( Mark 16:1-8 ) - [ Deutsch ] - [ Akündigungen492.78 KB ]
Easter should be a day of joy.
And yet… the mood is depressed these days, dear congregation. All that destruction caused by the floods in KZN. So, our thoughts today are with all the victims. Our hearts also go out to all the people in the war and crisis zones of our world today. Dear congregation, how are we to cope with the flood of human suffering and blatant injustices?
What keeps us from despairing and losing our hope?
I know no other answer to this question than Easter.
Easter is the Christian celebration of hope against all the sadness of this world. That is why we sing so much and with so much hope: "Let us all be glad"; "Glory to God in the highest"; "The glorious day has come". We do not sing our songs to drown out the cries of fear and despair around us. Nor for the purpose of numbing ourselves. We sing to counter the sadness with something, so despair does not have the last word.
Easter is the Christian celebration of hope against all the sadness of this world. So it was from the beginning. The sound of jubilation on Easter morning was preceded by the cry of pain and lament on Good Friday. And it took quite a while for the joy to really penetrate the hearts. This is what the Easter story from the Gospel of Mark tells us.
Scripture reading: Mark 16:1-8
No trace of Easter joy in this story by the evangelist Mark, dear congregation. Later authors like Matthew and Luke were uncomfortable with this; they therefore gave their resurrection narratives a different and brighter character.
Mark's account however, has the advantage that it probably comes closest to what actually happened. The women of whom the evangelist tells us, did not rejoice. Not at the beginning of the story, early at dawn, when they enter the cemetery to anoint Jesus' body. Nor at the end of the story. There they hurry away from the tomb, horrified, touched by something eerie, almost ghostly.
They keep what they experienced to themselves, not only because they themselves were deeply shaken by it, but also because all others would have thought them crazy and out of their minds if they reported anything about it. The message of the young man from the burial cave: Jesus is risen! - does not get through to the women at first, just as little as his appeal: "Do not be afraid!” They are afraid, of course... yes even more: they are almost panic-stricken with fear and horror. They came directly from Good Friday, from the place of Golgotha with its gruesome images and impressions. And now this. Who could blame the women for feeling the ground shaking beneath their feet? Their shock reaction is extremely understandable. Most of us would probably not have reacted differently and would have found it just as difficult as them, to rejoice and believe in the resurrection of Jesus.
Even we today still have a challenging time with it. It does not fit into our understanding. We are still caught up in the images and sounds of death. Those are all too real for us to easily open the door to Easter joy. Martin Luther sums it up when he says about Jesus' resurrection: "It is not a lie, but the plain truth. But we have heavy ears and hard, slow hearts to grasp such things. If we understood it rightly, we would rejoice in it with all our hearts and walk with absolute joy. ”
The women do not jump for joy, they run away and remain silent. And when, sometime later, they do recount what they saw and heard, their fear that the story will not be accepted, is confirmed. The disciples of Jesus wave them away wearily. And the scepticism towards the Easter message continues in the following years. The ears are heavy, the hearts are hardened. That was the case then, and it is no different today. Hence the emphasis with which the Easter message has been passed on from the beginning, right up to the present day: "The Lord is risen! He is truly risen!" Truly, dear congregation! Not just in our imagination or fantasy. Nor merely in the sense that his plan carries on and his word continues to work in us like a saying from Plato or Seneca. But in the sense that He lives and walks by our side, and we can count on Him.
Not easy to believe, and even less easy to understand. The Easter message must continuously re-assert itself against human doubts and what appears to be. Easter goes beyond anything we can imagine. With Easter, a completely different reality bursts into our lives to what we know and are familiar with. For all who dare to accept this new reality, their perspective changes completely. They suddenly realise that this earthly life with its abysses and its big or small dramas is not all there is. That the victims of the rains in KZN and other places have not been lost. That the bloodshed in Ukraine and many other parts of the world will one day stop because God heals the wounds of the earth. That an eternal home with God has been prepared for the many refugees of this earth. That those who failed, the lost, the sick and the dying have a perspective that goes beyond earthly existence. And that in the end, not a void and darkness await each of us, but God's light and love.
This, dear congregation, is the hope of Easter. And this hope gives us joy in a world full of fear and terror. We do not dream of a constructed, just earthly reality, but we also do not resign ourselves to it as it is. We trust that it has a future from God. And this trust gives us courage to make changes here and now. For we no longer look upon ourselves, our own impotence and helplessness, but at the One who stands before us and calls out to us: "Do not be afraid! I am the First and the Last. I am the living One; I was dead, and behold, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades." Amen.