“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 [email protected] for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.

Mark 16.1-8 
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC 
Fort Collins, Colorado 
Easter, April 1, 2018 

During the season of Lent, our Seekers group here at Plymouth has been studying a wonderful book by Marcus Borg and Dom Crossan called The Last Week. The authors use only Mark’s story of the week between Palm Sunday and Easter. We usually get the mix-and-match approach with a bit of Mark, a chunk of Matthew, a smidgen of Luke, and a whole lot of John. Mark’s gospel is, of course, the earliest in the New Testament, and it’s fascinating just to read this account on its own, because it is the first known literary interpretation of the story of Jesus. This is the story you’d have had at your disposal if you were, say, a Christian in Syria in the year 75.

This may be news to you, but Mark was not a Hollywood screenwriter…or even a Victorian novelist. His prose is blunt and rough, and Mark’s entire gospel abruptly ends with today’s passage…just like you heard it: “They went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” That’s it. Full stop. Signing off. End of gospel. 

In subsequent centuries, two separate editors added their own endings to the gospel, wrapping things up more tidily, manufacturing a denouement on Mark’s behalf. 

But Mark leaves us with an empty tomb and scared, silent witnesses. That’s a bit unsettling, isn’t it? It makes us uncomfortable. Having read the other gospel accounts and Paul’s experience of the risen Christ, we want a bodily resurrection, a spiritual resurrection…something! We want a conclusive ending, but that isn’t what we get. And because there is no ending to the story, we each have to imagine our own. 

John’s gospel provides the wonderful images that we often relate to: being a critical thinker like Thomas, who needs the empirical evidence yielded by poking his fingers in Jesus’ wounded hands, in order to grasp that Jesus is physically present. And the two dejected followers who are walking on the road to Emmaus, who fail to recognize Jesus as he walks alongside them, but who is made known to them in the breaking of the bread. But all Mark leaves us with is an empty tomb! 

So, what conclusion do you imagine for Mark’s gospel? What happens to the risen one? …to the women who find the empty tomb? 

The earliest biblical accounts of resurrection are actually not in the gospel accounts that we read every Easter, but rather from Paul, who wrote before Mark. Paul has a different story of what resurrection is all about because not only did he miss the Sunday of Jesus’ resurrection, he never even met the man who was a walking, talking, teaching, breathing, preaching, table-turning prophet. The only encounter he had was with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, years after the crucifixion. He wrote to the church in Rome about 25 years after Jesus’ crucifixion saying, “Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in the newness of life.” (Rom. 6.4)
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In what ways has the risen Christ been present to you? How are you experiencing the “newness of life?” How have you died to an old way of thinking or living only to discover new life? Have you encountered transformation in the midst of your everyday life? The story of resurrection is not over! It’s an ongoing drama; your life is the stage, and you are the actors. 

Going back to the story, did you notice what happened to the disciples – “the Twelve” – in this narrative? They’re long gone; they’ve fled. Joseph of Arimathea provides the tomb, secures Jesus’ body from Pilate, takes Jesus’ body down from the cross, wraps his body in a linen shroud, entombs Jesus, and he himself rolls the stone to seal the tomb. 

Did you notice that Mark not only fails to give Jesus any lines, he doesn’t even include Jesus in the scene? He is absent… only his empty tomb reflects its former occupant.  

Aside from Joseph – who is not a disciple, but a member of the council – it is the women who are the central characters in this narrative. It is they who demonstrate their faithfulness by staying near Jesus every step of the way. While one of the Twelve betrays Jesus, another denies him, and the rest desert him, the women stay the course. It isn’t the Palm Sunday crowd or the Twelve disciples we are meant to follow, it is Jesus and the women. 

Imagine for a moment being one of those women, what they witnessed on Good Friday. Imagine your intense grief on the following day, Saturday…the Sabbath: when you could only make plans to return to the tomb and anoint Jesus’ body with aromatic spices. This isn’t a pleasant task. If Jesus had died 36 hours earlier, you would expect some decomposition would already have taken place, hence the aromatic herbs. 

So, you gather the spices and set out for the tomb early Sunday morning. You steel yourself for the final act of devotion and honor, to anoint Jesus’ body. The sun is rising as you walk with two other women toward the tomb. And then you have an awful realization: you won’t be able to get in. The tomb is sealed with a very large stone, and you ask your companions, “Who will roll the stone away for us?” 

Let’s assume for a moment that it wasn’t a grave robber who rolled the stone away, but rather the “young man dressed in a white robe.” Is he an angel? If he’s an angel with superhuman ability, it’s no big deal to roll away stone. But Mark says nothing about him being anything other than a human. “A young man” does not necessarily an angel make. Mark uses the Greek word, neaniskos (young man), while elsewhere in the gospel, he uses the word angelos to describe a messenger of God. Mark leaves it up to us to determine who the young man was: for many of us have entertained angels unawares. And some of us have been messengers of God without even knowing it. 

What if you were approaching the tomb: who would move the stone for you? Sometimes, we need someone to help roll the stone way so that we can experience the risen Christ. And at other times we ourselves can help roll the stone away for others…rarely can we do it all on our own. Like that young man in the white robe, who contrasts the mourning all around him, we can be a voice of hope, saying, “He has been raised; he is not here.” 

You’ve probably read about some big-time stone-rollers if you’ve been around awhile: Gandhi, King, Mother Theresa, Desmond Tutu, and others. But where are the great stone-rollers of our day? Who is saying “no” to death and “yes” to abundant life? I have seen a few like The Rev. Dr. William Barber, the Disciples of Christ minister who leads Repairers of the Breach and the Poor People’s Campaign.  

But some of the mightiest stone-rollers I have seen have just walked through the Good Friday experience of a school shooting. They are young people with names like Tyra and Emma and David. They not obediently staying in the dark shadows of the tomb, but rather rolling the stone away.  

Whether the world sees us as Nobel laureates or nobodies, by virtue of our baptism and our faith, we are called to roll away the stone for each other. Each of us has the capacity to show up for our fellow humans and help create a new beginning, a new insight, even a new life. 
Will you pray with me? 

Holy One, you have showed us once more that death is never your final word. Help us to be agents of your grace and messengers of your peace, that in rolling the stone away for others, we, too, might experience resurrection. 

​Amen.

​© 2018 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact [email protected] for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.