Rubies & Resurrection
(Notes for an Easter Sermon 2010) Luke 24:1-128

The women came.
The stone had been rolled away and they were caught between the unexpected and the impossible.
The two men in dazzling clothes asked them “why do you look for the living among the dead?” “He is not here but has risen”, he will meet you, out of the tomb, out of the cave.
Unexpected? Impossible? Yes. It’s Easter.

The women began by going to the tomb, facing the emptiness and loss, the unexpected and the impossible. By doing what we can in the face of disappointment and death there opens a realm beyond fear -- a realm of possibility and mystery is opened too. It opens in that place, in that tiny cave, the tiny tomb between unexpected and impossible. A place for hope in the impossible promises of God.

And we begin by coming to Church – all dressed up in our dazzling clothes, in our hats to get our chocolates, and amid our lilies, to celebrate and sing our alleluias, after a long time away.

Because we know full well that God comes to us in this sacred space, in the cave between the unexpected and the impossible.

My granddaughter Petra loves a TV show called Little Bear. He and his family are very kind and he has many friends and Little Bear is bravely willing to explore caves – shadowy spaces that may hold a skunk, but in the end are always worth exploring. Petra calls every alcove she notices a cave these days…

Perhaps it is time to listen to a story and pick up about caves after it is told…

Once upon a time in Northern India, the Mongol tribes, described by conquered people and slaves as brutal barbarians, invaded and destroyed the land, farms, families, culture and religion. Chaos resulted and may fled for their lives leaving everything of value behind them: their possessions, money and valuables buried under houses and in rice fields—most never returned and their secrets died with them in prisons or on foreign soil…

Many years later, a poor husband and wife, very young they were, worked in their rice field while their daughter, almost 3, just like Petra, played nearby. To their utter amazement they came upon a stone. Large and heavy. Different from the other rocks in the paddies. It was deep in a little cave some roots had made. When it was cleaned it sparkled with inner fire. What had they found? The husband whispered that he thought it was “a ruby”. “Perhaps one of the lost treasures the old ones tell stories about at night”, she added. Quickly they tried to hide it but their inquisitive daughter wanted to know all about it. If she talked the village elders would take it from them as their right. If they could only keep the secret for a while, his brother in the next village knew about jewels…

But how to keep her quiet? She was always talking, in long sentences now in her village play group, and the head woman was always listening and snooping around the children.

So they kept their daughter busy inside until it was time to go to bed. And then Mamma made honey rice cakes. She made them very thin, to make as many as she could. When dawn came she scattered the cakes all around: on the roof, the ground, the edges of the rice field, even in the garbage pile. Then she ran inside and woke her daughter. “Look!” she said, “it rained honey cakes last night!” “The kind you like!” “Come and help me gather them before the birds eat them up!” They collected as many as they could while the birds feasted too.
They sent her to class with enough for the others in a small bag, and waited to see if their plan would work. The first thing she did was talk… of course the whole class listened… “Yesterday we found a huge shiny rock in our rice field, it was red and heavy.” Naturally the head woman overheard and questioned her about the stone-- “Where is it now?” -- But she wanted to tell the rest of her story. “That’s not the best part – it rained honey cakes at our house last night – we collected them this morning and ate some for breakfast. And I brought some for you!” The head woman laughed and laughed . The raining cakes were just impossible. Everyone knew it hadn’t rained anything last night, even rain. As for the entire story, just an idle tale, merely a game played by the girl’s parents to keep her entertained. Just another story. That’s all.

Of course, it turned out they had found a ruby. A large one. And quietly hid brother had it cut and shared it with their extended family, and little by little the crushing limitations of their impoverished lives were lifted. Improbable. Impossible. But joy came out of the cave anyway.

Once the improbable ruby became associated with the impossible rain of honey cakes it was only a story. But the resurrection of Christ is the ruby itself, the joy itself, the truth itself.

In 1922 the Danish Physicist Niels Bohr won the Nobel Prize for his work on the structure of atoms. (Talk about being between the improbable and the impossible in 1922.) In the midst of his speech he said that there were two kinds of truth: small truth and great truth. “You can recognize a small truth” he said, “Because it’s opposite is falsehood.” The opposite of a great truth he said, “Is another great truth.”

 

It is a great and sad truth that everyone dies. And we miss them. Sometimes forever. The joyful opposite is the great truth of Easter… that because Christ lives everyone can live again… all of us, each of us, those we mourn – all live again in Christ.

Live this liberating fact of our faith, live in the mystery that sustains us in our loss, in our dread, in our every need.

Christ is Risen. He is out from the tomb, from the cave which conspires with fear to hold us captive between improbability and impossibility. He is risen from the dead. It is God’s great truth.

Such is the timeless message of Christ’s resurrection.
Not only on Easter Sunday.
But on every day of the year.
And every year.
Until the world’s end.

Live the resurrection in your life. Amen.

WSC 3/10/2010 NYC
Otto/Babbo/Illuminations& the Mourners at the MET