Easter Sunday
The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams
Saint George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia
The Day of the Resurrection: Easter Day
March 31st, 2024
“I have seen the Lord.” John 20: 1-18
Alleluia. Christ is risen. (The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.). What a joy it is to come together today to proclaim these words. We join with Christians around the world and across the ages to rejoice that God has conquered sin and death and that we live forever in the risen life of Christ.
Alleluia. Christ is risen. (The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.)
There is always so much to look forward to in the weeks leading up to Easter. A few days ago, I came into the office and gave Father Paddy my usual “good morning” as I came down the hall, to then round the corner to find him sitting in the middle of his office floor, in a sea of Easter baskets, putting plastic grass in them for the Easter egg hunt today. And you thought all we did was write sermons and ponder heavenly things. ☺ Sermons are important, but Easter candy is serious business. And speaking of candy, one of the things I always looks forward to each year is the annual Washington Post Peeps Diorama Contest. If you aren’t familiar with the contest, people create scenes about television shows, movies and various things going on in our culture, all using peeps, those little sugar bunnies that come in packages of pink, purple and yellow. This year’s entries included one entitled “Jeopardy” with studious- looking peep contestants, standing across from a very detailed category board and a caption that reads “I’ll take ‘too much free time for $800, Ken.” And then there was “Taylor Peeps: the Eras Tour”, with Taylor Peeps in a sparkly, sequined outfit and a sea of adoring peep fans spread out at her feet. And, my personal favorite, “Peepenheimer”, with nerdy little scientist peeps, wearing tiny black goggles as they carry out their experiments.
And these things are in addition to the best thing of all, of course, the anticipation of coming to church on Easter morning and having the experience of saying, “Alleluia. Christ is risen. (The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.) We come together today to experience joy. And we need joy more than ever right now. There is so much weighing us down, the aftermath of the pandemic, the isolation and mental health struggles of so many, wars raging around the world, bridges falling, the anxiety, despair and cynicism of our public life, all of this in addition to the personal and family challenges that many of us are faced with. So, we come together today to put ourselves in a space where we can experience deep joy , a joy that only God can give us.
And we experience that joy when we see the beautiful flowers adorning the nave that Valerie Troiano and our Flower Guild have arranged. We feel it when we appreciate the lovely altar with fresh linens and the seriously shiny silver that Anna Alt-White and our Altar Guild have prepared. We know it when we hear the glorious music that Dr. Ben Keseley and our choirs have practiced so well. Feasting at the reception that Karla Walter and our Vestry has worked so hard to offer. Watching the Easter egg hunt that Liza Lowe and our Children and Youth committee have arranged. Our Easter celebration takes many hands and hearts and minds to prepare, from lay leaders to staff members to all of you. Each of us is a welcome guest at God’s paschal feast today. We all received personal invitations. Some of us were invited by a friend or family member. Others found us on the web, responding to some spiritual longing that you couldn’t quite name. Still others saw the sign as you walked along Fairfax Drive. You may not be quite sure how you ended up here today, but we are glad you did. God calls us in a variety of ways. And God calls each of us by name.
When most people think of Christianity, they think of a religious institution, the Church. And that is true. The Church as an institution has been in existence for thousands of years. But what preceded the institution was an encounter, a personal encounter with the risen Christ.
Mary Magdalene encounters Jesus in a very personal way in today’s Easter story. The Gospel of John doesn’t say why she came to the tomb, probably to grieve, perhaps to try to come to terms with the horrible ordeal of watching Jesus die an excruciatingly painful and humiliating public death. For whatever reason, she did come and she found an empty tomb. And as she struggles to understand, Jesus comes to her and says, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She is so caught up in her grief and thinking that grave robbers have taken Jesus’ body, she doesn’t realize who is talking to her. The moment of recognition comes when Jesus calls her by name. “Mary!” That moment has captured the imagination of ordinary Christians and artists throughout the ages, that poignant moment of indescribable joy, when Mary hears her name and turns to see Jesus, in his resurrected glory.
All of us want to be called by name, to be seen and known for who we truly are. And we want to know Jesus. The Easter story we hear this morning is not about an institution or a creed. The Easter story we hear this morning is about an intimate moment between Mary Magdalene and Jesus. There is nothing intellectual or theoretical about it . It is about Mary’s visceral response to hearing her name called when she realizes that her beloved teacher and friend has been resurrected from the dead.
And that is why the Church exists. The Church exists to carry on the Easter story and to create a space for people to encounter Jesus. We can meet God anywhere. God comes to us in all kinds of ways, all the time, every day. We can encounter God in the beauty of the mountains, as the sun rises, making us aware of the mystery of the universe. We can be with God during our own private prayer time. But we meet Jesus in very particular ways in church. Like Mary, we don’t always know what we are looking for when we come to church, but when we put ourselves in a space that is specifically created to facilitate the meeting of human beings with the divine, Jesus is more likely to come to us in ways that we can touch and see and feel. We encounter Jesus through the bread and wine of the Eucharist. We hear Jesus’ voice in the words of Scripture. We meet Jesus through the music and the flowers, and the exchange of the peace. We experience Jesus when we sit in prayer before a service begins. We hear Jesus’ voice in the conversations with have with one another in our house church Bible study groups. We recognize Jesus in our unhoused neighbors whom we serve at the food pantry. We see the resurrected Christ in the face of the people we provide hospitality to in our refugee ministry, knowing that they have been through their own Good Fridays. We encounter Jesus in so many ways at church, when we touch and see and feel ordinary things that become extraordinary.
And sometimes we hear Jesus speak most clearly in those moments when we think our life is over, in those moments of personal pain and suffering that seem unsurvivable. When we are sitting with the person we love most in life in a hospital room, knowing that time is very short, those times when we are most aware that the veil between this life and the next is whisper thin. We can feel Jesus’ touch as we hold that person’s hand. We can hear Jesus’ voice bringing us comfort and the peace that passes all understanding. Life is so fragile. Life is precious. And putting life into the larger frame of faith makes all the difference. That is what being in a church community does for us. It helps us to deal with the vicissitudes of life and to know that there is a power both within us and outside of us that will help us to get through the really hard things and not succumb to despair.
There is no doubt that there are a lot of things rocking our world right now. And we all need a center of gravity that will steady us and help us to stay calm in the midst of chaos. Friendships are important. Family is important. Self-care is important, things like exercise and not eating too much Easter candy. And the most important self-care of all, is being part of a church community that will help facilitate our relationship with Jesus and interpret our daily lives through that lens. Faith is what gives our lives meaning and coherence. It is that unshakeable foundation when everything grumbles around us. Faith gives us the joy that we cannot give ourselves, the joy of knowing that we are not alone, even when others forsake us. The joy of knowing that the fear of death does not have to hold us captive because we know that Christ has conquered death and set us free. The joy of serving others in Jesus’ name to help us realize that everything is not all about us. The joy of having our children grow up with people who really love them and want to nurture their faith and help them navigate a complicated world.
The Easter story is the alpha and omega of everything we do at church and it frames everything we experience as individuals. The first Christians became Christians not because Jesus was a wonderful teacher, even though he most certainly was, and not because he was a powerful preacher, although he definitely was, and not even because he was an unsurpassed healer. The first Christians believed because of the resurrection. They believed the witness of Mary Magdalene and the others that Jesus appeared to. They believed that Jesus was risen from the dead, and they looked back, through the lens of the empty tomb to understand everything that Jesus had taught and preached, and all of the healing that he brought during his ministry. The resurrection is what made it all make sense. Jesus had told his followers that he would die and be raised from the dead. He had said that he would be handed over to the forces of darkness in this world and that God would ultimately triumph. But they just couldn’t comprehend how that could be true because they saw the reality of Good Friday all around them every day.
And we, like them, are called to be “Easter people in a Good Friday world” as writer Barbara Johnson put it. Learning to be Easter people is not about blind optimism or just having a “can do” attitude. Being an Easter person is about looking at the reality of Good Friday and seeing that the story doesn’t end there. It is about looking at ourselves and knowing that we can change, with God’s help. It is about doing the hard work of forgiving others, even when they have done horrible things to us. It is about believing that justice is possible, despite all the evidence to the contrary. It is about trusting that this life is the beginning of eternal life and that when we die, we will be with Jesus forever, just as he is with us now. We are resurrection people, walking in the power and love of the Risen Christ. And today we join with Mary Magdalene, the Apostle to the Apostles, as we say, “I have seen the Lord.”
Alleluia. Christ is risen. (The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.)