Dead But Not Lost

• Preacher: The Rev. Andrew Van Kirk

• Passage: John 20:1-18

Perhaps as early as the first century, Christians in ancient Mesopotamia, what today we would call the Middle East, used to dye eggs as a symbol of our Christian hope. The tradition back then, as it still is today in churches of the Eastern tradition, was to dye the eggs scarlet red.

The symbolism of the egg is obvious enough. Out of the egg comes new life.

The red symbolizes the blood of Christ. New life bursts forth through the blood of Christ.

It is through Christ's sacrificial death that new resurrection life enters the world. Which is why we are here today.

We do eggs a little differently. And while the sugar does give our children a certain sort of new life, we probably have not done the spiritual symbolism any favors by shoving bite-sized Snickers into pastel plastic eggs and handing their delivery off to an egg-laying bunny with a terrible habit of leaving them to bake in the sun. It's possible, just maybe, that somewhere along the way, we've lost the religious thread.

But if we were to trace the ancient roots of the thing far back, we would eventually find an early Christian – facing a world of peril and plagues and swords and slavery – greeting a new Easter morning with a red egg in her hand, grasping the weight of the truth that life always bursts forth out of darkness: the chick from the egg; the seed from the ground; dawn from the night; Jesus from the tomb. Maybe us out from the pandemic darkness.

The scarlet egg celebrates the promise of life, but it doesn't hide the death. It puts it right there on the outside.. I'm drawn to that image because this doesn't really seem the Easter to say with haughty spiritual bravado, "Death! Ha! I laugh in the face of death!"

I affirm theologically Paul's quotation of Hosea in 1 Corinthians: "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" We're going to sing that line at the Offertory, actually.

But y'all. This last year. We've put a lot of money and resources – and fear – into not dying. And right now you are all wearing masks [and we're sitting outside].

We are a people gathering to celebrate the victory of life over death, but we are acting quite concerned about dying.

Are we like a weatherman trying to assure his audience of a sunny day while wearing a rain coat?

No. It's not that. The symbols of the pandemic are not symbols of our unbelief. Jesus himself, in the garden the night before his crucifixion, pleaded with God to not die. Not dying is it's own good.

And so it would be good for us all to come out of the COVID pandemic as not dead; but it would be ever better to come out of it more alive. And that is where our Easter message meets our masks.

Let's look at our gospel reading. Mary Magdalene, the first of Jesus' followers to the tomb, finds it empty. She tells Peter and the disciples, and Peter and another disciple run to the tomb where they find it empty. Which is exactly what Mary said. And they go home. But Mary stays (we're in verse 11) and cries. And she looks in the tomb again.

Have you ever lost a credit card? You know how you look in your wallet and realize it's not there. And the next thing you do is look in your wallet again. And then maybe you check you pockets or the counter, but then you look in your wallet again. You know it's not there. But then you look one more time to be sure.

Mary is like that; except that she's lost Jesus. And instead of her wallet, she keeps looking in the tomb. She knows he's not there, but she keeps looking anyway. And she looks again…

…lo and behold, there are two angels in there! This is very surprising. They are sitting where Jesus is supposed to be. And they ask her why she is crying. And she says, basically, "Because I've lost Jesus." They've taken him and I don't know where they put him. I've lost my Lord, she says.

We use the English very 'lost' to talk about someone's death. We say, "He lost his father this last year." We pray for those who have "lost loved ones."

I was at a luncheon this last week (I know – weird, right? I hadn't been to one of those things since last February). Anywhoo, we were doing an icebreaker activity, and asking a stranger the question, "If you could spend one hour with anyone, living or dead, who would it be?"

And this wonderful African-American woman named Sherrain told me about her grandfather, whom she "lost" when she was a freshman in college. And she told me about the stories he used to tell, and how she didn't pay attention like she wishes she had, and how much she'd like to sit in her grandparents' kitchen again and just really listen to him. And Sherrain's story touched me particularly, I suppose, because my own grandfather is in very poor health. As some of you know, several weeks ago I flew on a series of mostly empty planes to see him, just to be sure I got to be with him again before I lost the chance. Before I lose him.

Because the dead are lost to the living. We cannot be with them any longer. We cannot talk to them; hear their stories; learn from them. They cannot squeeze our hand; or smile back at us.

Jesus, who had been crucified, had been lost to the disciples. Mary's weeping over the lost body was the physical analogue to the spiritual reality that left all the disciples in tears: They had lost Jesus.

Of course the dead are not lost to eternity. They are not lost to God. But, at the risk of blowing your mind, that's not exactly what Easter is about. Basically everyone in the gospel story already believed in the resurrection of the dead – well, except the Sadducees, but that's why they were sad, you see – but that the dead would rise again is not actually the point of contention at Easter.

The thing about Easter isn't that Jesus was resurrected to the afterlife – but that he was resurrected back into this world. That the power of life had broken into our world full of death.

After Mary tells the angels she has lost Jesus, she turns around and finds Jesus. At first she doesn't know it's him. This is, after all, a highly unexpected outcome. But there he is. On Easter morning, the Jesus she had lost is found. He's alive. He's present. He's real.

Jesus had died; but he wasn't lost. All those things that Jesus had been to the disciples – their light, their strength, their song, their cornerstone; their solid ground; – Jesus can still be those things to them, not in their memories or photo albums, but in the present realities. And so he can still be those things to you and to me.

Easter, you see, is not just about our eternal futures. It is very much a proclamation about our earthly presents. Easter says that even after Good Friday, Jesus is still Emmanuel. God is still with us. Alive, despite his death on the cross. We haven't lost Jesus.

The faith of the Church is not that there was once a man named Jesus who had much good advice for living and taught us a lot about God. It's that there is a man named Jesus, who is also God, and who is alive, and whose presence and power and love can be a part of your life today, right now.

Now the mode of that presence and power is new after Easter. The embodied appearances of the resurrected Jesus, like the one to Mary on Easter morning, are only temporary. They are among the best attested historical events we have in the ancient world, but they didn't last long They couldn't. Jesus was facing a significant problem as church growth ramped up. Can you imagine how long the line would be to talk to Jesus if he were still down here wearing his beard and first-century flip flops. I bet it would be even longer than the Chick-fil-a drive thru line.

You know that old song, "And he walks with me and he talks..." Yeah. Not a scalable solution.

So after the Ascension, his presence is veiled and mediated by the Holy Spirit. Jesus meets us in the bread and the wine; the poor and the needy we serve; in wave of ecstasy that crashes over you in prayer or singing; in the awe and transcendence of the starry sky; in scripture; and in a million other ways the Holy Spirit brings us to the presence of the living Lord. So Jesus is found differently in our lives today, but he no less alive and and makes his power available to you. Be ready to receive him.

No matter what you're going through, that power at work in him, that overcame death, even death on a cross, is available to you.

That's why this egg with the scarlet shell remains such a potent symbol. If the life of Jesus can overcome torture and death on a cross, there's nothing in your life it can't overcome. The heartbreak of raising teenagers; the loss of a parent; the bleakness of worldly success; the despair of failure; the diagnosis from the doctor; the fear of the virus; the loneliness of our pandemic life. If Jesus can punch through the tomb; he can punch through whatever darkness envelops you too.

"I will be with you always," Jesus tells his disciples after Easter. That means eternally, yes. But also right now. Because Jesus isn't lost. He's alive. He's alive. Amen.