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“Can I Get a Witness?”
Luke 24:1-12
Easter Sunday—March 23, 2008
Rev. Shelaine Bird
March 23rd. Easter is a bit early this year, isn’t it? In fact today is the earliest Easter we’ll ever have. This won’t happen again until the year 2228, and I for one won’t there for that. I wasn’t around for the last one either. The last time Easter was this early was 1913. So unless you’re 95 or above, you’ve never done this before. It’s pretty clear that we’ll never be together in this place for a day like this, ever again. What an unusual unlikely morning to hear God’s unlikely, unusual story.
On the first day of the week, at early dawn, the women came to the tomb,
taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb.
They went in, but they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this,
suddenly two people dressed in dazzling clothes stood beside them.
The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the two said,
“Why do you look for the living among the dead? Jesus is not here, he has risen.”
Remember how Jesus told you, while still in Galilee, that the Son of Man
must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”
The women did remember these words and returning from the tomb,
they told all this to the eleven, and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna,
Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles.
But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe the women.
But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stopping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves. Then he went home, amazed at what had happened.
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God!
Can I Get a Witness?
Something happens in our story today: something unlikely, unnerving, outrageous. No one planned it. No one much expected it. And looking back in hindsight for the 2008th time now, we the Church struggle to read it as anything but the well rehearsed and preached-over dramas of Holy Week: Jesus’ Jerusalem entry on Palm Sunday; his Last Supper on Maundy Thursday; his crucifixion on Good Friday; the empty tomb on Easter morning. As one who preaches I have to remind myself that the Holy Days at first were just days. Unusual, unlikely days-like Easter on March 23rd-but still just days.
And surely the women in today’s story didn’t suspect we would be talking about them 2008 years later: what they did and said. Good Lord, if I believed folks would be talking about me 2000 years from now, I’d be too petrified to leave my house! No, these women were just living out their lives, as mothers and sisters and wives, in a particular time and place. They cooked food, practiced the art of housekeeping, nursed the sick, and passed down traditions to their babies (including Jesus).
Today’s story is not the women’s story. It’s God story, once into which they got swept up! I noticed that these Easter women were rarely the ones called upon to speak. More often they’re in the back; they’re off to the side. They’re the Witnesses. They’re watching. They’re listening. They’re paying attention. They’re remembering.
After the curtain in the temple tore in two, and Jesus breathed his last breath on the cross, it was Joseph of Arimathea who asks Pilate for the body, and wrapped it carefully in linen and took it, even as the body began to cool in the evening air, to an open tomb nearby. And the women, those witnesses, followed behind paying attention …listening …remembering. They saw how Joseph laid Jesus’ body inside, just so. And they noticed details, like the burial spices that no one had thought to bring. I guess no one was hoping to handle a dead body that night! And so they ran home to prepare them quickly, as the Sabbath was coming. By their kitchen sinks the shell shocked women ground spices and cried and shook with grief, and added scented oils. And then set it by the front door to wait--all stirred up inside--through an unbearably long Saturday.
Saturday came. Saturday went. Then our text begins, with the dawn just breaking in Sunday morning. And the women were already out the door, spices in hand, hand in hand, walking to that terrible tomb. And when they got there—you may have heard the story—the stone had been rolled away. So slowly they poked their heads in: looking, listening, reaching out hands to… touch. And they felt dirt, bits of linen here and there, and nothing else, for the body was gone. The text says the women were perplexed, but my heavens, they must have been terrified. Had Joseph forgotten to close the tomb? Had thieves come for the body? Wild animals in night? What if they got blamed, for the women were the only witnesses, the first ones there!
In the midst of growing anxiety, suddenly two people--or angels--in dazzling clothes appeared out of nowhere (what does a dazzling angel looks like?). They spoke: Why are you looking for the living among the dead? He is not here. He is risen! Women…Remember. He told you in Galilee that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and crucified, and on the third day rise again. Remember, women, remember!
Perhaps one of the miracles in this today’s text is that they did remember. These witnesses: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the Mother of James, and the others who had been standing in the back all this time watching, listening, paying attention. These women of Galilee remembered! Suddenly they looked back at this dark drama of Holy week and saw a pattern beginning emerge from the chaos, the way that only happens in hindsight! They looked at each other and nodded and whispered: Jesus told us this would happen! Suddenly, they glimpsed God’s way when before there had been no way. And they were the witnesses: Jesus is alive!
As soon as they got it—POOF—the angels were gone.
But the women were there. More there, grounded, more alive than ever before. How many weeks and months had they had been watching and listening, paying attention to the details? Now they had something to say!
The Logic of Leiros!
And it’s worth noting whom they choose to tell. When they leave that tomb the women do not run into the streets screaming: Jesus is Risen! Jesus is risen! They don’t run to seminary, get ordained and preach at the temple. They don’t fly out to tell their story on Oprah. They don’t go get a Ph.D. and publish a book.
What they do is go Home. The women return to their people, to the disciples in that Upper Room with whom they’ve shared this dark drama. The ones they hoped would be the most willing (eager?) to believe their witness, their testimony. But that’s not what happened at all. Luke writes that
“…returning from the tomb they told all this to the eleven and the rest
…but their words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe the women (24:9, 11).
Wait. What? Rewind that. Their words seemed to the disciples an idle tale? An idle tale? Why?
Were the women too emotional? Did they arrive out of breath and all begin blurting out at the same time, crying and praying, and appearing some hormonal holy mess? Idle tale?
Why idle tale? That the One whom they had followed and feared and loved and maybe even abandoned was alive again? An idle tale? I wonder. Do you think Fear might play a role here? After all, the disciples were hiding behind locked doors. Might those men be more terrified than the women had been at the tomb?
I don’t know. Let’s ask Peter. Hey Peter—remember the cock crowing? He’s back! Hey Judas, wherever you are, still got your silver?—cause he’s back!
Who knows? Maybe the only thing more terrifying than never seeing Jesus again, was seeing Jesus again!
The women’s words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe the women. Notice how it is with witnesses. Like the one sitting on the witness stand in the courtroom, if you don’t believe his testimony—what he said he saw and heard and believe to be true—what you’re saying is that you don’t believe him. Ouch!
I’ve been thinking about the phrase “idle tale” lately because it just seems too nice, too domesticated for such a slap in the face. So I did some reading and some digging, and sure enough, it is. The Greek word hiding beneath our translation “idle tale” is LEIROS, and its one Greek word we might want to remember. For starters this is the only instance we find that word in the entire New Testament. That’s a big deal. For people who read and preach and teach the text, that should make red light bulbs start flashing all over the place.
Luke used the word Leiros on purpose, to get our attention, to shock us, and it should. Because Leiros, unlike idle tales, really means Nonsense. It means drivel. Garbage. Leiros translates into Trash.
Anna Carter Florence, whose recent groundbreaking book Preaching as Testimony, pens it this way: No matter how you spin it leiros is just a locker-room word, a wet towel whipping through a chorus of jeers. Until adolescent boys start accusing each other of being full of idle tales, a more faithful translation would probably be ‘These things seemed to them like a lot of nonsense…a lot of garbage…a lot of bull’” (p. 118) although we could slide it right down into the gutter.
Can you imagine the faces on those women, when they heard this from their friends? Were they shocked, or angry, or embarrassed? Did they stick around, or just leave through those locked doors they had just entered?
This is the gritty truth of Easter: That the Good News, for which the disciples had hoped and prayed, when it came down to really hearing it, was too much. It was too unlikely, too unnerving, too outrageous!
See, what if those women were right, and their witness--or testimony or story-- was true? If what they saw and heard and believe about it is true, then this is a world where dead people don’t even stay dead! So what else, in the name of God, might happen?!?! Sometimes the Good News is too big, friends. And how predictably human to lash out at the ones who name our deepest fears.
I want to be perfectly clear about something, so I don’t waste your time. I don’t think those women at the tomb are so altogether different from me or you, or us together. Part of why I find them so beautiful is that they’re just people. Other than two Mary’s and a Joanna, they don’t ever get their name in the history book. They have no title, no degree, no gavel, no pulpit. The only authority they have is their Witness. What they saw, and what they heard, and what they believe about it. And here’s an Easter secret: that’s all it takes.
Speaking Easter in a Good Friday World
Maybe you’ve spent your life teaching or healing, raising children or growing food, running a business or practicing law. We each have our own gifts, different personalities, and some unique vocabulary that makes up who we are. Rather than acting like it doesn’t matter who we are, I think it matters a great deal, because that’s the kind of witness we will be. And we will be.
When Moby Benedict shares how he’s heard God, it may sound a lot like Baseball, and it will be a home-run in the ninth inning, bases loaded, and it’s all over ‘cause the game is won!
When Penny Szczechowski tells us when how she’s experienced God, it may feel like cooking homemade chocolate, and it will be sweet and fill us inside.
When Mike Malecki witnesses to how he’s seen God, it may look like caring for this beautiful church, and remind us how awesome it is to be sheltered here.
None of your words, your witness, your stories should ever sound like mine or Kyle’s or anyone else’s, for we can only be witnesses with our own words. And it’s really not a matter of IF. As if the answer to “Can I Get a Witness?” is actually Yes or No. The answer is When? and Where? and How?
Just by the fact that we all somehow showed up this morning, I believe we’re already a part of it: this Story. You may be a lifelong believer, or you may be in church for the first time in your life today. Either way, we’re a part of this thing together. And it’s not our story, mind you. We’ve got to get over ourselves. It’s God’s story, but one into which we have most definitely been swept up, like those beautiful women of Luke…
who were brave enough to tell the Good News. Not in some bible-thumping sermon, nor some critically-distanced religious lecture, but by telling what they saw with their own eyes, what they heard with their own ears, and what they—in their own hearts—believe to be true. When outrageous good news like theirs gets spoken, it turns this world upside down.
So hear the Good News friends. Jesus Christ is Risen today—Alleluia! The stone is rolled away! The tomb is open and the Word got out! It’s out friends: in here, and out there! The Word of God is loose, unleashed and a bit unhinged. The Kingdom of God is alive and dawning around us and through us and despite us. How utterly outrageous!
And our job isn’t to understand it. Our job is to pay attention. To open our eyes, unclog our ears, notice the details, try to remember together what Jesus said, and then tell our story when its time. But always know what to expect.
Because the lesson these women teach is this: they won’t believe you. The Easter gospel---this raw outlandish story of God—is always met with ridicule. So this is my prayer for you: Speak it anyway.
Maybe the people who hear you will smile politely, while you know they think you’re a naďve fool. Speak it anyway.
Or maybe like the earliest disciples, they will hold a stone in their hand, look you in the eyes, and cry “Leiros.” Speak it anyway.
Trekking to the Tomb
For we live in a Good Friday world, friends, full of good and anxious and despairing people, who are aching to hear that Easter has come. That the limits of our little lives are not the limits of God. And that the last word we hear will not be death. We are dying to hear that outrageous good news from someone who has seen it with her own eyes, heard it through his own ears, and believes it with utterly. Although they won’t believe it, not at first. Even the Christians who knew Jesus on a first name basis didn’t.
But that’s not the end of our text. Our story today ends with a surprise. Remember it? After the disciples have pointed and laughed and thrown their proverbial stones at the women, time went by. An hour, a day, a week? I have no idea. Then Peter, one of the disciples, does something unexpected. “He got up and ran [out the locked doors] to the tomb. Stopping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves. Then Peter went home, amazed.”
Peter went, as they all did eventually, not because they should or could, but because they wanted to know if the women were right, if their witness stood true. And if you don’t know Peter the Disciple, perhaps you’ve heard of Peter the Rock…as in The Rock of the Christian Church. He saw the empty tomb for himself, and the church, all of us and this is history. But how would he have gone without a witness?
The Word is Out. For generations people have been hearing it and seeing it and following it. And it’s no tame thing. The Word topples empires, tears down walls, proclaims jubilee, and brings us to our knees. For we’re a part of it--swept up into God’s unlikely, unnerving, outrageous story. And our job is to pay attention.
Can I get a witness? Can you get a witness? In the name of the risen Christ, can we get a witness? Amen.
Rev. Shelaine R. Bird
**With deep thanks to Rev. Dr. Anna Carter Florence for her own witness, her words, and her new book Preaching as Testimony (2007 Westminster/John Knox Press). Her insights helped loose the sermon inside of me.
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