“A Dream Coming True”
Matthew 28:1-10
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
Easter 2016
When looking closely at all four gospels, we notice agreement
on major themes. When it comes to particulars, though, the stories often disagree.
The stories of Jesus’ arrest, betrayal, and crucifixion are good examples. While
all four agree that Jesus was betrayed, arrested, tried, and executed, each
storyteller configures the details differently to say particular things to a particular
audience. And we can be at peace with these differences. The gospels sing in
harmony, not in unison.
Two other things on which the gospels agree: Between sundown
on the Sabbath (Friday) and sunrise of the first day of the week (Sunday), something
remarkable happens in and around the tomb in which Jesus is buried. Sunday morning
women are the first to encounter the beings at the tomb. I say “beings”
because, depending on which gospel you read, the details say one angel or two
angels, or one young man or two men.
It hardly matters how the gospels describe what the women
saw, but it apparently matters that women
saw it first.
Perhaps having women at the tomb first is one of those Holy
Spirit things, because it is through our feminine aspect that transforming power
usually finds its initial footing in the human heart.
Some years ago, I sat at home, clicking through TV channels
like a squirrel jumping back and forth in the branches of a tree. It must have
been a Saturday afternoon, because I came across a fishing show. The people on
the show were heading out into the dark, cold waters off the Alaskan coast
somewhere. As they motored into deep water, they were surprised by some visitors.
A small pod of whales began to make one run after another for the surface, their
magnificent bodies lunging into the air. And each time gravity reached up and
yanked all those tons of blubber back down, the sea exploded in a thundering,
foaming spray.
On the deck of the fishing boat, the fishermen whooped and
hollered.
“Is
that awesome or what!” said one.
“Whoa!
Do it again!” said another.
And
my personal favorite, the universal guy word used to express virtually any
emotion: “Dude!”
Now, the boat carried more than fishermen. There was one fisherwoman
on board, and while she was just as overwhelmed as her male companions, her
comment revealed a connection far more intimate and mysterious than the rather adolescent
reactions of her male counterparts. And honestly, few men that I know would
think to say this, because few would have seen it as a sacred, revelatory event.
The woman was not even on camera when she said, “I didn’t
even know this was my dream!”
I didn’t even know
this was my dream. What a profound expression of joy, gratitude, and soul. Immediately
I thought of Psalm 42: “Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts;
all your waves and your billows have gone over me.”
Seeing the leviathan leap from the water was more than a visual
experience for the woman. In that moment of wonder, power, and grace, a word broke
through from the depths of God’s heart and into the depths of her own. The
earth shook. A stone shifted and revealed something brand new about who she
was, about what life means, and about the earth-rending splendor of the human
spirit. Whether or not the woman would have used God language to talk about her
experience does not really matter. In that holy moment, out of all who
witnessed the same thing, that woman gave voice to the deepest longings of her
heart – and maybe even of the Human Heart itself.
I didn’t even know
this was my dream!
Back to Easter morning: How do the men react when deep calls
to deep, when the earth shakes and all heaven breaks loose? Mark, the earliest
gospel, does not even mention the men. Luke says that the disciples dismiss the
women’s testimony as an idle tale. Matthew says that the armed guards play
possum, and that the Jewish leaders bribe them to say that Jesus’ disciples
stole the body. Even when Jesus appears to the disciples in Matthew, some still
doubt. John says that on Sunday evening, the disciples, who had yet to
experience firsthand the sound of the cataracts falling and the waves
billowing, lock themselves in a house for fear of the Jews.
While the guys are busy analyzing the data, quantifying the
readings, verifying the sightings, and trying to come up with some way either
to prove or refute this bewildering and potentially dangerous minority report, the
women are trying to find someone to celebrate with, someone to whom they could
say, We didn’t even know this was our
dream!
At the end of the day, or even at the beginning, feminine
and masculine have little to do with being male or female. To be complete human
beings, all of us must strike some kind of healthy balance between our
masculine and feminine aspects.
So: I
do believe that resurrection faith begins in that compassionate and vulnerable part
of us that welcomes the sudden surprise of seeing a dream come true even when
we did not know that what we were seeing was our dream. At the same time, living
out that new faith takes all the decisiveness and strength we can muster. Discipleship
demands that we commit our entire selves to the living Christ and to his mission.
That is why the angel directs us toward Galilee, the place of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus
meets us there – he meets us here – where his work is ongoing.
We worship and celebrate within this sanctuary. We sing our
thanks and praise and Alleluias to God
for the surprise gift of a new life to live here and now, as well as in the
life to come. But that life is not contained within the walls of this or of any
sanctuary. All too often the Church becomes a lumbering, self-serving, gator-infested
money pit; but the point of this thing called Church is to live Resurrection
life and faith, to live as the body of Christ in, with, and for the Creation.
God
calls us to return to Galilee and work alongside the one who rises from death like
a whale rising from the ocean depths, the one who rises like a sudden
experience of gratitude, or joy, or courage, or hope, or Love. The one who
rises like a dream come true.
May it be your dream to experience Jesus Eastering in you a
complete and completely renewed person. And may you dream of becoming an Eastering
presence, someone through whom others see Christ rising from the depths and splashing
gloriously through the surface of the creation, overwhelming them with wonder and
thanksgiving.
May this be your dream. May it be our dream. And may the
dream come true.
Alleluia!
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