Rolling Away Stones

Stones Rolled Away      Colossians 3:1-4  John 20: 1-18              

 My wife, Martha, and I found ourselves late last Monday night at the Vietnam Memorial on the mall in Washington, DC.   We were in DC to look at GW University with our daughter, Suzie; she’s been admitted there, but has to decide whether to attend; and that evening she was out with a friend.  So Martha and I wandered to the national mall.  We waded into the large crowd at the Memorial, hundreds moving reverently past thousands and thousands of names carved into black granite of those who had died in the Vietnam War.   It felt a bit like walking into a tomb, because the dimly-lit walkway descended as the wall got higher and higher.  People had small flashlights and cell phones shining on the wall, and many were touching names, taking rubbings; but all spoke in hushed tones as though they were in the presence of the sacred.  Like Mary Magdalene coming to the gravesite of Jesus’ burial, so these people came to witness to a great tragedy, and the mystery of suffering.

As we walked, Martha heard a story that moved her.   A young woman was speaking in tears to a friend about her grandfather, whose name she had just found on the wall.   Her father was only six years old when his father died in Vietnam.   This little boy’s mother remarried soon afterward, and his stepfather adopted him.  But for some reason no one ever told him that his father had died in the war.  He assumed that his father had just left him.  At 29 years of age, he finally learned that his father was a war hero, who had died in battle.   For 23 years he had assumed that his real father had just abandoned him, didn’t care about him, and had just walked out.   This girl said that her father’s life was transformed when he learned this about his dad.

Stones can be rolled away from our tombs.  Mary Magdalene’s life was transformed that morning in the garden, when she came in tears to be at the spot where her teacher was buried.  She must have assumed that her hope was lost, that her experience as a follower and a disciple were over.   She had been freed from inner demons, restored to life, and had experienced first-hand the astounding community of faith that had sprung up around Jesus.  She had found acceptance in that community, and even equality.  Amazingly, all were welcome, even slaves, those who were outcaste in her society, even women were treated with respect, and the very poor.  People shared all they had; no one resorted to violence or brutality, as they often did outside.  It was a miraculous moment, when stones in people’s lives were rolled away. 

Now that was gone, she assumed.  It was a momentary blip, a short-lived dream. Now she would return to a life of fear and deprivation, callous disregard and cold-hearted indifference.   Now she would have to scramble to eat and to defend herself from those who would steal from or abuse her.  She would steel herself again, and shut off any hope for a better life.  The warmth, the sharing, the compassionate caring of those in the community around Jesus had evaporated like wisps of dew in harsh sunlight. 

Many live with this lack of hope, this stone shutting out the light, the assumption that life’s cruelty and heartless emptiness are all that exist.   They build a hard shell of indifference and mistrust around themselves, with only self-interest as a motivator.  They have been disappointed and had their hopes crushed.  It is understandable in a world in which we seldom hear good news.    

In 1921 Thomas Lynn Bradford put an ad into a Detroit newspaper saying, “I am seeking proof for life after death.  If you can help me to prove this, please contact me.”   One person contacted him, a spiritualist and psychic named Ruth Morgan.   She met with Thomas Lynn Bradford, and they agreed on a plan to prove that there is life after death.  The proof revolved around having one of them die, and then seeing if that person can contact the other from the other side.   That night, Thomas went back to his apartment, turned on the gas lamps and oven, but without lighting them, and went to sleep.  His landlord found his body the next morning, along with dozens of typewritten pages detailing his plan to contact Ruth Morgan.  The story soon spread, and the NY Times and the Detroit papers followed this story…including the following days, when Ruth Morgan reported back.  She responded that the next day, she had heard nothing.   The following day the same.  After three days, the NY Times wrote, “Spiritualist hears nothing from the grave.”     

Too often we hear nothing.  Too often we end up in the garden weeping, facing a stone blocking our path, with no word, no clue, no hope.  Too often we shelve our desires for a better life, and close down our dreams.  But what we hear this morning is the possibility of a turn-around, a rush of good news, a stone rolled away in which hope is vindicated and new life breaks through. It is about a life transformed from deep grief into sudden joy; about a community of faith renewed and reborn.  Mary, Peter and John heard and saw something. They found an angelic doorway opening toward light and life. 

Mary Ann Bird wrote a short story entitled "The Whisper Test." It is a true story from her own life. 

"I grew up knowing I was different, and I hated it. I was born with a cleft palate, and when I started school, my classmates made it clear to me how I must look to others: a little girl with a misshapen lip, crooked nose, lopsided teeth and garbled speech.   



"When schoolmates would ask, 'What happened to your lip?' I'd tell them I'd fallen and cut it on a piece of glass. Somehow it seemed more acceptable to have suffered an accident than to have been born different. I was convinced that no one outside my family could love me. 



"There was, however, a teacher in the second grade that we all adored -- Mrs. Leonard by name. She was short, round, happy -- a sparkling lady. Annually, we would have a hearing test. I was virtually deaf in one of my ears; but when I had taken the test in past years, I discovered that if I did not press my hand as tightly upon my ears as I was instructed to do, I could pass the test. Mrs. Leonard gave the test to everyone in the class, and finally it was my turn. I knew from past years that as we stood against the door and covered one ear, the teacher sitting at her desk would whisper something and we would have to repeat it back ... things like, 'The sky is blue' or 'Do you have new shoes?'

I waited there for those words which God must have put into her mouth, those seven words which changed my life. Mrs. Leonard said, in her whisper, 'I wish you were my little girl.'"

         Easter is about a stone rolled away, about renewal and new life.  This little girl experienced acceptance and love in the words of her teacher.  Mary Magdalene found resurrection in the words of her teacher in the garden, when he called her name, Mary, and she cried, “Rabboni” – teacher!   Her life was suddenly restored, and her community of love, caring and sharing reclaimed.  

         The biblical scholar, John Dominic Crossan, talks about Easter in terms of community and acceptance.  His interpretation of the Easter story is that it is about the “Kingdom of God,” the amazing community that grew up around Jesus and his teaching.  Jesus taught God’s upside-down justice and compassion that allows people to give freely, to love the unlovable, to welcome strangers, and to live at peace with one another.  Christians expected that after the Roman crackdown and the crucifixion of Jesus, all of this would be destroyed.  Astoundingly, it continued; it survived and flourished throughout the Empire in small house churches and hidden gatherings of Christians who shared ‘agape’ meals and cared for each other’s sick and gave to the poor.   They felt the spirit of Jesus present with them, even though he ascended, even though he had been so cruelly executed.  He was present with them as Spirit & truth.

         In Latin America, at rallies or demonstrations, people will remember those who died in the cause or who had been killed by oppressors.  And as these names are spoken, the crowd will cry out “Presente!”   “Presente!”   Those who have been killed are present, they are not gone, but with the living to carry on the fight.  So Jesus is present in the community of faith, where people practice equality, justice, kindness, sharing and love.  The Spirit of Christ lives on and is with us when we fashion the Kingdom of God in our communities of faith.   Jesus has laid down his life and died a hideous death, so that all of us, every one of us can be saved, and transformed, and brought into the light and joy of holy love and reconciliation.  The stone is rolled away.  Christ has risen, risen indeed!

         In 2012 the poet Mary Oliver wrote a poem about the devastation of Hurricane Irene that inundated her seaside village and home on Cape Cod.  But more importantly her poem is about the desolation and brokenness she felt after the death of her life partner, Anne Taylor.   Those two storms almost broke her, but this poem also speaks of the surprising restoration that can come after the hurricane of grief, after ‘the back of the hand to everything.’

It didn’t behave

like anything you had

ever imagined.  The wind

tore at the trees, the rain

fell for days slant and hard.

The back of the hand

to everything.  I watched

the trees bow and their leaves fall

and crawl back into the earth.

As though, that was that.

This was one hurricane

I lived through, the other one

was of a different sort, and

lasted longer.  Then,

I felt my own leaves giving up and

falling.  The back of the hand to

everything.   But listen now to what happened

to the actual trees;

toward the end of that summer they

pushed new leaves from their stubbed limbs.

It was the wrong season, yes,

but they couldn’t stop.  They

looked like telephone poles and didn’t

care.  And after the leaves came

blossoms.  For some things

there are no wrong seasons.

Which is what I dream of for me.

         That is what Jesus dreams of for us: that leaves and blossoms can return after storms and devastation; that stones can roll from the doorway, that contentment and inner joy can sprout again in our souls after loss and grief, after illness or tragedy.  By offering his life in love on the cross, Jesus opens pathways of healing and hope.  Jesus brings us the holy joy of Christian community.  Jesus reveals love does not die, and lives on in open hands and caring hearts. Even when we give up hope, when we feel lost and alone, God calls our names to greet us with love.  Happy Easter.  Christ has risen!  Amen.