Easter Day

March 23, 2008 

Acts 10:34-43

Psalm 118:14-17, 21-25

Colossians 3:1-4

Matthew 28:1-10

The floor of Dorchester Abbey, like all the churches we visited in Oxford looked like a block patterned quilt of markers for people who had lived in that village. When they died they were entombed beneath the floor of the church. They didn’t have to be a ‘member’ of the church in the way we think of members. There was one church in every village and if a member of the village died the church took care of them properly. The way a vessel that once held the breath of God deserves to be taken care of.  The Church has always known what to do with death.

I looked at all the names on the markers to see if I recognized anyone from Church history or from my own ancestry. I looked at the span of life recorded on the markers too. Some did live to a good old age. I saw ninety-somethings. Sometimes there were fragments of scripture or words of consolation carved in the stone but none could compare with the marker for Sarah Fletcher, wife of Captain Fletcher. It was huge in comparison with the others. That marker called out to me by name. Me and everyone like me who wants to read everything that has ever been written down anywhere. The first word on the marker was ‘READER’ followed by an exclamation point. That’ll get my attention every time.

    "If thou hast a heart famed for tenderness and pity contemplate this spot     in  which are deposited the remains of a young lady whose artless beauty, innocence of mind, and gentle manners once obtained her the love and esteem of all who knew her. But when nerves were too delicately spun to bear the rude shakes and jostling which we meet in this transitory world, nature gave way. She sunk and died a martyr to excessive sensibility."

Well, contemplate that spot I did. I thought how loved Sarah Fletcher must have been for someone to have gone to the trouble to make that marker for her. In 1799, the year of her death, it must have been chiseled by hand. I wondered if it had been the captain himself who made it or maybe the young woman’s father. She was only 29 when she died. Or her mother, maybe a brother or sister or some other friend. Who loved her so much to want everyone who passed her tomb to know about her life and her death? That she was beautiful. Not given to impure thoughts, and well mannered. That many loved her and thought well of her. And that she lacked the strength of nerves to endure well the challenges and difficulties of her life.

The most striking thing to me about this lengthy inscription is the obvious transcendent love of its author for the one in the tomb. That someone was bound to her in life and in death through a love so big and so great that no stone tomb could contain it. A mighty love! A love that had already lived more than two hundred years beyond her death by the time I discovered it, and it would continue to live as long as the words on that marker could be read and understood.

The church has always known what to do with death because of what we know about life. We know every human life is a marker for the transcendent love of God, for the world God made. Like the marker for Sarah Fletcher, we are living stones who convey God’s everlasting love for the world, each of us in our own time.

Easter never denies the truth of the frailty of human life and the certainty of death for us all. We all live and we all die. We cannot ignore that. And Easter says there’s no need to ignore that. Easter says death is only part of the story. Easter says there’s always a morning after – the day we wake up from the sleep of death in the midst of angels and archangels and saints galore. Every Easter gives us a chance to see both life and death with new eyes. And with resurrection eyes nothing is as we expect it to be, not even as it appears to be.

(I can’t resist this old story.) A man went to buy a new suit for Easter from a well-known tailor who was actually a better salesman than he was a tailor. The tailor told the man he was sorry he couldn’t make him a new suit in time for Easter. "But," he said, "I have one here that a man changed his mind about and I think it would be perfect for you." So the man tried on the suit. But when he came out of the dressing room one sleeve was hanging down past his hand, one leg was too long, the jacket didn’t meet in the middle. He said, "Mr. Tailor, I don’t think this one will do for me. Something isn’t right with it." "Oh no! It’s perfect said the tailor." He stood the man in front of the mirror.

"See, look at yourself, you’re too humble. Push your chest out, lift your shoulder a little and point your chin up. When you walk, lead with your left foot. Take wide steps. Let everyone know there’s a song in your heart."

"You know, you’re right. This is the best looking suit I've ever worn," the man said. He paid the tailor and walked home wearing his new suit holding himself just like the tailor told him to. A man and woman passed him on the street.

"Look at that poor man," she said. "Whatever could be wrong with him to make him walk like that?"

"I didn’t notice anything odd about the way he walked," the man said, "But did you see how well that suit fit him?!"

Easter is about the way we see. Through the lens of the resurrection, nothing is as we expect it to be. The women expected to find the body of their beloved friend in the tomb and lo and behold they saw an angel who told them the good news. Having seen the angel and heard the news their eyes and ears were opened and ready to see their risen Lord when he greeted them.

Whoever carved that beautiful inscription addressed to a reader with a heart full of tenderness and pity might have expected me to feel pity for Sarah Fletcher. But through resurrection eyes I saw how loved she was. No one who is loved with a love that transcends death is to be pitied because she died. She is to be remembered with joy because she lived and died bound to someone by such a mighty love.

On this Easter morning, with signs of new life all around us, our risen Lord in our midst, our friends and loved ones by our sides, I pray we see life and death with new eyes. That our hearts are warmed because we know we are loved with the transcendent love of God. And through that mighty love we are bound to our God in life and in death forever.