Quicken

Rom 8:11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken (vivify, animate) your mortal bodies…

John 20:6-7 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; and he saw the linen cloths lying there, 7 and the handkerchief that had been around His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded (entylisso: folded up) together in a place by itself. 

EASTER HOMILY, 2023

Recently Diana and I were finally able to watch The Whale. To us it’s a beautiful, heart-wrenching, painfully difficult to watch piece of cinema. It may not be for you, and that’s okay. But, we love it and found it deeply moving. Without giving it away, the main character is named Charlie. After losing his partner, Charlie goes into a severe depression and truly gives up on life. The story is about pain and death, but also refusing to resign. That no matter how dark things may be, as Brenden Fraser said, “if you too can just get to your feet, even in the midst of darkness, and go to the light, good things will happen.” I think there’s something there, for me, that speaks of the resurrection.

Here is the truth, in spite of what advertisers try to sell us and health gurus try to tell us, we will die. Even more, to be a human being is to be mutually caught up in the absurdity of the human condition, what we call the world: death, decay, disease, destruction. All of us are affected by this reality. Things like sickness, separation, failure, heartache, deep disappointment and discouragement. Maybe let’s just take a minute in prayer, and if you’ll let him, maybe ask God - God where’s the deepest pain in my life? What has wounded me the most? What in my life has died before my body? What do I think is past the point of new possibility? Pay attention to what you hear.

Looking at the Resurrection, it’s fascinating to me that we never see Jesus resurrect. We see him condemned, scourged, crucified, die, and buried, but never resurrected. And we must ask the question; why? The Gospels don’t portray it. We know he was raised, but we don’t see him coming out of the tomb. Instead, what happens is: we’re invited into it. We see humanity go in. And we see that it’s empty. The empty tomb is what we see.

This week I was reading through Jürgen Moltmann’s work on the resurrection. Moltmann developed a form of liberation theology predicated on the view that God suffers with humanity, while also promising humanity a better future through the hope of the Resurrection, which he has labelled a 'theology of hope’. Moltmann speaks of the Resurrection as “the great alternative to this world of death.” The raising of Christ is “God's protest against death...and against all the people who work for death.” I think we have failed to protest death in the right ways. Moltmann makes the case that, to often, we find “the apathy of misery / and the cynicism of prosperity,” (meaning: fatalism or triumphalism). In a conversation with Fr. Bill Dandreano, he really helped me flesh this out. We too often have seen one of two approaches toward death, both unfaithful. The first is fatalism: a submissive, acceptive attitude of resignation towards a decaying world. Fatalism would be as if Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome would have actually anointed the dead body. Fatalism is condoning death, anointing death. The world has conditioned us to become accustomed to death (war, poverty, etc).

The other way we have falsely protest death is triumphalism. Which is so prevalent in the church, especially on days like today. Triumphalism: false exaltation over the realities of the human condition. Both Pastor Bill and I were raised in cultures where people thought: if I read my bible, pray every day, tithe, attend, participate, serve, and live a moral life... I will be exempt from the suffering and death of the human condition. Essentiality it's believing in that original lie, "You will not die.” The belief that, by some virtue, our righteous faith, our fervent prayer, we will transcend suffering, affliction, and death can not touch us. Jesus, the most righteous one, knows what it’s like to pray a prayer that goes unanswered, and to die completely. Triumphalism is the lie of being unaffected by what plagues us all. It’s an anti-christ myth of living from victory to victory. Triumphalism in the christian faith is a horrible thing that bends the faith into some kind of exceptionalism, that believes the original lie of the devil, “you shall not die,” the lie that death can not touch you. Triumphalism comes as a Satanic lie, usually using scripture like the Devil tempted Christ (Ps. 91). “Throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command His angels concerning You, and they will lift You up in their hands, so that You will not strike Your foot against a stone.’” The greatest indictment against both is that neither the fatalist nor the triumphalist truly cares for their neighbor. The fatalist would see their neighbor’s suffering as inevitable, the triumphalist would see their neighbor’s suffering as their neighbor’s fault for not living like they do. So if the fatalist and the triumphalist approach death / protest death unfaithfully…void of resurrection faith, then how do we join in the protest of God, the resurrection life?

First, we tell the truth. We go into the tomb. We recognize that triumphalism is a lie. Death, yes you will one day touch me. It is appointed unto man once to die. We refuse the lie of Satanic triumphalism, “you will not die.” None of us can expect anything other than Christ. Our Bishop Elect Chris Green says, “God does not keep Jesus from dying, he delivers him from death.” There’s a big difference between the two. So we speak the truth, we will die. But, we also speak the truth to the lie of fatalism that would say there is no deliverance, no other outcome, no other possibility. Our protest is not anointing death (resignation / fatalism). And, our protest is not void of a tomb (triumphalism). It does have a tomb, but the tomb is empty! Our protest speaks the truth to triumphalism (I will die) and to fatalism (in the end death is now a shadow, no victory). Our protest is not that Christ has bypassed death, but that he has conquered death by death. He's not spared from dying, he's delivered from death.

Fr. Bill says, "We are all going to enter the grave. You will enter the grave, but it's going to be empty of everything that makes you afraid of it.” It will be stripped of everything you thought you'd be afraid of. Our protest can only occur, when our fears begin to dissolve. Our fears dissolve when we see what we need to see... angels (messengers), linen wrappings.


This may be folklore about Jewish customs passed along in the church. There’s an account of Jewish table etiquette. If you, after eating dinner, were completely done with your meal, you would wipe your face, hands, and wad the napkin communicating that “I'm done.” But a folded linen indicated, which is what the shroud was in the tomb, that tells your host I’m not done, I’m coming back (work to do). So I think the way we protest is that we refuse the lie of triumphalism which tries to bypass grief, suffering, brokenness, suffering, decay. Essentially bypass this world, which is what Triumphalism attempts to do. We refuse fatalist impulse to anoint death in any kind of way. We acknowledge it’s evil, it’s pain. We don’t resign to it, we resists it. How? By doing good work! By continuing to work! We enter the dark tombs of our world, even crying as we go, neither resigning to it nor trying to escape it, we enter the tomb - knowing that it’s empty because Christ has entered into death, conquering death by death. Christ is not in the tomb, he’s waiting for us outside of it. Why? Because he has a word for us. And it’s a word we all need to hear this morning. “Go.”

What is the folded napkin saying to you? It’s saying you’re not done. Someone we deeply love, Melvin, Joshua, and Jesse’s mom, Sister Jones; during her last days, she was near the tomb, coming in and out of consciousness. I will never forget her last words. She folded the cloth. “J, no matter what happens, keep going.” The work is not done. There is work to be done. We don’t need to see the resurrection. God did not want us to see Jesus coming out of that tomb. It’s not about Jesus coming out, it’s about us going in. Only seeing the empty tomb and folded linen can send us out. And what do we go out for? To protest death. Like The Whale, to get up and walk toward the light. We don’t have to wait until “The” Resurrection to be in the one who is the Resurrection and the life. Like Lazarus’s sister Mary, we can resign to death and keep the resurrection distant. We can fall prey to the lie of triumphalism, thinking we can live in this world unaffected. No, you will be affected. The question is: how are you going to protest death? Personally? Communally?

What is it that you have resigned over to? What have you given up on? Is it the possibility of being physically well? As a person with chronic conditions, I get that. It’s very easy to just resign to it and say, my pain is my pain… and it is yours! It’s no one else’s! I will contend for that. But, attention can be given to anything. And whether or not it improves, we do not have to resign to it. Personally, I am going to practice resurrection, I am going to protest decay, by taking care of myself. They’ve discovered, clinically, that if you do these five things; sleep, eat well, walk, bath, and be in community, depression and anxiety decreases substantially. How are you going to practice resurrection, protesting decay?

This is not to say that we will be immune to death, but this can be a witness to what we know is true in the end. If we know in the end that death is overcome, we can bear witness to that reality. Even if it’s just sitting next to the one on the couch and saying, let’s get up, I will walk with you.

If death is cessation, unanimated, if death is stopping, then resurrection is the transformational protest that says - keep going. If death is stopping, resurrection says “keep going.” Because he lives, I can face tomorrow - life is worth living just because he lives!

What will this look like for you? If you’re a student? Keep going! Refuse fatalism: I’ll never get good grades, never find my way, never land on a field that clicks for me…there’s a number of ways that a student can resign. But even if it’s changing from a university to a trade school or vice versa, don’t stop! For people in relationships. Even in the midst of separation, divorce, estrangement, new possibility can come. All things will be made new, not all new things, but all things made new… what would that look life for you now? Estranged from parents, from God, from hope…maybe in these moments resurrection would say, this can be made new - somehow?! There’s a newness that can be had. Outwardly; this animates our work for ecological justice and social justice!

From the moment we moved in our house, I never really liked it as it was. But over time we’ve opened it up to resurrection…new possibilities. In the house of your life, start moving furniture. Go buy a new rug. Don’t be afraid to go into the tombs of your life. You’ll find that it’s void of any power and you’ll see what you need to see. A folded linen.

Moltmann, “It is impossible to talk convincingly about Christ's resurrection without participating in the movement of the Spirit who 'descends upon all flesh' to quicken it.” This is the heart of my message. It’s impossible to talk convincingly about Christ’s resurrection without realizing what the scripture says, that the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you - it will quicken things. It will quicken things. I think this is what Brenden Fraser was saying: Quickening can happen. For so long we’ve held the resurrection as triumphalism or have just resigned to fatalism. But the Resurrection bears witness to the Spirit that quickens mortal spaces and people so that we can look out from the tombs of the world, see the folded linens, and meet Christ outside of the tomb where he calls you by name and says, “Go.” Go! Go…go quicken.

Ultimately all things will be made new, go represent this reality until then. Keep going! Newness is possible. There’s nothing in this world that can not be quickened. Amen.

“We have slimmed down God and grace to fit our own minds”. – Ron Rolhesier

“Resurrection means the worst thing is never the last thing”. – Frederick Buechner

“The message of Easter is that God’s new world has been unveiled in Jesus Christ and that you’re now invited to belong to it.” – NT Wright