“Ultimate Liberation”
Mark 16.1–8 The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC Fort Collins, Colorado Easter 2024 The Bible has macro-stories, broad brush strokes, that tie its core messages together. (Understanding of course that the Bible is essentially a library of the ways our ancient Jewish and early Christian forebears experienced the holy.) The Creation stories in Genesis shouldn’t be read as a geology or cosmology textbook to have meaning. Instead, we understand Genesis as speaking some essential truths that are more-than literal. While some civilizations in the ancient Near East had creation stories that placed humans in the role of being fodder for their deity, and while Greeks and Romans suffered at the whim and caprice of their gods, YHWH creates everything and declares that it is very good, providing all that the humans in the garden will need. Why would God provide for humanity, rather than reversing the roles and having humans exist in eternal servitude to God? Paul, a Pharisee and follower of Jesus, answered this way: “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” God creates life in love, for love. That is one of the great macro stories of scripture. The God of Exodus is faithful to Moses and the people who are in captivity in Egypt, who suffer in bondage under the boot of Pharaoh, and God shows up as one who delivers people from grave injustice and oppression. That is one of the reasons that the narratives of Exodus are so critically important to the Black church in this country: our national history is replete with captivity, enslavement, injustice, and oppression. YHWH is no Egyptian god of the underworld! No! Our God is a force for freedom and deliverance. Liberation is another of the great macro stories that has a broad sweep across our sacred texts. Liberation says something essential about the character of God and humanity. And so, we find ourselves at the conclusion of Holy Week. We have waved palm fronds as Jesus enters Jerusalem. We have lived through to poignant Last Supper with Jesus, witnessed his arrest and torture, and ultimately his ignominious death on a cross. It is difficult for any of us to imagine the shame, the pain, the utter devastation of death on the cross. Where are the macro themes of love and liberation? Most of us would prefer to jump from the triumphal parade on Palm Sunday to the glory of Easter Sunday without having to reckon with the intervening tragedy. We probably don’t think too much about what happened on Saturday, between Friday’s crucifixion and Sunday’s resurrection. But that is not universally true. Martin Luther wrote a hymn to reflect that in-between time, “Christ lag in Todesbanden,” “Christ lay in the bonds of death.” Luther talks about a personification of the power of death, which attempts to keep us all imprisoned. Then he claims that Jesus breaks the bonds of death and that nothing remains but the faint outline of death, which has lost its sting. This may not be the Easter story you had in mind, and part of the reason for that is that most of us have been shaped by the western understanding of resurrection as Jesus being raised and leaving an empty tomb on Sunday morning. Yet that is not the way Eastern Christians have primarily understood the story. For them, the narrative is not just about an empty tomb, but rather breaking down the gates of the underworld and removing the power of death that keeps humanity fearful and unable to reach fullness of life as those who love like God loves. I included an image on the cover of your bulletin where you will see the eastern vision of Jesus overcoming the forces of death, which in Greek is called anástasis, the Greek word for resurrection. Jesus has one hand on Adam and one hand on Eve, pulling them up from the underworld through the broken gates of Hades. And they aren’t simply the first two humans, but rather they represent all of humanity. If you look below the broken gates, you’ll see fragmented locks and keys. And while you are studying the icon, hear how Luther’s hymn continues: “How fierce and dreadful was the strife when life and death contended; for death was swallowed up by life and all its power was ended.” It isn’t that Jesus put an end to our physical dying as human beings. We know that each of us will eventually succumb. While composing this sermon I visited one of our beloved members, who was actively dying as I wrote. And that experience drove home for me that our physical dying is real, but it isn’t the last word. So many Christians fixate on eternal life as being delivered safely to heaven after we die, and perhaps that’s the way it will be. I’m more or less agnostic about whether there is a place we go if we have lived virtuously and another place we go if we’ve been bound up in self-interest and self-deception. I am okay leaving what will be up to God. But, what if eternal life has already commenced for us? What if it’s up to us to live into our most profound and eternal selves that somehow continue even through the broken-open portal of death? We are given a choice in this life about where we will devote our effort, either supporting the forces of love and life or giving our energy to the forces of hate and death. None of us does it perfectly, but each of us can approach eternity with loving intention that echoes the way Jesus lived his life. What do you say about someone who dearly loves life and doesn’t want to die? What do you say about someone who is willing to face and endure a painful death in spite of loving life? What do you say about someone who is willing to lay down his life for his friends? It sounds to me like someone who says yes to life and love, but who is willing to confront death for the right reasons. Anyone who can do that has disempowered death. It’s not that physical death won’t happen, but perhaps as we say in the UCC, “Never put a period where God has placed a comma.” Maybe death is a comma and not a full-stop. Death won’t get the last word in the conversation of life and love. If you had to sum it up in one word what Jesus is doing in that anástasis image, what would it be? For me it is liberation! Liberation is breaking the bonds that hold us back from living and loving. Liberation is saying NO to the forces of death and YES to the divine power of life and love. Is it liberating for you to know that Jesus went through about the worst death before us and continues to be present within us and among us? Is it liberating for you to know that we are empowered to work for love and life and to know that God is with us? Is it liberating for you to know that there is nothing in this world or the next that can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus? You can shake off the shackles that have been holding you back from living life to its fullest. They have been unlocked! You can remove those handcuffs of fear that have chafed at your wrists every time you are ready to reach out and take a risk on being more loving. You are unbound! The most profound words I have ever heard about resurrection were spoken from this pulpit, not by me but by my mentor and friend Marcus Borg 12 years ago. “Jesus is loose in the world!” What does that say about the power of death? If Jesus can’t be held back even by death, what does it say about God’s great stories of liberation, love, and life? Jesus is loose in the world, and so are we! This is the good news! Thanks be to God! Christ is risen! Alleluia! Amen. © 2024 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.
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