“Hide-n-Seek"

“Hide-n-Seek”

We think we seek Jesus who hides from us.  We hide, Jesus seeks us. 

Luke 24:1-12

          But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared.  They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body.  While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them.  The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.  Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again."  Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.

          Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles.  But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.  But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

During his day Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin was as powerful a man as there was on earth. A Russian Communist leader he took part in the Bolshevik Revolution 1917, was editor of the Soviet newspaper Pravda (which by the way means truth), and was a full member of the Politburo. His works on economics and political science are still read today. There is a story told about a journey he took from Moscow to Kiev in 1930 to address a huge assembly on the subject of atheism. Addressing the crowd he aimed his heavy artillery at Christianity hurling insult, argument, and proof against it.

An hour later he was finished. He looked out at what seemed to be the smoldering ashes of men's faith. "Are there any questions?" Bukharin demanded. Deafening silence filled the auditorium but then one man approached the platform and mounted the lectern standing near the communist leader. He surveyed the crowd first to the left then to the right. Finally he shouted the ancient greeting known well in the Russian Orthodox Church: "CHRIST IS RISEN!" 

En masse the crowd arose as one man and the response came crashing like the sound of thunder: "HE IS RISEN INDEED!”

I say to you this morning: CHRIST IS RISEN! 

HE IS RISEN INDEED!

            On this great and glorious day, we think of times with children.  While giving the Ark Pre-School devotions this week, I learned that the children knew a great deal about bunnies, rabbits and chocolate associated with Easter, not so much about resurrection and Jesus.  That is ok.  Resurrection and Jesus are hard concepts.  However it does get me thinking  about my past experiences of Easters with a baby.  

Playing with a baby wonderfully lifts your emotions, in itself it is like “resurrection.”  We smile when we look down into the eyes of a tiny one resting on our legs as we hold their hands and smile, cooing and coaxing a smile and giggle.  Soon we launch into peekaboo, hiding the baby’s face with her blanket for an instant and pulling the blanket away with a “I see you”.   Leave the blanket on her face too long may result in a frown and whimper, rather than a hoped for squeal of joy.  As the baby grows and becomes mobile peekaboo morphs into a little more active game of hide-n-seek.  Usually we begin the game by hiding in places a toddler can easily find us.  We may even call out their name so that they may crawl around the corner of the couch to find us crawling on our own all fours. As the toddler gets the game figured out, our hiding places become a little less obvious.  We may sit with a blanket covering us completely or go into an adjoining room.  Then the day arrives when hiding and seeking can be exchanged.  What fun!  To be the seeker able now to look for the one hidden.  The hope is of course that she does not hide so well that she falls asleep before you can find her!  

            You may think these are just child’s games, nothing more.  Oh, contrary. These child’s games are important for the emotional maturity and health of a child.  Peekaboo is a simple way of demonstrating and developing what developmental psychologists call object permanence.  A lack of object permanence may mean children reach for a thing at a place where it should not be.  When a child fully understands object permanence, they develop a mental image and hold it in mind, and manipulate it to solve problems that are not based solely on perception.  The child can reason about where the object may be that they cannot see.   Let me get this right, we have to be taught how to know something or someone may still be real even when the person or object is not in our presence, not in our line of sight or in our reach of touch or in the hearing of a sound or in the smell of an odor for that matter.  Now, you may have just made the mental leap to the end of the sermon.  But, slow down and walk with me through this for a moment or so.

            Let’s walk through this telling of the Resurrection by Luke.  Just to clarify, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John our four Gospel writers have remarkably different versions of the Resurrection.  Some think that this detracts from the validity of the witnesses. What I understand from my retired Chicago Police Detective buddy is that synchronized stories raise eyebrows.  If there are four people being questioned about a crime, (in the case of Jesus’ missing body, this was a crime by Roman law), the only time the stories synchronize are when the suspects get together before interrogation and get their stories “straight.”   They falsely believe that if each tell identical stories they will be believed and released.  A good detective knows each witness will have greatly divergent stories because of the witnesses’ history with the people or person in the situation, their emotional and mental state when they witnessed the situation, even the witness’s ability to physically appreciate what they experienced based on eyesight, hearing ability and proximity.  So,  when all witnesses give the same accounting of the facts, a good detective smells rotten fish.  

            Here is what would make Jack Webb smile.   All accounts agree upon:  the tomb was empty, the women found the tomb empty, someone told the women that Jesus was not in the tomb,  the women told the disciples, and Peter went to the tomb to see.  Luke gives us the simplest account of the Resurrection.  Luke does not add a lot to these simple facts.  With a Sherlock’s magnifying glass, lets look at what Luke adds to the story. 

On the first day of the week, “they” bring spices so Jesus wouldn’t smell bad as people come to pay respects.  We assume that the “they” are women, because men would not do this dirty work.  They could not come earlier due to Sabbath on the last day of the week.  They go expecting a dead Jesus, not an empty tomb. The stone at the entrance of the tomb had been rolled away from the opening.  They went into the tomb thinking someone was there already working on the body, but became perplexed when no one, not even the body of Jesus was in the tomb.  The witness of an empty tomb taken alone, is hardly persuasive of anything other than an empty tomb. 

Suddenly, as if walking in directly behind them, two men in dazzling clothes were with them.  Luke hopes you catch the repetition of “two men”  as they appear in the Transfiguration Luke 9:30 and the Ascension  in Acts 1:10. They say, "Why do you look for the living among the dead?”  I’ll come back to this.  “He is not here, but has risen.  Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee…”  This forever altered the status of the women in the tomb.  The dazzling men name them as ones who were taught by Jesus, meaning disciples.  The women are officially and forever Jesus’ Disciples, capital “D”.   “That the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again."  They remember Jesus’ teaching.  The presumption is that in the remembering they believe, not what dazzling men have said, but what Jesus taught them.  Now, Luke gives three of the names of the women who are newly minted Disciples. These are the women who support Jesus’ ministry Luke 8:1-3, who watch Jesus’ trial and crucifixion Luke 23:49, witness Jesus burial Luke 23:55, and now go to the tomb and discover the resurrection.  

Luke, in his telling of the Resurrection, sets up a game of hide-n-seek.  The dazzling men say, "Why do you look for the living among the dead?”  As if to announce the beginning of a game.  I can almost hear them starting to count.  Treated as disciples in and of themselves and not told to go tell the disciples.  The game of hide-n-seek begins when Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women tell the Apostles what they have experienced and what they believe about what they experienced.  The reaction of the men, polite society will not let us translate how they reacted, is paraphrased as, “they did not believe them.”  The essence is that the womens’ testimony is “the babbling of a fevered and insane mind”.  I am sure your creativity can generate a much more accurate translation. 

The Apostle did not want to believe what they were hearing. After all, “if the dead don’t stay dead, what can you count on?” Anna Carter Florence.  We want to cling to what we know (death) instead of entering into what we do not know (resurrection).  We tend to follow the status quo rather than to risk the unknown (the devil we know…).   “Matters of faith are never finally proven, nor faith generated by an incontrovertible argument. Faith is communicated by witness,”  Fred Craddock, Interpretation: Luke.  The women did something that the Apostles did not do, they remembered Jesus’ words.   For the women, the resurrection is made real in both the remembering of and the proclamation of Jesus life.  One unlikely Apostle rose to the challenge of hide-n-seek.  Peter, the “denier”, jumps up to see for himself if Jesus is hiding.  

Let’s look at what comes next.  For Luke, it’s not so much about the empty tomb but about the appearances coming after.  The final verses of the Gospel have people finding Jesus only to have him hide again. There is the story of the Road to Emmaus with the retelling of the witness of the women.  Jesus shows up.  Reveals himself in relationship with Cleopas and his wife by breaking bread and sharing wine.  He hides again.  He reveals himself to Simon.  He hides again.  He reveals himself to the gathered disciples.  He hides himself in heaven at the Ascension.  Luke seems to be showing that Jesus is hiding to be sought and to be found in the relationships.  As disciples gather together, Jesus reveals himself.  Jesus is found.  

I am wondering if this is similar to children learning object permanence.  Is Jesus playing peekaboo so that we can trust his presence when we do not see him? Resurrection seems some kind of cosmic hide-n-seek game.  Jesus hides from us, and like the 1970’s evangelism slogan, I can shout, “I found It!” when he chooses to reveal himself?  Certainly it sounds like the dazzling ones are setting us up for a cosmic hide-n-seek game:  “Jesus was here.  Now, he’s not.  Ready, set, go seek Jesus.”  

Maybe it’s the other way.  “Stop hiding among the dead, go among the living, Jesus is looking for you.” Jesus seeks you.  Stop hiding in the tombs.  Stop hiding in dead things.  Get out in the sunshine.  Mingle with people.  Jesus is one to meet and be lived with every day. We think we seek Jesus who hides from us. We hide, Jesus seeks us.

I am convinced! I have faith that Christ was dead and he was buried. That I believe. But, this too I accept as true: He rose from the dead and will come again in glory.  This is Easter. And to stand here on this day in this place and proclaim this word. . . I cannot begin to tell you how this defines all that I am.  I believe in resurrection because somebody told me about it. Like the women told the Apostles, someone told me.  First, my mom and dad told me about Jesus.  They told me in the books they read to me before bed time.  They told me in the prayers of grace we prayed before every meal.  They told me in the devotions we shared in the evenings before bed.  They told me in the way they loved and served hundreds of people.  I believe in the resurrection, because I have experienced it.  I believe in the resurrection because I have seen the God of resurrection at work.   I have seen the risen Christ raise people from the death of despair to the joy of new life.

Julia Esquivel is a Guatemalan poet who lived in exile in Mexico during the horrendous genocides carried out among indigenous peoples in her homeland. Esquivel’s most noted poem is entitled “Threatened by Resurrection.” {Threatened By Resurrection; Prayers and Poems from an Exiled Guatemalan,” Ann Woehrle, trans. (Elgin, Illinois: Brethren Press, 1994). 

In part Esquivel’s message declares:  From Guatemalan poet Julia Esquivel:

It is something within us that doesn’t let us sleep,

that doesn’t let us rest,

that won’t stop pounding

deep inside…

…because in this marathon of Hope,

there are always others to relieve us

who carry the strength

to reach the finish line

which lies beyond death.

Join us in this vigil

and you will know what it is to dream!

Then you will know how marvelous it is

to live threatened with Resurrection!

To dream awake

to keep watch asleep,

to live while dying,

and to know ourselves already resurrected.

CHRIST IS RISEN! 

HE IS RISEN INDEED!