Hope Rises ©
Reverend Janet Parsons
Gloucester Unitarian Universalist Church
April 4, 2021
I find that in recent weeks I have been thinking back frequently to last Easter. I remember the almost heartbreaking hope we had, on that last Sunday together in March of 2020, that we might just be able to gather in person again on Easter. And what a joyous day it would be! Perhaps you were holding that hope as well, and are also remembering it. And then, life continued on its twisty path. Easter itself became a political football, a source of stress, with pressure from conservative politicians and clergy to defy the science and to gather anyway.
The narrative of Easter made sense to me last year, and I reminded you of the story of the very first Easter, with the women closest to Jesus returning to his tomb in the pre-dawn hours, and finding his body gone. There was no celebration, no shouts of ‘Alleluia’, no trumpets and organs, no finery or gatherings over delicious meals. Instead, there was fear, disbelief, and mystery. Last year, there was fear and mystery for us, too. We were deeply afraid last Easter, and we retreated to our homes, so often alone, and sealed our entrances against contagion. We lived the first Easter ourselves, last year.
And here we are, one year later. We find ourselves in a challenging time right now, in an in-between time. We have been offered a powerful source of hope, in the form of vaccines against the coronavirus. A year ago we hardly dared hope that effective and safe vaccines would be available so soon. But the process of getting access to the vaccines has been cumbersome and slow. Hope rises within us, and often so has frustration as we wait our turn, wait for our appointments. One could say that our doors are opening, the stones have rolled away from the entrances to the tombs we’ve been taking refuge in for a year, and yet, we still have not emerged. Resurrection, for us this year, our new lives and possibilities, has not really happened yet. We wait. We sense that we are poised on the brink of a new life, of new beginnings. Hope is rising, but we are not sure what we are hoping for. A return to the way life was before? Or the beginning of a better life?
It doesn’t really feel like Easter yet. We haven’t completely passed through the time of loss, of mystery, of fear and sadness. Life has not yet transformed into a time of joy.
My sense that we haven’t quite arrived at Easter yet returned me to the gospel stories – the accounts of Jesus’s death and resurrection found in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the New Testament, and I read them with new eyes. Now, I’m sure many of you have heard me say in other years that the reason the Bible has persisted in importance over the centuries is that somehow its stories manage to offer relevance and wisdom to us. This year is no different.
Our reading this morning from the gospel of Luke ended with the discovery that Jesus’ body was missing, and the amazement with which this news was heard. We often end there, but the story continues. It was not the end, much as our story of the pandemic has not ended.
In the days following the discovery that Jesus’s body had disappeared, in all four of the gospels, Jesus kept appearing to the disciples. Often the disciples were unable to recognize him at first, and then suddenly he would be revealed to them. Mary Magdalene encountered him in the garden outside the tomb. She thought he was a gardener, until he called her by name and suddenly she knew who he was. He said to her, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” (John 20:17) Two unnamed disciples encountered Jesus while on a journey to Emmaus. The men walked with this stranger and recognized him only when they stopped for a meal and Jesus broke bread. And there were several other accounts of Jesus suddenly appearing among them; while sharing meals, or even fishing. The narratives all tell of sudden recognitions – revelations: of the abrupt understanding that a perceived stranger is in fact, the beloved one. Suddenly there was inbreaking of the holy, and people in Jesus’ presence could see in a different way.
The stories tell us that Jesus had been raised from the dead, but he had not yet ascended into heaven. There is this period in-between, a very mystical time when he was among his people, and yet apart. Today, we don’t know quite what to make of this time. But those who loved him appeared to be able to accept his presence more readily than they could accept his death.
A colleague of mine, Reverend Cecilia Kingman, has studied the life of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the archbishop of El Salvador who was martyred in 1980. Romero was elevated to sainthood by the Catholic church in 2018. Among miracles attributed to Romero were frequent sightings of him in the Salvadoran countryside following his murder. Reverend Kingman wrote, “…in his country there are these sightings of him now. The stories ring with the language of resurrection. The people say that Romero is ‘Presente!’ Here among us!” She went on, “Resurrection occurs when the community refuses to allow death to take one of their own.” (Rev. Cecilia Kingman, “Romero Rising,” in Good News, Easter 2013, published by the UU Christian Fellowship.)
We don’t understand how such grief can lead to the sensing of a beloved one’s presence after death. But I see another powerful force at work in the miraculous stories of the sightings of Jesus. As I read these accounts: the stories of Jesus appearing suddenly, even through unopened doors, announcing himself by saying “Peace be with you,” I understood that all these encounters were meant to prepare the disciples for their new lives of leadership, and to offer them hope for the future. For they had given up everything to follow Jesus, they had lost their leader; their teacher and spiritual guide, and they were afraid and despairing. Jesus’s felt presence steadied them, reassured them that the prophecies they had been told were true, and gave them hope that the story and the relationships and the love had not come to an end.
Now of course, the question for us is: what does this mysterious story have to do with us? Well, we, too, are in a time where we must foster hope for the future. We, too, are waiting, not completely able to imagine what life is going to look like as we move forward. What will our return to life look like? What will be asked of us? What will sustain us?
The Reverend Carl Scovel, longtime minister of King’s Chapel in Boston, wrote, “The resurrection is not a single event…it is an event which happens when we are willing to meet the stranger whom God has sent to us, the stranger in whom God comes to us.”
We often think that there was only one resurrection, that of Jesus. But there are many resurrections, taking place daily, all around us. We are resurrected by relationships, by community, by strangers who we suddenly recognize as beloved, or even holy. We are resurrected when we choose recovery over substance abuse. We are currently being resurrected by the availability of a life-sustaining vaccine. We are resurrected when we are finally willing and able to look deeply at ourselves, to know ourselves and see ourselves with new understanding and love. Each of these are events that transform us; that call us to new life.
Underneath these events, all of these small resurrections, lies hope. The path to resurrection is through hope, with its call to embrace life, to look forward, to allow us to imagine new encounters, new relationships, new ways of life.
Where are our sources of hope these days? In the coronavirus vaccines, certainly. There is the hope always offered by the coming of spring, as hints of green begin to emerge and the days grow longer and brighter.
I found hope for the future this week from an unlikely source: a murder trial. Despite the chilling videos of the death of George Floyd last summer in Minneapolis, despite the cruelty on display at the hands of police officers, hope was offered by the eyewitnesses who took the stand. One after the other, they shared their great grief at George Floyd’s death, their efforts to stop it, and their heartbreaking wish that they could have done more to save him. They wanted to help. They tried to help. These were strangers, brought together by an episode of unimaginable cruelty. And yet, their humanity, and their decency, transcended the excruciating minutes on the pavement. This was the inbreaking of love, in a courtroom – agape on display, unconditional love for other people, offered freely in a moment of great crisis. It brings us hope: for a new beginning for our country, for a new understanding of each other as humans, a new way forward.
“We came to the tomb in sorrow, heads bowed low.
But hope does not die so easily.
It flickers inside, buried somewhere deep.
Hope grows, blossoms like a rose
even through stone,
even in hearts frozen by grief.” (Rev. Molly Housh Gordon, At the Tomb, in “Holy Week Triptych”, https://www.uua.org/worship/words/poetry/holy-week-triptych)
Resurrection is transformation. It is new life, in new and different forms. Perhaps the transformation is within us; what we suddenly can see, what we suddenly can understand. Perhaps this inner transformation leads us to new life. But however we choose to think about it, resurrection cannot take place without hope. Hope enlivens us; it opens us to what might be about to take place. Peering into a dark tomb. Being called by name by a stranger. Feeling the presence of a hero – a beloved priest. Watching people weep over the death of someone they did not know. Receiving a shot; a tiny amount of life-sustaining fluid that offers us a way forward. All of these events, these resurrections, are founded in hope; hope that the senseless death of a brown man, be his name Jesus, or Oscar Romero, or George Floyd, is not the end of the story, hope that we are seen and loved, hope that this time, we will be heard, hope in science. Hope calls us forward, calls us to an event that gives us new life, that transforms us.
Hope grows, blossoms like a rose
even through stone,
even in hearts frozen by grief.”
Hope rises.
May hope grow in your hearts, and may you sense it rising as the cold recedes and we are called forth again from our own tombs, into life and health, into sunshine and springtime.
Alleluia!
Blessed Be.
Amen.
