Easter Sunrise 2009

The Distance Between Friday and Sunday

April 12, 2009

John 20: 1 – 18

When last I preached and last we met as a church it was Good Friday. On Friday I said two things – 1)WWJD – most of us would want the power of Jesus – the miracles – but few of us would want the responsibilities of Jesus – the cross the dividing line between the pretenders and the Messiah. 2) Cross of Friday is at the crossroads of history and the paradox of theology. Without the cross the miracles and teaching of Jesus do not have their proper meeting – without the cross he is another miracles man or back roads prophet. But without the prophecy and the miracles the cross is very little but a gallows, or a guillotine, or an electric chair.

Of course, the final miracle, the consummation of the confirmation of the cross is the empty tomb. The cross of Friday finds its ultimate meaning in the tomb of Sunday. And the tomb of Sunday has little meaning without the cross of Friday. One presupposes the other.

Yet, even though they are related by the plan of God, they are for us, quite different days. Even though related they are as far as the east is from the west in terms of what they mean and what they symbolize. I wonder – has there ever been a farther move from the darkness at Friday noon to the eternal life and light of Easter morning. After all:

Friday is about death. Sunday is about life.

Friday is about despair. Sunday is about hope.

Friday is about grief. Sunday is about joyful relief.

Friday is about fatality and finality. Sunday is about possibility and potential.

Friday is the end of chances. Sunday is the ultimate second chance.

On Friday man tries to kill God. On Sunday, God asserts power and says – My Son Will Live.

Sunday morning comes in with light and power – a stone is rolled away and the power of God is made known to the world.

The trouble is – of course – that this good news of Easter begins with a whimper, not with a bang. There is no cosmic event that corresponds with it. The gospel records no eruption of a volcano, or a freak snow storm, there is not mention of a comet or a meteor streaking through the sky – no record of the heavens ripping open. Just one woman and an empty tomb.

This makes me think of the final distance between Friday and Sunday.

Friday is about headlines – it is public and out in the open, on top of the hill of death called Golgotha. Sunday begins in quiet of the morning, in the secret of the garden.

It begins so quietly – that the woman, Mary Magdala, must go and get Peter and the other disciple to come and see.

The secret of course is too good to keep – like all joyful secrets. Secret engagements are never really secret, are they? The news of the child to be born in nine months is never kept for long. Who here wouldn’t call on their way home after a promotion or an inheritance?

We went to see Jesus, but he was gone? And then an angel of Lord told us he was raised? And then we saw the Lord? How long do we think that secret could have been kept?

And thanks be to God it was not!

The distance between good Friday and Easter is this – Good Friday begins as a public spectacle meant to cause terror and end the story; and Easter begins as a secret too wonderful to believed only to become a headline that we believe, and the greatest story ever told.

The Lord is risen! Please don’t keep it a secret. Joy, after all was meant to be shared! That may be the enduring lesson from Friday to Sunday.

Happy Easter everyone!

Amen.