CATCHING A GLIMPSE OF THE GLORY OF GOD
(Preached on Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007)
While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. -Luke 24:4
It was early dawn; the sky was still dark; the stars shown brightly; in the eastern horizon was a faint and growing band of light. The ground was still moist with the dew. The women drew their rough warm cloaks more tightly around them in the cold morning air. As they walked on the hard beaten paths, they kept swallowing to keep their tears from coming. They had to focus on their task and not let their grief overwhelm them. They hardly noticed the weight of the spices they were carrying. As they hurried along, they heard the faint crows of the roosters, echoing around the community. First one and then another, and yet another, signaling that the community was rising and beginning to stir. It was the beginning of just another week, the day after the Sabbath, another day of work. Finally, after what had seemed an eternity, they arrived at the tomb. They had been up all night, waiting, as people in grief often are, and now they had come to the tomb to do what last kindness they could do for their loved one.
That is how the Easter story begins C not with everybody jumping to their feet to sing the AHallelujah Chorus,@ but with some women bringing spices to a tomb in order to keep Jesus= dead, decaying body from smelling bad. It isn=t a very pretty image. Death never is.
But when they get to the tomb death is not what they find. Instead they find a miracle and a mystery. The tomb is open and empty. As they stand there puzzling it out, they are suddenly joined by two men in dazzling clothes. They are dazzled. What a great word. The dictionary defines dazzle as: Ato bewilder, amaze, or overwhelm with spectacular display ... to inspire admiration or wonder.@
What they experience is the glory of God.
In the Hebrew scriptures the glory of God came in the form of a cloud. It had a specific name C the Shekinah, the glory. It was the sign of God=s presence among the people. It led them through the wilderness; it hovered over the tent of meeting; it came to rest more permanently int he most holy place. It affirmed God=s saving presence on a journey that led the people to new life. And on Easter, when the women went to the tomb expecting to find death, they encountered instead the glory of God, God=s saving presence leading them to new life.
Norman Vincent Peale told of a newspaper reporter who was sent to cover the Easter sunrise service held each year on the rim of the Grand Canyon. It was below freezing; and as he stood there shivering he wished he were back in bed.
Then the sun rose and poured into the canyon.
The reporter said: AI forgot all about being cold. Then came a flood of radiance, torrents of light plunging down the canyon walls, making them blaze with color. Watching the shadows vanish I had the conviction that the darkness that had filled the great gorge was an illusion, that only the light was real, and that we silent watchers on the canyon rim were somehow part of the light.
That is why we gather together on Easter Sunday, isn=t it C to catch a glimpse of the glory of God? Perhaps you came here today feeling like those male disciples of Jesus? Caught in the brutal realities of life. You want to believe in new possibilities of life in God, but the terrible facts of life have you feeling trapped in an impossible situation, losing your bearings, wondering what to do next. Maybe it is the impossible situation of a marriage that is almost or altogether on the rocks.
Maybe a friend has left you disillusioned, or maybe you=ve hit the bottom financially. Maybe you are having trouble finding a job, or feel trapped in a job that no longer brings meaning or joy to your life, but is just a job, a stifling, dreary enslavement. Maybe you=re in trouble at school, or you need to sell your house and can=t find a buyer.
Maybe you are caught up in an addictive behavior that has you bound in its clutches, maybe C impossibilities C we face them all the time.
A first-time father glanced over at his wife as dawn began to break. Both were exhausted and had gone sleepless again because of their colicky newborn who cried the night away. AIt must be time to get up,@ he told her. AThe baby=s finally asleep.@
Sometimes it seems as if dawn will never come, and the night will be an endless whimpering of pain and suffering. The metaphor is not only for those restless midnight-to-first-light watches but also for the fate of the human race. There is a darkness that surrounds us like oil and seeps through our society with its vexing blight, filling news reports with violence, and back pages with obituaries. Night is with us always, and it is not our constant friend.
And so we gather this morning desperately yearning for some good news, some hope for the future, something we can grasp in this present to pull us out of the muck.
But what we hear sounds like nonsense, wishful thinking.
Jesus is raised from the dead? Sounds like a fairy tale.
And yet,...
Think back to what Jesus= teachings and actions have been saying about God all through the gospel stories. Remember? How Jesus turned 300 gallons of water into wine at that wedding in Cana. 300 gallons! Or the parable about the mother who decides to bake some bread. She doesn=t just bake a few loaves, but 60! Or that beloved parable about the father wh recklessly gave his second son half the value of the family farm and allows him to go off to the city and squander it; and when the young fool comes crawling home asking to be a slave, the father runs to meet him and throws a giant welcome home party! Or Jesus= commendation of the woman who in great love for Jesus anointed his feet with costly perfumed oil worth about $25,000! Over and over the Gospel story has been telling us this: get ready for a God who does the unexpected and the ultra-extravagant thing. Don=t try to confine God to our little human notions of what seems like common sense; break out from what seems reasonable. God is unreasonably extravagant, gloriously unpredictable.
That is the glory of God we catch a glimpse of on Easter.
That glory is our hope for new life in the midst of the impossible situations we find ourselves this day.
A man tells of walking down the street, and passing the lady who sold flowers. She was old and wrinkled, but her face was alive with joy. As he stopped to buy a flower, the man said, AYou certainly look happy this morning.@ She responded, cheerily, AWhy not? Everything is good.@ The man noticed how shabbily she was dressed, knew she must be very poor, noted how frail she seemed, so he said, AI only mean that you wear your troubles well.@ She replied, ALet me tell you how I do it. When Jesus was crucified on Good Friday, that was the worst day for the whole world. Then, three days later C Easter C he rose again. So, when I get troubles, I=ve learned to wait three days. Somehow everything gets all right again.@ The man related, AShe smiled at me as she waved good-bye. Her words still follow me whenever I think I have troubles. I >wait three days.=@ Sounds simplistic, yes. Sounds like nonsense, yes. Sounds impossible, yes.
Yet, that is what Easter is all about. It is the good news that the God of the impossible has a way, in God=s own time, of bringing hope out of our hopelessness and life out of our death.
The real glory of God that shines through the resurrection of Jesus is not so much what happened to Jesus, but what happened to his disciples. Something happened to them. They went into hiding after the crucifixion, but after the resurrection appearances, whatever they actually entailed, they walked back out into the world. They became braver and stronger; they visited strangers, and healed the sick. It was not just what they saw when they saw Jesus, or how they saw it, but what was set free in them.
On Easter, the glory of God exploded into the world. It may sound like nonsense. We may not be able to explain it or ever understand it in a rational way. But that doesn=t change the reality of the glory of God present in the world continuing to make a difference in the lives of all who are open to the possibility of the future, of a hopeful tomorrow, of our sunsets being turned into sunrises. When we open our lives to possibly catch a glimpse of that glory, then we will discover that resurrection glory shining forth through our lives and bringing new life to those around us.
Her name was Cathy. She was a new Christian and equally new to the church. She began attending Bible study because she said she wanted to learn more about Jesus. She admitted that she knew little since her family was not religious. There were times when some of her comments caught others off guard. One day she told the group that at one point she had planned to end her own life. The others listened intently as she described her hopeless situation. Then one night, after she had too much to drink, she stumbled into a neighborhood church. She had never been in a church she said and she was curious what people do in church. The only person in the church was a janitor who was just getting ready to go home. He told her about Jesus and how he loves all people. Cathy does not remember what else he said that night, but remembered his caring attitude. He was the first person who cared enough about her to talk with her. And that made all the difference in the world to her. She experienced a sense of hope that her life would get better. A few weeks later she went back to that church where she discovered people who were genuine and sincere about their faith. What stood out for her was how the people of that church cared for each other and soon included her in their loving care. In their presence, she caught a glimpse of the glory of God C the extravagantly, implausible, holy love that welcomes everybody and will never, ever, let any of us go.