Sermon: Easter is Only The Beginning

Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Detroit

Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Unsplash

by The Rev. Vicki Hesse, Assisting

Easter Morning (Year B) April 1, 2018

Happy Easter! Jesus has been raised!

Our Gospel text for today,

the last critical words of the Gospel of Mark,

seem a little awkward, unsatisfying

and perhaps distressingly incomplete. 

What was the author thinking? 

As you may know,

there are other scriptures that give

more complete and “resolved” finishes. 

Yet in this story, we get that the women disciples –

after hearing the good news of Jesus death and resurrection, &

after being commissioned to go and tell –

they fail, leaving in fear and saying nothing to anyone. 

So it’s pretty much a lousy ending to the story.

And how many of us

feel like we are living in an unfinished story ourselves –

with questions about how our lives make a difference, anyway?  With pain and sorry, misery and loss, how will this end?

We have friends that are ill or dying, relationships are strained.

Our lives also seem to be incomplete. 

And the world seems to be in such a state.

The gun violence seems nowhere near the end of the story. 

The political wrangling never seems resolved and

government budgets seems always to take

from the poor and benefit those who already have so much.

So it’s pretty much a lousy ending our story.

But wait, what if the author of Mark actually knew

what he was doing?

What if the author of Mark

crafted an incomplete ending by design? 

Maybe the author of this Gospel knew

that no story about death and resurrection

could possibly have a neat and tidy ending. 

Maybe the author of this Gospel knew

that the gospel needs to have an open ending

in order to invite us to jump in

and take our part in continuing the story.

See, the story of what God is doing

in and through Jesus

isn’t over at the empty tomb. 

It’s only getting started!

Resurrection is not the end – it’s the invitation. 

Resurrection is not the end – it’s the invitation. 

And Jesus’ triumph over death, sin and hate

is not only what Mark’s gospel is about –

it’s about setting us up to live resurrection lives.

It’s about our continuing the story

of God’s redemption in the world.

It’s about going to school, to night clubs, to public events,

and not living in fear.

It’s about speaking truth to power and doing it with love

It’s about showing up in our most vulnerable selves

to our whole lives.

It’s about inviting God’s fresh ideas to say YES.

It’s about planting seeds of hope

in soul soil that has been packed down and dried up,

through our presence and our faith in each other.

And it’s about loving our neighbor as ourselves-

because God first loved us.

That’s Easter., as hinted at by the first line of this gospel:

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

That’s just as abrupt and awkward as the ending, really,

but like the hymns in our hymnal,

the first line is the clue that something more is to come!

For the Gospel is God’s love

as only the beginning and what God is still doing

through Jesus Christ. 

It’s only the beginning,

and we have a part to play in co-creating a new kind of world.  It’s only the beginning

and God is not done yet.

It’s on the beginning and this Easter,

God is calling us to get out of our seats and into the game,

because God promises that

all will in time come to a good end,

even when we can’t see that.

It’s only the beginning. 

And may we live into that Paschal mystery

That we are raised with Christ, every day, to newness of life.

Happy Easter! The Lord is Risen indeed!