An Audio Version of the sermon may be heard here<\/a><\/p>\nEaster began with a hunt in my childhood home. Christmas presents were eagerly displayed under a tree but Easter baskets were hidden, secreted and had to be found. Sometimes the search went on so long that my mom would start giving huge hints so we\u2019d find them and get ready for church. Once, I remember searching fruitlessly for my basket, behind the couch, under the piano, everywhere I could think to look. Finally my mother said, have you looked up? When I did, there it was, hanging in plain view from the curtain rod. Have you looked? It\u2019s a good question for Easter because the heart of Easter is learning to answer the question, where\u2019s Jesus?<\/p>\n
Where’s Jesus?: On the Cross?<\/h2>\n
Where\u2019s Jesus? Not on the cross. That doesn\u2019t astonish us as much as it should. We are used to executions that take place in sterile, hidden places, with a sort of macabre medical motif. The Romans\u2014and it\u2019s the Romans who executed Jesus, make no mistake, the Jewish authorities had no authority to crucify anyone\u2014took a different tack. They made execution public, using its terror to enforce discipline. Crucifixion doesn\u2019t kill from the direct injury of the nails, it kills over a long time as the unsupported diaphragm gives out and the victim drowns even in the sea of air, gasping, dying, crying out. Exposure adds to the process and the death usually took days. The crucified were left hanging there, an lesson in the violence waiting to destroy anyone who opposed the power of Rome. \u201cWhere\u2019s Jesus?\u201d Anyone who knew he had been crucified would have assumed he was on a cross, dying, crying, gasping out his last breath.<\/p>\n
But the gospel accounts unite in telling us that Jesus died quickly. While his friends hid, he pronounced a final prayer and, according to the gospel, \u201cbreathed his last\u201d. It\u2019s near the sabbath, which begins at sunset on Friday. His friends go to the Roman governor and ask for the body; after expressing his surprise at how quickly he died, Pilate lets them take the body down. They quickly stash it in one of the cave tombs around Jerusalem. These tombs were excavated as mausoleums. Typically, a corpse would be wrapped in linens, anointed with oils, and placed on a platform. Later, they would be put into a niche in the wall. Families would gather at the tomb at times to remember their departed, as we might walk in a cemetery. Apparently Joseph of Arimathea owned such a tomb and when Jesus is taken down, he\u2019s placed there hurriedly, no time to finish preparing the body since the sabbath is beginning.<\/p>\n
Where\u2019s Jesus? In a tomb sealed by a stone, then. The earliest Christian tradition about Easter includes this detail. Paul wrote to the Corinthian Christians about 20 years after the events and quoted a tradition that included Jesus being buried. All the accounts of Easter include the tomb. Later tradition will embellish the story, adding guards and a gardener. But the earliest answer to the question of where\u2019s Jesus is harsh and simple: buried, in a tomb, shut up in the darkness, like a doll that used to mean something but is now stored away in a box in the attic.<\/p>\n
Where’s Jesus?: In the Tomb?<\/h2>\n
Where\u2019s Jesus? The women making their way through the almost dawn darkness of the first Easter are sure they know. When the sabbath ended the night before, it was too dangerous to go out in the dark. Now as first light breaks, they are on their way. Imagine them getting up before sunup, dressing in sadness, hardly having needed to plan because they know what\u2019s needed. There\u2019s a song by the Cowboy Junkies with the line, \u201cIt\u2019s the daughter who\u2019s left to clean up the mess.\u201d Where are Peter and John and James and all the other disciples? We don\u2019t know; later we\u2019ll hear about them hiding behind locked doors. It\u2019s the women who followed Jesus, it\u2019s Mary of Magdala, reviled by some, lifted by Jesus, who rises above her grief, gathers the spices to anoint the body and moves through the dawn darkness, perhaps with others at her side. It must have been a quiet walk; dawn does that. What do they talk about? Not about where\u2019s Jesus; they know the answer. Their only question is how to get to him, how to roll back the heavy stone that imprisons him. <\/p>\n
So they walk out of the city, sure they know what\u2019s coming, certain of where Jesus is. Yet the story tells us that when they came to the tomb, the stone was rolled back already. Like Christians in every age, they were worried about the wrong problem. Now they come near; now they see the tomb, now they go in. They discover the tomb is empty. Where\u2019s Jesus?<\/p>\n
The women are perplexed; it\u2019s such a odd, simple word isn\u2019t it? Suppose you went to a funeral home to say goodbye to a good friend, signed the book, stood in the greeting line, walked finally to the casket, it\u2019s ornate top raised, looked in and saw\u2014nothing. Would you be startled? Would you gasp? Would you wonder what happened? The women are at a tomb, knowing Jesus is there\u2014but he isn\u2019t. I wonder what they said, I wonder at the looks between them as they stood in the musky, damp smelling tomb, holding a basket of spices that are now useless, ready to do a job that will never be done. Where\u2019s Jesus? Not here: not where they expected, knew he would be.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy do you seek the living among the dead?\u201d<\/h2>\n
Where\u2019s Jesus? According to Luke, the women encounter two men in dazzling clothes; Matthew says they met an angel, while Mark simply pictures a young man sitting where Jesus\u2019 body should have been. Luke says they were terrified; Mark that they were amazed. Isn\u2019t it always so when we encounter angels? The first thing angels usually say is, \u201cDon\u2019t be afraid.\u201d It\u2019s hard when you think you\u2019re walking along, knowing where you\u2019re going, and you walk into something God is doing. They are amazed, terrified, perplexed. Have you ever had something happen that changed you forever? They are changed: they are in a tomb, ready to deal with the dead, and in the next moment they are amazed by the living. \u201cWhy do you seek the living among the dead?\u201d, the visitor asks and it\u2019s a good question, a question we might ask today. What are you seeking? Did you come to see the resurrection explained, justified, proved? That\u2019s asking for the dead among the living. The gospels have no proofs, no explanations. All they have is this absolute account: Jesus was dead and buried\u2014and came back to his friends, met his friends, inspired his friends. They were living and suddenly there he was, living with them.<\/p>\n
We have some experience of this. In The Grapes of Wrath<\/em>, we hear the story of Tom Joad, a man who takes up the cause of poor people as his own. When he leaves his family, he says,<\/p>\n\u2026maybe like Casy says, a fella ain’t got a soul of his own, but on’y a piece of a big one\u2026\u2019ll be all aroun’ in the dark. I’ll be ever’where\u2014wherever you look. Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there\u2026I\u2019ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad an’\u2014I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry an’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build\u2014why, I’ll be there.\u2026. [John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath] <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Where’s Jesus Today?<\/h2>\n
Where\u2019s Jesus? Ever since Easter, Christians have had to answer and their answers take them to different places. I used to go to a church where we sang a lot about blood and the cross. They were most comfortable talking about Jesus on a cross; they wanted him to stay there, I think, and leave running the world to politicians whose programs take no account of the generosity and openness Jesus preached. Jesus on the cross is safe: he\u2019s busy suffering for us so we don\u2019t have to do anything about suffering ourselves.<\/p>\n
Where\u2019s Jesus? I\u2019ve spent most of my life with Christians who are happy to leave him in the tomb. \u201cA great teacher\u201d, they say, as if we can extract from him a set of principles alone, separate from Jesus himself, a bunch of moral maxims that can keep us from having to wonder about a power that can actually raise someone from the dead. Moral maxims can live comfortably in a rational world; resurrection can\u2019t. Resurrection says all our plans, all our rationality, don\u2019t begin to encompass God\u2019s power. We think it all stops with a tomb but can\u2019t answer what happens when the stone is rolled away.<\/p>\n
Where\u2019s Jesus? Not on the cross: so we don\u2019t have to fear the cross, live on the cross, forever. Where\u2019s Jesus? <\/p>\n
Not in the tomb: so we don\u2019t have to fear the tomb, live in the tomb, live with the tomb as our destination.<\/p>\n
Where\u2019s Jesus? He\u2019s where he always was: where people hurt, healing them, where people despair, giving hope, where people pray, hearing them. This is why we spent six weeks slowly working through his prayer, the Lord\u2019s Prayer, learning to pray with him. For when we truly pray with him, he is present with us, his healing, his hope, his call become ours and we become his. This is an important distinction. A lot of Christian imagery, a lot of Christian songs speak of \u201cMy Jesus\u201d. The Christian story is not how Jesus becomes mine but how I become his.<\/p>\n
Finding Jesus<\/h2>\n
Mary and the others came back to the disciples with their tale of an empty tomb. And it would be a great happy ending if the disciples had fallen down, praising God, believing. But that\u2019s not what happened. As Luke says, \u201cthey thought it was an idle tale.\u201d Only in the following days and weeks did they find an answer to the question, \u201cWhere\u2019s Jesus?\u201d So if you are wondering, if you can\u2019t believe the women today, this morning, don\u2019t worry, don\u2019t turn away. Neither did Peter, neither did John; neither did Matthew or James or the others. They had to go on farther to find Jesus. Come back next week and the weeks to come because we are going to be thinking about how they answered the question and how we can find our own answer. More importantly, we\u2019re going to think about how they found Jesus and how we can.<\/p>\n
Where\u2019s Jesus? One thing is clear: if you want to find Jesus, if you want to go where Jesus is, the path is simple. Go where he\u2019s going: find someone hurting, help heal them, Go where he is: somewhere private and quiet, praying the Lord\u2019s prayer. Go where he is: where hope is sown, believing in God for the growth, for the harvest. Where\u2019s Jesus? Go look: you\u2019ll find him. He\u2019s where the gospel so often tell us: on the way. Go look; go find, go follow. <\/p>\n
Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor Easter Sunday\/C \u2022 March 27, 2016 Copyright 2016 \u2022 All Rights Reserved An Audio Version of the sermon may be heard here Easter began with a hunt in my childhood home. Christmas presents were eagerly displayed under a tree but Easter baskets were hidden, secreted and had to be found. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Where's Jesus?\r\nA Sermon from the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[31,3,13,1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-easter","category-sermon","category-theology","category-uncategorized","category-worship"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1382,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions\/1382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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