Each Easter season,
I reread the story of Jesus’ resurrection and find a new question in it. Some
people, who are undoubtedly brighter than I am, read it and find answers, but
for me, I have to work my way to answers by starting with questions. For better
or worse, this morning you’re going to journey with me and my question du jour,
and maybe by the time we’re done with it, we may have an answer or two…or maybe
just some more interesting questions to pursue.
Here’s where I
get stuck in this story: we’ve just heard the story – the disciples go to the
tomb where Jesus had been laid, and discover that he is not there. All they see
in the tomb is the neatly folded cloths that had wrapped Jesus’ body. They
leave. Mary Magdalene also is there, and is sitting in the garden, weeping. She
sees angels sitting in the tomb, who question why she is weeping. She says she
is sad because she doesn’t know where Jesus’ body has gone to, and no sooner
than she says this, but Jesus is behind her. It takes her a few seconds to
understand that it is Jesus to whom she speaks, and when she does, she reaches
out to embrace him, but he says “Don’t! I’m in transit to be with my heavenly
Father, and you can’t touch me right now. Just go tell the others you have seen
me and that I’m headed up to heaven.”
There are
probably a number of questions that come to mind when we hear this. Why did
Mary see the angels, but Peter and John did not? Why did Jesus appear to her,
and not to Peter and John? What’s that “don’t touch me” business about?
They are all
good questions, but I have a differen on that I’m stuck on: why did Jesus come
back after his death?
Why would he
come back? We could certainly understand him saying, “I wash my hands of that
place. I talked and talked and explained and explained and even performed all
sorts of miracles, and still they didn’t understand what I was trying to teach.
And then they decided they had to kill me off. This was a perfectly good body,
still had lots of miles left in it, and they had to go and crucify me! I’m
outta here.”
But that’s not
what he did. He did come back. He came back despite the fact that the Gospel of
John tells us that Peter and John looked into that empty tomb and they “saw and
believed,” presumably, that his body was taken to heaven. But then the
evangelist adds another line, one that may hold a clue for us: “as yet they did
not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.”
So they
believed something had happened, that the Lord’s body had been taken away by
divine power, but they didn’t really get the whole “resurrection from the dead”
thing.
And all Mary
knew was that she was grieving the death of Jesus and wanted to know if someone
had stolen his body from the grave, since the stone that had sealed the tomb
was rolled away when she first got there.
His body was
hidden from her…
…hmmm, a
little bit like that childhood game “Hide and Go Seek.”
Sometimes when
I get stuck on a question, I got back to the games of my childhood…they help me
think through how things work. So “Hide and Go Seek”…how does it work?
Someone who is
designated as “It” must close her eyes while everyone else runs and conceals
themselves. The person who is “it” must count out loud for a period, then she
must go find at least one of the people who are in hiding. After the player
designated as "it" finds another player, the found player must run to
base, before he is tagged by "it." After the first player is caught,
he calls out "Ollie Ollie oxen free" to signal the other hiders to
return to base for the next round. Pretty straightforward, right?
So does this fit our story? It might, if we imagine Mary
is “it,” the seeker, and Jesus is the one who is concealed…a time period has
passed since he was hidden, and she is searching, and in fact doesn’t even
begin to know where to find him. But she feels like she has to find him, that
it is important. So she asks the angels, and she asks the mysterious man in the
garden, who turns out to be…Jesus! And Jesus suggests that she call “Ollie Ollie
oxen free” to the disciples, to tell them that they will all get together soon
before he finally goes to his heavenly father in heaven.
But that still doesn’t answer the question of why Jesus
comes back after his death, even though Hide and Seek has helped us understand
what’s going on with Mary Magdalene a little better.
Well, if children’s games seem like a helpful tool to
untangle our questions, maybe another children’s game will do the trick.
Hmmm…what game? Dodgeball? No, the school systems are
banning that one, we’d better not do that. Basketball? No, we’re all too short.
Chess? Definitely not. It makes our heads hurt. Gee, Magic Eight Ball? Nope.
The answers are so rarely conclusive!
Okay, I’ve got it…how about Tag?
I can see your skepticism on your faces, but let’s think
about the rules of Tag. It starts off very much like Hide and Go Seek. There’s
someone who is designated as “it” who then has to run around and try to touch,
or tag, another person in the group, so that the new person is “it” and everyone
else runs to avoid being tagged.
Tag. What does that have to do with theology?
Well, work with me here, folks.
Let’s start with the premise that Jesus is “it.” That’s
the easy part. We know that Jesus, the Son of God, the Messiah who died on the Cross
to redeem us, is the ultimate “it.” He has been tagged by virtue of his
divinity to be the only one who can save us. So, as “it,” Jesus has been on
earth as one of us, as a human being, to…what? Play tag with us?
In a weird way, yes. He has been playing tag with us. He
has been touching each of us and saying “You’re my beloved. You’re it.” He has
been willing to play the game by human rules. Unfortunately, it was a game that
had a pretty unpleasant end, as we heard about on Good Friday. He got tagged by
the religious leaders and Pilate and was sentenced to death. Sounded like the
end of the game for this player, but like all really expert players, he tweaked
the rules a bit, added some holy grace. The
tag didn’t really end the game, although it changed it. He was still “it,” the
one who was our source of salvation, and he was perfectly fine with continuing
to be “it.”
But Jesus had a problem. He had been playing with a
bunch of disciples, good folks, but they weren’t the brightest folks, and he
was afraid that all he had taught them, all the fine points of the game of
redemption, really hadn’t stuck. Those of you who have coached the under-5 year
old soccer teams know what I’m talking about here.
So even though Jesus had been tagged, and by rights should
have stepped out of the game, he still had something to do. He had some tagging
to do.
He needed to come back to earth and tap his followers on
the shoulder and say “You’re it. I am going to be in heaven with my father, and
I need you to continue the game. I need you to go out into the world and share
the game, its rules, its joys, its frustrations. I want you to tell the story
of the greatest tag-player of all time, and all the ways that your lives have
been enriched by participating. You’re it. Go out and tell everyone about this!”
Ahhhh…that makes sense now. Jesus had to come back, to
remind everyone he had told them this was going to happen. He would die, but he
would rise again, and would sit at his heavenly Father’s right hand. Jesus had
to come back to remind them that was it their job now to share the story. They
were “it.” He’d coach from the sidelines when and if it was really necessary,
but it was for them to continue the game.
And the thing we are about to do now, this sacrament of
Holy Baptism? How does this fit into the game?
You might say that each of these three little ones is
being tagged. Tagged as God’s own beloveds, tagged as ones who will, over time,
learn how to play the game. As they grow in their knowledge of the story of
Jesus, the one who died and overcame death to rise again, they will understand
that they can share that glorious story, too, and the hope that is embodied in
that story. They are tagged as Christians.
Tag. You’re it. Go and share the story. Live the
promise. Sing it out: Alleluia!
Amen.
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