On Doubt, Faith, and New Life in Christ: An Easter Sermon for a Good Friday world

Easter, as we usually think of it, is about life and joy, flowers, bunnies, chocolate and jelly beans. And those are all great. We need more joy and chocolate in life. And everyone loves bunnies. But the thing about Easter is that behind the joy, or perhaps alongside it, is also sadness, fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Because, of course, a big part of the Easter story and the discovery of the empty tomb is all that leads up to it—the cross and denials, the confusion and doubts, and hiding in fear behind locked doors.

So, while on Easter morning we smile and get dressed up, we break into the chocolate and jellybeans, there is often also a sense with the disciples, tucked in the back of our minds, of wondering how these wonderful stories of resurrection and new life could possibly be true. Jesus’ friends struggle, and so, too, we, because we know first-hand that pain and death, grief and loss are all part of human life, in seemingly great and endless abundance. While the more positive, hopeful, joyful aspects of the Easter story often seem elusive and harder to verify.

I have been reflecting on all of this a lot this week, as we’ve learned more about the horrific terror attacks in Sri Lanka on Easter morning. Suicide bombers killed over 250 people in churches and hotels as families gathered to celebrate with joy the promise of new life in Christ. Catholic church services were cancelled in Sri Lanka today, while Anglicans were urged to use an abundance of caution in deciding whether or not to gather. And then, yesterday, we learned of a shooting at a synagogue near San Diego, killing one and injuring others as the Jewish community completes their Passover celebrations. It was six months to the day from the shootings at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. The 19-year old gunman cited as inspirations the Tree of Life shooting, as well as the mosque shooting in New Zealand, Hilter, and even Jesus.

Jewish targets, Muslim targets, Christian targets. All human targets. And we feel helpless to stop the violence, helpless to stop the hate. We can understand why the disciples locked their doors. Afraid of going out, afraid of letting anyone in. Afraid of life.

But, the gospel tells us and our faith tells us, even as the doors are locked, even as the disciples are afraid for their lives, hope breaks in. Because Jesus breaks in. He literally breaks into their locked room and their locked hearts, offering peace. “Peace be with you,” Jesus says. Peace. Do not be afraid.

Jesus tells them, in fact he shows them, that they have no reason to fear, because ultimately God is in charge—not the religious leaders, not the soldiers or Pontius Pilate or not even Caesar. But God. Jesus appears to them that Easter evening so that they know that their life and the life of the world is really, truly, in God’s hands, God’s crucified and risen hands, despite how it may seem.

Easter is God’s way of telling us that there’s nothing that the world can dole out, however fearful, however horrific, that God can’t transform into something better. Now, that transformation doesn’t erase what happened earlier, it doesn’t make it go away—the wounds of Jesus’ crucifixion are still there—but God takes it and is able in some mysterious way to bring new life. We just don’t always know what that new life will be, or how it will look. It likely will be different than life before, just as Jesus is different after the resurrection. But it’s no less real.

But we have to believe, or maybe the better word is trust, in the truth and power of resurrection. Speaking personally, I have to believe and trust in Easter and resurrection, because without that belief and trust, all we are left with is Good Friday. And, because I believe that God is always more powerful than evil, that God is more powerful than death, and that God is more powerful than the many Good Fridays that we exact on the world.

Now, like us, it seems that Jesus’ friends and disciples didn’t come to this belief or trust immediately. That’s essentially the meaning behind the Thomas story. It can take time. And sometimes we want proof. We want proof that this faith of ours is not just a fairy tale. We want proof that it’s really real. It’s okay to struggle, especially in times of grief, trauma, and disorientation. Sometimes, like the disciples, we may not even recognize when the new life of resurrection is standing right in front of us. If you remember last week’s Easter story, the same was true for Mary Magdalene in the garden on Easter morning, until Jesus called her by name, until she dried her eyes and saw him standing there, with her, in her grief and doubt and love.

But hopefully, eventually, like Mary and like Thomas, we realize that the love of God is breaking in and breaking through—helping us to see and believe in new ways. In deeper ways than we could have imagined or known. Hopefully, eventually, we realize that God’s Easter love is transforming us, from the inside out, into something new, something different, something more alive—even as each day brings its own new manifestation of Good Friday.

I said in my Easter sermon last Sunday that the resurrection is not only, or simply, or even mostly something that happened to Jesus a long time ago. It is something that happens to each and everyone of us. Resurrection is the promise and reality of our life in and as the Body of Christ. It is the reality that life is stronger than death. That love is more powerful than hate. And that God lived and lives still in the midst of us—giving us life and hope, courage and joy.

I’d like to close by sharing from a sermon preached by the Rev. Richard Q. Elvee—my college’s chaplain from 1962 to 2000. He had a special way about him—his words, his enactment of the liturgy, his Thomas-like scepticism and embrace of questions more than answers. In a sermon called “A Doorway in Time”  he preached:

“Today Jesus comes into the human heart through a doorway in time, a doorway, not to the past, but to a level of reality freed from time. When we hear, ‘Peace be with you” in this church today, a presence comes through the door. This is the upper room. The hands once opened to Thomas are opened to us. The Resurrection is always beginning again; we do not have to find it by a search of the past. It is an experience here and now if we begin to live in the Lord’s peace. …for God is the beginning and the end of every time and every place, so that in the midst of this mysterious life, which entails so much suffering as well as joy, the doorways yield silently to the One who comes with peace, lives and dies in us, is never absent from the room again.” 

That’s the promise of resurrection: that God is never absent from this room, from our rooms, again. As we gather today, allow God to break in. Allow God to show you the wounds of the world, to fill your heart and your soul with love and new life. Allow God to transform you with Easter life. And then, allow God to shine through you to give new, resurrection life to others. Because this Good Friday world needs that love and that life. It needs God, shining through you.

To God be the glory: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

© The Rev. Matthew P. Cadwell, PhD

Christ is Risen: A Sermon on Mary Magdalene, Easter Eggs, and the Power of Resurrection

Do you know where the very first Easter egg came from? I’ll give you a clue. It was not from the Easter Bunny. He hopped along later. No, the original Easter egg, practically 2000 years ago, was brought by none other than Mary Magdalene.

According to an ancient story, Mary Magdalene had an audience before the Roman Emperor, Tiberius Caesar, a few years after the resurrection, to him to tell him about Jesus, and the unfair treatment he’d received from the imperial governor, Pontius Pilate, who had Jesus crucified. But, Mary said, Jesus had risen from the dead and had appeared to her and his disciples.

Now, anyone who appeared before the Emperor was supposed to bring him a gift. Mary’s was a plain, ordinary egg—a symbol of the resurrection, like the tomb which will be broken open with new life. When she came before the throne, she held out the egg in her hand and greeted the him saying: “Christ is Risen!” (Just as we said this morning).

Only the Emperor said to Mary, “How can anyone rise from the dead? That’s as impossible as that egg turning red.” And suddenly, the story goes, the white egg in Mary’s hand turned a deep red. It was the first colored Easter egg. As a result, we often see pictures of Mary Magdalene, especially in Eastern Orthodox icons, holding a red egg. (Now, when you see an Easter egg, whether real or chocolate, you’ll know that they are not only fun to eat, but also a sign of the resurrection, going all the way back to Mary Magdalene).

Mary Magdalene is often called the apostle to the apostles, since it is she who first proclaims the extraordinary story of Jesus’ resurrection. In fact, as we read in the gospels, Mary is the first person Jesus appears to on Easter morning. There was something extraordinary about Mary’s faith and her willingness to set aside her fears and her doubts, to share the good news of God’s love and power—to Jesus’ friends, to the Emperor, and now to us here today. “I have seen the Lord,” she tells us. “Christ is risen.”

But, she didn’t believe right away. At first, Mary was perplexed, sad, even and depressed. She doubted. Not only had her friend been killed, but his body was missing. Her life was falling apart. Deep in her soul, she probably felt as if she had been crucified with Jesus. We can probably relate. Sometimes we feel confused and depressed, sometimes we doubt, and it can seem as if our world is falling apart. Deaths of people we love. Unwelcome or uncertain health diagnoses. Work struggles. Family struggles. Challenges that lead us—like Mary—to question and to doubt. Not only about God, but about ourselves.

In fact, as we read in the gospel account, Mary was so sad, so depressed that she didn’t recognize Jesus when he appeared to her. There are abundant theories about that—one being that maybe, probably, Jesus looked different after the resurrection. Another theory is that she didn’t expect to see Jesus—who would? I don’t really expect to see my father who died years ago. You don’t expect to see people you love who are no longer here. We wish we could. We dream of them. But we know they are not going to appear before us. That’s not how things work. Not in real life.

But even more, I think Mary didn’t see or recognize Jesus because of her grief. Her eyes were filled with tears. Her heart was broken. And when we feel that way, it takes a lot for good news to break in. The shell of the egg can be hard indeed. The stone is heavy and hard to roll away.

As we read the story, it was only when Jesus called to Mary, when he addressed her by name, that she realized he was there with her. Only when he touched her soul—in the same way he had before the horrible events of the last days—that she believed he was alive. Only after she looked up, and dried her eyes, did she feel the power of God’s love—love for her.

Here’s the thing: The resurrection is an event that happened long ago, in a garden in Jerusalem. And it happens every day, every moment, every time we, like Mary, hear God’s voice calling us by name and inviting us to live. Telling us that we, too, are loved. That we, too, are alive in him and with him. That’s what Jesus did for Mary in the garden. And it’s what he does for us. The resurrection is God’s way of transforming us, from the inside out. Because Jesus didn’t rise for himself, but rather so that we, too, might be raised. So that, like Mary Magdalene, we might have the power and the courage and the conviction of saying that we have seen the Lord.

Let’s go back to the story of Mary Magdalene and that first Easter Egg. Now we don’t know if it’s really true. It’s a fantastic story. Maybe hard to believe. But then, so, too, is the resurrection. So, let’s imagine it is true. When Mary went to the emperor to say that Christ is risen, she wasn’t only reporting an amazing miracle that had happened to Jesus. It was a miracle that happened to her, as well, and to Jesus’ disciples, and to all people. Mary was telling the emperor that God lives. In Christ. In her. And in us. And no emperor, no king, no illness, no crucifixion, not even death itself can defeat the power of life in God. The emperor didn’t believe Mary. But we can. And we don’t need the sign of an egg turning red to know that her testimony is true.

God is alive in Christ and God calls to each of us by name, like Mary in the garden. God offers us hope when we are afraid, peace when we are anxious, and the gift of faith, even when we doubt. Most especially, God offers us life. New life. Abundant life. Resurrection life. Life with Christ. Life in Christ.

“Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’.” May we also see, and then proclaim, with her and all the faithful, “Christ is Risen!” Alleluia. Amen.

© The Rev. Matthew P. Cadwell, PhD