Bad News and Good News

 

The Gospel reveals a pattern in life: bad news, then good news.

April 3, 2021—Easter Vigil

Exodus 14:10-31; 15:20-21 [Israel's deliverance at the Red Sea]
Isaiah 55:1-11 [Salvation offered freely to all]
Ezekiel 36:24-28 [A new heart and a new spirit]
Ezekiel 37:1-14 [The valley of dry bones]

Romans 6:3-11
Mark 16:1-8

© 2021 Seth Olson 

I have good news and I have bad news. You may already know this, but with the lights coming on, the Gloria being sung, and the water being flung it’s officially Easter!

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

This is good news, right? HEAVEN’S YES, IT IS! Easter emanates good news. I imagine that’s part of why you are here—to see the most dramatic moment in all the whole Church year when darkness is vanquished by Christ’s eternal light! This is good news.

However, someone wiser than me once wrote, “The Gospel is bad news before it is good news.”[1] So, a minute ago maybe I should have said, “I have bad news, then I have good news.” Don’t believe me—that the Gospel is bad news first? Think back to yesterday (Good Friday) and the night before (Maundy Thursday) when Jesus was betrayed by his friends, denied by his followers, and executed by the powerful. You do not even have to go back that far. Earlier in this service, we heard this pattern repeatedly in our readings. Thank you to our youth for reading tonight!

Throughout those passages we heard bad news, then good news. In Exodus, God’s people wished they were still enslaved in Egypt (bad news) before God delivered them through the Red Sea on dry ground (good news). In Isaiah, God’s people were hungering and thirsting in exile (bad news) before God announced through the prophet a feast of free food and drink (good news). In the first Ezekiel passage, God’s people were disconnected throughout the nations (bad news) before God gathered them and sprinkled them (good news). Y’all know all about sprinkling with water! In the second Ezekiel passage, God’s people were like dry bones (bad news) before God breathed new life into them (good news)! And in Mark’s words tonight, the followers of Jesus believed that the Son of God was dead (bad news) before well, we will get to this good news in a bit. Now, I want to jump ahead to today.

Frederich Buechner is that wise one I was quoting earlier—his belief is that this bad news into good news is still a pattern now. All of us distort our relationships with God and with others made in God’s image, and we all experience this bad news happening to us.

News corporations—maybe they should be called “bad news corporations” love this. If you turn on 24/7/365 news networks, visit their websites, or stay informed via algorithms on your social media account, you will discover, if you haven’t already, that the news is mostly just a constant stream of bad things happening. We appear to be addicted to bad news. If you lean left, your news tells of the evils that the right is doing. If you lean right, your news tells of all the evils that the left is doing. If you are in the middle, the news says it is all evil!

We so clearly see the speck in our neighbors’ eyes. All the while, we neglect to examine the pressure treated 2”x4” piece of lumber in own eyes. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus used sawdust and wood to describe our collectively obscured vision because usually when we see it in another, we have it in ourselves. My wife calls this tendency, “You spot it, you got it.” So, when we distort how we see our neighbors, haplessly addicted to all the bad news, hyping up the sawdust in everyone else’s eyes, it is not just bad news—it is tragedy.

A lot of this last year has been this tragedy—seeing the faults and flaws and foibles in our world and in ourselves. Pandemics of illness, hatred, and exhaustion have made it easier to be consumed by this catastrophe. Plus, endless transitions, painful isolation, job loss, burnout, and continuously feeling like we are working twice as hard to accomplish half as much has left us in sad state of heartbreak. If this were not enough the cherry on top has been that the well-worn rituals that accompany both grief and gratitude have not been fully available like in the past. We have been in an endless loop of bad news. We’ve been stuck on the hamster wheel of tragedy.

If this was all there was, if life was merely the first half of the movement that Buechner described (just the bad news), if tonight’s stories stopped before making a turn, then what would our lives be like? We would be like God’s People stranded on the Egyptian side of the Red Sea, or like ones starving for God’s rich food, or like a family disconnected throughout the whole world, or even like those dry bones laying lifelessly in the valley. If bad news were all there was, we would have just stopped the service in the dark.

In that bleak obscurity we might get by for a time—working hard to promise “I will,” but without help. However, the glorious truth is that the bad news is not the end—it is just the beginning, or maybe the middle! God reveals this truth to us tonight in this powerful liturgy: in prayer, song, and story. This is the night not about the failings of us or our forebears. No, this is the night, which exemplifies God’s pattern throughout all time and forever. And, Christ Jesus most clearly embodied this truth that God will transform even the worst news into the best news.  

Our Gospel story for tonight—see I told you I would come back to it—focuses upon God transfiguring bad news into good news. Some women went after the Sabbath at sun rise to tend to Jesus’ dead body. They went even though they were consumed with the worst news—their Lord was dead. They worried about the heavy rock and the stench of death, but what they found at the grave was wholly unexpected. These women who on Good Friday saw Jesus’ lifeless body laid in the ground now returned, but he was not there! The rock was out of the way. The fragrance was their own spices. And inside they saw no body, but instead a white robed messenger. The women’s response?

They were terrified. It was how we might respond. Even the ultimate good news comes as a shock on the heels of utter tragedy. The last words of Mark’s story tell us that they went away not skipping in glee but seized in terrifying amazement.

So, the women left in fearful astonishment; however, their mere presence portrays the great gift of showing up—they were the first heralds of this best news. They also outshone the other disciples who hid, denied, or ran in Jesus’ hour of need. And yet, when we gaze upon this constellation of believers what we see will surely give us pause, as it is another example of the bad news coming first.

All the wrong turns, stumbles, and falls that Jesus’ disciples took—even the faithfulness of these women—help us to arrive at a most important truth: we cannot turn bad news into good—not alone. We cannot save ourselves. We cannot make all things right. God is the one who loves us, heals us, and makes us whole, which is the ultimate good news enveloping the bad news. It is the “Yea!” that comes after the “Opps!” It is the balm that attends the wounding. And, we see this chiefly in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus!

Oddly enough though, Jesus never appears in tonight’s Gospel lesson. Strange, right? We spent so much of this Easter Vigil hearing all these readings without Jesus being in any of them. Why is that?

As the young messenger put it, “He has been raised; he is not here… He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” Now Galilee is 6,531.2 miles from here. Geographically Galilee stands far away, but in another way, it is intimately close. Galilee is not only a physical place—it is also a spiritual one. Galilee long ago was a place of suffering, strife, and pain, so Christ Jesus went there. Now, Galilee is any place where bad news persists, and I believe that Christ goes there! 

This last difficult year has already taught us: Jesus is not just here in church. Christ Jesus goes ahead of us. Christ is everywhere, especially where there is bad news, and he tells us to meet him there in the proverbial Galilee, so that we might bring good news of salvation: feeding, uniting, even resurrecting alongside Jesus. This Easter we will find Christ where healing is mending woundedness, love is transforming sinfulness, and resurrection is swallowing death.

Through the love of God and the power of the Spirit, Christ transforms bad news into good news—this is what we celebrate on this holy night. And, to all who still dwell in dominions of bad news know that Christ Jesus is there and the best is yet to come: Alleluia, Christ risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.

 

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[1] Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth: the Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale (San Francisco: Harper, 1977).

Going On

I feel strangely incomplete this year. The last couple of times around the sun I had the delirious privilege of preaching on Easter Sunday evening when, in the Episcopal Church at least, we hear the story of Cleopas and his friend walking the road to Emmaus. Here at St. John’s we have moved our Sunday evening worship to Wednesday, so I did not walk that mysterious seven mile journey from Jerusalem as the sun was sinking on April 16th. Fortunately for me, and maybe you too, I am preaching on this Third Sunday of Easter when we hear again Luke 24:13-35.

To me, the walk to Emmaus stands out as important for many reasons. What we in the Episcopal Church call Cursillo, the United Methodist Church and others call Emmaus, so it is a story about pilgrimage and transformation. Also, some will attest that this story heard on Easter evening caps off the Triduum, those Holy Days spanning from Maundy Thursday to Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and finally Easter day. Most importantly to me, without walking this journey with the disbelieving disciples I do not get the full, mesmerizing scope of what happened on Easter day long ago. This story definitely still resonates with us enough that we need to hear it again and again.

As I go back again to that holy walk that two disciples took, I am struck by several details in particular. On the day after the Passover, when these men would have first been able to travel away from the fervent atmosphere of Jerusalem and distance themselves from Jesus' death, Cleopas and his friend were walking somewhere that most scholars cannot even pinpoint on a map. Almost as though they were walking anywhere that was not Jerusalem. Luke tells us Jesus came near, but they could not recognize him. This detail appears somewhat common among Post-Resurrection accounts in the various Gospel accounts. The disciples cannot seem to see their teacher with them. When Jesus asks them what they are discussing they respond most curiously.

The two men when questioned about what had happened over the last few days in Jerusalem responded not with words, but with stillness and sadness. Eventually they came around to discussing Jesus of Nazareth, and when pressed by the man himself, they talked of his death, their hopes, and their doubts. What gets me though is their standing still. Like a well-timed rest in a beautiful piece of music or the use of negative space in a fine work of art, sometimes what isn’t said says more than all the words we might utter. When the disciples finish blabbering a bit, Jesus calls them foolish and slow of heart to believe. I wonder if he would have said the same thing if they had just continued to stay still and be grief-stricken, instead of explanatory and dismissive of what others had discovered. Regardless, what comes next would have been a conversation to behold!

Jesus unleashed for those two fortunate listeners a Scriptural study that had their hearts burning within their chests. Sometimes I wonder what the Great Teacher would have said about himself. The Scripture we still possess has the evidence Jesus used to show how Christ came, comes, and will come to redeem all of Creation, which is fantastic, but part of me still wishes to be there on that walk. After this great Bible study, Luke makes it clear that Jesus was headed onward. While the entire story fascinates me, today this detail stands out from the rest.

Where was Jesus going? Why would he have left those disciples? If they had not been bold enough to invite him to dine with them would they have ever known it was Jesus? I have no answer to these questions and many others that this detail stimulates. I do think Luke beautifully gives to us a gift in this part of the story. The text reads, “He walked ahead as if he were going on.” I think that after this story concludes with the mystic sweet communion and Jesus’ disappearing act that he did keep going on. I think that even now Christ keeps going onward.

As I continue to wonder what the Spirit is saying through this passage, I believe that standing still and being with where I am will allow me oddly enough to see where Christ is going onward within me, within our church, and within all Creation. Stay still, be where we are, and watch Christ going onward!

I Am Two-Years-Old

Spending time with my nephews makes me realize I am like a two-year-old. We all are!

Last year during the spring and summer, I spent some quality time with my twin nephews. At the time they were two-years-old. And even with marvelous parenting from my sister and brother-in-law and stupendous grand-parenting from their Bebe, they helped me to understand why people think the two’s are terrible. There were tears, tantrums, and running around like pair of super-destructive, superconductors that somehow feed off of each other’s energy. And while the experience reminded me that parenting is very difficult, the grandest inspiration that struck me came when I recognized that at my core I am two-years old.

No, I do not respond with the same mechanism. Of course, I do not get on the floor in my office and pound my fists and feet on the floor. I am not the type that whines and cries until I get what I want, but somewhere inside of me I see those two-year-old boys and in them I see me. My fiancée already recognizes this and sees it most notably when I am hangry (hungry+angry), so she will gently lead me towards food before I begin the irrational comments. In her sweet gesture I see that my nephews would probably not respond with their meltdowns if they knew another way, but that is indeed the way that they respond to a need within themselves.

I do not only act like I am two when I am hangry though. There are other moments when I am confronted with stresses that make me feel small or scared. If I am healthy (in body, mind, and spirit) they are no big deal. And yet, even if I am doing well some things are too big for me to confront. These are the moments when I get base. I respond in fear or anxiety. I push people away that love me, or worse yet, I run away from them.

Our Gospel reading for tonight does not reveal why Cleopas and the other disciple were heading from Jerusalem to Emmaus. They had been in that Holy City to witness the awful events of Good Friday. They stuck around over the Passover Festival. The women of their group had even told them that the tomb was empty, but some things are too difficult for us to understand or believe. I suspect that they were a little afraid that what had happened to Jesus could very well happen to them. So, they traveled from the Passover city and on the way they met a stranger.

The stranger did not know what had happened. The stranger walked with them. The stranger listened. That was until the stranger could stand it no more, so he opened the Scripture to them pointing to all those moments when the Messiah’s suffering and death were foretold. Onward the stranger would have gone were it not for Cleopas and the other disciple’s request to dine with them.

It was at this moment of breaking bread together that the scales fell from the disciples eyes and they saw Jesus as himself. They went running seven miles back to Jerusalem at night, so that they could share with the others that “HE IS RISEN!” Somewhere along the way though when the disciples were pumping oxygen and blood through their bodies they also remarked that their hearts had been burning when Jesus was with them.

In the moments when I am trending towards two-years-old, when I am fearful, when I run from my problems like those disciples were hiding from their fate earlier in the story it is these moments when I have the hardest time seeing. I would be just like those disciples. I would not be able to see Jesus walking right next to me. So sometimes, I believe this is where we are in our lives. We are too preoccupied with fear or doubt or rushing around or even doing things that seem like they are good or worthwhile, but all the while we miss that the God who came to dwell with us is dwelling right with us.

This would seem like a bad thing, that we miss God so easily, except that our God is always faithful, always sure, always loving. God, when we miss the presence of Christ right here with us, will come to us as that burning within our hearts. That feeling of pure joy, free gift, or complete love is God knocking at the door to our souls. There are times though when we will even miss that knock. It is at these times that in a strange set of circumstances when we might be with someone we have never met before that God will throw an altar into our lives, so that God can actually break bread with us. That is right. God will come into our lives through something strange and miraculous to get our attention, so that we might commune with him at a sacred meal just for a little while.

When we are confronted with the Risen Christ who comes to share that all things are made new again that even our turning and walking away are transformed into walking with God, we can respond in any number of ways; however, I think Cleopas and the other disciple were spot on. They went immediately and ran to tell others this Good News. And, when they arrived to tell them Jesus showed up there too! This is the joy of Easter. Even when we throw tantrums in our lives, even when we cry and run away, even when we attempt to escape, God has another way. God will burn in our hearts, God will make a table to dwell in sacred meal with us, God will show up to bring us peace. Alleluia, He is Risen!

“Does Washing Feet Even Mean What It Once Did?”

Our feet are not dirty like the disciples' feet, so do they need to be washed?

Morgan Freeman asked one of the most appropriate questions for Maundy Thursday when he played the character Red in Shawshank Redemption, “Seriously, how often do you really look at a man’s shoes?” Except, I would amend the line to say, “Seriously, how often do you really think about feet?” Feet are the Rodney Dangerfield of body parts. They get no respect. None. Before tonight when was the last time you even thought about your feet?

Perhaps someone here got a pedicure in preparation for tonight’s foot washing and laughed when the manicurist scraped, polished, and massaged. Yes, if you have recently been to the beach you might have remembered that you have feet as your toes buried their way into the sand. If you are like me you have thought of your feet recently because you developed a blister while out on a run. However, by and large, we pay our feet no mind.

One might argue, “I love and respect my feet, as they are like the tires on a car without them I can go nowhere,” but this would only be true if we wrapped our tires in layers to disguise their very existence. Feet are not what they were in Jesus’ day. We hardly ever see one another’s feet anymore. So, our very understanding of foot washing has gotten complicated. Back then, the most elaborate footwear around were sandals, so everyone saw each other’s feet, but now we lay them beneath layers of leather and lycra hoping that they never see the light of day. We may not intentionally be ashamed of our feet, but even accidentally our actions point to a hiding away of a member of the whole.

Is there a part of our bodies that does more for us and about which we are more guarded? Everyone appreciates the eyes, they help us to see, to read, and to view this world. Without the nose and mouth we would have no taste and life would unpalatable. Hands help us to hold, to reach out, and to serve the world around us. And yet, our feet carry us to and fro all the while hidden away. Protected yes, but hidden nonetheless. Even in our homes I bet most of us wear house-shoes or slippers. But exposing feet and going a step farther by washing feet was not back in Jesus’ day and is not in our own day only about a oft’ forgotten part of our body.

Have you ever noticed in the midst of a fight with a spouse or a close friend that the two of you are not actually fighting about what you are yelling at each other? “Well, you never put the dishes away!” “How come you don’t like my mother?!” “You never put the toilet seat down!” has nothing to do with dishes or mothers-in-law or toilet seats. By putting those dishes away, by putting up with a mother-in-law, and by putting the seat down we show each other respect, reverence, and even love. Jesus kneeling down to wash his disciple’s feet was not an empty offering, it was not because he was worried about their feet being dirty either. No, it was a final teaching during a final meal. Jesus attached to his great commandment—Love one another as I have loved you—the action of being a servant and washing his disciples’ dirty, grimy, and disgusting feet.

In the other gospel accounts the Words of Institution that are so familiar take center stage at the Last Supper. We heard those words in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians tonight: “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me,” and “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:24-25). We hear these words so often that they have soaked into our souls. We weekly reach out our hands and mouth to accept the Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven and the Blood of Christ, the Cup of Salvation. We believe that these are sacramental elements: outward and visible signs and sure and certain means of inward and spiritual grace! But we very rarely think about feet, and washing them, in this same way.

Today, in this part of the world, feet do not carry the same stigma as they did in Jesus’ day. They are not covered in the filth of the streets like they were, instead we keep our feet hidden. We wear extravagant shoes and fancy socks and our feet do their job balancing and moving us without saying a word. But, tonight is not about feet, just like arguments are not about the dishes, mothers-in-law, or the toilet seat. Feet are those things in our lives that we hide away. Feet are those parts of us that we cover up with multiple layers hoping that they do not see the light of day. They may propel us through life, but we keep them hidden from those whom we meet, maybe even those we love. But, Christ says no more. I want to wash your feet.

What are the feet in your own life? What are the things that you keep hidden from the light of day? What part of your life are you keeping secret that God not only wants to cleanse, but also by washing that will show you what true love is?

Who are the feet in your own life? Who are those people that you have been hiding or from whom you have been hiding? Who are those people that you long to wash and to serve, so that you might offer the cleansing love that Christ offers us tonight?

Back in Jesus’ day feet were the grimy body part that was in severe need of cleaning. Now in our day of modern hygiene and pedicures feet are no longer dirty, instead they are hidden away. The meaning of washing our feet has changed, and yet it is still the same. It is still about kneeling down to serve friend, family, or neighbor, but now it is also about God cleansing even that part of us that we are afraid to show to the rest of the world. Christ says: Love one another, serve one another, and wash each other’s feet.