Love That Never Lets Go
Love That Never Lets Go Rev. Chandler Stokes John 20:11-18
The Resurrection of the Lord – Easter Sunday
April 20, 2014
Scripture Introduction In John’s gospel, Easter morning begins with Mary going to the tomb alone. She discovers it empty and reports that to Peter and the beloved disciple, who come running to the tomb, find it just as Mary described, and then return to their homes. We will pick up the story after they leave. 11
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17 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.’ ” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her. *** I am really glad to see all of you here today. It really is wonderful to see you all on Easter morning. Welcome again! Now, I know there are a lot of different reasons that you are all here. I’m sure that for somebody it’s because Mom said you had to: “It’s Easter and we’re all going.” That’s how it worked in my house. I had to go. In fact, my mom said, “Chandler, you have to go. You’re the preacher.” That’s why I’m here. I was there, but I sure didn’t get it—the whole Easter thing. There are a lot of reasons you might be here, and among them, it would be grand if some of you were here out of, oh, I don’t know, theological interest, poised and eager to be lifted by the Lord’s rising from the dead, but… there’s still that whole rising-from-the-dead, Easter thing. I mean, the resurrection isn’t so easy.
Because sermons are prepared with an emphasis on verbal presentation, the written accounts may occasionally stray from proper grammar and punctuation.
Love That Never Lets Go You may not be troubled by the resurrection this morning, but at some point we’ve all had our problems with it. And if you’re in that “I’m not so sure about this whole thing” mode, we probably haven’t made it any easier for you. We’ve already put these fantastical words in your mouth: “Jesus Christ is risen today,” “Christ is risen indeed.…” We’ve put “peer pressure” on you to say this stuff, and that may not be too comfortable for you. I’ve surely had my moments when what was going on in my head during the opening hymn was, “I’m not sure I believe all that. I’m not sure what it means. What is this resurrection thing?” So, if you’ve got some of that going on this morning, you’re not alone. Welcome to Westminster. One of our mottos really is: “I believe; help my unbelief.” For faith—for that thing that goes on “in here”—to be real, we’ve got to be free to ask these questions and have them out in the light, and hold them up in front of this ancient and wise tradition. Before we get to the heart of the sermon, let me offer a preliminary word about resurrection. So, what is this resurrection deal? We’ve just heard one of the stories of Easter, and it’s a little weird. Thing is, all the Easter stories are weird; this one isn’t an exception. In this one in John’s gospel, Mary is grieving: Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. She looks in the tomb and sees two angels of some sort. I’m not sure I know what that’s like—I don’t think I’ve had quite that experience. But that isn’t the truly strange part. The angels and Mary have an exchange; then, she turns around and sees Jesus standing there, but she doesn’t know it’s him. Now, I’ve heard some people say, “That’s because it was dark.” No. That’s not why she doesn’t recognize him. At this point she can even see inside the tomb—the two angels. The gospel writer here isn’t imagining that it’s too dark for her to see Jesus. She sees him, but she doesn’t recognize him. Then, she and Jesus even have a short conversation, and she thinks he’s the gardener. She’s seen him all right; she’s even heard his voice, and she still doesn’t know who it is. So if he looked just like he had before he died, if he sounded just like he did before he died, she’d know who it was. Something is different about Jesus. It’s not until he says her name that she recognizes him. Then she throws her arms around him in relief, or joy, or both. It’s clear that Mary then embraces Jesus, and we’ll come back to that. It’s her not recognizing him that I want to underscore first. What this gospel suggests is that resurrection isn’t a matter of a dead body getting up and moving around again. This is not The Walking Dead. Otherwise, Lazarus or someone else whom Jesus had raised would be called the “firstborn of the dead”—the gospel concept is that Jesus is the first to be resurrected. There’s some kind of transformation that goes on in resurrection. And that’s not just John’s gospel. That’s what all the gospels seem to say. In Luke, there’s the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. They walk along talking with Jesus, while he explains Scripture to them. They walk together for miles. They invite him to stay at their destination. They have dinner together—all Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI
Page 2 of 7
April 20, 2014
Love That Never Lets Go the while they have no idea who it is. Then, he breaks bread at the table, and they recognize him. In Matthew, it says that they saw him but doubted. In Mark, all they have is a young man who says, “He is risen”—nobody sees Jesus at all at the end of Mark’s gospel. All four gospels are like that. Enigmatic. There’s something different than empirical truth here. Something seems to have gone on with Jesus, for sure. We call it resurrection. There is some way in which he is alive and present—in all those times and all those places—Jerusalem, Emmaus, Galilee. But it’s not the sort of thing that by-passes or is unrelated to the people who see him or experience his presence. Something goes on with Jesus, for sure, but something goes on with them too, so that they recognize him. This sort of thing can’t be proven scientifically. I’m not even going to try. You can’t argue your way to the resurrection. But, remember, there are other very real things like that in this world—things that are real and can’t be proven. For instance—and this is something Al Plantinga1 uses in his philosophical explorations of faith—I can’t prove that you exist as an independent source of thought and aren’t just a figment of my imagination. Subjectivity, that is, being a subject through which all of one’s experience necessarily goes, being a mind, is such that you can’t prove the existence of other minds. I can’t prove it, but I’m pretty sure you’re out there having your own thoughts— like, “Mom, can we go home yet?” But that’s just one example. In astronomer Carl Sagan’s wonderful novel Contact, he makes the simple point that not everything, not even some really important things, can be proven. In the book, Ellie, a scientist who believes that all true things can be proven, is talking with a minister, Joss. And Joss asks Ellie if she loves her parents. She answers, “I never knew my mother. My father died when I was nine.” He asks, “Did you love him?” Ellie says softly, “Yes. Very much.” He says, “Prove it.”2 Now, Ellie is absolutely sure. She knows she loved her father, but there’s not a shred of proof. You can know love, experience and offer love, and yet not be able to prove a bit that it’s love. All you can do is witness to it, testify to it: I love you.
As described in Kelly James Clark, Return to Reason: A Critique of Enlightenment Evidentialism and a Defense of Reason and Belief in God (Kindle Edition) (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990). Kindle locations 1178-1650.
1
This is the dialogue from the film adaptation of the novel. This script can be found at http://sfy.ru/?script=contact; screenplay by Menno Meyjes, Ann Druyan & Carl Sagan, Michael Goldenberg, Jim V. Hart—copyright 1997.
2
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI
Page 3 of 7
April 20, 2014
Love That Never Lets Go And so, because it can’t be proven, any offering of love can be doubted. For it to be real and to be trusted, something has to go on in that person you love and also in you. It’s like resurrection, where something goes on in Jesus and something goes on in us. You see, each of the gospels is a witness. None is a proof. Each is a witness. Each says, “Christ is risen.” Each says, “There’s something real on Easter, because it has touched something in me that allows me to trust it and witness to it.” Something winsome touches us, like Mary’s hearing her name, or the disciples’ seeing Jesus break bread, something real elicits something real in us. That’s the preliminary: the resurrection can’t be proven; it’s more like love than like science. Now, since it is Easter, we’ll come back to the resurrection, but I want to talk now about what we’ve touched on here. I want to talk about love and about Mary and Jesus at the tomb. We humans are hard-wired for love. We say that we are made in the image of God, and it is the love in us that is most akin to that image of God. Love is woven into us. It’s hard-wired. This is what I mean. In this past month or so, we have been hit with some gut-wrenching tragedies on our sad planet. From the Malaysia Airlines flight to the shootings in Kansas City to the ferry capsized in Korea, we have had our hearts torn out. Just in Korea, the faces of the mothers and fathers in such overwhelming grief—you have to fight to not be pulled into their deep sorrow. One mother cried out, “How are we supposed to live?” And theirs are so like the stricken faces, just a short time ago, of those waiting to hear about their loved ones on the Malaysia Airlines flight. The anguish is palpable. And I tell you, that is love. Grief, grief is what love looks like in the experience of loss.3 There is so much love surrounding that sunken ferry—all the parents longing to reach down into the depths and pull out their children and hold them again. They grieve for their loved ones. That’s what we call the people in our lives: “our loved ones.” Look at all their names in the bulletin today—the people in whose honor and memory the lilies were given. We are hard-wired for love. You can see it in the names, in the lilies. You can see it in grief. We don’t come to a memorial service because of death, we come because of love. It’s love that brings us. We come because we love them, and even more so, because we know they loved us. It’s love that brings us. It’s love that anguishes those faces. It’s love that names these names. It's all around us, all around the world. It is woven into our humanity.
I believe this is something I learned from my colleague Tom Are, but I don’t know where he has this in print; it is a key insight that drives this sermon. I am grateful for his informing my theology so often and so well.
3
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI
Page 4 of 7
April 20, 2014
Love That Never Lets Go It’s the reason that Peter and the perfectly named “beloved disciple” went to the tomb. They loved Jesus and knew he loved them. It’s the same reason Mary went, why she stood weeping outside the tomb. And love wants to hold on. It’s too easy to imagine the pain of the parents in South Korea. It is a too tender place, but it’s also such witness to love. Our arms ache to hold those we love. Love wants to hold on. There was a little boy in Garberville—the first church Karen and I served, long ago—Waylon was about three. He’d wandered off to the swimming hole and drowned. At the funeral home they let his mother hold his body. I still see them. It was the Pieta in flesh. She had the same stricken face. But there was not just death; there was love. I don’t know how she ever let him go. Love desperately wants to hold on. And Mary. Outside the tomb, Mary finally recognizes Jesus and she throws her arms around him—of course, she does. She’s not about to let go either. But he asks her to. He says, “Do not hold on to me.” Now, you may have heard this resurrection story differently in years past, heard or read that Jesus said, “Don’t touch me.” That is what it said in the old King James translation; it’s just a slight error that got corrected in later translations. The imperative there means not “do not touch me” but “do not continue to touch me.” Stop holding me. Let go. That’s what Jesus says to her. So it’s clear that she has already embraced him, she’s thrown her arms around him. Love wants to hold on. And he says, “Let go, Mary.” That’s hard. She’s already had to let go once. He says, “Let go.” He doesn’t say, “Stop loving me”—just “Stop holding this body.” He says, “Let go,” because he hasn’t yet “ascended to the Father.” Now, I don’t know how ascension works, any more than I know how resurrection works. The idea, though, is fairly simple. For John, God is love. And when Jesus “ascends to God,” Jesus is reunited with God, who is love, so that he can be anywhere on our sad planet, like love itself. If he stops being in just one place and one time for Mary, he can be more. If he’s still in a garden in Jerusalem, he can’t be in South Korea or Garberville or here at Westminster. So, he says, “Let go,” so he can become like love itself, with God everywhere. Those of you who work with our children down in the worship centers know that the storyteller “changes the light” at the end of worship. Putting the candle out, the story-teller turns the flame into smoke and says, “Jesus, who was in one time and one place, is now in all times … and all places.” Down here is where pain intrudes on love; this is where arms must let go, but there, in that place to which Jesus “ascends,” love never ends and has no limits and never lets go. Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI
Page 5 of 7
April 20, 2014
Love That Never Lets Go When Stacey died, she was just seventeen. Leukemia attacked not only her body, but also the heart of her whole family. The time came when they turned off the machines. They gathered around her bed, and they read from Revelation: “There will be no more crying and no more death.” Stacey’s daddy held her lifeless hand. When it comes to being a daddy or a granddaddy of a little girl, we never know what to do. We never know what to say. Daddies are at a loss more times than not. We just know we would do anything to protect them. We would do anything to protect them. But Stacey died while her daddy held her hand. And with his heart spilling over with grief, he said: “I was so afraid that, when this moment came, I might not believe in heaven. But I do. Because I love her too much to let death take her away. You know that I would not let her be taken from us if I could. Surely, God loves her at least as much as I do.”4 That’s her daddy’s witness. He can’t explain the resurrection. He doesn’t have a proof, any more than Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, or Mary, but like them, something went on with him and he says in his way, “I have seen the Lord.” He says, “Surely, God loves her at least as much as I do.” That’s why I believe in the resurrection, because God loves you at least as much as I do. As my friend Tom says: “Here’s what we know about love. Love doesn’t always say the right thing. Love doesn’t always do the right thing. But love holds on. Love never ends….”5 If it were within our power, they would all be with us still: all our loved ones—Liz and Catherine and Barb, Deeda and Paul, Charlene, and Bill and Dale, and David, Lori, Paul, and Laurin, the students on the ferry and the passengers on the flight, and Waylon and Stacey, and my friend, KC—they would all be with us still. If it were within our power, they’d be answering our phone calls, and laughing at our stupid jokes, and having supper with us. If it were within our power cancer, and tragedy, and sorrow would all die, and they would be here, because we love them. God is like that: Love that never lets go. We know that love is real. We see the faces on the news, each Pieta, we remember our loved ones, and we are grieved, we are so sad, because we love them, and know they loved us. Proven or not, we know love is real—we know it in own tears.
4
From a sermon by Tom Are, Village Presbyterian Church, January 4, 2013.
5
From the memorial meditation for KC Ptomey by Tom Are.
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI
Page 6 of 7
April 20, 2014
Love That Never Lets Go Dearly beloved, every tear in grief is a witness to love, the love hard-wired into us. Grief is a witness to Love in the image of God that never lets go. That’s who God is: Love that never lets go. That is why God raised Jesus from the dead and promises to raise us all. Because God is love that never lets go—through neither death nor life. God will raise us to where there will be no suffering, or crying, or pain, or death any longer. Because God is love that never lets go. Friends, Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed!
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI
Page 7 of 7
April 20, 2014
The Resurrection of the Lord – Easter Sunday
April 20, 2014
Scripture Introduction In John’s gospel, Easter morning begins with Mary going to the tomb alone. She discovers it empty and reports that to Peter and the beloved disciple, who come running to the tomb, find it just as Mary described, and then return to their homes. We will pick up the story after they leave. 11
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17 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.’ ” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her. *** I am really glad to see all of you here today. It really is wonderful to see you all on Easter morning. Welcome again! Now, I know there are a lot of different reasons that you are all here. I’m sure that for somebody it’s because Mom said you had to: “It’s Easter and we’re all going.” That’s how it worked in my house. I had to go. In fact, my mom said, “Chandler, you have to go. You’re the preacher.” That’s why I’m here. I was there, but I sure didn’t get it—the whole Easter thing. There are a lot of reasons you might be here, and among them, it would be grand if some of you were here out of, oh, I don’t know, theological interest, poised and eager to be lifted by the Lord’s rising from the dead, but… there’s still that whole rising-from-the-dead, Easter thing. I mean, the resurrection isn’t so easy.
Because sermons are prepared with an emphasis on verbal presentation, the written accounts may occasionally stray from proper grammar and punctuation.
Love That Never Lets Go You may not be troubled by the resurrection this morning, but at some point we’ve all had our problems with it. And if you’re in that “I’m not so sure about this whole thing” mode, we probably haven’t made it any easier for you. We’ve already put these fantastical words in your mouth: “Jesus Christ is risen today,” “Christ is risen indeed.…” We’ve put “peer pressure” on you to say this stuff, and that may not be too comfortable for you. I’ve surely had my moments when what was going on in my head during the opening hymn was, “I’m not sure I believe all that. I’m not sure what it means. What is this resurrection thing?” So, if you’ve got some of that going on this morning, you’re not alone. Welcome to Westminster. One of our mottos really is: “I believe; help my unbelief.” For faith—for that thing that goes on “in here”—to be real, we’ve got to be free to ask these questions and have them out in the light, and hold them up in front of this ancient and wise tradition. Before we get to the heart of the sermon, let me offer a preliminary word about resurrection. So, what is this resurrection deal? We’ve just heard one of the stories of Easter, and it’s a little weird. Thing is, all the Easter stories are weird; this one isn’t an exception. In this one in John’s gospel, Mary is grieving: Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. She looks in the tomb and sees two angels of some sort. I’m not sure I know what that’s like—I don’t think I’ve had quite that experience. But that isn’t the truly strange part. The angels and Mary have an exchange; then, she turns around and sees Jesus standing there, but she doesn’t know it’s him. Now, I’ve heard some people say, “That’s because it was dark.” No. That’s not why she doesn’t recognize him. At this point she can even see inside the tomb—the two angels. The gospel writer here isn’t imagining that it’s too dark for her to see Jesus. She sees him, but she doesn’t recognize him. Then, she and Jesus even have a short conversation, and she thinks he’s the gardener. She’s seen him all right; she’s even heard his voice, and she still doesn’t know who it is. So if he looked just like he had before he died, if he sounded just like he did before he died, she’d know who it was. Something is different about Jesus. It’s not until he says her name that she recognizes him. Then she throws her arms around him in relief, or joy, or both. It’s clear that Mary then embraces Jesus, and we’ll come back to that. It’s her not recognizing him that I want to underscore first. What this gospel suggests is that resurrection isn’t a matter of a dead body getting up and moving around again. This is not The Walking Dead. Otherwise, Lazarus or someone else whom Jesus had raised would be called the “firstborn of the dead”—the gospel concept is that Jesus is the first to be resurrected. There’s some kind of transformation that goes on in resurrection. And that’s not just John’s gospel. That’s what all the gospels seem to say. In Luke, there’s the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. They walk along talking with Jesus, while he explains Scripture to them. They walk together for miles. They invite him to stay at their destination. They have dinner together—all Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI
Page 2 of 7
April 20, 2014
Love That Never Lets Go the while they have no idea who it is. Then, he breaks bread at the table, and they recognize him. In Matthew, it says that they saw him but doubted. In Mark, all they have is a young man who says, “He is risen”—nobody sees Jesus at all at the end of Mark’s gospel. All four gospels are like that. Enigmatic. There’s something different than empirical truth here. Something seems to have gone on with Jesus, for sure. We call it resurrection. There is some way in which he is alive and present—in all those times and all those places—Jerusalem, Emmaus, Galilee. But it’s not the sort of thing that by-passes or is unrelated to the people who see him or experience his presence. Something goes on with Jesus, for sure, but something goes on with them too, so that they recognize him. This sort of thing can’t be proven scientifically. I’m not even going to try. You can’t argue your way to the resurrection. But, remember, there are other very real things like that in this world—things that are real and can’t be proven. For instance—and this is something Al Plantinga1 uses in his philosophical explorations of faith—I can’t prove that you exist as an independent source of thought and aren’t just a figment of my imagination. Subjectivity, that is, being a subject through which all of one’s experience necessarily goes, being a mind, is such that you can’t prove the existence of other minds. I can’t prove it, but I’m pretty sure you’re out there having your own thoughts— like, “Mom, can we go home yet?” But that’s just one example. In astronomer Carl Sagan’s wonderful novel Contact, he makes the simple point that not everything, not even some really important things, can be proven. In the book, Ellie, a scientist who believes that all true things can be proven, is talking with a minister, Joss. And Joss asks Ellie if she loves her parents. She answers, “I never knew my mother. My father died when I was nine.” He asks, “Did you love him?” Ellie says softly, “Yes. Very much.” He says, “Prove it.”2 Now, Ellie is absolutely sure. She knows she loved her father, but there’s not a shred of proof. You can know love, experience and offer love, and yet not be able to prove a bit that it’s love. All you can do is witness to it, testify to it: I love you.
As described in Kelly James Clark, Return to Reason: A Critique of Enlightenment Evidentialism and a Defense of Reason and Belief in God (Kindle Edition) (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990). Kindle locations 1178-1650.
1
This is the dialogue from the film adaptation of the novel. This script can be found at http://sfy.ru/?script=contact; screenplay by Menno Meyjes, Ann Druyan & Carl Sagan, Michael Goldenberg, Jim V. Hart—copyright 1997.
2
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI
Page 3 of 7
April 20, 2014
Love That Never Lets Go And so, because it can’t be proven, any offering of love can be doubted. For it to be real and to be trusted, something has to go on in that person you love and also in you. It’s like resurrection, where something goes on in Jesus and something goes on in us. You see, each of the gospels is a witness. None is a proof. Each is a witness. Each says, “Christ is risen.” Each says, “There’s something real on Easter, because it has touched something in me that allows me to trust it and witness to it.” Something winsome touches us, like Mary’s hearing her name, or the disciples’ seeing Jesus break bread, something real elicits something real in us. That’s the preliminary: the resurrection can’t be proven; it’s more like love than like science. Now, since it is Easter, we’ll come back to the resurrection, but I want to talk now about what we’ve touched on here. I want to talk about love and about Mary and Jesus at the tomb. We humans are hard-wired for love. We say that we are made in the image of God, and it is the love in us that is most akin to that image of God. Love is woven into us. It’s hard-wired. This is what I mean. In this past month or so, we have been hit with some gut-wrenching tragedies on our sad planet. From the Malaysia Airlines flight to the shootings in Kansas City to the ferry capsized in Korea, we have had our hearts torn out. Just in Korea, the faces of the mothers and fathers in such overwhelming grief—you have to fight to not be pulled into their deep sorrow. One mother cried out, “How are we supposed to live?” And theirs are so like the stricken faces, just a short time ago, of those waiting to hear about their loved ones on the Malaysia Airlines flight. The anguish is palpable. And I tell you, that is love. Grief, grief is what love looks like in the experience of loss.3 There is so much love surrounding that sunken ferry—all the parents longing to reach down into the depths and pull out their children and hold them again. They grieve for their loved ones. That’s what we call the people in our lives: “our loved ones.” Look at all their names in the bulletin today—the people in whose honor and memory the lilies were given. We are hard-wired for love. You can see it in the names, in the lilies. You can see it in grief. We don’t come to a memorial service because of death, we come because of love. It’s love that brings us. We come because we love them, and even more so, because we know they loved us. It’s love that brings us. It’s love that anguishes those faces. It’s love that names these names. It's all around us, all around the world. It is woven into our humanity.
I believe this is something I learned from my colleague Tom Are, but I don’t know where he has this in print; it is a key insight that drives this sermon. I am grateful for his informing my theology so often and so well.
3
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI
Page 4 of 7
April 20, 2014
Love That Never Lets Go It’s the reason that Peter and the perfectly named “beloved disciple” went to the tomb. They loved Jesus and knew he loved them. It’s the same reason Mary went, why she stood weeping outside the tomb. And love wants to hold on. It’s too easy to imagine the pain of the parents in South Korea. It is a too tender place, but it’s also such witness to love. Our arms ache to hold those we love. Love wants to hold on. There was a little boy in Garberville—the first church Karen and I served, long ago—Waylon was about three. He’d wandered off to the swimming hole and drowned. At the funeral home they let his mother hold his body. I still see them. It was the Pieta in flesh. She had the same stricken face. But there was not just death; there was love. I don’t know how she ever let him go. Love desperately wants to hold on. And Mary. Outside the tomb, Mary finally recognizes Jesus and she throws her arms around him—of course, she does. She’s not about to let go either. But he asks her to. He says, “Do not hold on to me.” Now, you may have heard this resurrection story differently in years past, heard or read that Jesus said, “Don’t touch me.” That is what it said in the old King James translation; it’s just a slight error that got corrected in later translations. The imperative there means not “do not touch me” but “do not continue to touch me.” Stop holding me. Let go. That’s what Jesus says to her. So it’s clear that she has already embraced him, she’s thrown her arms around him. Love wants to hold on. And he says, “Let go, Mary.” That’s hard. She’s already had to let go once. He says, “Let go.” He doesn’t say, “Stop loving me”—just “Stop holding this body.” He says, “Let go,” because he hasn’t yet “ascended to the Father.” Now, I don’t know how ascension works, any more than I know how resurrection works. The idea, though, is fairly simple. For John, God is love. And when Jesus “ascends to God,” Jesus is reunited with God, who is love, so that he can be anywhere on our sad planet, like love itself. If he stops being in just one place and one time for Mary, he can be more. If he’s still in a garden in Jerusalem, he can’t be in South Korea or Garberville or here at Westminster. So, he says, “Let go,” so he can become like love itself, with God everywhere. Those of you who work with our children down in the worship centers know that the storyteller “changes the light” at the end of worship. Putting the candle out, the story-teller turns the flame into smoke and says, “Jesus, who was in one time and one place, is now in all times … and all places.” Down here is where pain intrudes on love; this is where arms must let go, but there, in that place to which Jesus “ascends,” love never ends and has no limits and never lets go. Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI
Page 5 of 7
April 20, 2014
Love That Never Lets Go When Stacey died, she was just seventeen. Leukemia attacked not only her body, but also the heart of her whole family. The time came when they turned off the machines. They gathered around her bed, and they read from Revelation: “There will be no more crying and no more death.” Stacey’s daddy held her lifeless hand. When it comes to being a daddy or a granddaddy of a little girl, we never know what to do. We never know what to say. Daddies are at a loss more times than not. We just know we would do anything to protect them. We would do anything to protect them. But Stacey died while her daddy held her hand. And with his heart spilling over with grief, he said: “I was so afraid that, when this moment came, I might not believe in heaven. But I do. Because I love her too much to let death take her away. You know that I would not let her be taken from us if I could. Surely, God loves her at least as much as I do.”4 That’s her daddy’s witness. He can’t explain the resurrection. He doesn’t have a proof, any more than Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, or Mary, but like them, something went on with him and he says in his way, “I have seen the Lord.” He says, “Surely, God loves her at least as much as I do.” That’s why I believe in the resurrection, because God loves you at least as much as I do. As my friend Tom says: “Here’s what we know about love. Love doesn’t always say the right thing. Love doesn’t always do the right thing. But love holds on. Love never ends….”5 If it were within our power, they would all be with us still: all our loved ones—Liz and Catherine and Barb, Deeda and Paul, Charlene, and Bill and Dale, and David, Lori, Paul, and Laurin, the students on the ferry and the passengers on the flight, and Waylon and Stacey, and my friend, KC—they would all be with us still. If it were within our power, they’d be answering our phone calls, and laughing at our stupid jokes, and having supper with us. If it were within our power cancer, and tragedy, and sorrow would all die, and they would be here, because we love them. God is like that: Love that never lets go. We know that love is real. We see the faces on the news, each Pieta, we remember our loved ones, and we are grieved, we are so sad, because we love them, and know they loved us. Proven or not, we know love is real—we know it in own tears.
4
From a sermon by Tom Are, Village Presbyterian Church, January 4, 2013.
5
From the memorial meditation for KC Ptomey by Tom Are.
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI
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April 20, 2014
Love That Never Lets Go Dearly beloved, every tear in grief is a witness to love, the love hard-wired into us. Grief is a witness to Love in the image of God that never lets go. That’s who God is: Love that never lets go. That is why God raised Jesus from the dead and promises to raise us all. Because God is love that never lets go—through neither death nor life. God will raise us to where there will be no suffering, or crying, or pain, or death any longer. Because God is love that never lets go. Friends, Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed!
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI
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April 20, 2014
