked. I sometimes go to Zoar Cemetery, and there are markers there that say George McCullough and Amedia McCullough and Betty M. Cook and Carl Duckworth and Ethel Duckworth. And there are dates for their births and their deaths. And someday, I will be buried there too, somewhere near my mother’s grave, and my name will be on a simple, flat bronze marker, and it will have dates. And maybe my daughter Hilary will come there sometimes, and maybe she’ll bring her kids. I go there to remember my grandparents and my uncle and aunt and my mom, but I sometimes wonder, do those names and dates really mean anything?

These are the facts, the easily visible things, what all of us take to be life. Where we were born, what family we were born to, what nation we were born in, the day we died, how long we lived and what happened.

Did anyone see the obituary for Jesus in the newspaper on Good Friday? Betsy Hudgins brought it by to me yesterday. It announced that Jesus had died and even the cause of his death. It said that he died on a certain day. It told who he was, who his parents were, when he was born. It told how he’d had a certain job and came from a certain village and a certain race and a certain nation. It mentioned a few key incidents in his life.

The obituary is the graveyard of the news. There were others on the page, others who had died. People with particular names, from particular families, particular places, with a birth on a certain date and a death on the other. Plain as day. Public information. Quite verifiable and down-to-earth.

So there went the women, heading for the tomb, heading for the obituary page, when all of a sudden the whole world shook. And an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and rolled the rock back from the opening to the tomb, and sat on it.

The angel had a message for the women. “He is not here.” He then invited them into the tomb to verify his words, and sent them off to share the news.

As they ran to the disciples, Jesus himself is suddenly there with them, and Matthew makes sure to tell us that they took hold of Jesus’ feet. Jesus was not a ghost. He was flesh and blood and he was in the world. He was alive.

Jesus told them to meet him on a mountain in Galilee. When he appeared there, by the way, many saw him, but some nevertheless doubted. Isn’t that interesting?

There’s that same ambiguity in many of the resurrection stories. In the story as told by John’s gospel, you might remember that Mary at first took the risen Jesus for the gardener. In Luke’s gospel, two disciples who had known Jesus well during his ministry spent a whole day with the risen Jesus before they realized who he was. There’s the surprising idea that they came to recognize him in the breaking of the bread. The gospels are telling us that seeing the risen Jesus may not be as simple as it sounds.

How can we see Jesus?

Remember the nest across the creek? If Richard and Marianne point it out and do a lot of description and point and aim the telescope and tell you what shape to look for, you can find it. And if you keep looking and training yourself to see it, eventually you know right where to look. Eventually, you see it every time.

Maybe the risen Jesus is like that. If you make some room in your house, if you spend some time each day looking, if you accept the help of others who know where to look, you might just see him.

But if you look for him in the tomb, the obvious place, the place everyone knows he is, well, you will be out of luck.

You know, there are not a few people who continue to look for Jesus in that tomb. I’ve met a few people who thought, I guess, that they were witnessing to me. They kept talking about looking forward to seeing Jesus when they died. These same people seemed to have a very fixed idea of what the gospel was and what was true and what wasn’t. They seemed to want Jesus to be a known quantity, a fixed entity. Sadly, this is only possible when one is dead. But Jesus isn’t dead.

Barbara Brown Taylor said, “You cannot nail him down. We tried that once but he got loose.”

It may be a bit difficult to discern where he is, but it is as obvious as an earthquake where he is not. He is not in the tomb. He got loose. He is in motion. He is on the move. He goes before us. He is alive.

And we are invited to follow him.

Along the way, we might even run into him, in the flesh. We might even get a chance to grab hold of his blessed and beautiful feet, and worship him. Yes, I know he has ascended to sit at the right hand of the Father, but he has also promised to be with us. We just need to know where to look.
A woman we’ll call Miranda tells the story of a little boy, we’ll call him Richie, who was stricken with a rare form of cancer at seven years old. The boy fought valiantly and every treatment known at the time was attempted. But the time finally came when the child took a bad turn and was admitted to the hospital for the last time. The hospital staff told the parents and the little boy’s eight-year old sister that all that could be done would be to keep him as comfortable as possible.

His sister was the hardest hit of all of the family. She secretly wondered if she hadn’t somehow caused this terrible thing to happen. She hadn’t always gotten along with her brother. There was one time when she even told him, “I wish you were dead!”

After they told him the bad news, Richie asked if he could try one more thing. All he wanted, he said, was to ride his new bike that he’d gotten for Christmas one time without the training wheels.

Of course, the doctors advised against it, worried the boy might speed the process of dying or otherwise injure himself. But Richie wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Finally, dressed in his hospital gown and with a big smile on his face, Richie was led out into the hospital parking lot and with his father’s help, took the training wheels off his bike. His father walked along beside him, steadying him for a while, until Richie said, “It’s okay, Dad, you can let go now.”

And wobbling unsteadily, Richie took off on his bike. He rounded the corner and disappeared from sight.

Some time went by and the family began to feel nervous that the boy might not return. And then, just when they were considering going off to look for him, there he came around the corner, pumping for all he was worth, grinning from ear to ear, his hospital robe flapping behind him.
When he stopped, he asked that his bike be taken to his room and that he be left alone with his sister. Dad carried the bike up on the elevator and left the two children alone.

And the boy took his sister’s hand and said, “You can have the bike. I won’t need it anymore.”

The sister’s name was Amanda, and in that moment, she saw the risen Lord, felt his hand touching hers, heard his voice, and saw his beautiful eyes gazing into hers. Because as he defied death with his joy in living, and as he offered forgiveness with everything he had, the Lord appeared on that hospital bed, in the flesh.

I can’t help but think of that tree across the creek from the Willis’, and of the nest hidden up in there. Doesn’t it say somewhere that the kingdom of God is like a tree in which thousands of birds can make their nests? Paul said this morning in Colossians:

…for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

Your life is up there somewhere. Not the life that will be described on your tombstone, but the eternal life Christ is offering you. It’s hard to see, but we can help you. Here’s a telescope. Look there, just there.

It’s a life that began before the beginning and goes on long after the end. It’s a life that belongs to all people everywhere, in all times and places. It’s the life of the God of love and mercy. It is the life of Christ.

And one day, it might be you that someone sees. It doesn’t matter if you’re young or old or male or female or black or white or yellow or brown, one day someone might look at you in just the right way, and see the crucified Christ, alive and in the world, and he will touch them with your living hand and speak to them with your living voice. They will see the glory of the Lord in the world, in the flesh, in you.

Look around, friends. Moses is here, and Elijah and David. And Bill and Fred and Jerry and Freddie and Junior and Lorraine and Johnnie and Pete and Genevieve and Carl and Willis and all the rest of them. Because Jesus is here, alive and in the flesh. If you look just right, you’ll see him. And he will take your hand in few minutes and wish you peace. And then he’ll feed everyone here with only one loaf of bread and one small cup of wine.

So look for him, won’t you?

And if you insist on going to the cemetery, I’ll make a little suggestion. Don’t forget to say hello to the gardener.

Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.

Alleluia. Amen.