The Death of John the Baptist: Why all the detail, Mark?

Written for Trinity Lutheran Church, Valparaiso, IN | 7th Sunday after Pentecost | July 11, 2021

Readings: Amos 7:7-15; Mark 6:14-29

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Mark is the shortest Gospel. It doesn’t tell us anything about how Jesus was born. It doesn’t tell us any resurrection stories. Most of Jesus’ teachings and miracles are quick and to-the-point.

And yet in this story, the execution of John the Baptist — Mark gives us the details. The hot gossip about Herod marrying his brother’s ex-wife. A snapshot of Herod’s birthday party. A young princess dancing. A private meeting between mother and daughter. R-rated details about what happens to John’s head. Mark even gives us insight into what Herod is thinking and feeling — which is super rare in ancient writings in general and in Mark’s Gospel in particular.

This story would not make our Top 10 lists of Most Important Jesus Stories. We’d be more likely to include some of the parts that Mark left out: Christmas, Easter, the Beatitudes, the Prodigal Son.

So why does Mark give the execution of John the Baptist so much time? Why did Mark think this story was so important?

Like all of the gospels, Mark wants to help us know who Jesus is. And this story helps us know who Jesus is by showing us who Jesus is not — like in school, when we made compare-and-contrast charts. Mark wants us to see who Herod is and how he rules. Mark wants us to have gut-level reactions to Herod. Mark wants us to feel the kind of king that Herod is — like when we watch Batman, hear the Joker’s laugh, and get creeped out; or when we watch Frozen and see Hans reveal just how selfish and uncaring he really is, and it makes our stomachs turn. Mark wants us to have that kind of reaction to Herod, so that then we can decide whether we’d rather follow a king like him or a king like Jesus.

So let’s see what this story tells us about Herod.

It’s Herod’s birthday. And since he’s the ruler of a big chunk of Israel, he throws a big party and invites all the rich and powerful people of the region. The governors. The generals. The people with friends in high places. The people with money.

And they’re eating and drinking and having a good time, when Herod’s young daughter enters. We’re talking young — she could have been like, 12 years old.¹ She starts to dance, and all eyes are on her. What do you imagine at this point? Is she doing a cute little tap-dance routine for the crowd, or is she swaying her hips and snaking her arms through the air?

The only thing Mark tells us about the dance is that it got the crowd so excited that Herod promises, in front of all these powerful people: “Ask for whatever you wish, and I will give [it to you]…even half of my kingdom.”

And the girl seems to understand that this is a big opportunity. So she huddles in a corner with her mother and asks for directions: “What should I ask for?”

And Herodias the queen seizes this chance to get exactly what she wants: her enemy, John the Baptist, dead.

So the girl rushes back to Herod, and — in front of all these powerful guests — cashes in on Herod’s offer. “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.”

And Herod is caught. According to Mark, Herod doesn’t want to kill John the Baptist. He recognizes that so many of his people revere John as a righteous and holy man. And Herod is intrigued himself — maybe John is a prophet sent by God. Seems like a bad move, both politically and spiritually, to have him killed.

And yet: Herod had made an oath. Publicly. In front of the most powerful people, the ones he had to constantly work with to get anything done in his kingdom, the ones whose support he needed to keep hold of power. What would they think of him if he now said, “Oh, haha, I was just kidding! I thought you’d ask for a new dress or something.”

Herod feels he has no choice. And so he sends a guard down to do the deed.

And that’s how a birthday party, a dance, and a frivolous oath led to the death of a man of God and a public leader.

Head of Baptist , mural by Father George Saget (1963) at the Abbaye de Keur Moussa in Senegal. Photograph by Robert Harding. Via Vanderbilt Divinity Library’s Art in the Christian Tradition.

I probably say this about the Bible too often, but: doesn’t that sound like something out of Game of Thrones?

What do you think about Herod after hearing that story again? What do you think about the way he uses his power? About how he let himself be manipulated? About how he decided to execute John the Baptist? Is he the kind of leader you would vote for?

What’s most shocking to me is the way he and the people around him treat human life.

There are some classic questions teachers like to ask in ethics or philosophy classes to try and explore questions of the value of human life. Questions like: if you’re on a boat, and it’s sinking, and you have the chance to save either your child or two strangers — who do you save? Or there’s the trolley problem, which you may have seen on The Good Place: you see a trolley heading down the track, where it’s about to run over five people. You can pull a lever and make the trolley switch tracks — but on that track, it will kill one person. What do you do?

I love the philosopher Immanuel Kant’s response to these questions: that there is no right answer. Because we might be tempted to use something like math to decide: it’s better that only one person would die, instead of five. But Kant argued: every single human life is infinitely valuable. It’s irreplaceable. It’s worth can’t be measured. If you put five human lives on one side of a scale and one human life on the other, the scale could only respond: “DOES NOT COMPUTE.”²

It reminds me of that strange parable Jesus told of a shepherd leaving 99 sheep behind to go search for the one (Matt. 18:10-14).

But Herod and Herodia and their guests — they come at human life from the opposite direction. They’re willing to extinguish human life just to save face. Just to hold on to a little power.³

But maybe that’s not very shocking. Isn’t this how we expect kings to act? Not just kings from those brutal ancient times — but the powerful people of today, too. We expect politicians will use policies that can save or ruin lives like bargaining chips. We expect that warfare will lead to civilian casualties. We expect the big-time CEOs to put profits over people. We’ve even learned to expect arguments about protecting vulnerable people during a pandemic. We are not surprised when we see exactly what the prophet Amos saw: the powerful “[selling] the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals — they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way” (Amos 2:6-7).

We expect it…but do we actually want it to be this way?

More importantly: does God want it to be this way?

Those are the kinds of questions that Mark leaves hanging in the air when he tells us this detailed story of Herod’s birthday party and the execution of John the Baptist.

And the answers Mark hopes we will find are waiting for us in the very next story: another gathering, another banquet. But this time Jesus is the host; Jesus is the one facing a public dilemma; we see how Jesus handles responsibility for human life. It’s the famous story of the feeding of the 5,000 with just five loaves of bread and two fish (Mark 6:30-46).

I hope you’ll be here or tune in next week to work through that much happier story together. But if you can’t, I encourage you to read that story yourself. Better yet, read it with someone else. Maybe especially with a kid or with a friend who’s not a “church person” — someone who will hear the story with fresh eyes. And ask as you read: What’s most important to Jesus? How does he lead?

The answers to those questions will give us a glimpse into who God is, how God created the world to be, and how God calls us to act as people of God.

Closing Prayer: God our provider, help us. It is hard to believe there is enough to share. We question your ways when they differ from the ways of the world in which we live. We turn to our own understanding rather than trusting you. Where else can we turn? Share with us the words of eternal life and feed us for life in the world. Amen.⁴

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1 The Greek word used to describe the dancer in Mk 6:22 is korasion— translated in the NRSV as “girl.” It may be the diminutive form of the word kore (“girl”/”maiden”), making korasion closer to “little girl.” Jesus uses this word in Mark 5:41 to talk to the 12-year-old daughter of Jairus: “Little girl, get up!”

2 Immanuel Kant: “But man as a person…is exalted above all price. For…he is not to be valued merely as a means to the ends of other people, or even to his own ends, but is to be prized as an end in himself” (The Metaphysics of Morals). For more on this, see Matt McManus, “What is Human Dignity? Kant Sheds Light,” Merion West, 14 July 2018. Online: https://merionwest.com/2018/07/14/what-is-human-dignity-kant-sheds-light/ Accessed 12 July 2021.

3 These thoughts are inspired by Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus, (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2003), p. 215-216. “The dilemma created by [Herod’s] oath is a parody on the shameless methods of decision-making among the elite, a world in which human life is bartered to save royal face.”

4 Prayer from Sundays and Seasons, (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress), from the liturgical texts for July 18, 2021. Accessed online.

What Can We Do Right Now? (Put life first.)

Written for St. Andrew Lutheran Church, Franklin, TN + Holy Trinity Sunday + June 7, 2020

Reading: Genesis 1:1-2:4a

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You can watch this sermon online here.

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Genesis does not tell us why God created the world. It just jumps in to the story of how: “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth…”

So when I was 11 or 12 and in Confirmation class, I asked my teacher why. Why did God decide to create Creation? (Of course I was that kid in Confirmation class.) And – considering what a giant and probably unknowable question that is – my teacher had a surprisingly quick answer. She said: “God created the world because God was so full of love, that God just had to create a world to share it with.”

And even though Genesis doesn’t say that, and even though we can’t presume to know the mind of God – I think my teacher was probably right.

I mean, just think about how often our scriptures tell us that God loves the life God created. In the Creation story, we hear God say over and over that what God created was good. And we hear that God created us in God’s image. The Psalms sing the refrain of God’s steadfast love for us.

The prophet Zepheniah told the people: “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; [God] will rejoice you with gladness; [God] will quiet you by [God’s] love” (Zeph. 3:17).

And when we get to the Gospels, we hear that “God so loved the world, that [God] gave [God’s] only Son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

And all that’s just a tiny sampling of the huge number of times the Bible tells us of God’s unending love for us and the world God created.

Picking up on this aspect of who God is and what God cares about, ancient Jewish teachers came up with this really powerful rule. For those of you who love hearing Hebrew: it is called pikuach nefesh. For those of you who love knowing what words mean: pikuach nefesh literally means “preserving life.” The phrase represents the rule that human life comes first. 99.9% of laws – of God’s own laws – can be broken in order to preserve a life. Actually, the rule is even stronger than that: “One is not merely permitted – one is required to disregard a law that conflicts with life or health.”¹

This rule was already a thing in Jesus’s time. In fact, we know that Jesus interpreted this rule liberally. Remember that time Jesus healed a woman on the Sabbath? She had been bent over, unable to stand up straight, for eighteen years. And when Jesus met her, he healed her on the spot – even though it was the Sabbath, the day when we’re not supposed to do any work. And this religious leader who saw that happen, he accused Jesus – and the woman – of breaking God’s law.

Now there’s a good chance that the religious leader would have been okay with Jesus healing someone who was literally about do die on the Sabbath, because of the pikuach nefesh teaching. But where was the line? When could one start breaking the Sabbath law in order to help someone? This woman had been bent over for 18 years – some teachers may have said: What’s one more day? Better to keep the Sabbath commandment.²

But Jesus disagreed. He said it didn’t have to be an emergency situation – improving human life was the whole point of the Sabbath commandment (Luke 13:10-17).

Jesus lived and taught that “God’s commandments are not about restrictions on life…[they] are supposed to enable us to live in the image of God to the fullest extent possible.”³ He lived this generously, abundantly, not only by healing on the Sabbath, but also by choosing forgiveness over condemnation, peace over violence, by telling us to love our enemies – and, ultimately, by dying and rising for the life of the world. In his living and even in his dying, Jesus put life first.

Are you with me so far? God wants us to put saving human life first. Human life over traditions and institutions. Human life over comfort. Human life over pride. Human life over property. Human life even over God’s commandments.

So as followers of Jesus, called and sent to share God’s amazing love with the world – how are we doing? Are we putting life first?

The events of the last couple of weeks have forced us to meet the unblinking stare of that question.

Photo by Amy Davis: the Baltimore Sun, 2014.

The protests of the weeks have caught our attention in a way that protests haven’t in past years – and, unfortunately, it’s because of all the violence we’re seeing. Looting, burning, vandalism, police using tear gas or even more violent methods – it catches our attention, it breaks our hearts, it makes us angry.

But because they catch our attention – they are doing something in us. God is using all that happening to stir us up. All that’s going on – good and bad, righteous and random and malevolent – it’s all forcing us to keep remembering what set it all off in the first place: the killing of George Floyd. Or at least they should be, because life comes first.

All of what’s going on should make us remember not only George Floyd, but also Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man who was chased down and shot while jogging in his Georgia neighborhood in February. And also Tamir Rice, a twelve-year-old who was shot within two seconds of a police cruiser pulling up to inspect him. And also Philando Castile, a man my age who was shot seven times during a traffic stop. And also DeAunta Terrel Farrow, a twelve-year-old boy who was out for a walk when he was shot.

And also all the hundreds of unarmed people of color who have been killed, but whose names do not make national headlines. All the families who grieve that they were taken from them.

What’s going on right now should make us remember not only all these deaths – but also the smaller moments of violence and verbal abuse and suspicion that people of color face every single day. A friend of mine shared on Facebook this week that when she was fourteen, a police officer asked to see her train ticket and was soon calling her words I’m not allowed to say in the pulpit. She said that she almost forgets about this incident, because she has experienced so many more moments just like it.

And when we listen to people of color tell their stories, we’ll hear that she is not alone. For people of color, being suspected and intimidated is an almost daily occurrence. Doesn’t matter if they’re out of a job, a college student, a doctor, or a pastor; doesn’t matter if they’re living in the projects or in a safe suburban neighborhood. They treated like their lives are a threat. They are treated like their lives don’t matter.

And as Christians, we are a commanded to remember all of this. We are commanded to remember all the lives that are not put first.

And when we remember, God asks us to do what we can do to right these wrongs. To put their lives first.

There are things each of us can do, right now. And we don’t all have to do the same thing.

If you find yourself really angry at hearing this sermon and disagree with your pastor preaching on all this – first of all, thank you for still listening and not turning off your computer or fast-forwarding till you get to hear Brian sing. You sticking around anyway is a big thing. And even though you disagree with some of what I’ve said today, I encourage you to still hang on to that holy rule of putting life first.

And one thing you could do now to to put life first is just to be curious. Is some of I’m saying true? Why do some people interpret what’s going on differently than you do? Why are so many people of color feeling so heartbroken and furious right now? If you have a relationship with a person of color, ask them what they think. I’m not asking you to change your mind – I’m just asking you to be curious. Just being curious is one of the most powerful ways we can put life first, and it’s one of the greatest things we can do to help our intensely divided nation.

If instead, over the last couple of weeks you have found yourself thinking, “Okay, I knew people of color still experienced racism in this country, but I don’t really know that much about it,” one way you can put life first is to learn more. There’s a great podcast called Scene on Radio, and its second season deals with racism in America.⁴ You can listen to episodes while you’re walking your dog or doing the dishes.

You can read a book. There are lists online right now with great recommendations, and we are forming a reading group at St. Andrew which will read and discuss a book called White Fragility. Elaina Bussone is starting a group for teenagers to read the young adult novel The Hate U Give. Or, you can watch a documentary like White Like Me  or 13^th. You could sit the whole family down to watch a movie like Selma or Hidden Figures. Follow the Equal Justice Initiative or Colorlines on social media to get daily reminders of what life has been like and is like for people of color.

And, in two weeks our synod will be holding many educational events online as together we remember the shooting at Mother Emmanuel Church in June of 2015. Keep your eyes out for those opportunities.

Finally, if you have a fire in your bones and are wanting to start taking action against the racist patterns in our country, here are some ideas for you: get connected with a local action group like Showing Up for Racial Justice or the Tennessee Justice Center. Or, think about starting a group here at St. Andrew (I’d help you).

If you don’t have time to give, maybe you can donate money to organizations like these, or even to the Emergent Fund, which is specifically supporting COVID-19 relief efforts in communities of color. Or to Fair Fight, an organization that helps support voting rights. You could even grab some takeout from Big Shake’s Hot Chicken & Fish across the street from St. Andrew and call it a good deed, supporting a black-owned business.

And if all this is too much for you to remember, but you want to – just get in touch with me. I can send you a list.

In the beginning, God created all that exists out of an abundance of love. In Jesus, God lived among us, died, and rose for us out of an abundance of love. The Holy Spirit now fills us with that love, so that we may share it with the world.

So, Christians, let us love, not just in word or speech, not just in cliched phrases, not just in social media posts – but in truth and action (1 John 3:18). Let’s truly put life first.

Let us pray.

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1Rabbi Simon Glustrom, “Saving a Life (Pikuach Nefesh),” My Jewish Learning. Online: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/saving-a-life-pikuach-nefesh/ Accessed 5 June 2020.

2Lois Tverberg, “To save a life is to save a world,” Premier Christianity, April 2020. Online: https://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2020/May-2020/To-save-a-life-is-to-save-a-world Accessed 5 June 2020.

3Rabbi Asher Lopatin, “Pikuach Nefesh: The Jewish Value of Saving a Life,” My Jewish Learning. Online: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/pikuach-nefesh-the-overriding-jewish-value-of-human-life/ Accessed 5 June 2020.

4Www.sceneonradio.org/seeing-white

Does Following Jesus Really “Free” People?

Written for St. Andrew Lutheran Church, Franklin, TN + Wednesday Meditation + May 13, 2020

Reading: John 8:31-38

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You can watch this sermon online here.

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Jesus said, “Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin,” but “if you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

I bet there are a lot of people who, when they hear these Bible verses, – the words don’t really feel true. There are a lot of people who think about things like God’s word or commandments, being a disciple, being part of the Church, following Jesus – they think about those sorts of things, and they don’t associate them with freedom, but with the total opposite.

They think “church,” and think of a place of judgment and shame. “Following Jesus” or being “a Christian” sounds like a code word for thinking you’re better than everybody else. “Sin” is just a list of superficial things some people think are bad; society’s prejudices; an out-of-date word that conjures up hypocritical judgmental-ness. So yeah, “continuing in God’s word” or “being disciples” – that can sound a lot more like being chained-up than being free.

And honestly – the Church has done a lot to earn that reputation.

But I’m not here to focus on all the ways the church has bungled the message of grace and freedom over the centuries. Instead I want to shift focus: to how the living in God’s word, following Jesus, and therefore knowing the truth really can set us free.

So here’s a story about a man that one priest called “one of the freest people [he’s] ever known.” His name was Joe. Joe was a Jesuit priest who lived in a house with a group of men who were working on entering the priesthood.

Once, Joe was flying from Boston to Jamaica to visit some fellow Jesuits. Or, he was supposed to be flying to Jamaica; it turned out his flight was delayed. For FIVE HOURS. And after all that waiting around in the airport, the flight was canceled. Joe went back home.

That night, one of the other men in the house found Joe in the living room, reading a book. “You’re back!” he said, surprised to see him. “What happened?”

“The funniest thing,” he said. “We were supposed to take off, and then we were delayed for an hour, and then waited another hour until they delayed us again.” Joe chuckled as he recounted the delays that led to his trip’s eventual cancellation. Afterward, he tracked down his luggage and took a long ride on the subway…to get home. “So here I am!” he laughed.

Is that how you’d expect someone to tell that kind of a story? Laughing calmly while he talks about his trip to see friends on a sunny island was delayed for hours and hours, and then canceled? Maybe somebody might tell that story in a funny way, like, a year later – but on the same day? I’d expect to hear a lot more complaining, to hear anger and frustration and disappointment. Maybe even to hear him throwing around some blame for ruining his plans.

The other man was just as amazed at Joe’s reaction. “Weren’t you angry?” he asked.

“Angry? Why?” Joe said. “There was nothing I could do about it. Why get upset over something you can’t change?”¹

And isn’t that the kind of freedom we all really long for? Not the freedom to do whatever we want whenever we want to do it – most of us figure out pretty quickly that that is not as good as it sounds. But maybe what we really long for is freedom from being tossed about by bad situations or our own emotional reactions. The inner freedom that helps us to feel peaceful, to roll with the punches, to enjoy life more. The inner freedom that overflows into treating the people in our lives with greater patience and kindness.

Jesus’s teachings about how to live help guide us to that kind of deeper freedom.

Christ: Consider the Lilies by Kelly Latimore (2010) via Vanderbilt Divinity Library’s Art in the Christian Tradition.

Remember how Jesus encouraged us to let go of the stress and worry that we so often let rule our thoughts: “Do not worry about your life, what will you eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?…Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” (Matt. 6:25, 34)

Remember how often Jesus encouraged us to forgive one another: a practice that helps us to let go of the anger and resentment that twist up our hearts, and to repair relationships when it is possible.

Even Jesus’s teachings about sin lead us to this kind of deeper freedom. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives that string of commentary on the commandments that can sound harsh:

You have heard that it was said…”You shall not murder,”…But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment… (Matt. 5:21-22a)

You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart… (Matt. 5:27-28)

You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well… (Matt. 5:38-40)

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. (Matt. 5:43-44)

On the one hand, it sounds like Jesus is taking some of God’s commandments and making them harder for us. And maybe that’s so. But he’s also taking us deeper, past any focus on superficial wrongdoing or judgment from the outside, and into our hearts – into the place inside of us where we can feel weighed down by our own wrongdoing, controlled by our own impulses, where we harbor a longing to be a little different, a little better. St. Paul once wrote, in some of the most relatable verses in the whole Bible:

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. (Romans 7:15, 18b-19)

And I think that part of us is one of the things Jesus is trying to reach with his difficult teachings. Don’t we want to be free from those feelings? Free to let go of anger and grudges that start to control us in ways we don’t want? Free of feeling like we’re hiding darker parts of ourselves? Free of feeling like we’re not acting like the person we really are, or want to be? Free to feel peaceful, patient, kind, in control of ourselves?

“If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Of course, achieving that kind of inner freedom sounds really hard – if not impossible. If you’re like me, you might even be thinking, But I have tried like a million times to find that freedom and that peace – and it’s never worked.

So here’s the good news: It’s not like a light switch. We don’t hear “the truth” or decide to follow Jesus and then suddenly we’re all perfect on the inside. It’s a process. A slow process of learning to be more patient, more gentle; a process of learning to forgive and to let go of situations we can’t control. And that means that every day we can do little things to inch our way deeper and deeper into that freedom, until one day we, too, are laughing instead of screaming when something goes wrong.

And the even better news is: we are not in this alone. God promises to send the Spirit to empower us and transform us. God’s Spirit moves in us and changes us as we spend time with God in worship, prayer, and study; as we spend time with other people, talking through our problems, hearing and giving wisdom.

We don’t need to be perfect, to have totally found that inner freedom, in order for God to be in our lives. God is with us no matter where we are on our journey, no matter if we just beginning, moving forward, or falling backward. God is with us, ready to guide us deeper into that inner freedom and to build us up in the good life: a life lived in peace, patience, and kindness.

“If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

Amen.

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1James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life, (New York: HarperOne, 2010), p. 121.

Expect Life

Written for St. Andrew Lutheran Church, Franklin, TN + The Resurrection of Our Lord + March 27, 2016

Readings: Acts 10:34-43; 1 Corinthians 15:19-26; Luke 24:1-12

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At dawn on a Sunday morning, about 2,000 years ago, a group of women walked toward a tomb. They were prepared to see death: they brought spices to wash a dead body, to wash away the scent of death from one they had loved so dearly.

And of course they were prepared to see death; they were walking toward the tomb where they’d seen Jesus’s dead body laid two nights before (Lk. 23:55). Of course they were prepared to see death; they had watched as Jesus hung on a cross; they had watched as he cried out “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,” and breathed his last (Lk. 23:46, 49). Of course they were prepared to see death; they’d seen so much of it in their lives already: friends who died in childbirth; children who didn’t survive to adulthood; fellow Jews killed on the orders of Pilate (Lk. 13:1). Disease, starvation, the cruelty of people in power, violent rebellion. They had seen so much death; they expected only to see more.

We can be a lot like those women. We, too, have seen so much death. Death pops up in news alerts on our phones or TV screens: another terrorist attack, in Brussels or Afghanistan; another shooting; another accident. Death gets closer to home, too: we hear diagnoses; we feel disease or pain in our own bodies; someone we love dies, slowly or suddenly. We have known death, too; and we expect to see more of it.

And what we expect, we prepare for. We don’t come bearing spices, but we may come bearing arms, or fear, or distrust. We go into the world bearing grief and anger, we go with our defenses up. We go ready to fight or to hide away, to keep other people out. We go ready to give up hope in life in the face of the reality of death, much like the women who approached the tomb of the person in whom they’d placed all their hopes.

The women arrived at the tomb, the stronghold of death. If there was any place to feel certain of death, to feel certain that death wins, this was it.

But death was gone. The stone was rolled away; a spring breeze whistled into the empty tomb. Two living men appeared and asked the women, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

Bob Quinn, “The Empty Tomb.” Bronze. (See more images here.)

They weren’t looking for the living. They were looking for the dead. They were prepared once again for the harsh reality that death had taken someone they loved. What they weren’t prepared for was life. They weren’t expecting the power of God.

“Jesus is not here,” the two men told the women, “but he has risen. Remember how he told you…that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” It was not a question (“Don’t you remember?”); it was a message, almost a command: “Remember.”

The women remembered. They remembered what Jesus had told them about God’s plan: how death would not be the end of their hope. They remembered all the paradoxes he had spoken: you will die, but not perish (Lk 21:16-18); those who lose their life will keep it (Lk 9:24, 17:33). They dropped their spices – their death-preparations – and ran to the disciples to share the news of life.

For thousands of years Christians have gathered to remember that very news, to tell again the same story the women told to the other disciples.

So what happens when we remember? What happens when we remember that on a Sunday morning, long ago, life took over the tomb? What happens when we remember that God’s power is the power of life: the power to create life; the power to break free an entire nation of slaves and give them a life of their own; the power to transform hearts and minds and lives; the power of resurrection?

When we remember, do we dare to change our expectations? Do we dare to stop expecting death and start expecting life?

“The Easter message calls [us] from [our] old belief in death to a new belief in life.”[1] And that means having hope that, contrary to all appearances, life is stronger than death.

Even while I wrote these words, I heard sirens wail outside: an ambulance or a firetruck. I had just scribbled a note to myself, a reminder to send a condolence card to a friend whose wife died suddenly in the middle of the night. And just to complete the picture, I took a peek at CNN.com. The headlines read: terror attacks, a massive after-school fight that left one teenage boy dead, and the testing of a military attack submarine. Those kinds of things can make the memories of God’s acts of life seem like idle talk or a fairy tale.

That’s what the disciples thought of the women’s message. They didn’t believe the story about the empty tomb and the strange messengers. Jesus was dead. That was the end.

Still, Peter got up and ran to the tomb. He had to check. What if the story was true? Peter desperately needed it to be true.

The last time we saw Peter in this story, he was sitting around a fire in the high priest’s courtyard. While inside Jesus was being mocked and beaten, Peter denied three times that he even knew Jesus.  Peter had just seen Jesus arrested, and he knew that execution was coming. And Peter knew that if word got out that he was one of Jesus’s followers, he would face death, too. So, expecting death to come for him, he hid from it; struggling just to survive, he denied Jesus, and Jesus saw it happen. It tore Peter apart; he left light of the fire, weeping (Lk. 22:54-61). Peter needed the story of the resurrection to be true, because he needed to say how sorry he was, he needed another chance to be a loyal disciple and friend. I can only imagine the rush of hope he felt when he peered breathlessly into the tomb and saw only a pile of cloths.

We need the message to be true, too. We need it because the more the world expects death, the more death it gets. We see the situation escalate every day in the way that some politicians (and voters, too) talk callously about bombings or people going hungry. We see it when we fear helping others, lest we get hurt. We put our trust in the power of death; expecting death to win, we figure we might as well live on its terms, terms like “kill or be killed” and revenge. And so when we take risks, whether with what we own or our lives or our moral code…we tend to bet on death rather than life.

But if we dare to expect life, that all changes. The risks we take will all be for the sake of life: we will risk making peace; we will risk forgiving; we will risk welcoming one another and loving one another. We will risk reveling in the moments of joy we are given. We will live on life’s paradoxically life-giving terms, terms like vulnerability and sacrifice and hope.

When we live expecting death, our struggle is only to survive – like Peter outside the high priest’s house. But when we live expecting life, our struggle is to build up all that makes for true life: justice, peace, truth, grace, love – like the disciples who, after the resurrection, dedicated their lives and even their deaths to spreading the word of Jesus Christ, the message that God’s love, grace, and justice is for all people.

So remember the Easter story. Remember all the stories of God bringing strength from weakness, victory from defeat, and life from death. And choose to see the world through these memories. Choose to expect life. Don’t live your life under the power of death; live your life in the promise and power of God. The promise and power of the resurrection.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia, alleluia.

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Additional Sources of Inspiration

Curry, Michael (Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church), Easter 2016 message. Available online: http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2016/03/23/easter-2016-message-from-presiding-bishop-michael-curry/

[1] Koester, Craig R., Commentary on Luke 24:1-12, Working Preacher, April 4, 2010. Available online http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=558

Monroe, Shawnthea, ”Living By the Word: Reflections on the Lectionary” (March 27, Easter Sunday) in The Christian Century, (Vol. 133, No. 6), March 16, 2016. Available online: http://christiancentury.org/article/2016-02/march-27-easter-sunday