Sermons
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What Does It Mean? – The Rev. Michelle Meech
March 31, 2024
Note: The audio starts a little late because I forgot to hit record before I began. Happy Easter! – Rev. Michelle
The congregation were given these Alleluia Butterflies and the younger people got a black and white image of the same drawing that they could color. Thank you to Illustrated Ministries!
Butterflies are a wonderful metaphor for the resurrection. Because we know that caterpillars come to a time in their lifecycle when, after they have eaten enough leaves in your garden and shed their skin about 4 or 5 times because it’s too tight for them as they grow, they attach themselves to a branch and shed their skin one more time revealing a different shell that will become a chrysalis.
This is when the caterpillar dies because it is no longer is a caterpillar. It stops eating. Stops wiggling. The shell hardens. And this chrysalis hangs there, suspended for a couple of weeks.
What we see is a shell. Delicate and vulnerable. And, even though science tells us that a miracle is taking place inside that little shell, it’s almost like we can’t quite believe it unless we see it for ourselves.
But then, one day, the most exciting thing happens – a butterfly emerges, liberated from this shell. It’s an Alleluia kind of moment. The butterfly has survived this delicate time and become what it was always meant to be: A beautiful, winged creature of God.
Filled with life, it flies freely from flower to flower across our yard, taking in nectar and cultivating life itself as it helps the vegetation to propagate. It’s quite something that we are coming to realize just how dependent we are on butterflies and bees and other insects. Because the Alleluia moment of a butterfly breaking free from its chrysalis is one that all creation can participate in. Alleluia! The butterflies are here!
Today’s resurrection story, I’m sorry to say, doesn’t have butterflies in it. Mark, of all our authors in scripture, would not have bothered to mention butterflies even if they were there. Mark is known for his economy of words, yet he gives us everything we need to know. In just these 8 verses we know that: Jesus was crucified. He was placed in a tomb. The women who came to anoint him, were surprised to find the tomb empty, save a young man dressed in white, presumably an angel who says, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”
I was reading a book by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crosson called The Last Week. It’s about Jesus’ final days in Jerusalem, the story of Holy Week. Borg and Crosson are scholars who wrote a lot about the historicity of Jesus’ life. They were part of a group of scholars called the Historical Jesus Movement, who found that the stories about Jesus, when read through the lens of historical scholarship, held an even deeper meaning. As such, these scholars found themselves wondering about the nature of truth in the Gospel witness.
And I got to the part in the book about the celebration of Easter and, as these authors are exploring the historical truth of the resurrection, the question they fall on is: What does it mean?
Crosson and Borg say: “Believe whatever you want about whether the stories happened this way – now let’s talk about what they mean… If you believe the tomb was empty, fine; now, what does this story mean? If you believe that Jesus’ appearance could have been videotaped, fine; now, what do these stories mean? And if you’re not sure about that, or even if you are quite sure it didn’t happen this way, fine; now, what do these stories mean?”
In other words, it’s not about truth vs. fiction. We tell stories all the time that may not be factually true, but that help to convey a deeper truth. The words “myth” and “fiction” are too often used in a pejorative way that alienates us from exploring the meaning of our lives and the truth we find inside these stories, like the ones in the Gospels.
And I think this is an important thing to talk about right now because we live in a time when many people are defensive about what is true and what is not true. And for some “facts” seem to be based more on what a person believes. As we know, the internet has been used to spread lies and sow division. And politicians are capitalizing on these lies and divisions to feed into a dangerous narrative that centralizes whiteness and puts marginalized people at extreme risk and creates chaos for the sole purpose of winning elections and gaining power. This is the violence of the world and it’s called white Christian nationalism.
But believing in or creating lies that we want to be factual, is not the same as reading a story and recognizing a deeper, broader truth that enables us to see beyond ourselves our limited scope of experience – such as the resurrection story. And I’m not suggesting that the stories we have of the resurrection are NOT historically true either.
I’m saying, that the meaning of our Easter celebration, the meaning of our Alleluias, the meaning of the resurrection itself… is not dependent upon the historical accuracy of the story. The meaning of our celebration and our Alleluias is dependent only upon how we come to understand what they are about: The inbreaking of God’s love.
The meaning of this story is that Jesus (and his life and his ministry and everything he did) was vindicated by God and his movement continued. The Roman Empire eventually fell, but the Jesus movement is still happening.
The meaning of the story is that the work Jesus began in Galilee, was not stopped by his death. Mark’s person in white tells us that Jesus has gone ahead, back to Galilee and we are to go and be with him there. Galilee, where we learn what it means to be of service – to truly be caretakers of our siblings. To recognize just how interdependent we all are and so we must be Christ for one another.
The meaning of this story is that the powers that be and the violence that is inevitably used to control and dominate and marginalize, will never be the final word. That, even though the moral arc of the universe may be long, in the end, God chooses to Love us again and again. Because love is the only thing that will liberate us. And that liberation happens when we journey to Galilee and learn the way of Love through compassion and care.
The meaning of this story is, as Meister Eckart says, “Whatever God does, the first outburst is always compassion.” And this Love, God’s Love, overcomes the death-dealing ways of the world. Every single time. And we participate in that inbreaking when we choose to go to Galilee.
This is the truth of the Resurrection story.
When I consider what’s happening in the world today, admittedly, I sometimes feel as though we’re just never going to figure it out – that the death-dealing, violent ways of the world will win. But then I remember some things that have changed during my 56 years. That some degree of liberation has taken place even in my relatively short lifetime. And I know that these changes are the result of God’s Love inbreaking through the efforts of amazing, tireless people.
Like the fact that women can have checking accounts and credit cards, something that was not true in the 1960’s. Or that women can be priests, also something that wasn’t true in the 1960’s. Or that LGBTQ people can marry people of the same gender. Or that the voices of black people who encounter systemic racism are finally being heard and the stories of back people are being centered more and more. Or that children are being believed when they tell an adult that something is wrong.
Because humanity is far from perfect, these liberating shifts happen gradually and, as we have seen, there is often backlash that comes under the guise of nostalgia or, even more contemptuously, under the guise of religion. Sometimes it honestly feels like one step forward and two steps back.
And, like the chrysalis of the butterfly, we cannot see the whole story. But something IS in the process of dying so that resurrection can actually happen. So that humanity can become more and more who God desires us to be. So that Jesus’ movement that he started 2000 years ago continues. So that liberation becomes real.
So, what does the resurrection story mean? What is its meaning? Why do we tell it?
Because it’s the truth.
The resurrection is very simply the truth of how God breaks into the world ensuring that Love will always be the final word.Resurrection is happening in the death rattles of the patriarchy, grasping at literally anything to try and maintain control. Like the Roman Empire, it will die because it’s not based in love, but in control.
Resurrection is happening in the research being done on trauma, helping people transform the violence in their lives so they can come back home to themselves.
Resurrection is happening in the climate justice movement led by people like Greta Thunberg, reminding us all of our deep interdependence upon every part of creation.
Resurrection is happening as we wake up to the ways in which our privilege keeps us bound to systems of oppression.
Resurrection is happening every time we learn to love ourselves and leave behind addictive behaviors so that we can live our lives without a curtain of shame.
Resurrection is God’s inbreaking: Love. Compassion. Liberation. This is why I believe in the resurrection. Because it is happening. And it will always be happening. God’s love for us will never end.
Let us go, then, to Galilee and be with the risen Christ. Alleluia, Christ is risen!