Easter 2008 Meditation Vance L. Toivonen
We are living in a fear-based society, and no matter how much we try to guard against it, it gets to us sometimes. We live under the threat of terrorism, with news of an impending attack on the U.S. once again. We live with the wearisome stress and anxiety of a war that has just begun its sixth year. We live with a kind of financial chicken-little situation, not knowing if or when the sky will fall. And on top of all of this, I had to have a conversation with my brother last weekend, a conversation during which he informed me about Planet X, and the year 2012, the year all of the ancient calendars end. It seems that this planet X will be entering our solar system, something it does once every 4,000 years or so, and throwing everything out of whack, knocking the Earth off of it’s axis by a few degrees, and contributing to world-wide cataclysm. This was just another source of fear and uncertainty added to my life.
In the midst of all of this fear and uncertainty comes the audacity of Easter. If you go to our website, www.hopechurchdc.org, and click on the Saving Jesus link, and then click on the Video Overview link, one of the voices you will hear is that of Rev. James Forbes, Minister Emeritus of The Riverside Church. You will hear him telling his congregation that the Bible is nothing but a series of “fear not”(s). There are indeed over 120 “fear not”(s) in the Bible, one of which is in our Easter readings today. It is the last word, the last reading still to come in our worship order, but go ahead, you can take a peek.
We are about to hear of the encounter between a resurrected Jesus and the women who are now on their way to tell the disciples about the empty tomb. This Easter stuff is audacious, because what is about to happen in that reading is, I think, incredible. The first thing Jesus says to these women, after a brief “hello,” is “Do not be afraid.”
I will be the first to admit that I struggle with the idea of a bodily resurrection, which makes it no less possible, of course. Just because I cannot wrap my puny little brain around it doesn’t mean it cannot be so. But for me the greater message of Easter is those four words, “Do not be afraid.” The message of the resurrected and living Christ is “Do not live your life in fear.” When fear wells up inside of you remember that God is greater than the tragedies of life, God is greater than the principalities and powers, God is greater than George Bush and Osama Bin Laden, and that guy from Iran whose name I can’t pronounce. Anything in my life, anything in your life, anything in our lives that causes us to cower in fear is confronted by the living Christ, and addressed with those four words, “Do not be afraid.”
When I was a kid, I would actually imagine that Jesus was sitting at the table in a chair eating dinner with me. So, now that I am an adult and know so much more, why can’t the same imagination apply? Whether the bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is a myth, which I tend to believe, or an actual historical fact, well, it doesn’t really matter. The daily and constant presence of the living and resurrected Christ can still be just as real for us as it was for people in the first century, just as real for us as it was for those women wandering to and from the tomb, just as real as it was for the disciples when Jesus later appeared in their midst and said again, “Do not be afraid.”
When I sit in my office and reflect upon the natural tensions that occur in the ebb and flow of congregational life, I can imagine that Jesus is sitting in one of those gray-striped, off-white stuffed chairs saying to me, “Do not be afraid.” When I am driving in my car listening to public-radio-chatter about every manner of world-wide ill, I can imagine the living Christ sitting in the passenger seat saying, “Do not be afraid.” When I am present with you as your pastor in the tough days of grief, loss, and illness, I can imagine that the resurrected presence of a real, living Christ is right there with us, saying to us, “Do not be afraid.”
At the end of the day Easter is not about theology and doctrine. At the end of the day Easter is not about what actually happened back in the first century. At the end of this very day the power of Easter does not lie in our ability to intellectually wrap our heads around what it is all about. At the end of this very day, when we lay our heads on our pillows, the power of the resurrection is still about those four simple, but potent words. When our heads are spinning with every manner of fear and anxiety; when the barbarians are at our proverbial gates; when the darkness is darker than it has ever been for us before, we can still hear that voice; we can still sense that cosmic presence; we can still know deep within our souls that those four little words are absolutely true for us, and for our world.
Let me hear you say those words together…”Do not be afraid.” Let me hear you say them again…”Do not be afraid.” Let me hear you say those words with deep conviction…”Do not be afraid.” Now, go and tell your neighbor, tell everyone you meet, that the living and risen Christ is standing in our midst, and wants nothing more than for us to know deep within ourselves that we have nothing to be afraid of…ever again.