Scripture: Mark 16:1-8; 1 Corinthians 15:32; Matthew 5:3-5; John 20:11-18 Series: Easter
An Easter sermon on Mark 16:1-8 framed by Paul Simon’s ‘50 Ways to Leave Your Lover,’ arguing that we ‘leave our lover’—the God who created and died for us—through twelve ways of avoiding resurrection: six ways of saying ‘no’ (myth, swoon theory, bias, empiricism, anti-supernaturalism, mere metaphor) and six ways of saying ‘yes’ while still dodging its claim. Drawing on Ratzinger, McCabe, Updike, and Chrysostom, Pruitt insists the resurrection is not metaphor but the bodily action of God, the scandal of particularity that changes everything, calling hearers to confront the risen Christ and start on the road of discipleship into the kingdom of the Beatitudes.
Illustrations: fifty-ways-to-leave-your-lover, resurrection-as-myth-like-hercules, burgess-kingdom-of-the-wicked-swoon, hume-no-supernatural, ratzinger-faith-stands-or-falls, mccabe-easter-meaning-of-cross, updike-seven-stanzas-at-easter, chrysostom-christ-is-risen, instagram-worthy-meals
Easter Sunday
12 ways to avoid resurrection
”When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 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.” 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.” Mark 16:1-8 NRSV
Every year, I’m getting older. But I like to stay relevant with my cultural allusions. So I’ve got a great one today. It comes from the geologically very recent year of 1975.
The problem is all inside your head She said to me The answer is easy if you Take it logically I’d like to help you in your struggle To be free There must be fifty ways To leave your lover… You Just slip out the back, Jack Make a new plan, Stan You don’t need to be coy, Roy Just get yourself free
That’s right, Paul Simon’s, 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, a song Mr. Simon never expected to be preached on Easter Sunday. The song is cheeky but the point should be serious today. This is what we do when we avoid Resurrection. We leave our lover. Not our lover as a fling with whom we’ve grown tired, but the lover who seeks us when we are lost, who comforts us when we are broken, who created us for life and love. We leave the one who loves us and gave everything for us when we avoid resurrection.
Today, I want us to think about 12 ways of leaving our lover. 12 ways of avoiding resurrection. These ways aren’t exhaustive but specific for today.
Did Jesus really rise from the dead? Here are six ways of answering no.
- No, just a myth like Hercules (Joseph Campbell and Hans Urs von Balthasar)
- No, because he didn’t really die (Anthony Burgess Novel Kingdom of the wicked)
- No, the only evidence is from Christians and they are biased, confirmation bias (attestations)
- No, can’t be empirically proven (empiricism history)
- No, nothing supernatural exists so it couldn’t have happened (David Hume)
- No, not literally, but he did metaphorically rise in the hearts of believers (a resurrection in our hearts cannot defeat death or wipe the tears from our eyes)
Now, there six ways to answer yes to the question of resurrection and yet to still avoid it.
- Yes, but I learned about it as a kid and never really thought about it. it happened a long time ago so it can’t effect me now
- Yes, but the world is still a nasty place so it must not have mattered
- Yes, but it only matters on Easter
- Yes, but Jesus isn’t the only way to get to God so resurrection is not that big of a deal
- Yes, but just to save me and people like me, not for all people. We change.
- Yes, but Jesus’ resurrection doesn’t effect my pain
These are ways of avoiding resurrection. These are ways of leaving our lover.
Resurrection is not just a metaphor or myth but the action of the God of all Creation to reveal that life conquers death. To claim that love conquers evil and that everything is different now.
The Christian faith stands or falls with the truth…that Christ is risen from the dead. If this were taken away, it would still be possible to piece together from the Christian tradition a series of interesting ideas about God and men…but the Christian faith itself would be dead. Jesus would be a failed religious leader who…remains great and can cause us to reflect. But he would then remain purely human, and his authority would extend only so far as his message is of interest to us…Only if Jesus is risen has anything really new occurred that changes the world and the situation of mankind. (241-42)
In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says, if there is no resurrection of the dead, let us eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. But if there was, everything changes. The resurrection is either a nice idea to share between instagram worthy meals on a Sunday, or all of cosmic reality being overturned.
The Disciples had moved on
On that first Sunday, the disciples thought it was over. They had moved on with their lives, but not everyone did.
Mary Magdeline came to the tomb early on the first day. She was expecting nothing more than to honor the man who had shown her mercy. She had not forgotten what was lost on Good Friday. She cried and continued to cry once she encountered the risen Christ. He had died on the cross and then he was there before her.
“Easter is not a cancellation of the cross. It does not…celebrate anything different from the cross. It is the meaning of the cross…Because this man Jesus carried his obedience and love to the point of accepting destruction (not just the torture of the cross, but death, and ending, a total failure), because of this, he has been raised up beyond death to love which is the life of God. The resurrection of Jesus was the creation of the new bodily world, the new way of being human, the new way of being bodily. The risen Christ did not enter paradise. He is paradise…it is because we belong to this bodily world of the risen Christ] that we conquer death, that we are able to live not for ourselves but by love, the love that Christ brings to us from God.”1
Easter is the miracle that in the absolute depths of pain, we are not lost. In the depths of grief, we are not forgotten. In the depths of fear, we are not alone. God has done all so that we can have abundant life. God has given all for you, for us. God has given a way to follow, a means to see God and live joyfully in this broken world despite its brokenness. We do this through prayer and praise, service and study. God offers us new life together, not as metaphor or parable or idea. Christianity is not just a universal morality. Jesus was a particular man at a particular time. It can seem scandalous. It is easier to speak of generalities than particularities.
Easter is not a salve on your conscience. Easter is about a world made new. Resurrection is not about a philosophy or worldview but the particular action of God to become flesh, a particular kind of flesh, Jewish flesh, in a particular time and place. To serve humbly, to love, and to be killed for it. Then to rise again, defeating sin and death and claiming all for love.
We need not avoid the scandal of particularity. Jesus didn’t rise spiritually but bodily, totally. We need not avoid scandal of resurrection, of the resurrected flesh of Jesus Christ.
As John Updike writes,
Make no mistake: if he rose at all It was as His body; If the cell’s dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit, The amino acids rekindle, The Church will fall…
Let us not mock God with metaphor, Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence, Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded Credulity of earlier ages: Let us walk through the door.
In order to not avoid resurrection we must confront it, we must truly encounter the risen Christ. We cannot look away. We cannot dismiss it as something old or irrelevant to our lives. If it is true, if Jesus rose from the dead, everything is different. The resurrection is the scandal that hope is not just a nice idea but a person, that love is not a sweet thought but a person willing to die for us, to take from us our sin and self-destruction, and to give us friendship and love and joy and peace.
We avoid resurrection when we love ourselves and nothing more. When we love those who love us back and no one else. We avoid resurrection when we avoid the cross. We avoid resurrection when faith is about maintaining the old ways. Resurrection brings about something new.
This new life is offered for you this day. The angels said to the women, why do you look for the living among the dead? Life is offered. Grace is offered. You don’t have to look for the living among the dead anymore. Christ meets you here. You don’t have to be your old self. You can start on the road to life we call discipleship.
To be a disciple is to be confronted by the reality of the cross, to be confronted by the reality of resurrection and to realize that everything has changed. We must change also. We must be a people who live into this new kingdom where the poor are blessed where those who mourn are comforted, where the lost are found, where no matter my sin or past, there is room, there is comfort, there is love. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek. This is the kingdom of heaven here for us, offered for us because of resurrection. Death is not the end point so life can be more than just avoiding death. Life can be about sacrifice and gift because of resurrection.
Or as John Chrysostom said 1600 years ago,
Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated! Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down! Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice! Christ is Risen, and life is liberated! Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead; Let us pray, Heavenly Father, may we feel the warm embrace of your love on this sacred day. May the glory of Jesus’s resurrection remind us that with You, nothing is impossible or without hope. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Footnotes
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Herbert McCabe, 90-91. ↩