"Do Not Be Afraid"
“Do Not Be Afraid”
Matthew 28:1-10
March has been a month of memorial services, three weeks in a row. One of those memorial services was for a friend, Mary Beth. I didn’t know her long but I knew her deeply. The first time that I met her was to help her plan her wedding. Immediately, there was a profound sense of how open-hearted and caring and present she was. She was deeply spiritual. It’s that spiritual part of her that I tried to address at her memorial service. Here is where I started…
There are two kinds of spiritual people. The first group of people are the “other worldly” folks. This life is all about making sure that you to to the right place in the next life. You follow the rules because the next life is going to be so much better. Think of a person at an airport who is stuck between flights, just waiting to make their connection so they can finally go where they want to go. If you ask them, they’ll tell you how much better it’s going to be in Houston…or in heaven…as the case may be.
You’ll tend to find these folks in religious institutions because those institutions are willing to tell them what they need to do in order to catch their “connecting flight:” do this; don’t do that; keep score; examine yourself and make yourself more perfect every day. Their focus with other people is making sure they go to heaven, too. After all, won’t that incredible next life be even better if the people you like are there with you? In reality, though, everything is fear based: “If you died today, if your loved one died today, would they go to heaven or would they suffer in hell?”
So much of what passes for spirituality and religion and, especially, Christianity, in our world is this “other-worldly” focus on the next life. I want you to know, though, that I think this approach is a complete waste of life—a total waste. Think about it. We’ve been given this incredible gift of life. Do we really think that the faithful thing to do is to walk through life in fear? Obviously, you’re free to think that. I won’t stop you but I won’t join you either.
The other group of spiritual people are the “this worldly” folks. You will find some of these people in churches but they won’t necessarily be the person who is preaching. They might be the person playing “peek-a-boo” with the child in the pew in front of them. You might find them in the woods, sharing their passion for nature with others. You might find them working in a homeless shelter or working in a soup kitchen. They could be artists and writers or musicians. They just as often could be the person checking your groceries or the worker who showed up to clean your hospital room.
You won’t know them by where they are on Sunday morning. You won’t know them by who they vote for or by how many “likes” they have on Facebook or by how successful they are in worldly terms. No…here’s what you need to watch for. These people are convinced that this world—broken as it can be—and this world’s people—broken as we all are—are full of meaning and purpose and beauty that is just waiting to be discovered. Jesus used to tell anyone who would listen that, “The Kingdom of God is among you.” These people actually llive this truth.
So, if you’re going to spend time with these people, get ready to have your plans interrupted. They will prod you out of bed to see the sunrise. They will make you listen to an amazing song and insist that you dance. They will send you a podcast and then expect to discuss it later. They will care about you and listen to you so intently that you’re uncomfortable until you realize that this is what it feels like to have someone actually pay attention. They will say to you, “Can you taste, hear, see, feel, imagine how amazing this life is? Do not miss this!” They spend almost no time thinking about what’s going to happen in the next life because there is so much happening in this life and so much of it points to the presence of a loving, compassionate God.
As you might guess, I consider myself a deeply, “this worldly” spiritual person. The people I love are similarly tuned, squeezing every ounce of life out of “now” because “now” is amazing and “now” is never, ever going to happen again.
Okay, Mark…I hear you so far. Here’s the problem, though. Isn’t Easter all about where we are going next? Isn’t Easter the day when Jesus’ got to go to heaven and came back to tell us that we get to go, too?” If you are an “other-worldly” Christian, that’s exactly what you’ve been taught. So what does this day mean to those of us who, like God, “So love this world?”
Start here. Terrible things do happen. Look at what Jesus endures. The vast majority of people whom he heals, feeds, teaches, preaches to and cares for take what they can get and are on their way. He asks them to follow him and they say, “No, thanks!” This world can be a “what have you done for me lately” world. When Jesus points out everything that is sacred and worth caring about, people still care about the wrong things. (Do you remember the disciples arguing about who’s the best disciple?) Jesus is treated unjustly by those in power, abandoned not only by the crowd he’d cared for but by the disciples he loved. He’s betrayed, denied, falsely accused, tortured, humiliated, nailed to a cross, and killed. So much for the notion that bad things don’t happen to faithful people.
To claim how sacred life is, we have to be honest about how awful life can be. Easter is permission to be honest about this. People do terrible things to each other, sometimes intentionally and sometimes because we don’t have a clue. When the terrible things start happening, we get afraid. We make selfish decisions. In fear, humans, one way or another, run for their lives. We let our friends, and our God and ourselves down.
Still, if you read this story carefully, even in the midst of terrible things happening, there are signs of goodness and light. Not everyone runs. Yes, the crowd from Palm Sunday became the mob that called for him to be crucified but I suspect some in that crowd were haunted enough by what they saw that they were changed, that faith, not fear, came to life for them that day.
Yes, the disciples betrayed Jesus and abandoned him and denied ever having known him. When things got scary, they ran. Jesus, though, forgives people, even as he’s dying on the cross. Sometimes that’s the only hope we have when we’re afraid and we fail. Maybe God knows I tried. Maybe God will forgive me for trying to love in a world that is complicated and scary. Maybe Easter is a witness to a God who loves like that and forgives that much.
Let’s follow this story out. Astoundingly, in a truly chauvinistic world, the story, in the end, is the story of faithful women. These women are powerless which is a huge advantage in terribly hard times. If you don’t have any power then you won’t waste your time pretending that you do. The women couldn’t change anything. (We rarely can either.) All they could be were witnesses. They could make sure that Jesus was not alone. They could suffer with him. The Easter truth is that being a witness and being company and suffering with others is the most faithful, gut wrenching thing that any of us will ever do.
In the different Gospels, different women make it to the tomb where different things happen. The bottom line is that the women are there. In Matthew’s account, the women aren’t there to give Jesus a proper burial. Rather, they are just there because there was no where else to be. Like someone who has lost their car keys, when you’ve lost a person you start lookin for them wherever you saw them last. You just go because you need to go.
Notice this, it had to be terrifying to go there: the authorities might arrest them. If they killed Jesus then they would kill his followers, too. As women without men accompanying them, they might be assaulted. Violence and crime were all around them. Worst of all, they might have to see what they didn’t want to see—that Jesus is really dead, after all. “This-worldly” people of faith go to hard places. It can be risky to go there. Our faith can be totally on the line.
At the tomb, things literally begin to move and shake. There’s an earthquake. There’s a dazzling angel who appears and rolls the stone away but that’s not even the amazing thing. What’s amazing is that he’s so dazzling that the guards who were guarding a dead man fell to the ground like they were dead men, themselves. The shiny angel, though, is really just a messenger. What’s his message? “Do not be afraid! Do you remember how Jesus told you that he would suffer and die and be raised again? That’s what’s happened. Do not be afraid! Go ahead and look in the tomb if you want. Then, though, there’s work to be done. There’s life yet to be lived. You’ve got to go find the disciples and tell them what’s next.”
“Do not be afraid.” The women don’t actually see Jesus being resurrected. The angel doesn’t spend time telling them how great heaven’s going to be. In fact, in a world where some Christians still believe women can’t be pastors— the angel tells the women to go preach the good news to the disciples: “Jesus has risen. Love is more powerful than death. We’re going to meet Christ in this world, in fact, in Galilee.” To top things off, before the women can even get to the disciples, the risen Jesus shows up. What does he say? Not a thing about heaven. He says, “Do not be afraid!” Then, he urges them, like the angel to go and tell the disciples!
If we live in fear, we will hardly ever really live. We will be too busy trying to be all-powerful and all-controlling, turning our fear into anger and frustration. Or, we will be overwhelmed by the realization that we are powerless and run for our lives, just like the disciples. Or, maybe we’ll just follow the example of so many Chrisstians and close our eyes and fold our hands and focus on the next life.
The other option is to be like the faithful women. We can be faithful and afraid without allowing our fear to define us. We can be loving even as our hearts are broken by what’s terrible in this world. We can show up not out of hope but out of solidarity with those we love. We can be overwhelmed and confused and still ask God to help us to see the next loving thing to do.
I believe with all my heart that when this life is over God’s love for us is not. There is more. Someday, we’ll each learn the details of that plan. In the meantime, there is life to be lived. There is work to be done. There are people to be loved, and moments to be cherished and sacred things to be pointed out to anyone who will listen. Easter sets us free from the fear of death to fully and freely live. All eyes should be on this life.