Saint Mark's Church

As is the case with many holy sites in Jerusalem, there are at least two tombs that are identified as the burial place of Jesus.  It is perhaps the case that the best claim of authenticity can still be made by the tomb that has been enshrined beneath the dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  

That tomb – identified in the fourth century - has seen empires rise and fall, crusaders come and go, Muslim occupation, Christian schism, warfare, tumult, squabble, earthquake, fire and every kind of upset.  The emperor Constantine built the first structure over it: what amounted to a “little house” that was itself enclosed by a larger church.  That same plan – rebuilt many times – survives today inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  Beneath the great, grey dome of the church is a smaller building, surrounded by countless burning lamps, and chanting monks of various pedigrees, and tourists of every variety.

This morning, if we will, we are invited to follow Mary Magdalene to this tomb.   See what happens when we get there.

On seeing that the stone is rolled away, (only a fragment of it remains today) she hesitates at first, and runs to get others – Peter and the one known as the beloved disciple.  And now Saint John gives us marvelous details that are absent in the three other gospel accounts of the resurrection.

Peter and the beloved disciple begin to run: racing each other to the mouth of the cave.  I imagine that Mary Magdalene runs too, but she is a girl, and not so fast or so competitive as the boys are.  But all three of them have a single question burning in their minds: Is he dead or alive?

John tells us that the beloved disciple got there first.  He stoops to look in and sees the grave-clothes.  Peter catches up, and, having lost the race to the mouth of the tomb, shoves the beloved disciple aside, lowers his shoulders, bends his head low and, brash as ever, dives inside the tomb of Christ.  There must have been room for the two of them in there.  The beloved disciple follows Peter, lowers his shoulders, bends his head low, and goes inside the tomb, too.

There they find no body.  The details that they notice about the position of the linen cloths – lying undisturbed – are meant to show us that Jesus had not struggled to escape, had not performed some fantastic magic trick.  And the two men – full of excitement - scramble out of the tomb and back to their homes.

But Mary Magdalene stood weeping outside the tomb, confused, uncertain.  Is he dead or alive?  Finally she brings herself to lower her own shoulders and bend her head low and lean in far enough to look inside the tomb, where she, privileged in her grief, and undistracted by the competitive spirit that possessed the two men, sees the two angels sitting where the body of Jesus had lain.

Only in John’s Gospel are we told that anyone actually goes inside the tomb of Jesus.  Only in this last and latest gospel do the disciples lower their shoulders and bend low to get inside.  Only here does Mary Magdalene, too, stoop to get her head and shoulders inside and see the amazing site, which does not stop her weeping, for she does not yet know what it means.  Is he dead or alive?

That tomb was originally hewn out of stone in a hillside, but the hillside is nowhere in evidence.  Journalist Richard Rodriguez wrote of his recent visits to the Holy Sepulchre:  “ A mountain was chipped away from the burial cave, leaving the cave.  Later the cave was destroyed.  What remains is the interior of the cave, which is nothing….  I must lower my shoulders and bend my head [to get in]; I must crawl to pass under the low opening.  I am inside the idea of the tomb of Christ.”

A hillside was chipped away leaving a cave; the cave was destroyed leaving the interior of the cave, which is nothing.  What is left is the idea of the tomb of Christ.

Nothing prevents you and me from lowering our shoulders just now, from bending low, and crawling, ourselves, inside the idea of the tomb of Christ.  And this, after all, is where the church has led us today: into the idea of the tomb of Christ.

Since our imaginations have been shaped by courtroom dramas and forensic police work on TV, we are tempted to experience Easter Day as a particularly old episode of Law and Order.  We want to detain Peter for questioning, and we’d like to know why the beloved disciple won’t give us his name.  We’d like to hold Mary Magdalene in a separate room and see if the stories of these three corroborate.  We doubt that the two men Mary spoke with are angels and we have a few questions for them.  And how can Mary be so sure that it wasn’t the gardener she talked with?  Let’s bring him in for questioning too!  Most importantly, don’t touch anything!  We will send the linen cloths to the lab for testing.  We need some DNA!  We will scour the inside of the tomb for a fibre, a strand of hair, a fragment of fingernail.

But where would that get us?  Will it really tell us whether or not Jesus is dead or alive?  It will surely not get us inside the idea of the tomb of Christ.  Better, on this Easter morning, to lower our shoulders, bend low, and crawl inside the idea of the tomb of Christ.

Two days ago it seemed so different: so dark.  But then, darkness covered the whole land on that Friday.  Isn’t it surprisingly light in here now?  Is it the candles, or is there residual glow from the angel-light?  Is the air sweet with the smell of incense and spices?  Do we have the sense that Jesus was here just a minute ago?  Or can we tell somehow that he did not stay long in this tomb, that he had work to tend to, and got straight to it?  Is it creepy in here, inside the idea of Jesus tomb, in this chamber of death?  Are we frightened?    Could we somehow get stuck in here?  Is the stone rolled back far enough, and held tight?  It won’t roll back across the door and seal us in?  And where is Jesus?  Is he dead or is he alive?

If we pause here, inside the idea of the tomb of Christ, does it occur to us to think about our own death?  Isn’t it a little weird to be inside this grave?  What are we doing in here, inside the idea of this tomb?  And if we pause here for a moment or two longer than Peter stayed, longer than the beloved disciple paused here, do we find that the question begins to shift from him to us?

We thought that we had come here to investigate Jesus.  But inside the idea of his tomb we begin to find the question that we had not thought to ask: do we die or do we live?  We thought  - because the world had tried to convince us – that the question was whether or not Jesus was dead or alive.  We thought that was what brought is to his tomb, looking for evidence, for an argument, for proof.  But here, inside the idea of his tomb, we discover that the question shifts from him to us: will we die, or will we live?

We realize that the world is killing us all day long, one way or another, and the world tells us that if we just keep buying things, everything will be OK.  (Can I interest you in a satin pillow for the inside of that tomb?)  But we know that everything we buy ends up being thrown in the trash and goes to the dump.  And we want to know – is that what will happen to us in our graves?

And while we are inside the idea of his tomb, perhaps we cannot tell.  There are the grave clothes: un-rumpled, no sign of struggle.  It does not appear to be a trick.  But still, we are uncertain.  Is he dead or alive?  Will we die or will we live?

And from in here, we can hear a sound nearby, but from a distant time: Mary Magdalene, stands outside weeping, and we can hear her sobs.  She has poked her head and shoulders in here.  She has seen what we see – and more.  But there she stands weeping.  And who are we to console her?  We have only been inside the idea of Christ’s tomb; she has looked into the real thing.  We have only seen the details that others reported to us; she has spoken with angels.  But still she weeps.  For as long as she does not know if Jesus is dead or alive, she cannot know if she will live or if she will die.   And from in here, inside the idea of Christ’s tomb, can we know either?

This morning, the sound of Mary weeping is enough, I hope, to bring us out of the idea of that tomb.  Although there was that strange light in the tomb, to sunlight is brighter, and we blink in the brightness of it as we draw close to Mary.  As her sobs become louder, I begin to feel that maybe I will join her in her tears, for there is sadness enough in this world, and this tomb is empty, and they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.

And I know somehow that my fate is tied to his fate, and so is yours.  And I know, with Mary, that if he is dead, then perhaps the best thing to do is crawl back inside that tomb and get used to it – because that is what awaits us anyway.

But before I have gotten close enough to put my arm around her, to join my sobs to hers, there is this voice.  And I am certain it is not the gardener, because I am only standing outside the idea of the tomb of Christ, and many centuries have past.  And I have heard the story before (and so have you).  And when I hear him call her name, I remember that the tomb was always going to be empty, could only ever be empty.

And now the tomb doesn’t matter at all, because once it was a hillside that was chipped away leaving a cave; then the cave was destroyed leaving the interior of the cave, which is nothing.  And you and I cannot be trapped inside of nothing – not even for a moment.

And I cannot tell the difference anymore between my sobs and the sobs of Mary Magdalene.  I cannot say how close she is to me, or to you.  But I am sure we are all standing outside of the tomb now.  And I am sure that tomb is nothing but an idea.  And I know that it doesn’t matter any more.  Because I hear a voice, and I think you do, too.  And a moment ago that voice seemed to be calling, “Mary!”  But now I hear my own name, and I know, somehow, that you hear yours.

And now I know that my redeemer liveth!  And once I know that, in a instant, in the twinkling of an eye, I know, too, that every tomb has been chipped away, as his tomb has been, and reduced to nothing, as his tomb is nothing; nothing but an idea.  And I know that Mary’s sobs have been turned into songs of joy, and I can hear myself singing, and you too!  And I know that Christ is alive, and that if he lives then you and I will not die when our mortal bodies are done on this earth, but that we shall live, because he lives, and calls us each by name!  Alleluia!

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
Easter Day 2008
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

As is the case with many holy sites in Jerusalem, there are at least two tombs that are identified as the burial place of Jesus.  It is perhaps the case that the best claim of authenticity can still be made by the tomb that has been enshrined beneath the dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  

That tomb – identified in the fourth century - has seen empires rise and fall, crusaders come and go, Muslim occupation, Christian schism, warfare, tumult, squabble, earthquake, fire and every kind of upset.  The emperor Constantine built the first structure over it: what amounted to a “little house” that was itself enclosed by a larger church.  That same plan – rebuilt many times – survives today inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  Beneath the great, grey dome of the church is a smaller building, surrounded by countless burning lamps, and chanting monks of various pedigrees, and tourists of every variety.

The tomb was originally hewn out of stone in a hillside, but the hillside is nowhere in evidence.  Journalist Richard Rodriguez wrote of his recent visits there:  “ A mountain was chipped away from the burial cave, leaving the cave.  Later the cave was destroyed.  What remains is the interior of the cave, which is nothing….  I must lower my shoulders and bend my head [to get in]; I must crawl to pass under the low opening.  I am inside the idea of the tomb of Christ.”

A hillside was chipped away leaving a cave; the cave was destroyed leaving the interior of the cave, which is nothing.  What is left is the idea of the tomb of Christ.

Nothing prevents you and me from lowering our shoulders just now, from bending low, and crawling ourselves inside the idea of the tomb of Christ.  And this, after all, is where the church has led us today: into the idea of the tomb of Christ.

Since our imaginations have been shaped by courtroom dramas and forensic police work on TV, we are tempted to experience Good Friday as a particularly old episode of Law and Order.  We want to analyze Pilate’s motives, interview the soldiers who led Jesus to Golgotha.  We’d like to get a statement on the record from Simon of Cyrene.  It would be helpful if we could cross-examine the centurion.  And of course we long for DNA samples.  We would like to secure the scene and scour the inside of the tomb for a fibre, a strand of hair, a fragment of fingernail.

But where would that get us?  It will surely not take us inside the idea of the tomb of Christ.  Better to lower our shoulders, bend low, and crawl inside the idea of the tomb of Christ, (just for a moment or two if that is all we can tolerate).

Is it dark in here?  Or is there a candle burning already?  Has angel-light already begun to cause the stone to glow?  Does it smell in here yet – the sweet spices have net yet been brought by the women.  Is the air heavy with the scent of blood and sweat and tears?  Is Jesus’ body still; is it cold?  Is he given time to rest in death, regain strength after his ordeal?  Or does he spring to work instantly like an escape artist with limited time to get out of his shroud?

Will he speak to us?  Could we understand him if he did?  Is there anything we can do?  Is he even there?  Or is he gone already?  Of course, he must be gone – we are only inside the idea of his tomb.  And it is centuries later.  But if we are here, what does that say about us?  Are we dead or alive?  Could we get stuck in here?  Is the stone outside propped back?  It won’t roll across the door and seal us in?  No, really?  What are we doing in here?  What good can it do us to come inside the idea of the tomb of Christ?  Why are we here?  Are we dead or alive?

Are we dead or alive?

Here, inside the idea of the tomb of Christ, we find the question that we had not thought to ask: are we dead or alive?  We thought  - because the world had tried to convince us – that the question was whether or not Jesus was dead or alive.  We thought that was what brought is to his tomb, looking for evidence, for an argument, for proof.

But here inside the idea of his tomb, we discover that if we will be buried with him in his death, the question shifts from him to us.

And do we find that here, inside the idea of his tomb the question of the rock, the cave, the hillside that once stood around his actual tomb – these all become immaterial?  Who cares where the precise location of his grave is, if we can be buried in his death without ever having to search for it?  And who cares about anything, really, except the answer to that burning question: are we dead or alive?

Here in the idea of Jesus’ tomb I think it is dark, and very still.  I think that I am lying on the shelf where his body lay.  And I think you are there too, but I am not sure that I can feel you there.  I do not think I can hear you; I am not sure you are breathing.  I am not sure I am.

And I think I am dead, as I think Jesus must have been.

I know I cannot stay here for three days.  It has only been a few minutes, but already it feels like hours.  I think I was frightened for a moment, but now that has passed.  I don’t know if I can feel my feet or wiggle my toes; I don’t know if I can move; I don’t know if I can see or hear.  And I don’t know if you can either – or if you are really there.  Is there room for us all in here?  Yes, it is very dark, and very still in here, inside the idea of Jesus’ tomb.  And I am wondering if I am dead or alive.  And what about you?  I cannot feel or hear my heartbeat.

+ + +

But now, I am sure I hear something like a breath.  It was not mine or yours, but it was a breath.  And I know that I have been buried with Christ inside the idea of his tomb.  And I can hear now.  And my heart is thumping.  And there is air in my lungs.  And the smell is sweet.  And it is still dark, but my eyes are open.  And I cannot tell, but I think I am beginning to see something like light.  And I can feel you there next to me; I can feel you tremble - or is it me who trembles?

And I know I was dead.  Here, in the idea of Jesus’ tomb, I know that I was dead, before I lowered my shoulders, and bent low, and crawled inside this death where Jesus has already been.

And I know I want to get out of here – out of this tomb of death.  And I know that I can; and I know that I will, because I know that this is why Jesus led me here.  Because he has been here himself.  And he made room for me and for you inside the idea of his tomb, so that we could know whether we are dead or alive.

He knows that we are desperate to know this: are we dead or alive?  He knows the world is killing us all day long and telling us that if we just keep buying things it will be OK.  But we know that everything we buy ends up be thrown in the trash and goes to the dump.  And we want to know – is that what will happen to us in our graves.

So Jesus calls us to come and die with him, and lie for a moment or two inside the idea of his tomb, and see.

Are we dead?  or are we alive?


Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
Good Friday 2008
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

There is nothing in the Christian year like the Sacred Triduum, the three high liturgies of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the Great Vigil of Easter, which, the church teaches, are really parts of one single liturgy, into which we've embarked. The Triduum doesn't just recall but engages us in the depth of Jesus’ experience in his last days and his first risen day. I've taken friends to parts of the Triduum at Anglo-Catholic Churches and even those people whose normal experience of church is diametrically opposite this liturgy - even the lowest of the low-church folks, always concerned about not going overboard - even they have tended to be floored by emotion, so moving are these days when they're done right. There is nothing like the Triduum, from the things God does to our hearts in these liturgies, to the things God engraves in our minds.

Today Jesus engraves in us the 'maundy,' meaning 'mandate', 'maundy' being a Middle English word derived from the Latin 'mandatum': commandment, rule. Today we accept anew and celebrate the new mandate of Jesus, the New Commandment, given just before his death. Jesus tells his disciples, after washing their feet: "love one another as I have loved you." Love one another as I have loved you. It fits that this 'mandate' and maid-like, servant-like washing of feet occurr during the sharing of a meal, the first Communion. It makes sense, because in the history of salvation, from the Passover meal described in our reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, to the altar from which we’ll receive communion today, a table establishes unity. A table is a place where you can't hide, but where diverse people sit down and eat the same things, becoming one, inside and out. This is just the setting Jesus chooses to make an example of love in an unloving, imperialist world ('love during wartime'): love each other in a self-giving way; love each other in mutual service, not 'working the system' to get something out of it at someone else's expense. There's no emptier reward for love than crucifixion, hence the inescable altruism of Jesus' saying 'love as I love you.'

In Seminary many of us, especially foreign students, found ourselves far away from family on days traditionally associated with a family meal, such as on Christmas, Thanksgiving or Easter. So others who lived near the Seminary would invite us over to their homes. That was the case with me one Easter afternoon - I was invited by a friend to her family’s house in Virginia for a traditional Easter meal. They say Northern Virginia is technically the North, but this family was far enough below the southern suburbs of DC as to be identifiably Southern, and I'll leave it to your imagination what was there to be 'identified.' I loved it. As we drove to the old family homestead, not a colonial but a frontier-style house surrounded by beautiful rolling hills and farmland, my friend briefed me on some of the family dynamics I was about to see played out.

The elephant in the living room would be one of the younger, college-age cousins, who had recently gotten pregnant 'out of wedlock.' This had happened in her second year at one of those tiny, private Southern colleges where everyone knows your business and most definitely judges you about it. She was keeping the baby. Certainly the family knew this girl’s business, too, and they were uncomfortable with it. As we took our places at the table and were served, conversation began – and it all danced merrily around without touching down anywhere near this pregnant cousin. I was extensively grilled on my upbringing, education, family, interests, pets, and on and on; and the other family members boisterously caught up with one another, too. Not a word to the pregnant cousin. Finally, silence began to set in, as people ate. The silence loomed especially large over this woman, the one person to whom I hadn’t been introduced (a big deal in a Southern home), though I knew her name from my friend, and I’ll say it was “Annie.” After dinner, conversations become shorter and quieter than they had been before, and an awkward silence seemed to separate each sentence from the next. It was as though we’d delved into every possible subject of interest except the obvious.

Then, as older children sometimes do, the oldest cousin couldn't help but recognize what was wrong there and he, rather than the matriarch or patriarch of the family, jumped in and took action. “Annie,” he said, “you know, this is bittersweet and all, but it’s nothing my friends haven’t dealt with well, and the good part is that we know this kid’s gonna have an excellent Mom.”

Deeply ingrained unspoken rules prescribing what should and shouldn’t be discussed at that family's Easter Dinner table had been torn in two. In some ways it had to be this oldest cousin to have broached the subject so bravely and carefully, because within the structure of a traditional family, he had the credentials to say what he wanted to say. The pregnant cousin did not. For credentials, this guy had a wife and kids, he was the oldest of the cousins, he was a successful partner at the biggest local law firm. It shouldn't be this way, but the fact that he was male definitely had something to do with it. He used his unspoken social power in the family to express that this cousin was one of them, come what may. Annie smiled. One of the two grandmothers present asked her if she’d been thinking of baby names.

That got people thinking and talking in a more open, human way. It was a crucial barrier passed over into friendly territory, and possible for that family only because one of their (rightly or wrongly) highly esteemed members had made himself a servant of the least-esteemed. In other words, he girded up his loins and loved his cousin like Jesus would have loved her. That's the maundy, the mandate we celebrate today, the truth behind the symbolism of Jesus washing everyone’s feet. In authentic Christianity, the exalted are called to humble themselves completely, sparing none of the needs of those the world wants to call lowly. Make no mistake, there are always moments when you or I have social credibility, or money, or other forms of power, which someone else lacks. Those moments are opportunities to love each other as Christ loved us.

These, then are the implications of our simple mandate: no person is too strange, too new, too guilty, too disagreeable, too conservative, too liberal, to be served as one of us at our family table. But more than that, in fact it is the most cast off, the most misunderstood, the most sinful, the strangest, the most obscure, even the most offensive, the hardest to understand, whom we are blessed to do our best to serve. In such territory it bears remembering that Jesus loves as a close, though anonymous friend the man who nails him to the cross. That is a great part of the sadness of the cross which we'll encounter tomorrow. Jesus is killed by people he cares for as we care for our own parents, lovers, friends - though these people don't know him has he knows them (which is to say, as God knows them).

That same piercing love extends to us, and through grace alone we cultivate that almost absurdly resilient love toward each other. It is a love which extends to all, which never ends, to which we're called beyond defense, beyond all walls; a love which sings of day when all sound ends, when darkness falls - as it must. This is a love which follows us even when we don't trust it, when we run from it - because Jesus practices his own mandate, and as our own servant, never gives up on us.

Preached by Dcn. Paul Francke
Maundy Thursday, 2008
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

The news last month, from the Pew Charitable Trusts, that more than 1 in a hundred Americans were in prison at the outset of 2008 was upstaged only by the statistic included in the report that 1 of every 9 black men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars in this country.  One shudders to think what the percentage is in Philadelphia.  In our nation, 2.3 million people were in jail at the beginning of this year – 1% of the population.  Even China has imprisoned only 1.5 million of their significantly larger population.

The report tells us that these numbers are a concern for states because of the high costs of incarceration, which naturally deprives other important programs – like education – of funding.  For every dollar spent in Pennsylvania on education, we spend 81 cents on prisons.  What kind of holy experiment is that?

The conclusion of the Pew report says this:

“As a nation, the United States has long anchored its punishment policy in bricks and mortar.  The tangible feel of a jail or prison, with its surefire incapacitation of convicts, has been an unquestioned weapon of choice in our battle against crime....  However… a continual increase in our reliance on incarceration will pay declining dividends in crime prevention.”

This conclusion is happily free of euphemisms for the reality of prisons: like correctional facilities or, more pointedly, penitentiaries, both of which suggest that we have something more in mind than punishment when we lock someone up.  In America, punishment is not just a policy, it’s a growth industry, if not a terribly useful way of dealing with crime, since, according to the report, “more than half of released offenders are back in prison within three years.”

This report makes me almost unspeakably grateful to our friend and neighbor, Fr. Julius Jackson, who with a handful of helpers runs a parish (St. Dismas) within the walls of Graterford Maximum Security Prison, where, on a very few occasions, I have visited the men with him.  But I cannot imagine what Palm Sunday is like in the walls of that prison.  And I wonder if it occurs to us to consider how different God’s punishment policy is from our own.

Very near the beginning of the Bible comes the first story of God’s punishment, which, interestingly, involves locking Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, not locking them up.  Go on, and you will find that the Ten Commandments completely lack sentencing guidelines.  Keep reading the Scriptures from there and you will get to a body of religious law that is complicated but has precious little interest in building correctional facilities.  And while there are plenty of threats breathed against the children of Israel, God’s hand is seldom actually raised.  Their suffering is usually at the hands of worldly opponents.

Eventually we get to Jesus.  His early call to repentance is soon transposed to his preaching of the kingdom of God: a message that he seems to intend for prostitutes and sinners: governors and their harlots, perhaps.  But remember that, with the governor and his call girl, you and I have also been locked out of Eden.  And while our sins have not been chronicled in detail in the press, are we really any less susceptible to the punishment policy of God?

So we might take notice when we hear Saint Paul tell us that “Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, emptied himself, taking the form of a slave… and humbled himself... and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.”

Here on the cross is God’s new code of punishment: foreshadowed by the scapegoats who had long carried the sins of the people out of their midst.

Here is God’s Son, who could very well have rode on, rode on in majesty, (could he not?), but here he is, taking the form of a servant, a slave, even unto death.  Here is the eternal Word of God, nailed to two wooden beams.

Here is God’s new policy of punishment: using the most vulgar form torture available and turning it not to our own destruction but to our salvation.  Here Jesus suffers and dies for us.

+ + +

So impressed are we with ourselves in America, because we can buy whatever we like and pay for it with credit, that we have pretended that a liberal democracy that imprisons 1% of its population and more than 10% of its young black men – at the expense of educating the rest of its children - has something to teach the rest of the world.  I’d call that ironic at best.  We are clearly building in this country a hellish kingdom of punishment behind bars, where the smartest thing to do must be to get used to it, since chances are good that those who are banished there, even for a while, are likely to return.

But God’s kingdom is built with the wood of the Cross: with the atoning sacrifice of his Son.  God’s kingdom runs on an economy of forgiveness, mercy and reconciliation.  God’s kingdom is founded in hope not despair.  God’s kingdom doesn’t need bricks and mortar, let alone iron bars.  And the tangible feel of God’s kingdom is the surefire love that stoops to wash the feet of its friends.

Any nation that has committed itself to a punishment policy that gives us an ever-increasing supply of prison cells – and that has no trouble filling those cells - is desperately in need of word of God’s kingdom.

It turns out that God doesn’t have a policy of punishment at all.  His policy of love extends to providing the lamb for the sacrifice.  And while the cost to God must surely be great, this gift of salvation is given to us freely.

Just try to get into Graterford Maximum Security Prison – not an hour away from here – as a visitor from the outside.  It will take months of waiting, even with the Chaplain working on your behalf.  And should you fail to produce the proper identification, on arrival, or should forget to leave your cell phone in the car, or should you be carrying with you a book that seems suspicious, you will be stopped at the inner gate and told to go home.

They do not want you to see more than you have to.  And they do not want to risk that you will infringe on the punishment of surefire incapacitation that is meted out to the men – so many of them black – who are incarcerated there.  This is our country.

But try, if you will, going to the foot of Jesus’ cross.  Go there without my help, or anyone’s.  And you will find that although the way is not easy, there is no one to stop you, nothing to prevent you from standing at the foot of the cross, as we stand here today, marveling at the love of God, who put punishment aside, and instead sent his Son into the world to bear the sins that even the strongest prison cannot contain.

Bring to the foot of the cross not only those things that you fear you could be punished for, but all those things you and I have gotten away with and that live only in the secrets of our hearts.

Lay your sins at the foot of the cross, and I will lay mine there.  Let us go with fear and trembling: God knows what we deserve.

And see that he who hangs there, dies for us; his blood poured out that we might be saved.  And his greater love made plain as he lays down his life for you and for me, and for all the world.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
Palm Sunday, 2008
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

I trust none of you are such weather purists that you were deflated by that great, unseasonably warm weather we had on Monday and Tuesday. It fit with the week of Rose Sunday to relax from the discipline of bundling up against the cold and bracing ourselves against the icy sidewalks, in what the calendar told us was still Winter. We felt the Spring breathe back into our bones a little bit earlier this week, and I was totally living in Spring mode. So were the early buds that came out in our garden, and gardens across the city.

Jesus begins, and the early Church expands on the idea that those who die in the Lord are like seeds planted in the Earth – their resurrection is as certain as the coming of Spring. That would make Lazarus like one of those early buds, called forth by a couple warm days in the winter, as it were. He would be destined to die again, though nonetheless chosen in the depth of winter to bloom back to earth, as a sign of God’s power in the Messiah.

But this raises questions, right? Why just one early bud, shooting up before the rest of the dead? Elsewhere in the Scriptures, Jesus seems to call dead people to life – like the Centurion’s daughter. But that girl, Jesus says, was ‘only sleeping.’ The dead are raised after Jesus’ death in Matthew’s Gospel, in an almost ghostly way. But Lazarus is different – he was dead and Jesus chose to bring him back. How wonderful for his sisters, Mary & Martha, who were mourning him. How wonderful for his friends and the rest of his family. How wonderful that they were able not just to have one last conversation with him, but many more.

But why just one Lazarus? Why couldn’t Jesus Christ have done this for our dead friends, mothers, fathers, siblings, grandparents, and whomever we’ve grieved in our lives? Like Martha, we know that they will rise again in the resurrection at the last day, and that Jesus who dwells among us is the resurrection. But still – why just one Lazarus?

At least 300,000 have died in Darfur. A hundred thirty five thousand people have died in Iraq since we initiated the current war. Since the outbreak of civil war in the Congo ten years ago, 2.5 million people have died. In our own city, gun violence has taken young lives at an alarming rate. And in the midst of all this anguish, still, we know, with Martha that the dead will rise again on the last day, and Jesus who dwells among us is the resurrection. But for a family who’s just lost their only daughter to a stray bullet on the streets of Baghdad or our own streets, where is the opportunity that Lazarus had, to rise and be greeted once more on this Earth by his loved ones?

The families and classmates of those killed in campus shootings in Louisana and Illinois last month, and Virginia Tech last year - those thousands of mourners would be consoled by Martha’s faith that the dead will rise again on the last day. But they might also wonder why their dead sons and daughters, classmates, sisters and brothers can’t rise a little early, like Martha’s brother.

It’s confusing. But what’s clear is that God cares for every one of us, and Jesus mourns every death – it’s impossible to read the parables of the lost sheep, and the lost coin, and not understand that. So I think what’s really confusing about this question is what theologians call the scandal of particularity. Part of what it means for God to become human and dwell among us is that he lives in a certain place, at a certain time. This means that Jesus’ ministry (of healing and teaching) and resurrection were conducted also at a certain place, at a certain time – this inevitable ‘scandal’ of particular circumstances culminates perhaps with the fact that only certain people got to see him after he rose from the dead – as for the rest of us, he says, “blessed are those who have not seen, and still believe.”

But it would have been magnificent to see. It would have been amazing to hear him preach. It would have been consoling to be healed by his very hands. It would have been wonderful if he called our own loved ones forth from the grave. But what we’re desiring thereby is that Jesus would never have ascended to heaven at all, and would instead have remained on earth forever. And even then, we would find ourselves wanting more. We wouldn’t want him just to be in one place at once time. We would want him always, wherever someone dies, calling the dead forth. And at this point, we realize what we’re really desiring is more than even Jesus’ earthly ministry, as broad as it ever could have been: we’re desiring heaven, where pain and sorrow are no more.

Now we must look back to the Resurrection of Lazarus and remember that Jesus did this and all his signs to show that the heaven we desire really exists. And that, really, is the point. Jesus did these things to show that we become part of that eternal life now, through him, and that indeed, our bodies are like seeds which will all blossom in the eternal Spring, which will all be ‘called forth,’ like Lazarus.

Our Gospel reading ends with the statement: ‘Many… therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him.’ The amazing thing, I think, given our tendency to doubt, is that after those who saw Lazarus rise had themselves died, still their faith was passed on to another generation. In other words, it was amazing that there only needed to be one Lazarus, there only needed to be one earthly ministry for Jesus, there only needed to be one death on the cross and one resurrection of Christ for the mysterious and life-giving faith we now share to be passed down through history. God’s grace and truth are powerful conduits.

And that truth, the truth of which Lazarus’ resurrection is a sign, is that God has something greater in store for us than even Mary and Martha witnessed on the day Lazarus came back. God has prepared eternal life for us, and this eternal life begins now, it dwells within us. That means that resurrection can never be something only far off in the past or many years to come in the future. Paul writes: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you.” Despite the ‘scandal of particularity,’ still the one Spirit of Christ dwells in all of us. The power of resurrection is alive in all of our bodies, which are the Temples of the Holy Spirit. There has been a long winter – I know, in Philly, it’s really been mild; but since the Fall from grace, metaphorically there’s indeed been a long Winter, with only a couple early buds before Spring. Still, these ‘early buds’ witness the power of their creator. Albert Camus said, in an admittedly non-Christian, but completely applicable statement: “I realized that in the depth of Winter, there lay within me an invincible Summer.”

“I realized that in the depth of Winter, there lay within me an invincible Summer.” Now, in the depth of Lent, as we walk the way of the cross, there lies within us resurrection: strength beyond any human strength, which is good, because the journey is hard. I heard a country preacher on a radio station in southwestern Virginia say: “you know why Jesus said, “Lazarus, come forth?” (And in the background, on the radio, everyone hoots and hollers.) “Cause if he would have just said, ‘come forth!’, all the dead would have been raised.”

Now, uncontrollably vibrant inside us, breathes the invincible Spirit of God who sees the dry bones of all who have gone before and says to them and us, without qualification: come forth. Out of sin, come out. Out of the old way you used to live your life before you heard about this higher love: come out. Out of death: rise again to the faint resonance of bells from our true and native land, as you’ve come so many times to the communion rail, to the looming and unfathomable peace of the varied, deep and narrow way: come, come, come; but this time, stay.

Preached by Dcn. Paul Francke
9 March 2008
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia