Contemplative Outreach Newsletter · Spring/Summer 2004

“Alleluia, the Lord is Risen!” Really?

by Rev. Sandy Casey-Martus

There are moments of sheer unanticipated joy...moments when unexpected miracles happen. And there are times in life when our eyes “see,” our ears “hear,” and our hearts “know.”

Last year as I prayed my way to Easter Sunday in anticipation of glorious hymns, children flowering the cross, chocolate bunnies, coffee hour goodies, and white candles, the Easter sermon loomed over my head. My experience has taught me that I cannot prepare Good Friday’s sermon until Maundy Thursday is celebrated. I cannot work on Saturday’s Vigil sermon until the Good Friday service has ended, and I cannot prepare the Easter sermon until late Saturday night after the Vigil. Holy Week is demanding. It has a rhythm of its own, slow and deliberate. I am only now learning the dance. Well, I got home from the Great Vigil exhausted and too tired to think. I went to sleep praying that the Easter sermon would come together by 10 am.

Preaching the “Good News” on Easter Sunday is never easy. After all, everyone knows the story. It is, in fact, good that “Jesus is risen,” but hardly “news!” Last year I found it difficult to hear the “Gospel” when competing voices broadcast death, destruction, despair and war. Nevertheless, this is what Jesus asks of those who have ears to hear, eyes to see, and hearts to believe: Hear that life is eternal, see that death has been destroyed, and know that the Kingdom of God is at hand. “Rejoice and be glad.” Somehow last year I found it hard to hear, see, believe or rejoice. Why was this so difficult for me?

Like many, I felt deeply the denials, disappointments, and passion of Holy Week in light of world events. Prayer and petitions for peace and reconciliation commingled with feelings of human powerlessness and vulnerability. A resurrection sermon for Easter morning would not come lightly. Would it come at all? I was expected at the church in a similar way that the women in Mark’s gospel were expected at the tomb. We had jobs to do, and we had better show up.

Easter morning after a good meditation, a strong cup of tea, and a piece of toast, I settled in among my papers, books, and kitties to finish the sermon. With only an hour to go before leaving for St. Francis I kept being drawn back to the verse, “Who will roll away the stone for us to the entrance to the tomb?” (Mark 16:3) I guess somewhere deep in me I had the same question. Who would roll away the stone for me? Suddenly and unexpectedly the next sentence jumped out at me with tremendous force. “When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.” (Mark 16:4) There was no stone to be removed.

I suddenly realized that this is what Fr. Thomas Keating means when he says that we are created for happiness and that the source of that happiness is our abiding experience of union with God. Any “obstacle” to that truth is one we put there, and is the source of our suffering and alienation. As Fr. Thomas reminds us, “there are no stones save the ones we put there.” My heart leapt! I got it. The obstacle to my sermon was the same obstacle for the women at the tomb—our worldviews and perceptions. After all, don’t dead people stay dead? “Don’t heavy ‘stones’ stay put?” Not according to the Good News! I only wish Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James could have dropped their “stones” and believed what they saw and heard. They could have “heard” the angel’s Good News that “He is risen!” Instead they left the empty tomb terrified, amazed and silent.

Well, not me because in that instant of revelation I decided to let my stone roll away. In the next moment, I was up and out of the house wanting to proclaim, “He is risen, the Lord is risen indeed.” I experienced resurrection, I understood resurrection in a new way, and I was ready to preach it! And, I did.

Looking back on this experience I realize how my practices of Centering Prayer and Lectio Divina facilitated a deeper level of faith encounter with the risen Lord. As Fr. Thomas Keating writes in “Intimacy with God”, “Every time we move to a new level of faith, there is an initial experience of disintegration, distress, confusion, and darkness.” He explains that what ultimately moves us into the experience of enlightenment is the Spirit within us—the same Spirit that wrote the Scripture. Fr. Keating elaborates, “When we are in the unitive understanding of Scripture, the outward word confirms what we already know and experience.” In my “Ah, Ha” moment I encountered Christ, heard Him, was guided by Him, and He was raised in me. Then, with all certainty of experience I could proclaim, “He is risen, the Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.”

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