Sermon by Rev. Wayne Irwin
April 8, 2007
Text: John 20:1-18

 

They did not find his body.

The body of Private Herbert Peterson.

They did not find his body

until 86 years had passed.

They found it four years ago

during a construction project

in the vicinity of Vimy Ridge,

They used DNA from his relatives

to identify his remains.

And yesterday his family

and a grateful country

laid his body to rest, finally,

with his comrades-in-arms,

at La Chaudière Military Cemetery, in France.

And tomorrow, Canada remembers

the momentous World War I battle

that took place there

on Easter Monday, 1917 . . .

the battle that was so formative

of our national identity.

And the ceremony takes place

at the Vimy Ridge Memorial

on which are engraved the names

of 11,000 Canadians

whose bodies were also never found.

11,000 bodies . . . not found.

And a body not found, we all know,

is one of the primary themes

at the core of Christian Faith.

A body not found.

The body of Jesus . . . not found.

The Gospel of John, in the Bible, tells us

that it was Mary Magdalene

who made the discovery.

That the body was missing.

Mary Magdalene who made her way at first light.

At her first opportunity, after the Sabbath,

to go to the tomb . . .

to the tomb of the man she loved . . .

who had been executed . . .

put to death.

And she found the stone rolled back.

The tomb empty.

So she ran to tell the men . . .

To tell Peter . . .  and to tell, the gospel says,

“the man whom Jesus loved.”

We don’t know who that was.  Maybe John.

It may have been her brother, Lazarus.

“They have taken his body,” she cried.

“And I do not know where they have put him.”

A study was made in England

at the end of World War II,

examining the long-term effects

on children

of the London bombing blitz –

the sustained bombing of the city

through the winter of 1940.

43,000 civilians were killed.

A million houses destroyed, or damaged.

Two groups of children were studied:

those who were evacuated from London,

and taken to the relative safety

of the countryside.

And those who remained in London,

hiding with their families

in bomb shelters.

And the finding was

that those who stayed in the city

actually fared better, psychologically,

And why?

Those who stayed in the city

were certainly in much more danger.

But the finding was

that the mental well-being of the children

had less to do with

what sort of danger they were in

and more to do with

the presence

of those for whom they felt the greatest love.

And we all know that

as the pain of love . . .

the aching yearning to be together . . .

no matter what.

And the Bible speaks of that same concept

when it makes reference to the metaphor

of being “hidden with Christ.”

We find it in the New Testament.

In the Letter to the Colossians. (3:3)

A profound point.

The writer says to the readers,

to the new Followers of the Way

in the city of Colossae:

“You have died [to your old life],

and your [new] life is hidden . . .

with Christ . . . in God.”

In other words,

the life of the Christian

is the life of being hidden . . .

secreted away together . . .

with the One we love the most.

The implication being

that in this world of danger,

the person whose life is centred

on the presence of the One

they love the most . . .

that person fares the best.

We are all linked by ‘Presence’.

In this faith community, Centenary,

we are all linked by presence.

By our individual presence,

It certainly makes a difference to me

whether or not you are present.

And that’s no joke.

But it does amuse me to wonder

if none of you were present,

it I’d still be standing here . . . preaching.

Does the falling tree make a sound

if there is no one present . . . to hear?

Does the preacher still preach

if there is no one present . . . to hear?

It certainly makes a difference to me

whether or not you are present.

On a Sunday, for example,

or at other of our Centenary events.

Not because I want you to hear me.

But because community depends . . .

on presence.

I know there are many who say,

“I don’t need to be in church.”

And fair enough.  I understand that.

They may feel strong enough in their faith,

to not feel the need of community.

But that has to do with their needs.

There are others who need them . . .

who need them to be present.

There is a blessing to others

of our ‘presence.’

It’s really beyond explaining.

But it’s what we feel is missing

when someone whom we love . . . is absent.

Especially when someone whom we love . . .

dies.

Presence is what is missing

when we no longer hear

the familiar voice,

when we no longer see

the familiar evidence

of that person being nearby.

And of course, presence

is exactly the opposite

of what Mary Magdalene expected

on that first day of the week,

when she came upon that disturbed tomb.

She expected the evidence of death.

She expected the sense of absence.

Of presence missing.

But what she and the others experienced

was something unexpected . . .

Presence present . . . Beyond explaining.

And a sense of Presence present

that would change the course of history.

Presence making tangible

a truth about consciousness and awareness

that had hitherto

been so much more hidden itself,

and misunderstood.

Presence making perceivable

the Power that undergirds our very existence.

And with it all the revelation

and the realization

that this creative and resurrective Presence

desires to be found.

And desires to be known.

An Hasidic story:

A boy is playing a game of hide-and-seek.

But while that boy

is waiting in his hiding place,

all of his friends stop playing.

The boy is waiting. And they know it.

But they just leave him there,

wherever he is hidden . . . and they walk away.

So the boy begins to cry.

And it is his grandfather

who hears his crying,

and who follows the sound

and comes to him

to see what is the matter.

And after hearing the story,

through the sobs,

the grandfather speaks a word of comfort.

“Weep no more, my child,” he says.

“Your friends did not come to find you.

They walked away. They left you.

And they betrayed thereby the truth

that they are not your true friends.

“But in this disappointment, my child,

there is a great lesson for your life.

And it is this:

. . . that all of life . . .

is as a game of hide-and-seek . . .

between ourselves and God.

Except it is God . . .  who is the One a-weeping.

And God is a-weeping

because we are the ones

who have stopped our playing . . .

and who have walked away . . .

turned our attention to selfish pursuits . . .

even while God is still waiting . . . to be found.”

Friends, God is Love, remember.

“God is Love” and “Love is God.”

Substitute the word ‘Love’

for the name of God,

when you think of God . . . .It helps.

And go back with me once more

to that Easter dawning.

To Mary Magdalene going there

to the borrowed tomb . . .

to weep for her lost Love.

Her Love attached . . . to a body . . . in a tomb.

But she finds her Love waiting . . .

to be . . . Not Found . . .in the tomb.

She finds her Love waiting . . .

to be found . . . in the garden . . .

her Love waiting . . . in plain sight.

And today Marissa Cannon

comes to be baptized.

And for her, and for us all,

this is a moment of celebration

of that same Love . . .

the Love waiting to be found . . .

not in the tomb of the past . . .

but in the garden of the present.

And a person now

comes to commit himself

to full membership in this faith community.

And each of us has opportunity

in a few moments

to re-affirm our baptismal vows.

In other words

to declare anew our desire

to belong . . . to be attached . . .

to be united . . .

with . . . the One whom we most love . . .

and to be an embodiment . . .

of the Living Presence of that Love

in the world . . .

that is Not Found . . . in the tomb.

Christ is Risen!

Risen Indeed!

Hallelujah!