A long time
ago in a hospital far, far away, I was a chaplain where the Sisters who ran it
were very intentional about communicating their Catholic mission and identity.
Which meant, among other things, that my colleagues in the pastoral care
department did many activities throughout the hospital during Lent. And
it was the job of the On-Call Chaplain over Easter weekend to come in on the
evening of Holy Saturday to lead in the transformation of the hospital lobby,
other public spaces, and chapel from the austerity of Lent and Holy Week to the
festivity of Easter.
The first
time I had to do this, I came back to the hospital on Easter Eve, after
attending a local parish’s Easter Vigil. The job included gathering up various
Lenten displays and putting up the white hangings in the Chapel, changing the
veils on various crosses around the building to white (and there were a lot!),
and putting out Easter lilies and tulips and spring flowers in the main lobby,
the chapel. and some other places around the building. That meant that we
ordered lots and lots …and lots!... of flowers!
I
commandeered a handcart and, along with other chaplains and some volunteers, we
started our rounds.
Only a day or
so before, we Chaplains along with many folks from the hospital community had walked
through these very same halls in a special way. At that hospital, we did The
Stations of the Cross on Good Friday. But instead of staying in a chapel, these
Stations were scattered throughout the building—we went to places where people
met suffering, pain, hope, fear, loneliness, death and new life. These stations
were in the places where people ministered to human frailty, sometimes with
awesome technology and just as often with compassion and simple touch. These
were the places where divine healing met human need in everyday ways so often
that, if you weren’t careful, they would become mundane.
These were
the places Jesus walked. The cross stands at the intersection of brokenness and
hope. And just two days before, on Good Friday, we walked with Jesus to places
where suffering and compassion could not be plainer. At the hospital, we did
what a lot of parish church do on Good Friday, placing a plain, rude wooden
cross in the sight of all and, in venerating that cross, we confronted all the
ways we separate ourselves from God, each other, and creation.
Anyway, back
at that hospital all those years ago, when it came time to get those Easter
flowers, and they were gone! They were not in loading dock, no one moved them
to the chapel, or our offices. They were not tucked away in some corner. Where
could they be? I mean how could you lose a half dozen pallets of flowers? After
much searching, I called security.
The guard was
expecting my call. He said, “I’ll show you.”
We met and
took the elevator to the basement, to a dark hall in the oldest wing of the
hospital, a hallway that few people walked. We came to an unmarked door. The
guard sorted through his wad of keys and opened the door and we entered the
morgue.
Just before
he turned the knob, he said to me “Don’t worry, Chaplain, there had been a body
in here tonight, but now it’s gone.”
He was right.
When he opened the door, there was no dead body. But there was an explosion of
flowers! Everywhere there were lilies, daisies, tulips, and spring flowers.
They covered the examination table, the counters and overflowed and even the
drawers meant to hold bodies, like the ones you see on shows like NCIS, had
flowers on them.
A place of
sterility was filled with color! The medicinal “laboratory” smell was overcome
with the perfume of blooming flowers. A place of death had become a
nursery.
It turns out
that the housekeepers had brought the flowers to the morgue because they
arrived a day early and they thought they’d keep longer in the coolness of the
morgue. “I hope you don’t mind,” the guard said.
So that’s my Easter story, or at least one of them. Easter lilies in the morgue. What’s yours? The thing about these stories is that they don't have to be specifically religious or even mention Jesus by name. But what happens points you in a Godward direction and may even spark a change inside of you. So, where have you encountered the risen Christ or seen signs of resurrected life?
Remember, that as we hear the Easter story, we are
not celebrating an empty tomb, much less a morgue. Seeing an empty tomb
does not bring life. An empty tomb does not change anything. The Easter story
centers on women who came expecting to find a body and instead the found an
empty tomb, a vision of angels, and then encountered in person the real, live Risen
Jesus. That encounter, theirs and ours, is what we celebrate today.
All these
people encountered Jesus at the point of their deepest need… and they were all changed!
In Matthew’s
Gospel, we hear how Mary came to the tomb to grieve and to care for the dead
body of her dead friend, teacher, and healer.
What she
encounters is an earthquake, and an angel descending from heaven… it reminds me
a little bit of Jacob’s ladder, as if a doorway has opened between heaven and
earth… who is dressed in lightning and heavenly glory, who comes down, moves aside
the rock door and takes a seat. The angel invites them to go inside and look at
the empty tomb and then instructs them to go to Galilee where they will meet up
with the Risen Jesus.
In John’s
Gospel, something similar happens but first they run to tell the disciples of
the empty tomb. Mary runs to the disciples, and Peter and the Beloved Disciple both
race each other back to the tomb. They find it just as she said—empty, vacant.
Bandages on one side, and the face-cloth neatly folded on the other side. But
that is all. The two disciples leave, perplexed. Mary stays behind at the empty
tomb, weeping even more.
It is Jesus
who comes to her and ministers to her, only she doesn’t recognize him at first.
She supposes him to be a groundskeeper who might know something. She is looking
for her friend. It is only when he utters her name that she understands.
“Mary” he
says. She knows that voice. She knows that person who reached out and touched
her heart and cast away whatever was eating away at her life. Her fear is at
once replaced with relief, healing and courage.
I love these
Easter morning journeys. Can you see your journey reflected in hers?
I don’t know
about you, but I see so much of my own spiritual journey in Mary’s zig-zag
journey to meet the Risen Christ. So often I come to this space, these
sacraments, these liturgies and want only to dwell on the empty spaces in my
soul; along with my fears, disappointments, and sense of endless busy-ness. I
expect, I demand, that they be filled! But too often I try to do that on my
terms, in my way.
The way that works for me is that I tell God what I want God to do for me. I
tell God how it is. Sure, I may bring my expectations, my pride, and my pain,
but I can’t let go of them. Because I really need them to define who I am. So I
tell God to either bless them or fix them. And it’s a pretty safe bet that if
nothing happens, I will either blame God or maybe chalk it up as “another blankity-blank
learning experience.” Either way, my fears are reinforced, my prejudices
stiffen, my attitudes harden.
It's like
coming to an empty tomb. Or to a morgue filled to the brim with flowers. I may
or may not see Christ in all that. It depends on how I look at it.
So let me
tell you where I have met the Risen Christ. I have met the Risen Christ in the
person of a grown man who spent his whole life in a state institution for the developmentally
disabled but was then moved into a group home and then an apartment—who taught
me that Jesus comes to us like a child, even when they are not.
I have met
the Risen Jesus in the face of young girl who had brain cancer and literally
had half her brain removed, who told me in clear, cheerful words “After the
rain comes the rainbow.”
I met the
Risen Christ in a quiet man, a man who knew how to listen with his whole heart
who asked me once what I was running away from and what I really
believed.
I have seen
the Risen Christ in a room full of people who’ve regularly meet in parish halls
and classrooms to share their stories and support each other in their recovery
from addiction one step at a time.
The Risen
Christ has met me in people who have not been intimidated by my anxieties and
busy-ness and have prayed me through difficult times.
And who
knows? You, an ordinary person, an everyday Christian, may not only have seen
the Risen Christ when you have least expected it... you might have encountered a moment of healing, or peace, or acceptance even at the moment when it did not seem remotely possible. The Risen Christ, in my experience, has this habit of showing up when we need God's love and power the most, but when we expect the least. And you might also be the face of the Risen Christ to someone who
needs it … and you might not even know what a miracle you are to that person!
The Risen
Jesus is made is known in baptismal waters, broken bread and poured out
wine--and in the faces of the people God gives to us. The Risen Jesus is made
known by people just like us, who hear him call us each by name, and allows us
weep with the joy being known and who helps leave our empty places in an empty
tomb. Because he is not there. He is risen!
Alleluia!
Christ is risen!
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