Cross Way to Freedom
Mark 16:1-8
Sermon delivered Sunday, April 12, 2009
by Rev. Patricia Pearce
Mark's gospel ends – the original text, what we believe to be the original text of Mark – ends in a very very abrupt way. It ends with a note of, actually, fear, the terror of the women who came to the tomb. It was later scribes who tacked on some more reassuring endings to the gospel. But I would like to ask us to enter this story, and to hold that original intention of the writer of this gospel: that we be in this moment and in this day, in that feeling of mystery and awe, and really not knowing what is going on.
I'll be reading the first eight chapters, of Chapter 16, excuse me, eight verses. {laughter} (You all, OK, take our your cell phones and changes your reservations for your Easter brunch, because we're going to be here a while...)
"When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices so that they might go and anoint Jesus' body. And very early on the first day of the week when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll the stone away from the entrance to the tomb?' When they looked up, they saw the stone, which was very large, had been rolled back. And they entered the tomb, and they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side. And they were alarmed. But he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised. He is not here. Look, there is the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples, and Peter, that he is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see him just as he told you.' So they went out, and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid."
{prayer}
We have a weekly Bible study group, and I was sharing with them a couple of weeks ago about how every year I come back to this crucifixion and resurrection story, and I always feel like I'm sort-of circling around it. It's almost like being on the edge of the event horizon of a black hole. I circle around this story feeling like I never quite enter into the heart of it. Like there is some mystery that always, always eludes me. I just never have a handle on it. So I'm going to put that out there, just, up front: If you're looking for a handle on this mystery, you're not going to find it today; I'm sorry.
What we know is that whatever happened was so unexpected that it filled people with amazement, awe, and fear. We come to Easter morning in our nice clothes and our flowers and singing Alleluia, but the women who ran from the tomb were struck mute by some power that they knew had been unleashed that they could not understand.
This year, as I've circled back around this story, I have come at it from this past year's experiences. We've all witnessed a lot of collapsing. Collapsing of certainties. Collapsing of securities. We come at this story with a different awareness. And I've been thinking – we can't get to resurrection without crucifixion. And I've been thinking this year about the cross, and what the cross has come to mean to me. The cross, of course, let's just get this straight: it was the Roman Empire that crucified Jesus. Crucifixion was a tool of the Roman Empire. A tool of torture, a tool of terror, a tool of execution. So, for me, the cross represents that Empire stance, of power over, of domination, of the expansion of influence and authority, of a craving for wealth, for resources, and extended power. That's what the cross represents. The cross is that desire for more. For more power, for more resources, it is that impulse of greed. Now, if we look at it from a personal level, if we take the big cross, the big Empire cross, and we shrink it down to a personal cross, what we find are all of those drives and desires individually, that, when they get acted out collectively, they result in Empire. Those individual ego drives – that what I am, and who I am, is not enough.
So, I'm going to move us – just fasten your seatbelts, because we're going to be going back and forth a little bit. But we're looking at this big global reality of cross, and what it has done to peoples and to the Earth itself. We're looking at the collapse of financial institutions, we're looking at the collapse of ecosystems... Why? Because it is this impulse to always accumulate more. It's the impulse of greed. So when we take that into ourselves, we can recognize all the little ways in which we act out and live out of that impulse, and that belief, that we aren't enough, that we don't have enough, that we're never good enough.
Jesus lived out of a different understanding. And he tried to teach that understanding to people. He tried to teach them that they were already enough. That what they had was already enough. That they didn't need to strive for power and status. And he also lived out of an awareness of his complete Oneness with the Divine. That is, his understanding of his essential self, his essential nature, as being that of God.
We have not yet understood the extent of that message. Because it is not intended just for Jesus. That idea of separation between humans and the Divine... Jesus, at his baptism, shed himself of those illusions, and when he entered into the wilderness, he confronted his own ego drives. And he continually re-oriented himself to complete trust in God. He continually reclaimed the essence of who he was, as God's beloved. You see, all of these ideas that inhabit our minds about our unworthiness, and our striving, and all of those things that play over and over in our minds – they're all our minds' illusion. The Empire, in that sense, is humanity's illusion.
Now, I'm going to offer up something of a little spiritual practice. Because this year, this is what the crucifixion has come to mean to me, and the resurrection.
I may be the only person in this room who suffers from this affliction, and if so, y'all can just tune out for a moment and I'll talk to myself... But, here is the affliction: There is this little voice in my head that tells me "Man, you did a lousy job with that!" {laughter} All right! I have a sub-group over here... the gremlins. Sometimes I refer to them as the dancing demons. They like to come out and torment me, and taunt me. Tell me what a louse I am and what a mess-up I am, and ... (Deb and I are probably the only ones who have this experience.) Now, I suffer this malady, this affliction, even though I had parents who were incredibly loving and supportive, and I'm not just saying that because my mother happens to be here today. But I'm saying it because it's true. So if I, who had this nurturing environment as I was growing up, have these voices in my head, what is that? Where does that come from? I think it's our collective illusion that we're inadequate. And we all get caught up in it, don't we? Oh, man, I can go down the rabbit hole with these stories. They're so compelling. It's like, it really is like a black hole, this... like it can just suck you in, and before long you really do believe you totally screwed up. Oh, they are so convincing, these voices.
I've come to think of those moments, of being tormented like that, I've come to call it "the ego torment"... Oh, I have a new word. I'm going to tell you my new word. We know about the word "agony", right? Well, if you take "ego" and add it, you get "egony", OK? We "egonize" over things – that's the verb. So, I like to sometimes egonize over things. And that's when I get so sucked in to that little narrative, that I forget it's not real. I start to believe it.
So as I circled back around to this story this year, I looked at what Jesus did when they came for him, to put him on the cross. He didn't run. He could've run. He didn't run. He could have resisted, he could have fought. He didn't fight. He didn't run, and he didn't resist. Here's another interesting thing that the Gospels tell us: that when they crucified him, they offered him wine and myrrh, which was a sedative. And he refused to take it. In other words, he went into that torment completely awake. Fully conscious. He yielded himself to our collective ego-empire illusion, and he brought into that experience the full consciousness of the Christ. He held it all in compassion and forgiveness.
So that is becoming my spiritual practice: when I notice those mini crucifixions happening within, those mini ego torments, I'm learning not to run. Not to resist. Not to numb myself. But to hold it all in compassion. And what I'm learning is that this practice leads to a transformation. To be present. To hold what is happening. To be-hold what is happening.
We happen to be living in a time that is witnessing crucifixion on a scale that the Earth has never seen. We are witnessing the suffering and torment and death of more life on this planet than has happened since the age of the great extinction of the dinosaurs. And what are we doing? Are we drinking the wine and myrrh? Are we numbing ourselves to this reality? Are we running from it? Are we resisting it? I believe, I believe, that Jesus shows us a way through. That Jesus shows us a way through this immense collapse that is currently happening. And that what Easter does is it reassures us that what is dying is our illusion, and that what will remain is our essence, our true selves. Our God nature. Do we believe it? Do we believe it? They didn't believe the women who came from the tomb.
But this story, in many ways, is out of our hands. Thanks be to God.
© 2009 by Patricia Pearce
