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Davidson Loehr
Cathy Harrington
20 April 2003
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
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THE STORIES OF EASTER: Four Gospel Easter Stories
Cathy Harrington
The four gospel versions of Easter morning are very different. All four were compiled from stories that began as an oral tradition during the first decades following the death of Jesus. The first three gospels are called the Synoptic Gospels because they “view together” the events of Jesus’ life. They shared common sources and it is apparent that Matthew and Luke used Mark as a “general outline”. The fact that four very different Easter stories were placed in the canon is sufficient evidence that these gospel accounts were not meant to be historical. Based on events, maybe, but as the stories were told over and over with different viewpoints, they grew and changed and they were naturally embellished. The intent of four different stories is to convey to the reader the impact that Jesus’ life and death had on his disciples, and to open the reader’s heart to the possibility of going deeper than an intellectual or literal understanding.
Something extraordinary happened. How was it that the followers of Jesus, who were portrayed in all four gospels as being rather stupid and clumsy, as just “not getting it” or even worse as cowards when they fled the crucifixion and deserted their master. How did these disciples begin again and come to a new understanding of the message of their beloved Teacher?
This is the miracle of new life that springs out of the resurrection. As liberal theologians have said for at least two centuries, the resurrection happened in the mind of the believers, not the body of Jesus.
The good news is that these stories don’t have to be thrown away. These ancient stories carry within them a symbolic message of hope, as do stories of Buddha, Moses, Mohammed, or Krishna. The kingdom of God is within us and around us, we simply don’t see it. Like the disciples of Jesus, we just don’t get it. It has been accurately observed that the patron saint of the Unitarian Universalists, if we had one, would be Doubting Thomas.
I invite you to open your hearts and minds to the possibility of hearing the Easter stories in a new way, as if you have come to hear “the good news” for the first time. We’ll begin with Easter story from the gospel of Mark, the earliest and the shortest gospel.
The First Easter Story
After the crucifixion and death of Jesus, the gospel of Mark reveals that the body of Jesus was taken by the man named Joseph, who wrapped him in a linen cloth and laid his body in a tomb that had been hewn out of rock. He then rolled a stone against the opening of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where the body was laid. Sabbath ended at sundown on Saturday.
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome brought spices so that they might go and anoint the body of Jesus. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb, worrying about who will roll away the huge stone.
But when they looked up, they saw the stone 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, “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.”
And once the women got outside, they ran away from the tomb, because great fear and excitement got the better of them. And they didn’t breath a word of it to anyone: talk about terrified.[1]
“A proclamation of the good news (a gospel) that ends with the women saying “nothing to anyone, because they were afraid,” is troubling.”[2]
Matthew’s story of the empty tomb is significantly different. Pilate ordered soldiers to guard the tomb to be sure that the disciples didn’t steal the body because Jesus had told them in three days he would be raised up, and Pilate feared they would tell everyone that Jesus had been raised from the dead, and the last deception would be far worse than the first. Matthew included in his story divine intervention in order to frustrate the hostile plot, in the form of a great earthquake; and an angel descending like lightening, as he rolled back the stone. The guards trembled and were struck with fear like dead men. And the angel’s message to the women that Jesus had risen was to run with both fear and joy to tell the disciples. Jesus himself appears to them. And the finale comes when Jesus appears to the Eleven on a mountain in Galilee.”[3] In the final verse, after commissioning the disciples to make followers of all people, Jesus tells them, “I am with you all days until the end of the age.”
Luke tactfully expresses dissatisfaction with the previous narratives about Jesus and implies his gospel will set the record straight.”[4] “Although Luke follows Mark’s empty tomb story, he greatly modifies it, adding clarifications, such as the dramatic question, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?”
“He deviates from Mark’s indication that the risen Jesus would appear in Galilee, and concentrates his three appearance scenes around Jerusalem, the city that symbolizes Judaism. Luke is particularly insistent on the proof of Jesus’ appearance, for his Jesus eats food and affirms that he has flesh and bones. The final appearance ends with an ascension, as Jesus is carried up to heaven after blessing the disciples.”[5]
Exclusive to Luke is the appearance on the road to Emmaus, when the disciples meet Jesus on the road and don’t recognize him until he breaks bread with them.
This scene has particular significance in preparing for the Eucharistic breaking of bread in Christianity.[6]
And finally, we come to John, the last gospel written. The Gospel of John is dramatically different from the synoptic gospels. The focus is on the divinity of Jesus. The later Christian creeds were based on the theological language of John’s gospel much more than that of the synoptic gospels. The words of the Johannine Jesus are often ambiguous-even deliberately confusing his listeners, conveying two levels of meaning at once.” This is important in understanding that this symbolic gospel was never meant to be taken literally.
In John, Mary sees two angels at the tomb dressed in white and they ask why she is weeping and she responds, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. He speaks to her and she mistakes him for the gardener !
Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!”
Then Jesus stood among the disciples and said, “Peace be with you.” But Thomas (who was called the Twin) one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”
Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
The story ends with this statement of purpose by the author:
“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”
Davidson Loehr
No matter how we sugar-coat it, the Easter stories are harder for most of us to give a fair hearing to than myths from a dozen other religions that aren’t so familiar. It’s easier for us to hear stories about how the earth rests on the back of an elephant, which rests on the back of a giant tortoise, which rests on an infinite line of tortoises, all the way down. Because we know they don’t really mean it literally.
In the Science and Religion class I’m teaching here now, I’ve talked about learning to hear religious myths at three different levels, which we’re calling A, B and C.
Level A is the superficial level, where everything is just taken literally, as though these were stories about elephants and turtles, or a dead man who came back to life and walked with his friends, who couldn’t recognize a man they’d just seen three days before. Taken literally, they don’t make any sense at all.
Level B is the liberal rather than the literal reading, where we understand these are stories written in the language of poetry, symbols and metaphors, that the stories are never about supernatural things, but always about being opened to greater depths of understanding here and now. That’s easy to do with the elephants, harder to do with the stories about Jesus because they were told as though they were to be taken literally, even though most of the men who wrote the Bible kept saying not to take them that way.
And level C is very advanced, and is not intellectual at all. That’s where we see that these aren’t stories just to be understood, but to be embodied. They are meant to change us.
But even at level B, what are we to do with these Easter stories? Twenty centuries of liberal Christian thinkers have told us that we must not pretend they are meant to be taken literally.
Still, it’s hard to hear them fresh, when we’ve spent so many years hearing them taught as incredible supernatural tales. We’ve included a hymn in this service that will push the comfort zone of many, probably including me, because it is hard to hear these myths with fresh ears (“Jesus Christ is Risen Today”). This Easter, Cathy and I decided we would try, and would ask you to try with us, to hear the liberal message hidden beneath these old literal stories.
So we revisit some of the stories of Easter again, to see if we can hear them not at level A, but as stories that take place at levels B and C, within you and me. Taken literally, they’re only Christian stories, and not very interesting ones at that. But at the deeper levels, they are human stories, even universal stories, with roots in every human soul that has learned how to listen. So this is a test, to see if we can hear the Easter message without getting distracted by the mere miracles.
Prayer
(by Cathy Harrington)
Will I recognize you, O Lord, in broken bread, in realities harsh,
and dreams that remain only dreams?
At those moments when terror fills my heart,
Touch the scars of lost hope,
then shattered spirits will be healed;
for I too, hold bread to break the grace of each day.
Help me to walk with strangers, to allow them to unfold the good news of life; to cradle another’s pain in my heart;
to feed the hunger of unmet needs.
I walk to Emmaus, again and again,
trusting that you will join me on the journey.
With you as companion and guide, I too, will become a giver of grace. Amen.
SERMONS
“The ABC’s of Easter”
Davidson Loehr:
My take on Easter is a lot more philosophical than Cathy’s, because I’ve never been a Christian, and find it harder to get inside some of these stories than the myths of other religions. I chose that hymn we just sang (“Jesus Christ is Risen Today”) partly as a challenge to myself, to see if I could hear those words in another way. But the truth is, that while I liked singing it, I mostly just tuned the words out.
For me, Easter and Christmas are the same story. They’re both about the birth of the sacred in our lives, new life for old, the insistence that though death is real, it isn’t the final answer.
I can find that message in the stories of Jesus’ resurrection, but for me that’s always seemed a stretch, and I’ve preferred the other Easter stories, the ones nearly everyone in our society prefers: of Easter Bunnies and eggs and colorful signs of spring.
I think of a line we said in Friday’s Seder service here: “Oh God, help me to believe the truth about myself no matter how beautiful it is!” I’ve always thought that was the real prayer of both Christmas and Easter: “Oh God, help me to believe the truth about life no matter how beautiful it is!”
This may not sound particularly Christian. But neither is it un-Christian, for Christianity’s greatest theologians have also rejected the supernaturalism of Christianity in favor of a deeper spiritual and psychological message. I’ll just choose one to share with you today, the great medieval mystic Meister Eckhart (1260-1327). He’s the man who once wrote that if the only prayer you ever said was “Thank you,” it would be sufficient. I couldn’t find anything in my two books of his works about the resurrection; it may not have interested him very much. But he did write about the incarnation, the idea that God could take a human form:
“It would be of little value for me that ‘the Word was made flesh’ for us in Christ as a person distinct from me unless he was also made flesh in me personally so that I too might be God’s son.” (Meister Eckhart, Essential Sermons…, p. 167) When he read that Christ “dwelt among us” he said it means “he dwelt among us because we have him in us. And anything takes its name and existence from what it has in it.” (Ibid., p. 168) And his most famous sound byte is that God became man so that man might become God.
For me, Eckhart goes too far there. Saying we’re God just sounds narcissistic and confusing to me. But I think, to use another of his wonderful lines, we all have a “God-seed” within us.
I think of a musical analogy. We’re not Mozart – I only need to try and write music myself to know how far from being Mozart I am (the choir performed an arrangement of mine on this date). But we have that within us which the music of Mozart can awaken. In the same say, we’re not Buddha or Jesus, but we have that within us that their words and their example can awaken.
That’s what Eckhart called our “God-seed”: something inside of us made out of infinite possibilities and unquenchable hope.
Does this sound too foreign? I don’t think so, I think you feel what I’m trying to get at through the clumsy tools of words. Though I’m not a poet, and real poets can come closer to it than I can. Here’s a famous poem by e.e. cummings that pretty much nails it. It’s his Easter poem:
i thank You God for most this amazing day:
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;
and for everything which is natural
which is infinite, which is yes.
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;
this is the birth day of life and of love and wings:
and of the gay great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any –
lifted from the no of all nothing – human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
If that’s the sort of thing Easter is about, then I understand it.
Something died this year. It was another year gone by, another year of your life gone by, taking with it its unfulfilled dreams, its good intentions gone awry, its sins of commission and its sins of omission. Gone forever are the chances you didn’t take, the old possibilities you wouldn’t try, the new leaves you didn’t turn over, the dozens of ways large and small that you stayed smaller when you should have become larger. The seeds you didn’t plant last year are history now, the changes you needed to make are history now and they are gone, like messages scratched in sand on the beach.
Or someone close to you died this year. Your parents, your partner, your child, a dear friend, even a pet. Someone you loved, someone who loved you died this year, and sometimes it may seem like the emptiness will never go away. It was awful. It’s still awful.
But now comes Easter again, with its indomitable promise that death shall not have the final word, that life shall triumph over death: even here, even now. And this amazing day is filled with the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky, and everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.
“Oh God, help us to believe the truth about life no matter how beautiful it is!”
“Easter Ain’t about Rabbits”
Cathy Harrington:
I have always been astounded that you can go to church on Easter in a UU church and never even hear Jesus mentioned. There will be a lovely flower communion and a sermon about spring, or how to hug a woman wearing a hat, but rarely a mention of Jesus.
In 1981, Unitarian minister Carl Scovel addressed this problem in a much talked about sermon titled, “What’s a Good Christian like You Doing in this Denomination?” At the time there was an amendment afoot to eliminate the word, “God” from the UUA bylaws. It’s a sermon worth reading. He makes this important observation,
“How ironic that an association of churches and fellowships which claims to be truly universalistic and which claims to include all points of view, not only has virtually no Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, or Jews but precious few Christians, even liberal Christians, and the numbers of those fast dwindling.”
I have been trying for months to make Davidson understand that my identity as a Christian doesn’t mean that I believe that Jesus died for my sins, or that his body came back to life and ascended on a cloud to heaven.
He says, “Why Jesus, Cathy? It’s not a very interesting story.” I disagree, and I explained to him that my not wanting the literalists to steal Jesus from me is similar to his wearing that flag pin every Sunday as a protest to the notion that we cannot be patriotic if we don’t agree with the war. So he wears his flag pin, and I’m wearing my Jesus pin. It says, “Jesus was a liberal.”
My personal understanding of the man called Jesus Christ came from the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science who wrote this about Jesus:
“The Christ was the Spirit which Jesus implied in his own statements: ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life;’ ‘I and my Father are one.’ This Christ, or divinity of the man Jesus, was his divine nature, the godliness which animated him.”
Science and Health.
This spiritual description of Jesus Christ is a Unitarian theology that invites us all to claim or access our own divine nature, God-seed or Buddha seed, whichever seed suits your set of metaphors.
“Jesus had been as deeply and remarkably human as anyone his disciples had ever known; and at the same time he had been touched by God in a way that seemed to them utterly without precedent. The two things-his profound humanity, and his intense closeness to God-were bound together inextricably, and at the heart of the mystery of that bond was love, a light that never went out. Jesus’ execution horrified his disciples; yet in its wake they reflected on the man and his ministry. Understood as simply a [supernatural] physical reappearance, the Resurrection makes Jesus’ life and teachings ultimately irrelevant; it is as if Jesus, during his ministry, had just been killing time until the Main Event.”[7]
But understanding the Resurrection as a spiritual event in the minds and hearts of the disciples, as an awakening to the message of their teacher, is to understand the resurrection story as it was understood by early Christians; “not according to the theology of today’s legalistic Christians-for whom the cross is, selfishly, about substitutionary atonement, and for whom the Resurrection is the promise of an afterlife. This was added later, and was as one of my favorite professors put it, “It is purely the fiction of theologians.”
So, what does Easter story mean to me? Well, it ain’t about rabbits, and it’s impossible to share it all in one-half of a sermon. But, I can tell you this. Instead of being fragile and ending on the cross, the compassion and love the disciples had encountered in Jesus was powerful; victorious over everything, even death.”[8]
I am drawn to the significance of Mary in the tomb, as well as the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, not recognizing Jesus when he was standing right in front of them, or until he broke bread with them.
Doubt and fear were present in all four-gospel stories. “The disciples didn’t fear death at the empty tomb; they feared Life.”[9] Could it be that the motive of the gospel writers to expose our fear? Our fear that within each of us resides the seed of divinity waiting to be awakened? Are with struck with fear like “dead men”? Afraid to claim the divinity within us, waiting to be wakened by the power of love, by the breaking of spiritual bread together that we can begin to recognize the “Christ” that dwells in each of us.
Are we afraid because we know that if we awaken to the divinity in everyone, including ourselves, that we will be changed? That suddenly our lives will change with this new awareness, this “godliness” that might animate us to love one another? Should the ears of our ears awaken, and the eyes of our eyes open, could we survive? Do we dare?
So, for this Easter, the only Easter I am ever likely to spend with you; let me share just one Easter secret. The clues are everywhere, though we don’t tend to see them. Death moving into life, unbelief blossoming into belief, the lost becoming the found, and the found becoming the ecstatic: so many clues!
Here is the secret: Easter is not a noun. We talk about it as a historical event, a thing, a noun. But Easter is not a noun. It is a verb. It’s a verb meaning to awaken after being in the dark, to come alive when you never thought it could happen to you, to feel the warmth of love in a heart you were certain had cooled forever.
It’s a verb meaning you find hope and passion to replace just suffering and surviving, and the amazing transformation of spirit that comes from realizing, once more, what a magnificent and sacred gift your life is, and saying “Thank you” – right out loud.
Simply, “Thank you for the life we are blessed to share.”
Easter is a verb. Happy Eastering, you dear, blessed people!
——————–
[1] Jesus Seminar. The Five Gospels. P. 127.
[2] Ibid. P. 148.
[3] Brown, Raymond. An Introduction to the New Testament. New York. Doubleday. 1997. P.203.
[4] Miller, Robert. The Complete Gospels. Sonoma, CA. Polebridge Press. 1994. P. 115.
[5] Ibid. P. 260.
[6] Ibid. P. 261.
[7] Bawer, Bruce. Stealing Jesus. New York, NY. Three Rivers Press. 1997. P. 44-45.
[8] Ibid. P.48.
[9] Gallup, Grant. Hominly Grits, Easter. 2003
