Surprise!

My favourite time of day is the early morning. I love those hours just before and just after sunrise. Especially when I have some writing to do I’ll get up when it’s still dark, make myself a strong cup of tea, toast an English muffin, and then sit down at the computer and get to work. It’s nice and quiet then. No ringing phone or other interruptions to impede the creative process then. And when the sun creates bands of orange above the eastern horizon, I am so taken by the beauty and all things seem possible then.

Mary was up early that first Easter morning. Mary Magdalene, whom scholars tell us probably played a much bigger leadership role among Jesus’ disciples and in the first generation of Christians then the Bible lets on. I guess the second and third generations, who began to pull together what we know as the New Testament, didn’t want it to look like a silly woman – a second class citizen – had played such a prominent role among Jesus’ followers, so in order to make Christianity more socially acceptable, they air brushed her out of much of the story. But they couldn’t completely eliminate her from the story because, after all, she was the one who went to the tomb; or at least she was the leader among the women who went to the tomb. All four gospels agree that she was there; it’s one of the few things that all four gospels do agree on! And John has her going there alone. You can airbrush her out of most of the story, but when she played perhaps the crucial role in the climatic scene of the story, it’s kind of hard to change that detail without moving the story completely from history to fabrication.

In any event, Mary was up early that morning. It was still dark. Perhaps, like this morning, that first full moon of the spring, maybe only a day or two past its prime, illumined her way through the darkness to the tomb. Or maybe, like Good Friday morning this year, it was hidden near the edge of a cloud, and it gave a mysterious glow to that pre-dawn. Everything had happened so quickly these last three days, and she just needed some time alone: alone with herself, alone with God, and alone with Jesus.

A mysterious atmosphere would have fit the scene perfectly, because mysterious things were happening even as Mary made her way through the darkness. The other gospels talk about angels descending, and robes dazzling white aglowing, and earthquakes thundering, that early morning. Perhaps. Or perhaps these are but writers’ devices to try to give voice to the unspeakable mystery of what was taking place in the pre-dawn darkness. Death was being transformed into life. Emptiness was being transformed into fullness. Out of nothing was being created something which would shape history and transform the world.

If no one had been there at the tomb, would it have happened? On a very practical level, the answer is, “No.” Without the witness of Mary and the other women (or, as John tells the story, without the witness of Mary and the Beloved Disciple who may be John himself) the resurrection would’ve been a non-event. I mean, all of those mysteries things may still have happened, but if no one had witnessed the reality which emerged out of them – if no one had actually encountered the Risen Lord and told others about it – then for all practical purposes they would not have happened because the story would not have been told and retold and eventually written down, and it would’ve been lost from history.

Which is to say that sometimes you have to make things happen. Sometimes, like Mary, you have to venture into the darkness and create something where nothing yet exists. This is what hope is all about. It’s been said that hope is the bird singing to the dawn while it is still dark. And maybe it’s particularly in the dark times of our lives that we have to act as if there is light. Maybe it’s especially in the desperate times of our lives that we have to act as if there is hope. Maybe in the early morning darkness we have to act as if the dawn has already come. And maybe when we act “as if,” we help God to bring into being the very thing that we hope for. We too can create something out of nothing. Like God, who made the world out of things that do not exist (see Hebrews 11:3).

The other day Betty Munro and I visited with a woman named Eleanor Robinson. Eleanor told us the story of building Lester B. Pearson House, an affordable housing development in Willowdale. The group that eventually built the house came together in 1994. Not an auspicious time to begin working on affordable housing. Within a year the Harris Tories had been elected, and provincial funding for affordable housing was cut. That revenue stream had been the life blood for all of the church groups that had been involved in building housing for those who could not afford market rents. For those funds to be cut off; well, it must have felt something like a crucifixion. But that little group at Newtonbrook United Church persevered. And when they turned to the congregation for guidance, the congregation said, “Find a way to make it happen.” Ain’t nobody funding affordable housing in the late ’90’, but find a way to make it happen. Kind of like a bird singing to the dawn while it’s still dark. Kind of like making your way through the dark to a resurrection that hasn’t happened yet. Kind of like the dawn which begins when the sun is still well below the horizon.

A little bit of Easter came early for me this year. It came at dawn on Good Friday. It came while I worked my way through this homily. It came amidst a phone call from a parishioner whose mother is dying. It came just before the sun broke the horizon, when a beam of orange light shone straight up into the eastern sky. It came at dawn, when all things are possible. Amen.

Text: John 20:1

Preached by Bruce D. Ervin

Easter Sunday Sunrise Service

23 March 2008