Outrunning Peter
John 20:1-10
April 08, 2007
Easter Sunday

At the center of Christian experience at Easter is wonder. Wonder – puzzlement, astonishment, shock and surprise. Wonder – what got Peter and that other disciple off their sad backsides to run to the tomb and see what on earth Mary is talking about. Wonder – the conviction in the words of Paul that at Easter even the power of death has been defeated. Wonder – that very human experience that comes at the birth of a child or at a love that shouldn’t work but does or at a reconciliation that nobody can have predicted. Wonder – that tingle up and down your spine when you know you are in the presence of a power you did not create, you do not control and too often you have failed even to imagine.

Easter wonder. What happens to it? Is it for children? Do we grow out of it? What do we lose? If we pray for more Easter wonder in our lives – what might more Easter wonder look like?

The wonder at the center of the Easter story has to do with Jesus’ body and the empty tomb. His body should be there. Every body agrees on that. It isn’t there. Jesus’ body is gone. The tomb is empty. Not only that but the other disciple, probably John himself, notices that the grave cloth that covered Jesus’ face has been left neatly folded. Whatever else you may say about the Easter event, it does not look haphazard and unplanned.

John’s gospel records three kinds of wonder at the tomb. Mary, first to get to the tomb and deep in her sorrow, registers shock, bewilderment and a flash of anger. She is so human in her grief! She has been robbed of even the simple rituals of loss – she cannot tend a body that is gone! I find it poignant and moving that Jesus first appears to Mary, as though Jesus, too, is moved by Mary’s refusal to stop missing him, her refusal to get over it and move on.

Peter – crazy, passionate, always way out ahead of himself Peter – Peter who can promise on a stack of bibles that he will follow Jesus to the very gates of hell and then in the same night deny three he is acquainted with Jesus – Peter who in the end oddly will prove most loyal and true – in oiur text Peter blows by John at the tomb entrance. Into what? An empty tomb and no explanation. Gospel says only that Peter did not understand and turned back home. We are left with a sense of a moment’s wild hope and then a return to the trap of fear and shame. Peter’s wonder, too, is so human – the wonder of “what if" and "I wish I had it to do all over again."

But John’s wonder is different. The text says John outran Peter to the tomb. I don’t know whether John was quicker or more nimble. I don’t know why John stopped at the tomb entrance to let Peter go ahead. Perhaps John was showing deference to the older disciple. I don’t know exactly what John saw in the tomb’s emptiness and the in the folded face cloth that made him instantly realize he was in the presence of extraordinary power. Even Mary in her sorrow and Peter in his shame miss the power. John wonders. I do not doubt he is astonished, dazzled, shocked, probably mystified. But alone among the disciples he stays with the wonder. He is the only disciple to sense that Jesus is risen from the dead before he sees or touches or eats with the risen Jesus!

So on Easter morning I’d like to wonder with you at the evidence that there is power in the universe that raised Jesus from the dead. I’d like to wonder with you about that same power that heals sorrow, relieves shame, forgives sins, breaks tyrannies, restores justice in broken communities. Which is the greater miracle after all? That one man was raised from the dead, or that many are relieved of the fear, rage or shame that hobbles their lives?

Can you wonder with me? Can we wonder enough together to follow Jesus and see where he is going with this power even if we have not seen the risen Jesus in the flesh?

That’s the point behind coming here on Easter morning, isn’t it? The point behind scented flowers and beautiful music and hand-crafted sermons is to wonder whether Jesus might be worth following after all! Suppose he is! Suppose those who do wonder and wander after him, leave behind them all things that cripple and maim the human spirit – and cross over into lives of freedom, generosity and courage!

In quite a different sense, I do wonder sometimes. Do you ever get the feeling out there in polite society sometimes that people think you ought to apologize for being a Christian? Last week I went to a meeting of parents at the school where Lydia will be going next year. The meeting was parents’ opportunity to ask all those questions we didn’t get to during the application process. Now the real questions started to come out. You know – the anxious questions like: How are you going to get my child into a good college? The sort of questions that keep middle class parents up at night.

The meeting was held in the former chapel of the school. There was a panel of students and faculty up there on what once was the chancel area of the chapel. Now it is an assembly hall and performance space. I observed that the panel was sitting roughly where the communion table and cross must once have stood. It occurred to me to ask what opportunities for religious and spiritual growth there might be on campus. Up at the table the response was some polite laughter and a few evasive comments. The answer was clearly – there aren’t any such opportunities.

Hmmm, I thought. Have you ever had one of those moments of self-doubt when you look around you and nobody is looking at you and people are sort of unconsciously leaning away from you? One of those moments when you say to yourself: Is it something I ate? Is my shirt untucked? Or worse? Should I look? Am I just being paranoid? Maybe next time I should ask about SAT scores?

Mmmm, mmmm. Am I crazy to think it matters for young people to believe there is a power in the universe they can’t see or eat or plug into an Ipod? Wouldn’t it be extraordinary if adults like myself could convey to a new generation our conviction that we can outrun fear, rage and shame? Am I crazy? Does Easter matter when we leave this building?

And yet, every now and then I come across a story that reconnects me to Easter wonder. And this is what I come to Easter service for – to be reminded and to praise God for the power that raises the dead!

This week I’ve been reading the most extraordinary book. It’s called A Human Being Died That Night. The book is written by a psychologist who served on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that examined the horrific crimes of the apartheid regime in South Africa . The author’s name is Dr. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela. This is not a religious book. Jesus is never mentionned. But power is evident on every page.

You see, it’s the story of a series of interviews Pumla Gobodo Madikizela, a black South African, does with the former head of the apartheid regime’s secret police, Eugene de Kock. De Kock is in a maximum security prison serving two life terms for multiple murders. He is popularly seen as a monster. Pumla comes to the interview wondering where the monster came from. She leaves at the end wondering how she cannot show him mercy.

It is the most extraordinary story. I hope you will go out and get the book and read it for yourself. I would love to read it with you and pull together a group of people to reflect on it.

There is a moment in the story when everything changes. She asks de Kock about a meeting – a confrontation he had had through the TRC with two widows whose husbands he had ordered blown up with a secret explosive device. As she asks him about that meeting, de Kock raises his shackled arms and weeps, saying: I wish I could do much more than say I’m sorry. I wish there was a way of bringing their bodies back alive. I wish I could say, Here are your husbands, he said, stretching out his arms as if bearing an invisible body, his hands trembling, his mouth quivering, but unfortunately, I have to live with it.

Pumla responds unreflectingly by reaching out to touch de Kock’s hand. Now you have to realize that this hand is de Kock’s trigger hand – the hand that has directly had the blood of hundreds splattered on it and, indirectly, thousands. This is a man who showed no mercy and who deserves none.

In the days that followed, Pumla found herself tossed between tears and rage and disgust at him and at herself. One morning she woke up and found her whole arm – the arm whose hand had touched de Kock – numb to the shoulder. She had been touched by profound evil.

And yet she had touched him and now she can never again see him solely as a monster. From this time on she is compelled to see him as a desperate soul seeking to affirm that he is still part of the human community.

What happens in the end? I hope you’ll read the book: A Human Being Died That Night. I assure you that the answer is not simple.

To come to Easter is to wonder that there is a power out there redeeming human malice. It’s our choice whether to wander off or laugh it off, whether to remove the altar from the sanctuary and make the church a performance space for kids who will never know (because we never told them) about the power of following Jesus – or whether to see and believe there is such a power and follow that power out into the world where the answers are not easy but the evidence is compelling.

On Easter, then, bless Mary in her shock and sorrow. She will see Jesus and be comforted. Bless Peter also in his shame. He will see Jesus and be lifted out of it.

But let us consider John who outran Peter and Mary to the tomb. He didn’t wonder where the body had been mislaid. He wondered where the power had gone and how he might follow it.

Amen