Sermon at
by Lynn E. Cunningham
Easter Sunday, April 16, 2006
Acts 10;34-43;
1. I begin with a line from Dylan Thomas’ poem as a kind of refrain for this Easter Day sermon: “And death shall have no dominion”.
2. Sylvia (Crouter) in her Good Friday sermon addressed the question that is often in many hearts, namely, the question,
a. why did it have to happen? Why did Jesus have to die this terrible death of the crucifixion? I found it an eloquent sermon.
b. Partly her answer was that the domination systems of the world, such as the
c. Domination systems are those realities, political, economic, and spiritual, which surround people and act to diminish their lives, to cut them off from God, to oppress them.
3. I would like to build on Sylvia’s Good Friday sermon, by addressing today one aspect of the domination systems, namely that aspect which works its way into our own minds, our own attitudes towards life. The dominations systems are not only outside of people, but they work their way into the way people think and often leave them feeling diminished, defeated, and hopeless. Too often, you and I have our own internalized version of the domination systems, usually copied from the political and social ones expressed in society.
4. A key part of the Easter message is that the domination systems in our own minds are broken by God’s love for us.
5. And there is a corollary to the Easter message. The dominion of death that we have internalized in many, and myriad ways, can be broken inside us by our putting on the mind of Christ.
6. Putting on the mind of Christ is a phrase used by Paul in his letters, and is echoed in today’s Epistle lesson from Colossians.
7. What does putting on the mind of Christ mean? , Briefly, it means
a. striving always to stay obedient to God’s will,
b. opening oneself in every moment to the work of the Holy Spirit,
c. Having in mind trying to care freely for all people,
d. living into life with hope rather than despair,
e. Holding one’s mind open to the eternal life even beyond death.
8. Putting on the mind of Christ holds a person open to ever the present newness in life which God in fact wills the world.
9. Today’s passage from Mark’s Gospel offers an image of what it means to put on the mind of Christ.
10. In the Gospel passage, the women are walking to the tomb slowly. Their minds are on the unwelcome and sad task of anointing Jesus’ body in the tomb, now that he has been killed by the Roman authorities, following his condemnation by the religious authorities.
11. I doubt that these women would use the term “domination systems”, but they could explain to you and me quite clearly what it means, because they have just witnessed the power of these systems up close and personal in the trial and brutal execution of Jesus.
12. Keep in mind that the women’s task is completely routine: the routine is that when someone has died in the community, women come as soon as possible to anoint the body. What the women have in mind is just another common chore, although a particularly painful and unwelcome one. Their minds are not on life but on the death that has just oppressed them. As they walk the road to the tomb, they talk about the cares of everyday living. Perhaps they are chattering among themselves about all their cares, but the biggest worry this: “who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?”
13. A sort of a practical question, don’t you think? As if to say, well, we have to get in to handle the body, so who is going to open up to let us in?
14. It might be like Dan Blair were driving down to set up for the painting in the opportunity shop and he starts asking himself, as he is driving along, I wonder who is going to have a key to open up the entrance door. Or, it might be like Bob Grubb coming down to start nailing the shingles on the opp shop front porch roof. As he drives along, Bob starts wondering to himself, I wonder who is going to bring the ladder so we can get up there on that roof?
a. Now in Bob’s case, he probably knows the answer, because he has already called ahead to Dean and Mick to make sure there would be a ladder available when they arrived.
15. So, the question, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb” is about as practical a question as could be. Who’s got the keys? Who’s got the ladder?
16. Except in the gospel narrative, this suddenly turns out not to be just an everyday sort of question. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome discover that this moving a big stone around is not just an ordinary, everyday, construction project. Why not?
17. Because when they get there, the stone has already been moved, and their question takes on a deeper meaning.
18. Once again, Mark’s Gospel surprises the reader. Remember, Mark’s is supposed to be the most literal, down to earth, and practical of the four gospels. But he isn’t. There is more going on in what he writes than first meets the eye. Even this simple, practical question, takes on a sudden, deeper meaning. Since the stone has already been moved away, when the women arrive, the story moves on to their immediate discovery of the young man dressed in a white robe, who delivers alarming and terrorizing news. Not only is Jesus’ body no longer in the tomb, but he has been raised and has gone on ahead to
19. Because of the shocking news about Jesus, most readers simply forget about that seemingly practical question of who was going to roll away the stone. Their thoughts move on to the angel’s news. But why did Mark take the time to quote this question to us in the first place, if it was so trivial?
20. I think it is because Mark is asking the reader to reflect on the question for herself, namely, who will roll away the stone from the entrance to my own tomb? Who will open up the entryway leading from my own death into life?
21. Opening the entrance to a tomb is, for the women, and for you and me, not just a practical question of physical labor. The issue really raised, how are the gates of death itself to be opened up in my own life?
22. The issue really raised is, how can it be said, “And death shall have no dominion”?
23. Remember, we are not reading this Gospel in the same way that we might read a newspaper report written 2000 years ago and then just recently unearthed. Mark is not writing just to give a reporter’s observations about a newsworthy event. Mark is writing to bring his readers into the mind of Christ. You and I are invited to read Mark’s gospel today, and over and over again, for guidance on how to put on the mind of Christ and break the domination system of death that clouds our own mental attitudes.
24. This seemingly simple practical question, who will roll away the stone from the tomb?, when looked at more prayerfully, leads into a mystery of your own life: what is the stone that is blocking you from finding eternal life? How can that stone ever be rolled away?
25. The women’s question can be read as more than just practical, because the Markan passage and all the lessons we read for Easter this morning invoke images of eternal life triumphing over death.
26. Look again at Paul’s letter to the Colossians, Chapter 3. He writes, “you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.” Elsewhere Paul says that “we have died with Christ, and we also will be raised with Christ.” These passages want people to break through the death imagery clouding the mind into God’s offer of eternal life.
27. Again to rephrase the women’s question, what stone is blocking and hiding you from Christ in your own life? How can it be rolled away?
28. How, indeed, can it be that death shall have no dominion?
29. Like most of you I have experienced the death of close family members.
30. I have sat with my father at his own death, and again later with my mother during the final hours of her life. I know that most of you have been present to the deaths of persons you were close to. Each of us lives in the constant knowledge that our own deaths are coming. Most people tend to fear and dread death, and so death clouds their view of life itself and what is possible in life.
31. The information that God might roll away the stone blocking the entrance to the tomb of our own death offers a transformation. This transformation is what today’s Gospel and today’s Easter message offers to us.
32. Can you and I ever get there with the women and the angel and hear what the angel told them? Can you and I ever get there too?
33. The letters of Paul insist that the only way to roll away the spiritual stone blocking the way to eternal life is to be transformed by taking on the mind of Christ, taking on all those attributes that I listed at the beginning. You are meant to come to understand that this discipline can break all the internal domination systems embedded in our minds and end death’s dominion over you.
34. Is such a transformation possible? Look no farther than St. Thomas’ very own opportunity shop. This may sound trivial, but think about it. Have you not watched that building go from a fully functioning automobile service station to an antique Western style storefront, soon to open as an excellent retail store? Have you not all pitched in to make this transformation happen? If this community can make this change its thinking to make this happen, can you not also change and take on the mind of Christ?
35. I am trying. I know each of you are trying as well. May we all come to understand: death shall have no dominion.
36. In Jesus name, Amen.