Easter, Year C

The Rev. Dena Cleaver-Bartholomew

April 8, 2007

As far back as I can remember I have loved mysteries. I am that girl who read all of my cousin’s old copies of The Dana Girls in second grade, moved on to Nancy Drew, and later absorbed every case Perry Mason faced. I’ve read myriad mystery novels as an adult, particularly favoring authors P.D. James, Sue Grafton, and Elizabeth Peters. Mystery novels present the reader with the incursion of the unexpected into the ordinary, the task of gathering information, sorting through evidence, listening to what is and isn’t said, considering all possibilities, and finally coming to a conclusion. The best mystery novels provide clues along the way, yet manage twists and turns, surprises and recognition, with all events and motives being sorted out rightly in the end.

My penchant for mysteries has always run parallel with my inclination toward Mystery. For mysteries are, to me, the ordinary world version of how we respond when an unexpected reality enters our lives. Mysteries focus on the business of managing this interruption in our world order, of reordering our understanding to accommodate new data. Good mysteries, to me, move beyond the cut and dried orientation on “Just the facts, Ma’m,” as requested by Sgt. Joe Friday, to pondering the why. True Mystery only begins with the facts; the focus is on what lies beyond. Perhaps that is why I found mystery novels ultimately unfulfilling. The perspective, while entertaining, is too limited.

Today as the Gospel opens, we are presented with a mystery. The women, who have been with Jesus on his journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, from the crucifixion to his placement in the tomb, return to the tomb to fulfill the commitment of close family and friends. They have prepared and brought the spices to see that Jesus is given a proper burial, the last loving task one person can do for another. Yet, even at early dawn, “they find the stone rolled away from the tomb.” What could this mean? If we were watching CSI, we would instinctively know that an open door is bad sign. In the world of CSI, a door open when it ought not to be means that one will find a body inside. But this is the world of the Gospel, where the women enter through the open door expecting a body. “But when they went in,” Luke tells us, “they did not find the body.” Clearly things are not as they should be, and the reaction of the women is understandable: they are perplexed. The door is open; the body is gone. If we are quiet inside perhaps we can recall what it is to feel that feeling, when we inhabit a place and know that something is not right. It is a tremendously unsettling moment, that space before either comprehension or action rushes in. The child is no longer beside the grocery cart; that car coming toward you is on your side of the road; what did the doctor just say? Then, into the middle of that moment appear two men in dazzling clothes, whose words change the world: “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” Just the facts, but from a very different perspective. Didn’t you follow the clues along the way? Didn’t you see the foreshadowing? Didn’t Jesus say three times in the Gospel according to Luke that he would suffer, die, and be raised again on the third day? “Remember how he told you?” And the women do remember. They don’t just remember like you remember where you put your car keys, or that you are supposed to call your best friend back, or that you can name all of the state capitals. They remember the way that Jesus asked them to in the Last Supper, when he said “Do this in remembrance of me.” The women don’t just remember the information as if to pass a pop quiz, they remember as if Jesus were present, saying the words. And when they are able to remember in the way that enables them to know that he is still present, they touch Mystery.

Mystery is that which draws us beyond ‘just the facts.’ It appeals to that part in each of us that craves to understand, to find meaning in what has happened and why. Mystery extends an invitation to a new perspective. Stories are full of images of how people move from a limited perspective to grasping a reality that lies beyond. A seemingly ordinary wardrobe is the gateway into the world of Narnia in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. A common brick column is the secret entrance onto Platform 9 ¾, where students board the train to take them to school in the Harry Potter books. In A Wrinkle in Time Meg has to put on a pair of special glasses to see that she can walk through what looks like a glass wall. In the Gospel it is an open tomb that provides an entrance into a whole new way of seeing reality. Not everyone who glances in the empty tomb will see it as an open door. The eleven disciples didn’t. Even Peter, who was amazed, couldn’t quite grasp it. At times it is a real challenge to open ourselves up to believe there could be more than what we see, even if we want to. Mystery is always inviting us beyond, rather than forcing. One prayer articulates our limitations beautifully: “…life is eternal and love immortal, and death is only an horizon, and an horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.”

In today’s reading from Acts we hear that Peter, who has not only come to believe in the Resurrection but is actively preaching it, is continuing to have the limits of his sight expanded. God has given him a vision three times in a row, a vision Peter does not understand until he is placed in the company of a Gentile named Cornelius. Then, suddenly, Peter understands. The Good News of Easter, of Jesus being raised from the dead to eternal life, is not just Good News for him and the disciples and as many other Jews as believe. It is Good News for all people. God is God of all, Jesus is Lord of all, and the Good News applies to “everyone who believes in him.” The open door appears in many places, both in the Bible and in our own lives, inviting us to move beyond our own limited horizons, to see not only with our eyes but with our hearts. We are encouraged to know, not only with our heads but also in our very being, the Good News the women proclaimed that first Easter Day: Alleluia, Christ is Risen!