4/4/21 “Easter: A Landing or Launch” by Nancy E. Petty
Mark 16:1-8
“Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. Go, be on your way and tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you…”
Easter is a beautiful celebration, a festival day that commemorates the resurrection of Jesus. It is a holy event, one day of great joy that invites us to bring out the best of our special rituals and traditions: baptismal waters, alleluia bells, shouts of hallelujah, songs of resurrection hope, and bountiful tables filled with delicious goodness.
On this Easter morning I want to do a little teaching. Have you ever wondered where the name Easter comes from?
The naming of the celebration as “Easter” seems to go back to the name of a pre-Christian goddess in England, Eostre, who was celebrated at the beginning of spring. The only reference to this goddess comes from the writings of the Venerable Bede, a British monk who lived in the late seventh and early eighth centuries. Bede was so influential for later Christians that the name stuck, and hence Easter remains the name by which the English refer to the festival of Jesus’ resurrection. And it has always felt right and good to me that we celebrate the resurrection of Christ exactly when the earth is offering her witness that life does not end with the death of a cold winter.
While the name “Easter” is used in the English-speaking world, many more cultures refer to it by terms best translated as “Passover,” a reference to the Jewish festival of Passover. At the time of Jesus, Passover had special significance, as the Jewish people were again under the dominance of foreign powers. Jewish pilgrims streamed into Jerusalem every year in the hope that they would soon be liberated once more. On one Passover, Jesus traveled to Jerusalem with his disciples to celebrate the festival. He entered Jerusalem in a triumphal procession and created a disturbance in the Jerusalem Temple. It was these actions that attracted the attention of the Roman government, who would arrest him and execute him. Some of Jesus’ followers, however, believed that they saw him alive after his death, experiences that gave birth to Christianity. As Jesus died during the Passover festival and his followers believed he was resurrected form the dead three days later, it was logical to commemorate these events in close proximity.
Some early Christians chose to celebrate the resurrection of Christ on the same date as the Jewish Passover. Some others instead preferred to hold the festival on a Sunday, since that was when Jesus’ tomb was believed to have been found. Years later, at the Council of Nicaea the council resolved that Easter should be fixed on a Sunday.
Why am I giving you this history today? Because Easter is a day: a day of celebrating the empty tomb, the resurrection of Jesus. Easter is a landing day. We land on Easter after 40 days of Lenten preparation. We land on Easter as the highest Holy day of our Christian year. We land on Easter as the epicenter of our faith – the cross and the resurrection.
But resurrection isn’t a landing; resurrection is a launch. Resurrection is more than a day, it is the way—the path—to the abundant life that Jesus lived and taught. Resurrection from systems that oppress, resurrection from wounds that keep us from seeing our true nature as God’s beloved, resurrection from dark tombs of guilt and fear and greed. Resurrection is what launches us out of the dead places in our lives and into abundant living, not once and for all, but day after day after day. Easter is a landing, one day of celebration. But resurrection is a launching—a launching into life day after day. Easter, this one day, has little meaning if we are not willing to allow what happened on this day to send us off into tomorrow and the next day and the next day and every day. Easter day is a beautiful day of celebration with all those special rituals and traditions. But practicing resurrection day-in and day-out leads us to a beautiful, meaningful life. Not an easy life, but a fulfilling life.
Yes, Easter is a landing—an important landing. But resurrection, resurrection is a launch. And so my questions this Easter are these: Do you want the celebration of one day? Are you only looking for a landing? Or do you want a life of celebration, of being resurrected daily from those places that have you stuck in dark tombs of guilt and shame and fear-of not being enough? Dare we honor the intersection of the Jewish Passover and the Christian Easter and launch ourselves into the work of liberation that brings about resurrection for all God’s people?
There are two words in our text that give me reason to believe that Easter is not a landing but rather a launch. The mysterious young man dressed in a white robe that Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome saw when they entered the tomb said to them, and I am paraphrasing here: Don’t be afraid. I know you are looking for your friend Jesus who was crucified. He’s not here, he had been raised. Go, be on your way, tell the others. Jesus your brother, your rabbi, your teacher is going on ahead of you, you will see him later. So go, go on your way and tell the others.
I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like a landing or a one day event. It sounds like a launch, a send off, into a way of life. Go, follow the resurrected one and practice your own resurrection as you go.
When you called me as your pastor 17 years ago I thought I had landed. Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to be pastor of this historic Baptist Church in the South? Don’t answer that. Seriously, this church is known for its radical inclusiveness and social justice commitment throughout the South and beyond. Any pastor who is drawn to the social gospel would give anything to share in Pullen’s ministry. I thought I had landed. But it didn’t take long of being your pastor that I realized I had not landed but I had been launched–launched into places and spaces that would stretch me, challenge me and require me to be resurrected again and again and again. You have resurrected me from places of fear on one hand and prideful righteousness on the other. You have rolled away the stone and resurrected me from the dark tombs of shame and guilt and feelings of not being enough. By showing me the power of resurrected life, you have launched me into places and relationships that have changed me forever, places and relationships that I would have never dared to enter on my own. You have never been a landing for me. You have always been a launching pad for me. And because of that, I have experienced the joy of resurrection.
Our faith, the risen Christ, wants for all of us the joy of resurrection, not literal resurrection but resurrection from dead dreams and hopes, from our fears and insecurities, from our places of poverty in spirit and longing, from those feelings of not being enough to the assurance that we are God’s beloved. It is the abundant life that the human Jesus taught about while walking this earth. Resurrection from the need to be someone that we are not to being exactly who God created us to be.
But it is not just about personal resurrection, or a personal launching. It is about how we live this story as a community of faith, as a human race.
In 1992, when this church voted to bless holy unions many saw that as a landing. But you didn’t. You saw it as a launch. You launched your public witness for equality, justice and love for same-gender loving couples which has blossomed into justice for gender non-conforming people opening the doors of this church even wider to a radical welcome and inclusiveness that continues to define Pullen Church. That’s resurrection. In 2010 when the members of this church voted unanimously to support marriage equality by not holding marriage ceremonies in our church until marriage equality was the law of the land you could have seen that as a landing. But you didn’t. You saw it as a launch, dedicating yourselves and your resources to eliminate laws and policies that exclude and oppress and other whole groups of people. That’s resurrection.
Years ago, when this church began a sister church relationship with a Jewish congregation, Temple Beth Or, you could have seen that as a landing. But you didn’t. You saw it as a launch and you kept building interfaith relationships, specifically with the Muslim community when others saw it as unsafe to do so. That’s resurrection. And you haven’t stayed on the landing pad of your inter-racial witness of the 60’s and 70’s, when you were known as the only white church in town where Black people were welcome to worship. You have been resurrection people, building your alliances with Black and Brown people: being a partner with HKonJ, being a part of and offering your space to the Moral Monday movement, and now making a commitment as a congregation to come out of the dark tomb of white privilege and do the work of becoming an anti-racist church. That, my friends, is resurrection. Alleluia!
Easter is a landing. Resurrection is a launch. And we have a lot more launching and resurrecting to do. That mysterious young man, dressed in a white robe at the entrance of the tomb said to the women, “Go, be on you way and tell the others. And don’t worry, you will meet Jesus along the way. But don’t stay here…this is not a one day event. Go. Don’t stay here, go. Don’t stay at the Easter day celebration. Launch and go be resurrected people for that’s where you will find the living Christ. Alleluia.
This table is a landing place. It is the place where we land and gather to remember the man Jesus, who died for his convictions that all should have abundant life for all. But it is more than a landing place. It is also a launching place. It send us out into world to share the bread of life and the cup of love and grace with those who are hurting and suffering.
This table is about liberation, freedom from the powers that try to keep us oppressed.
From this table we take the living, resurrected Christ into the world, embodied in our hands and feet and voices and hearts, as we work for justice for the poor, the forgotten, the lonely, the addicted, the homeless, the refugee, the earth and all her inhabitants.
Go on your way, be resurrected people for it is on that journey that you will meet the living Christ.
