Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

One of my favorite children’s books is “Beyond the Pond,” by Joseph Kuefler. It tells the story of a young boy who is facing the universal childhood problem of being bored. He has a very ordinary house filled with too little fun, so he decides to investigate the small pond in his backyard. He tries to find the bottom with a fishing line, and then a long stick, but no luck. He concludes it must be a bottomless pond, so he straps on his diving gear, and jumps in for a look. He and his dog proceed to have an adventure where they swim deeper and deeper, past larger and larger fish, until finally they come out on the other side of the pond, into a strange and exciting new world. They explore the world for a while, and then swim back through the pond to their backyard. When they get back, suddenly the boy thinks his house doesn’t look quite so ordinary, and he is content with the knowledge that anytime he is bored, he can simply swim back beyond the pond. It’s fundamentally the story of how finding new life isn’t about escaping to some other place, but about learning to see a new story in the place where you started.

It’s a good way to think about Easter. At least in Mark’s version, seeing the risen Jesus means going back to where you started, and telling a new story. In case you missed it, the ending to Mark’s gospel is a total downer. “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them. And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” That’s it. Roll the credits, the movie’s over. That’s the original end of Mark’s gospel. It’s Easter morning and Jesus doesn’t even make an appearance!

The reason is explained by the angelic figure in the tomb, who says, “ Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. . .But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”

If you want to see the risen Jesus, you have to go to Galilee.

Galilee, of course, is where it all started. Galilee, a forgotten backwater whose people were simply a commodity to be exploited by the empire, a place intentionally redlined into poverty and desperation is where Jesus sprinted onto the scene in a blaze of healing and liberating love. Galilee is the place that perpetually knows darkness and death, so it’s the place where the promise of resurrection and new life will really mean something. If you want to see the risen Jesus, you have to go back to where it started, and see that desolate place now blazing with the light of love and life. The new story is the very place that seemed most desolate is now the source of the healing balm of love.

So it is for us. If we want to see the risen Jesus, then we have to go to Galilee. Easter isn’t about escaping into some pleasant future reality, it’s about God’s power to transform the broken landscape of the world right now. The risen Jesus isn’t going to hang around an empty tomb, looking holy and mysterious and waiting for us to escape this mean old world. He has business out among the forgotten, suffering, cast aside people and places in the world. So if we want to see him, we have to go to Galilee.

We have to go to Galilee, where people stand weeping over the bodies of those killed by the racism woven deep into the foundations of our society. We have to go to Galilee, where the very immigrant who is exploited for the labor of their body is ridiculed and demonized. We have to go to Galilee, where the elderly woman lies dying, forgotten and alone. We have to go to Galilee, where still more families have loved ones ripped from them by daily mass shootings. We have to go to Galilee, the places in our own bodies and hearts that are weighed down with grief and weariness from the mountains of loss we have all suffered in a year of pandemic.

It’s easy to dismiss the two Marys and Salome for leaving the tomb in fear and amazement, as if they were doing something wrong. But if Easter doesn’t terrify you a little, then you don’t really get it. That the tomb is empty, that Jesus quickly gets back to work in Galilee, means not even the worst human beings can do to each other, not even the full force of the most powerful empire on the planet, can slow down God’s project of healing, liberating, and loving in the Galilees of our world. Like Ernest’s boring house, that means the world is not what we thought it was. It means the Galilees we travel through are not pain to be endured until we can get to a better place, but rather ground that is fertile for new life to emerge, for love to be felt and known.

And, here is the most mind blowing part. The young man says, “Go, tell his disciples, and Peter.” And Peter. He’s the one that really messed up. He denied and bailed on Jesus when things got hard. He has to live with the shame and regret of having failed at the most critical moment. But even Peter is invited into the new world beyond the pond; the new, dazzling life that is about to be unleashed in Galilee. The young man in the tomb calls out by name the one person who was sure to think he didn’t belong.

That’s true for us, too. Whoever you are, whatever you have done, whatever has been done to you, whatever you have suffered, however much you doubt. whatever regret and shame you carry with you, you belong. You are in. You are on the team. You have a critical role to play in the amazing new life coming to a Galilee near you.

I love the end of Mark’s gospel, because Easter is not a pleasant ending slapped onto the end of an otherwise sad story. Easter is the open promise that the power of God’s love can utterly reshape the landscape of our Galilee, and an invitation to each and every one of us to play a leading role. Nothing you’ve done. Nothing that has happened. Nothing you fear can stop God’s embrace from keeping you in the game.

So when you walk out those doors. When you shut down that computer. Do not stand weeping at the tomb, but go, tell his disciples and Peter, go tell your friends and family, go tell the whole world that there is nothing so far gone it cannot be saved. There is no one so lost they cannot be found. There is nothing so dead that it cannot be brought to glorious new life. Go, tell his disciples and Peter, that he is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see him. Just as he told you. Alleluia. Amen.

The Right Reverend Craig Loya
Bishop X
Episcopal Church in MN