In 1991 Enya popularized a song written in 1860 by Robert Lowry, a Baptist minister. It begins like this:
My life goes on in endless song, above earth’s lamentation.
I hear the real though far off hymn that hails the new creation:
Through all the tumult and the strife I hear the music ringing;
It finds an echo in my soul—how can I keep from singing?”
In our time, when missiles can range across entire continents and we hear news daily about innocent people slaughtered senselessly by rogue militias and well-armed militaries as well as crazed individuals, when we witness the effects of climate change on water supplies and ocean levels and recognize the long-term effects of political power-plays and ideological decision-making on all of us, especially the poor of the world, we need hope.
And every Spring Christians around the world turn from the gaping desolation of an empty tomb, as Mary did, to gaze into the eyes of that Hope. And if, like Peter, we see without believing, and no one calls our name, we may return home more confused, more bereft and even more despairing than before. But if, instead, we are able to see as the Beloved Disciple sees, observe burial linens neatly folded in that tomb and recognize what that means, then we might be able to turn around, like Mary, and go back to our homes transformed.
Today you and I stand before the empty tomb. Our hearts may be battered and our spirits shaken by the cruelty we’ve witnessed in the last week: the massacre at Garissa College in Kenya, the deliberate crashing of a jet by a suicidal pilot in France, the heartless destruction in Iraq of archeological treasures by a sinister force called ISIS in Iraq. The list goes on and on. And our challenge is to let the music of Easter echo in our souls, whispering that all is well, life is endless and death a necessary feature in earth’s, and our, transformation.
Jesus’ life is the pattern all life must follow. Where we are going is toward that new creation echoing in human souls throughout time. The road leads us through a multitude of deaths and ends in resurrection. Every time.
Easter is the gift of Hope. Year after year, as winter blossoms into spring, Easter reminds us that human beings, like the crocuses and lilies of the field, have nothing to fear. The varied appearances of death END in the renewal of life. Our own ife goes on in endless song. Chapters open and close with maddening unpredictability, but we share in the infinite life of an infinite God. This is what Christ, the Teacher, demonstrates for us every Easter. But that demonstration comes through the door of betrayal, agony and death.
The road to transformation is the journey of every soul, but it is not an easy road. Jesus was hailed as Messiah and king only to be decried as traitor of the faith and enemy of the state. He was betrayed and abandoned by his friends, humiliated, beaten and crucified as a common criminal by the authorities. His disciples fled in fear.
But he isn’t in the tomb when Mary arrives on Easter morning. He is transformed. He is unrecognizable to her until he speaks her name. The music of his voice rings in her ears and echoes through her soul. She knows that voice. It is the voice of her Teacher. Hearing his voice she reaches out to hold him, clinging to him out of love and overwhelming gratitude as she suddenly emerges from the depths of grief. She grabs for the old relationship, its tangible security, its sweet familiarity. She yearns to return to the way things were before Passover, before the Garden of Eden agony and the atrocities of Calvary. But he is the Teacher and she is now a graduate student. He is revealing Life’s deepest Mystery and commissioning her to spread the news. She can’t passively watch and follow as he navigates the path ahead anymore. He sends her to teach the others what he has now taught her.
“Don’t cling to me,” he tells her. You are my ambassador now, my apostle. I am sending you to spread the word. “Go tell my brothers and sisters that I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” And in that seemingly simple message is the deeper revelation—you and I are siblings. Where I go you will go. Who I am you also are. And without another word, she goes. She carries the news of the risen Christ to the disciples, telling them everything he told her. She begins, “I saw the Teacher…”
The Easter message is loud and clear—it is the message of resurrection, the message of life eternal, the message of life as an endless song that rings through all of time, and echoes in the soul through life’s darkest hours.
Paul tells us our lives are hidden with Christ in God. Though we think of ourselves as separate from God, we are IN God all the time. We can’t BE outside God because the container of everything that IS, IS God. There is no “outside” when it comes to God.Because physical reality dominates our consciousness, the fact that our lives are contained within God escapes our awareness and seems ‘hidden.’ But fo those who can SEE, the contemplatives and mystics among us, our life in God is not hidden at all.
Life IS. It is transformed through deaths of various sorts, but it doesn’t end. Our challenge is to not CLING to old, familiar patterns and forms. That’s hard because we get attached to the forms life takes, and structure our living around those forms. But Jesus tells Mary, and us, to let them go. This is the way of life. It is how the new creation comes into being. It is how the earth is renewed and the reign of God is birthed. It is how resurrection happens.
We are here today because at some point, in the midst of joy, anguish or silence, we have heard the Teacher speak our name. That was enough to summon us to this place and time. So we stand with Mary. Having left the empty tomb we turn around. As we do, we look into his eyes and notice he is looking, so lovingly, into our own.
It is Easter. He has revealed his story again so we can recognize our story in his. The path he walked is the path we walk. Where he has gone we are going. We make our way toward home leaving behind a myriad of outdated and useless forms along the way. It is the way of things, darkness giving way to light, death repealed by LIFE. Resurrection again and again and again…
Our lives flow on in endless song above earth’s lamentations.
We hear the real though far off hymn that hails the new creation.
No storm can shake our inmost calm, while to that rock we’re clinging.
Since love is lord of Heaven and earth, how can we keep from singing?
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