Sermon prepared for
By Gregory S. Kaurin, pastor
Easter, 2003
Text: Mark 16:1-8
Sermon:
Deeply Dawn
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For
the most part, I am pretty calm and patient—as long as I’m either in the middle
of things, or when the start of things seems a ways off. However, in those last few minutes before
something starts, when I am ready, I do
not like waiting. Sometimes I can
put on a good face, but (internally or externally) I am pacing.
Ask
my wife; the poor girl has to endure it.
It’s almost neurotic. We must
have our tickets and be seated in the theatre no more than three minutes before
the movie or the play starts. Any longer
than that, and I regress back to adolescent whining, “How much longer? What time is it now? Are we there yet?” You might think I’m exaggerating, but again,
you can just ask the ushers what I’m often like before the start of a worship service.
It’s
called the time between times—the time just after one thing, and just before
another. Like dawn, it’s no longer
exactly night, but not quite day. Some blessed
people can watch a sunset with a sense of peace and relaxation. It is a moment of majesty and beauty. I can sit and watch, and I do enjoy it, but if
I could, I would bodily push the sun down myself just to get through those few long
minutes. I know that the best colors come
right after sunset …and I want them now.
Maybe
that’s why I am so drawn to Mark’s description of the resurrection. To me, this shorter ending to Mark’s gospel
is the most mysterious and meaningful account of Jesus’ resurrection.
It
starts with these three women going to the tomb early on a Sunday morning to prepare
Jesus’ body. Some Bibles say it was “still
dark,” or “not quite dawn,” or “just after sunrise.” The Greek Bible says that it was “lee-ahn
pro-ee,” or literally, “very much at the start.” My favorite translation uses that Greek idea
to say the women came to his tomb when it was the “deepest dawn.” They went to the tomb with burial ointments
at the deepest dawn. —It couldn’t be any
earlier.
That
says volumes about their grief, their anxiety, and the incredible haste in
which Jesus was buried. Jesus was nailed
to the cross at about
So,
if Jesus died at about 3 PM, that left only a few hours for Joseph of
Arimathaea to 1) request Jesus’ body from Pilate, 2) for Pilate to summon the
centurion to find whether or not Jesus had already died, and finally for 3) Joseph
and others to return to Golgotha so that they could 4) peel Jesus’ body away from
the cross, 5) place it in the tomb, 6) seal it, and 7) return home …all before
sunset, all before Sabbath.
There
was no time for proper grieving, no time for spices or anointments… It was
rush, rush, rush… and then, wait… wait… wait… all through God’s Holy Saturday, Sabbath.
It
was supposed to be a day set aside for worshipful peace, but where do you think
their minds were? Their thoughts were not
in the temple, not in worship. The
disciples gathered in gloom and fear to wait out this incredibly tense and sad Sabbath
day. It was the slowest Sabbath they’d
ever known.
Then,
Sabbath was finally over at sunset on Saturday, but now it was too dark to do
anything. There was nothing for them but
more tedious waiting. Maybe they were
able to get a little restless and exhausted sleep, maybe not. Clearly, the women could think of nothing
else but Jesus’ unprepared body, lying in that tomb, waiting.
As
soon as it was at all possible, when it was still the deepest dawn, they went
to the sealed tomb, and found it opened.
They entered the tomb and found a strange man dressed in white (notice
that Mark doesn’t even call him an angel, but just a man in white) who gives
them a wonderful message, a mission and a promise: “Jesus is not here; he has
risen from the dead. Go tell the
others. You’ll see him alive in
Mark,
who wrote this gospel lesson, was a wonderful, breathless story-teller. His gospel was meant to be read out-loud from
beginning to end. I mentioned earlier
this year that Mark’s favorite word was “immediately.” He used it over and over again to move his
story along. You can’t tell from the
translation we just used, but in the original Greek Bible, he started every
sentence in this passage with the word “and.”
“And then… and next…”
Mark
was breathless to end of his story, but then he was also amazingly subtle and
subdued as he finished. A few
resurrection appearances were added to Mark’s gospel and accepted into our
Bible cannon, and thankfully Matthew, Luke and John added their own accounts, but
Mark originally ended his story of Jesus right there, with the women running
away from the tomb frightened and amazed.
He left the women, he left his listeners (and he meant to leave us)
there in the deepest dawn, the time between times. He left us there with the women, with this
exciting news, with the first glimmer of hope, with the possibility that maybe,
just maybe, a new day was dawning.
He
wrote this gospel for people like me who crave resolution, who have a problem
with sitting between times, and he forces us all to face it and to deal with
it. We live in the deepest dawn. Our own man in white, our angel or messenger,
comes in the clothing of this book called the Bible. And this messenger tells us the same thing:
“Jesus has risen from the dead, just as he said. He is alive.
Go and tell others. He is running
ahead of you. You will see him again,
alive, in
It
is still deepest dawn. It has been for about
2000 years, and for thousands before that.
Billions of people, and all creation, we all stand in the deepest dawn,
the time between times. We can see
both. The Light has clearly defeated the
night, and yet darkness remains all around us.
We experience both, one and the other.
And
some of us, in our impatient worries, constantly pace between them, back and
forth, between the shadows and the light.
Sometimes we’re sure of everything, of our faith, of God, eternal life
and forgiveness. Other times, we act
like we’ve heard none of it, trust none of it.
Worse
than that: at least the women were afraid!
That means that they at least knew that something important had happened. Most of the time, we act like nothing has
happened. We often treat our
Christianity as if it’s just an adjective that we attach to our names when it seems
“appropriate.” Even worse, some of us
act like Christianity is just a brief tedious hour we spend in worship once a
week, or a family obligation that we endure once or twice a year.
Mark
ended with the women running from the tomb, scared, but with the dawning good
news of Jesus resurrection… because St. Mark wanted us to finish the story with
our own lives. He was asking, “So, what
are you going to do about it?”
What
are you going to do about it? Will you
let him change you, to let your new life dawn, and change how you live your
faith in front of friends, in front of others.
Will you start trusting God when he says, “You are forgiven?” and then give
that forgiveness to others? Will you let
shadows, and addictions, and abuse die with the night.
It
is deepest dawn. It is still dark. But it is
dawn —and it will never again be night.
Nothing can keep the Son from rising.
So, I ask you today to use this brief time between times to set aside
all the fake urgency that the world throws at you.
Ask
God for a new way to see and hear.
Accept the good news. Accept
Easter into your life. Let it change you;
let it change what you do and say, how you treat your family and how you treat
others, not only every Sunday, but everyday.
Live more free. Live more
generously, more forgivingly. Take more
time with people, with your family, in worship and prayer. Make time for your values of God and family,
instead of just rushing from thing to thing.
You
are someone that God created and loved into existence. You are someone that he died for, and rose,
to save. You are called to be different
because you know that Jesus changed the world that Sunday morning. He broke Saturday, he broke the Sabbath day
wide open, and he made it into something entirely different.
On
the third day, Sabbath became more than a day.
Sabbath peace, Sabbath worship, is no longer just a day of the week; it
is a people. Keeping Sabbath is not
about setting aside a specific day, it is about being a people. It is us; we are Sabbath now. We are the peace and promise of Sabbath sent
into the world. We are sent into the
world to tell the others, to lift high the cross of resurrection, and to
proclaim the love of Christ.
And
there we will find Jesus already ahead of us, in
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