First Contact with the Resurrection

 

Because of the floating nature of Easter’s date
—it can share a day with April Fools, or Passover…
or, today, the fictional Star Trek holiday of “First Contact Day.”
This is the day when Humanity first meets the Vulcans
—our first experience of “Live Long and Prosper.”

            I bring this up, not because the Halversons are a Trekkie household (though we are)
—but because sci-fi tropes around alien contact, can help us hear the Gospel
—they can ensure we’ve not tamed the resurrection or tamed Easter
—after all, there is something startling,
something alien,
about the two Marys’ first contact with the resurrected Christ.

            The Marys go to the tomb, all hope lost
—in the Star Trek universe humanity is failing to pick up the pieces after a global nuclear war,
then the Vulcans come along,
and we’re not alone,
and that changes everything.

            There is an earthquake
—as terrifying and strange as
the unnatural phenomena in the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”
—culminating in the “mashed potato scene.”

            This amazing strange new thing
—the appearance of the resurrected messiah
—is revealed to two women
—disempowered, unexpected, people
—the nobody is somebody,
God prefers the powerless to the powerful
—just like ET landing with Elliot,
a little boy and his friendship bridges the gap between the stars…
or even the movie Men in Black
—Will Smith is recruited along with Green Berets and members of Seal Team 6
—the elites scoff at a mere New York City Cop being up to the task,
but he’s the only one who gets to be the insider, privy to Aliens Among Us.

            The Angel of the Lord descends like the Man who Fell to Earth.
Like shape shifting aliens as varied as Odo or Borne,
no one can quite describe the Angel
—instead metaphors and similes must be used,
“like lightening, as snow.”

Finally, the women rush and tell of this new and strange thing,
just as people did during the infamous panic caused by the radio broadcast of “The War of the Worlds”

 

            You see what I’m saying, right?
The Resurrection should startle us,
should leave us in a state of terror and jubilation!

Remember in CS Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe someone asks if the Jesus figure, the Lion Aslan, is safe, and the response is, “Who said anything about safe? ’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
So too encountering Jesus,
so too first contact with Resurrection!

 

Prayer

            Today’s Resurrection story is a close encounter, a first contact.
An otherworldly experience
—Earthquakes and strange figures descending from the sky,
an overwhelming message that elicit fear and joy…
A message that just must be shared.

            Contact with the risen Christ has a seismic impact,
both literally and metaphorically.
Like tectonic plates or high- and low-pressure systems
—smashing against one another
—storms and earthquakes of all sorts re-sort the world
—when our world meets the God of Resurrection!

 

            Death meets Life
—these women show up at the tomb,
and find the birth of a new creation!
On the other side of Easter,
-Death is not a totalizing force!
-It is no longer a tool the mighty use to acquire and maintain their stranglehold on power.
-That imperial authority is snapped, when the Empire’s soldiers sleep like death
—nothing can separate us from this Resurrection God!

These women who witnessed Crucifixion and Burial,
witness Resurrection as well.
The worst coercive power in this world, Death,
is broken upon the Gospel
—the Good News buries the grave!

            Death, and all the rotten history each of us have had with it
—it gives way to Life!

 

            Earth meets Heaven
—our Imminent Frame
—the idea that only the measurable matters,
that which we can see is important,
is balanced out by
an angel balancing upon the stone
that once held tight Jesus’ tomb.

            “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
/ Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
There is room for the broad scope of our imaginations
and heavenward yearnings.

 

            The present meets the future
—The initial gospel these women carry out to the other disciples is:
“Go to Galilee”
that is, the sadness of the present moment,
the destruction, the despair
—it is a fog that will burn off in the morning sun,
it is temporary, there is a future, there is hope
—"there, in Galilee, they will see me.”

            If you feel trapped today, hopeless,
like a period has been indelibly imprinted as an the end of your life
—know that God loves turning periods into commas,
take heart, trust that you can face tomorrow!

 

            Encountering Christ, First Contact with Resurrection
—these women respond with a mix of fear and joy
—fear that is awe,
joy that will not quit.
Look!
In Christ you have life!
You have heaven!
You have a future!

            So too with us!
Life, heaven, a future! Wow!
Let’s offer songs of praise,
let’s shout with holy joy!
Our Glorious Resurrected Lord triumphs!
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!