In Orthodox art of the Resurrection, Jesus is shown, shining and whole, but with scarred hands, standing on the broken gates of hell with a black pit beneath him. Padlocks lay scattered about. Jesus is leading Adam and Eve out of their tombs into daylight. Adam and Eve stand for all of flawed humanity, now set free. The witnesses are apparently those saints who were in heaven all along. They’re not doing anything useful. Jesus is tenderly grasping the wrists of Adam and Eve to show that it is his power, not theirs, that frees them. So, in Orthodox tradition, that’s what Jesus was doing on Easter morning: breaking open the gates of hell and bringing everyone to heaven!
I don’t expect you to take this story literally. Take it to illustrate the meaning and power of Easter. Christ has gone before us into the pits of hell, and set the captives free. What binds you? He can set you free. What hellish scenario terrifies you? He has been there, and makes a way out of no way. Are you powerless to free yourself? Let him do the heavy lifting. And every hell is temporary: love and mercy win in the end. If love and mercy haven’t won, it’s not yet the end.
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Brea Congregational United Church of Christ
Easter Sunday April 21, 2019
Salvation Has Come
Luke 24:1-12 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3but when they went in, they did not find the body. 4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. 6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” 8 Then they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 12 But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.
Rom. 8:31-39 What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? 33 Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I grew up loving science. I read my Dad’s Scientific American magazine and listened to him hold forth on scientific topics. (I come by my preaching honestly.) On Sundays I went to church and I said the Nicene Creed and I listened to miracle stories, and and wondered what I was supposed to do with all that. When I was about six I prayed for miracles, for a sign, for something. Nothing happened. I never told anybody about those prayers. I think I learned early on not to ask too many questions. About anything else, my questions were eagerly answered. About the foundations of our faith, we can neither confirm nor deny incidents reported on Sunday morning. This approach did not help my relationship with God, or my church. I did trust there was a there there, but I didn’t trust that anybody was being honest about how it actually works.
Strangely enough, it was a Buddhist who invited me to reclaim the religion of my childhood: Trongyam Chungpa. In his book “Cutting through Spiritual Materialism,” he noted that Western ‘seekers’ were shopping through the spiritual traditions of the globe, and accumulating piles of spiritual treasures. These treasures were gathering dust, because the seeker was always off to find her next spiritual ‘fix.’ He claimed that any one of those religious treasures, if put on a pedestal and used, engaged, held in relationship, would satisfy your spiritual hunger. It would also challenge you, push your buttons, and make you grow, if you stuck with it. So, Chungpa said, you might as well choose your one object of devotion from the faith of your childhood, since you know that one best, and it will push your buttons right away so you’ll have an opportunity to face your shadow and to grow.
It worked. Here I am. And I love serving a progressive church. I love it that we can be honest here. You can say what you really believe, and what you don’t, and why. Though it does make Easter messages a little challenging. I trust in life after death. I trust in the risen Christ. You, as a church, have agreed to humor me, because it says resurrection right in our mission statement. The original mission statement didn’t have the word resurrection. That word was added later, by congregational vote. I love Congregational church government!
So, Christ is risen, I say! And if you choose, you may reply, “Christ is risen, indeed!” And if that makes no sense to you, or even pushes your buttons, that’s OK. I understand not a physical resurrection; rather something harder to prove, and more useful. I see that Jesus lives by the effects on his followers. As far as I can tell, he’s kept popping up through the centuries to people with eyes to see, sometimes in luminous personal experiences and sometimes in movements of human charity and justice. When did we see you. Lord? I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me. Clearly Jesus’ followers experienced his rising somehow, in a way that empowered them to establish communities in his name, and to travel the known world to share his message of hope. And we still experience him here; not in any way science can measure, rather in a vital relationship that transcends time and space. Christ is risen, indeed.
He didn’t just levitate to heaven. He went through arrest, a sham trial, rejection by the people who had cheered him on Palm Sunday, shameful torture and death. That part of the story, unfortunately, is very easy to believe. But why did he die as he did? What does the cross mean? People have all kinds of explanations. Some of them really push my buttons. But one explanation I find intriguing.
This explanation has bare outlines in the bible, in 1 Peter 3:19 and Ephesians 4. It is the central image of Easter in Eastern Orthodox churches. It is called “Christ the Victor,” or “The Harrowing of Hell.”[1]Orthodox Christians call it, simply, the Resurrection; in Greek, Anastasis. The story goes like this. Since the time of Adam and Eve, people had been dying and going to the underworld. Maybe not Hell as we might think of it, but the land of shades. The Hebrew bible calls it Sheol. The Greeks called it Hades. The dead were forlorn shadows of their earthly selves. The modern version of Hades is seen in Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town. I hate that play.
A few people might ascend to heaven now and then: saints and heroes and royalty. But ordinary people are trapped in the underworld, separated from God. The gates are locked; people can get in but not out. Nobody ever gets out. Jesus’ death, at the hands of the Romans, orchestrated by Jewish leaders, was his way of sneaking into the underworld, under cover. Bear with me. I know this is weird. Dying as an ordinary man, he fools the gatekeeper (Hades or the devil, take your pick). The gatekeeper has no idea he has admitted the Son of God into the underworld. That could be dangerous. Oh yeah. The Son of God has the power to blast open the gates of hell, breaking them forever, and binding the gatekeeper, powerless. The captives stream out, all the ordinary men and women who have died since the beginning of humankind. The is the Easter Procession to Paradise.
In Orthodox art of the Resurrection,[2](see the picture above) Jesus is shown, shining and whole, but with scarred hands, standing on the broken gates with a black pit beneath him. Padlocks lay scattered about. Jesus is leading Adam and Eve out of their tombs into daylight. Adam and Eve stand for all of flawed humanity, now set free. The witnesses are apparently those saints who were in heaven all along. They’re not doing anything useful. Jesus is tenderly grasping the wrists of Adam and Eve to show that it is his power, not theirs, that frees them. So, in Orthodox tradition, that’s what Jesus was doing on Easter morning: breaking open the gates of hell and bringing everyone to heaven!
I don’t expect you to take this story literally. Take it to illustrate the meaning and power of Easter. Christ has gone before us into the pits of hell, and set the captives free. What binds you? He can set you free. What hellish scenario terrifies you? He has been there, and makes a way out of no way. Are you powerless to free yourself? Let him do the heavy lifting. And every hell is temporary: love and mercy win in the end. If love and mercy haven’t won, it’s not yet the end.
I love this image of Easter. Instead of lolling around the garden or floating up to heaven leaving us with an empty tomb, an absence, Jesus is doing his job: saving people! I know I don’t talk a lot about salvation, but it’s Easter! Saved, freed, healed, rescued, it’s all the same idea.
This image could imply that Hell has been completely emptied: universal salvation. Maybe that’s why the Western church suppressed it. Jesus saves, frees, heals, rescues. And I believe he’s good at his job. Let’s modernize this Easter image, put him in a yellow firefighter uniform. Give him jaws of life to crush those gates. Have you ever met a firefighter who says, “No, I won’t rescue you. You don’t deserve it. You don’t believe the right things.” No way! Firefighters will rescue anybody. Firefighters even run into burning buildings to save people. (Facing death. Like Jesus did.)
All this is metaphor for the reality of a life-giving relationship that my science can’t measure, but that my spirit needs to face the hurts and fears of this world.
So where are you in this picture? I hope you won’t just stand around like these so-called saints and watch Jesus doing his Easter work. Put out a hand and help him. Help him pull some people out of the pit they’re in. If you need help yourself, to get out of the pit you’re in (and we all do, at one time or another) let him take your hand– or let one of his friends help you. Then offer your other hand to the one beside to you, and we will make a great human chain. Our little church is a crucial link in that human chain, because other Christians have been discarding doubters, sexual minorities, the planet… from their salvation, but we know better. Your participation here makes a difference! We are all part of the Easter procession, part of God’s unstoppable love and power and hope that Jesus has shown us. So…
Be freed of the bondage of fear. Take courage: borrow his courage.
Be freed of guilt. Make your amends, but then give to Christ the burden of perfection you cannot carry.
Be freed of resentment and bitterness. Enjoy the healing power of forgiveness.
Be freed of bigotry, whether you dish it out or are on the receiving end. In Christ is neither black nor white, rich nor poor, gay nor straight, binary nor nonbinary, alien nor citizen. All are children of one God.
Be freed of the illusion of inadequacy, so you can take your place in the great human chain of salvation, and take up the good work that only you can do.
Be freed of loneliness. His love knits the whole universe together. How did you ever imagine that you were alone?
We are human, and we will keep falling into the pits of our own limitations and the ones we dig for each other. But the secret is out: the gates are no longer locked; and love wins in the end. Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!
[1]The classic modern understanding of the “Christ the Victor” story of the cross is in a slim book by Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor. This book also examines the two other popular Western views of the cross, Substitutionary Atonement and Moral Influence. The Christ the Victor story was the most common understanding of Jesus’ death and resurrection from the earliest days of church art through the first twelve centuries in the West, until it was marginalized by the idea of Substitutionary Atonement. It is still the core of the Easter story in Orthodox Christianity.
[2] Resurrecting Easter: How the West Lost and the East Kept the Original Easter Vision by John Dominic Crossan and Sarah Crossan (2018) uncovers the history of this Anastasis image. The short book is travelogue, detective story, art history, and theology.
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