Meditation Easter Sunday
April 12, 2009
“True North” 
Acts 10: 34-43 and Mark 16:1-8

Let us pray.

Eternal God in the words of my mouth, may your Word be heard; in the mediations of our hearts, may your Word be known; and in the faithfulness of our lives, may your Word be shown. Amen  

            You should all have been given a compass when you came in this morning. Now admittedly these are not the high quality compasses that you will find in the cockpit of an aircraft, in a small Boston Whaler or other runabout. So I do not recommend taking this compass with you on your next hike, climb or trip into the unknown. Now lets take your compass for a test drive; point in the direction your compass says is north. Now, my compass says that North is over here.  For much of human history the compass was the most crucial navigational device.  It allowed you to know what direction you were traveling in even when you knew nothing about where you were and knew only the general direction to where you were supposed to go.

Every time I have sailed anywhere along a strange coast with hidden rocks and sand bars-- whether in New England, the Gulf, the Caribbean or the Pacific -- I have marveled at those explorers who successfully navigated to places they had never seen before -- avoiding treacherous rocks and shoals -- and then they were able to find their way home. The compass was a major contributing factor to those successful journeys of exploration -- pointing Christopher Columbus, Henrik Hudson and Giovanni da Verrazzano in the right direction to return home with information that changed history.

Now you might be asking what does this have to do with Easter? Nothing directly is the short answer. But I think the analogy of a compass offers us insight into the meaning of Easter and that perhaps   Easter can be a kind of compass for our lives. But let’s put the compass analogy on hold   for a moment.

We sang moments ago – “Christ the Lord is Risen today – alleluia!” Indeed, Easter is rightly a time of celebration -- spring is here with the colorful evidence of new life in every flowerbed.  And we celebrate the joy of families gathering together.  Some of us even take pleasure in a new Easter outfit. But what of this day from a religious perspective -- why is it so joyous –so profoundly special? I think at times we find Easter difficult – especially when we get enmeshed in the details that so challenge our normal understanding. But for today let’s put aside the details – “the how” of the empty tomb and “the who” of the figure in white speaking to the women at the tomb, among other Easter mysteries. 

Perhaps you may think that if we can’t really make sense of this event – of the details – doesn’t it lose its meaning. I think not. Take another phenomenon light-- no one has ever seen it. When scientists try to isolate light experimentally they get conflicting images. In some circumstance it appears as particles or photons -- while at other times it appears to be waves just like those on the surface of a pond. In point of fact we never really see light. Yet, despite our lack of direct observation, we never doubt the existence of light because we see its effects -- how it illuminates the world around us – revealing the radiant smile of a child and the indescribable hues of a sunset. And what of love -- can you grasp it with your hands? It isn’t even easy to define love but we certainly know it exists by how it affects us and our world. So for the moment let’s not worry about the details of Easter but let’s focus on what it did and does that profoundly transforms the possible in our world. Indeed, no one event has affected human history more profoundly than this resurrection even though we cannot fully comprehend it. We even measure time in two intervals, BC “before Christ” and AD “anno domini”-- “the year of our Lord”.

So what does Easter do? It assures that we do not live in a Good Friday world. The power of evil did not and does ultimately triumph. Think of what our world would be like without Easter. It would be profoundly different and diminished. Christianity’s primary symbol is the Cross to be sure but it is not a bare Cross -- for it could not and did not hold Jesus. Easter represents the ultimate triumph of love over power. How? First, have you ever asked yourself why on Good Friday God did not send earthquakes and floods? Certainly that is a response we could understand– that abusive power can be answered only with power. Why should God not get even with those who killed Jesus.

But in fact no cataclysms occurred on Saturday to wipe out Pontus Pilate, King Herod or the governing Sanhedrin -- all of whom condemned Jesus to death. No, we find God’s answer in the words of the Risen Christ, urging the disciples to spread the “good news” of the gospel– namely that love is the ultimate answer. As Jesus himself said at the Last Supper, only two things are required of us -- to love God and our neighbors as ourselves. The disciples were not instructed to spread the good news to everyone except those who condemned Jesus. No, the love of God on Easter morning and every day is offered to everyone. Forgiveness, not revenge or retribution, is the Easter message of love. We talk about the tomb being empty but in fact it is chock full of God’s love for us.

If God had abandoned us in a Good Friday world we would live in a world in which death reigns. But Easter turns that upside down too. Good Friday demonstrated that hate kills. Tragically, our front pages all too often remind us of this. But Easter provides an answer. The resurrection doesn’t eliminate death. It transforms it. The evidence is that love never dies. Hate is not finally victorious. My old Divinity School mentor Dudley Rose wrote these apt words

The biggest threat to today’s powers and principalities is someone like Jesus of Nazareth. … The only real mistake [of the authorities back in Jerusalem] was they thought they could defeat [Jesus] the same way they defeated everyone else. So they nailed him to a tree. At the risk of a lame play on words, the only problem was they couldn’t nail him down. The threat he was to their world survived brutal torture. It even survived death. They simply could not contain him.[1]

Whatever else the resurrection stands for -- it is that love never ends as Paul famously wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians. ..  “[Prophesies will come to an end;  … tongues, they will cease; … knowledge it will come to an end …” but love never ends.  The resurrection relates us to unfailing source of love that outlives death.

            I cannot prove that position nor can anyone else. But don’t we see in our post-Easter world evidence of the continuing power of God’s love. Think of those acts of love and kindness extended to Jews during the Nazi terror. There are many such stories some known only to those involved. But there is one[2] that I think represents many of them.

                        It started simply enough one night when a Jewish woman and her children presented themselves at the door of the French Huguenot Pastor  in the village of La Chambon in France. The Pastor, Andre Tocme, offered them lodging and food for the night.  While sheltered there the family recounted their ordeal. This act of hospitality began a series of events that ended with the village of La Chambon’s offering sanctuary and safe passage to many Jewish families fleeing extermination. Hundreds of families were saved. When Pastor Trocme was asked why he did what he did, he noted that Jesus came to be a servant of all and to offer his life as a ransom for many. Pastor Trocme had no clear idea of human rights. He possessed no special prophetic zeal. He simply had the Risen Christ before him. For Pastor Trocme the Risen Christ pointed to a world illuminated by the loving light of Easter morning. And in that light there was no question but to help.   

            Finally, I want to return to that compass in your hand. We glossed over one critical point in using a compass. In fact it doesn’t point north. Rather it points to magnetic north. Here in Chappaqua that means that a compass actually points 13 degrees 22 minutes west of true north. So in plotting one’s course one must account for this deviation to get to true north.  If you fail to make the adjustment, you can end up in quite a different place from your intended destination.

Let’s be blunt -- our world often seems like a Good Friday world. Power and cleverness seem to be the characteristics that prevail. Most of us try to be decent, good people. We help others. We try to be loving and forgiving parents and friends. At work we try to go about our responsibilities honestly. We have good moral compasses for the most part. And when we follow them it is like following the hand of our compass to magnetic north. It leads us generally in the right direction though not perhaps to true north. What we get is a good life and that’s nothing to be ashamed of.  But I think the message of Easter is that we have been given more in Christ Jesus. We have been given the gift of a compass that points eternally to true north and if we follow that direction  -- it gives us a chance for fulfillment as beloved children of God.

            A woman who lost her husband to an accident leaving her with three small children wrote the following letter;

Anything we love more than God can undo us. It doesn’t have to be something in itself bad. Through losing my dearest treasure I have become more aware of how transient are all those things we treasure and depend on. Health and appearance can be ravaged by accident and disease; … financial security can be wiped out by fire or inflation; even character and reputation can be lost by mistakes in judgment or pressure of circumstances. Only the [the love of] God is sure [and eternal] and makes it possible to enjoy what does remain without frantic fear of losing it.[3]

Isn’t that the message of Easter – God’s love of us persists over evil and death.  That is true north. What a liberating and reassuring gift!  Christ the Lord is risen, indeed -- halleluiah. Amen