Back to Galilee

Grace Episcopal Church, Madison NJ
April 8, 2012

Year B: The Sunday of the Resurrection – Easter Day
Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 118: 1-2, 14-24
Acts 10:34-43
Mark 16:1-8

Back to Galilee

It’s Easter! Today we celebrate the triumph of God’s love over death once and for all. Today we celebrate the resurrection of the one seen by the world as powerless but who on Easter reveals the power of God’s love.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Today is our greatest feast, yet at first today’s gospel lesson from Mark might seem to be not quite celebratory enough. At first it might be hard to find the “Alleluia” in Mark’s account of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Mark is the earliest of the four gospels to be written, probably around the year 70. Aside from being the earliest, it’s also the shortest gospel – proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ in a very economical manner.

We never use Mark’s gospel on Christmas because the evangelist was either unaware of or uninterested in the stories surrounding Jesus’ birth. He simply begins the gospel with John the Baptizer preaching repentance and forgiveness of sins and washing people in the River Jordan – where he meets and baptizes the adult Jesus.

Now, this morning, reading and listening to Mark’s account of the resurrection, we might think that maybe the Church should also pass on using Mark at Easter.

Most scholars agree that the passage I just read is the original conclusion of the Gospel of Mark. And, at first, it does seem like a little bit of a letdown.

After all, in Mark there’s no mention of the Risen Christ eating fish with his disciples. In Mark, there’s no mention of the Risen Christ meeting two disciples on the road to Emmaus and being known to them in the breaking of the bread. In Mark, there’s no mention of the Risen Christ appearing unexpectedly in the locked room, no mention of a doubtful Thomas, and no mention of breathing the Holy Spirit onto his disciples.

Apparently, some early Christians found Mark’s original ending unsatisfactory so they tacked on some appearances of the Risen Christ to his disciples.

But, originally Mark ends his account of the Good News of Jesus Christ with what we just heard: the women gathered at the shockingly empty tomb where they encounter a young man dressed in the white robe of a martyr, who tells them the amazing news that Jesus is risen and they are to go back to where Jesus’ ministry and mission all began - they are to go back to Galilee where they will meet the Risen Christ.

Then Mark concludes, “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

This shouldn’t be a letdown, though.

Writing around 40 years later after the Resurrection, Mark doesn’t have to tell his first readers and hearers that these women and other disciples actually did go back to Galilee where they really met the Risen Christ. He doesn’t have to tell them – or us - because the gospel itself is a sign of that encounter with the Risen Christ.

The Christian community itself was – and is – a sign of that encounter with the Risen Christ.

Without that trip back to Galilee and without meeting the Risen Christ there would be no gospel and there would be no church.

Mark doesn’t give us stories of going back to Galilee and meeting the Risen Christ because we have our own stories to tell.

Fortunately, going back to Galilee doesn’t require a trip to the Holy Land.

Galilee is right here at Grace Church, right here in Morris County, right here in America and around the world.

We go back to Galilee and meet the Risen Christ each time we get up before the crack of dawn and come here to church. Each time we hear the Word of God. Each time we sing or just listen to our hymns. Each time we exchange the peace.

We go back to Galilee and meet the Risen Christ each time we stretch out our hands and take the Body and Blood of Christ into our bodies and into our hearts.

We go back to Galilee when we sacrifice time to make the church look so beautiful or to read the lessons and prayers or to serve coffee and cake.

We meet the Risen Christ when we pray for all of those who are suffering in mind, body and spirit – people who are very close to us and people we don’t even know.

We go back to Galilee each time we offer forgiveness to those who have hurt us, each time we admit our own faults and ask for forgiveness, and each time we repent and with God’s help try to change our ways.

We meet the Risen Christ each time we work at the soup kitchen or drop items into the Food for Friends barrel, providing a basic need that most of us have in great abundance to our poorest neighbors.

We go back to Galilee each time we reach out to someone we know is lonely or anxious, making time just to listen and to offer a shoulder to cry on.

We meet the Risen Christ spending a long Maundy Thursday night here in church with a group of teenagers and some faithful adults, keeping awake with Jesus, and succeeding where his first disciples failed.

We go back to Galilee each time we resist temptation, each time we hold back from sharing a juicy piece of gossip, each time we refuse to pass along a falsehood, each time we give people the benefit of the doubt, each time we judge not - lest we be judged.

We meet the Risen Christ each time we share our faith with someone else – maybe by talking about how faith has transformed our lives, maybe just by inviting people to church, to simply come and see for themselves.

We go back to Galilee each time we stand up for justice, each time we ask why there is so much poverty and violence and despair in our country and around the world, each time we question why so much wealth is in the hands of so few, each time we’re outraged that people are objectified and stripped of their dignity, each time we’re infuriated when a human being is treated like piece of fruit that’s thrown away when someone - or some company - is done with it.

And we meet the Risen Christ when we sit at the bedside of a dying friend, hold his hand, read prayers and some lines of poetry, and assure him of God’s love and of our love, and remind him - and maybe remind ourselves - that on Easter God’s love triumphs over death once and for all.

So, just like the community that first read and heard the Gospel of Mark, we have our own stories about going back to Galilee and meeting the Risen Christ. It’s because of these stories – it’s because of our own experiences - that the Gospel is still proclaimed and the Church still exists.

But, the world is still broken by sin and suffering. There are still lots of times in our lives when we’re like the women gathered at the empty tomb, seized by terror and amazement at the suffering in our own lives and the lives of those we love, afraid to say anything to anyone.

Like those women long ago, we need to leave the empty tomb behind because that’s not where we find Jesus.

Like those women long ago, we need to go back to Galilee, back to where we always meet the Risen Christ.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Amen.