Dare We Go?

Usually this sermon happens in the light, but since Foster our beloved organist (wait, did I say beloved? I meant curmudgeonly organist) missed so much of Lent this year, I wanted to give his weary soul one more moment of penitence before we step into the light. Nonetheless, it’s a little strange to be preaching in the dark staring ahead at something in the distance.

High-speed cameras exist today that can capture video in excess of 1,000 frames per second. This means the subtleties that we once could not observe we now have the ability to study with intense scrutiny. We can properly calculate that a hummingbird flaps its wings 70 times per second. We can estimate with more precision the blast radius of explosives used to implode a dilapidated, old building. We can also—painfully sometimes—see the moment when a wide receiver gets his foot or feet in bounds to make a thrilling catch—and send our hopes soaring or crashing to the ground. This technology even gives us the ability to see those precise moments when even a minute change occurs—maybe even a change that changes everything.

For us this morning though, we won’t need any of that fancy equipment the naked eye will do just fine. As we look ahead, we also look back carefully at these stories of creation, love, and salvation. There we see precipitous moments right before it became clear that God would indeed act. In the beginning there was “a formless void and darkness covering the face of the deep” and then (Genesis 1:2). Abraham took Isaac on a walk with fire and the wood but no lamb and then (Genesis 22:7). An oppressed people wandered and wondered if dying in the wilderness was any better than being worked to death and then (Exodus 14:11). A valley of dry bones felt lost and completely cut off from God and then (Ezekiel 37:11). We observe these moments before the moments that we truly remember. Sometimes though we still remember the moments before the moments.


I remember being six or seven years old and having one of the best nights of my childhood. On a Thursday night my dad took me to go see a live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles production. It was to borrow some of their phrases, “RADICAL”, “EXCELLENT,” and “BODACIOUS”! As my father knew one of the tech guys we got to sit in this cool booth. The A/V guy would point out right before something awesome was to happen, so that I would pay particularly close attention. I can still see the choreographed flipping and fighting in my mind now.

When the show concluded my dad took me to go pick up my mom and sister who had been at church. At the time I definitely thought I had gotten the good end of that deal—no church and Ninja Turtles—Seth 2-Life 0. Still I can recall that moment of walking into the church. Everything was dark. All the normal liturgical hangings were missing, the candles were extinguished, and even the crosses were either gone or covered. I saw my mother weeping and wanted to say to her, “Don’t worry the Turtles show will come back and next time you can take me,” but something stopped me from saying anything. That was my first memory of a Maundy Thursday liturgy—a service that is all about the moment before the moment. For it is when we remember the night before Jesus died when he shared communion, washed feet, and commanded us to love one another. That service is the beginning of the Triduum (our holy service of three days) that we conclude this morning!

Typically we like to rush through the moments before the good stuff, or what we perceive will be the good stuff. We fast forward through commercials. We order ahead to avoid the lines at restaurants and even grocery stores now. Hey, I’m all about efficiency—I’m the kettle calling out the pot. Sometimes though all this rushing ahead distracts us from paying attention to what God is doing right in front of us, how God is sitting right here with us. We push ourselves or others into moving beyond the moment so often that I fear we are not like those cameras that record a thousand frames per second, but instead like a TiVo or DVR that is ready to skip ahead (bebop).
Even in the midst of what we call a crisis, a dilemma, or our lives ripping at the seams God is present right in the thick of it with us. This is as true for us as it was for a group of women long ago.

There was a small group of dedicated disciples a long time ago who sat anxiously awaiting the Passover Sabbath to end, so that they may go to tend to the dead body of their beloved Jesus. Their reality felt broken. Their savior had not only been killed, but betrayed by friends, tortured, and then crucified. Their lives had been sideswiped by the cruel forces of the world. I cannot imagine how much grief they bore and how difficult it must have been to take the first step out the door from their bleak homes. Somehow though they stared that moment—the one before the moment we remember—dead in the eye and they did not blink.

We are called to be like Mary Magdalene and the other Mary. We are charged with paying attention to what God is doing in this world. Just like in the story of creation, the story of Abraham and Isaac, the story of Israel’s deliverance, and the story of the Valley of the Dry Bones when in each there was a moment before the moment. We are called to see that sometimes before we hear the Good News we have to hear the bad. And, that even then God is with us.

Do not mistakenly think that God’s creative, life-giving, salvific love is locked in the past, so that we may never taste it, never feel it, never experience it. That’s just not true. The Truth is we always sit on the cusp of divine transformation, we’re always on the brink of celestial brightness, even at this moment we rest on the edge of Resurrection. Dare we go with the women to look into the tomb?