Seeing the World through the Light of Easter
Barkley Thompson, Class of 2003, from the Diocese of West Tennessee
Senior Sermon on April 22, 2003
John 20:11-18

In the summer of 1946, Karl Barth was in residence at the University of Bonn in Germany. The situation in which his beloved, adopted Germany found itself in that summer was almost unbelievably precarious. The German infrastructure had been devastated by the munitions of war, and the spirit of the German people had been crippled by the dawning awareness of their complicity in the Nazi horror.

Barth's own feelings at the time must have been ambivalent. He had had the faith and courage to openly oppose Hitler as a member of the Confessing Church, until circumstances became so bad that he was forced to flee the Nazi state. Yet, though the Nazis were gone in 1946, Barth must have wondered if there was any light in the future for Germany. On the one hand, the U.S.-led Marshall plan had not yet been implemented, and economic viability-much less recovery-seemed impossible. On the other hand, Soviet belligerence in the eastern half of Germany was increasing. It seemed that the Nazi terror had merely been exchanged for Communist terror.

The University of Bonn, like so much of the rest of Germany in 1946, lay mostly in ruins. One can imagine Barth walking through the rubble to class each day and wondering-perhaps despairing-about what the future might hold for Germany. One specific day found Barth rummaging through what remained of a hall dedicated to great German figures of the humanities, and amidst the crumbled plaster and broken marble he found a bust that was undamaged. Barth carefully cleared away the other debris from this statue, wiped the dust from its form, and realized that it was a bust of Friedrich Schleiermacher, that theologian from the century prior to Barth against whose thought so much of Barth's theological time and energy was spent.

Upon realizing the identity of the statue, Karl Barth did a curious thing. He forgot the class to which he had been heading and searched almost in desperation for an intact pedestal upon which to set the form of Schleiermacher. He didn't cease his labor until, in the midst of all of that ruin and rubble, the figure of Schleiermacher stood prominent and whole, for all those who passed that way to see.

Why? Why did Karl Barth, who held such antipathy toward the liberal Protestant theology that Schleiermacher fathered, take such pains to do this thing? We can't understand his actions apart from the context in which he did them. Barth lived and breathed and had his being in a Germany rightfully beaten down by its own shame and yet also devoid of hope. It was Good Friday in Germany in the summer of 1946. And Schleiermacher… Schleiermacher is the theologian of Easter joy! It is Schleiermacher, who in his own life experienced profound personal and public trial, including seeing his beloved Germany crushed by the forces of Napoleon, who nevertheless always cries out in joy at the palpable presence of the Christ.

It is Schleiermacher who says that when we see Christ, it is as if "the sun so blinds us that everything else disappears, not only at that moment, but even long afterward as though all objects we observe are imprinted with its image and bathed in its brilliance."

It is Schleiermacher who proclaims that the presence of Christ creates in him a "speechless joy" and who finds that he must ultimately resort to sensual language and describe the gift of grace in Christ as "one long affectionate kiss given to the world."

Schleiermacher's Easter joy was not lost on Karl Barth in the summer of 1946. Despite all of his theological qualms, he embraced Schleiermacher's sight, Schleiermacher's faithful ability to see the light of the resurrection even in the midst of the world's present turmoil and pain. Barth himself gained hope from Schleiermacher's sight, and on that summer day the Easter joy of one member of the communion of saints was communicated to another.

Just before today's Gospel reading, John's Gospel tells us that Mary Magdalene approached the tomb of Jesus early on Sunday morning, while it was still dark. One can imagine her, stumbling along her way, unable to see. One wonders if her despair prevented her from realizing the irony of her situation. She had faithfully followed her Lord for so long now, and time and again she had been present with Jesus when others had failed to see. Whether it was the Judean leaders or common folk, so many had been witness to the signs of Jesus and heard him speak of new life united with God yet had -- to Mary's amazement -- turned away in confusion and their own metaphorical darkness. And here, she was in blindness. The early morning darkness was thick and real, and her confusion was overwhelming. Jesus had died. The One who promised new life had been butchered on a cross before her eyes. And now, adding insult -- if that were possible -- Jesus' body has disappeared.

In today's reading, Mary sees two angels sitting in Jesus' tomb. They interrogate her, and their questioning is too much. She's lived on the margin of society for her whole life. If we are permitted to borrow from Luke, we know that before her contact with Jesus she was possessed by seven demons. Jesus exorcised her, and she traded the albatross of possession for the social stigma of being part of the band of men and women who followed Jesus. Nevertheless, the stigma had been more than worth it up to now. Jesus talked about being one with God, and when Mary saw him and related to him she felt one with God, too. But Jesus' brutal death and the theft of his corpse tore that feeling away from her.

Tears overwhelm Mary and she turns away from the questions of the angels only to nearly run into a man she assumes is the gardener. Her tears cloud her vision, and again she cannot see. She begs the man to return Jesus' body, but he interrupts her pleading and her tears and calls clearly to her, "Mary!"
I imagine in my mind's eye what happens next as if it's the climactic scene of a move like "The Sixth Sense" or "The Usual Suspects." Upon hearing her name, Mary's consciousness is flooded with a stream of memories of her time with Jesus. The most vivid must be when Jesus told her and the others, "The good shepherd calls his own sheep by name. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me." Tears of despair turn to tears of joy, and into Mary's mind spring Jesus' words, "So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you."
Tears and darkness no longer have any effect on Mary. She sees, in amazement and joy, that Jesus is alive, and she experiences the eternal truth when Jesus tells her that what he had before promised is now an accomplished fact: "My father is your father," he says, "My God is your God."

Mary's world is still precarious. She is a known member of a group of outcasts, now made even more suspect due to the crucifixion of their leader. What's more, she is a woman who deigns to buck the conventional patriarchal system. Dangers abound for her and for the rest of the followers of Jesus. Yet she now sees. Through the light of Easter, her sight enables and empowers her to navigate the snares ahead and know that the joy of being one with God is stronger than any adverse power that the community of faith may face.

Those of us here are called to go out into the world and serve the community of faith. Indeed, some of us will leave this place in a very few weeks. Is our vision clouded? Are we able to see? I often wonder. I observe our community-from the inside obviously-and I marvel at the things that impede our vision. Sometimes we are fearful of the fragility of our faith, and in our fear we fail to fully engage the learning that if offered here, suspecting that it will somehow steal Christ from us, as if faith is like a corpse in a tomb, vulnerable to robbers. At other times we are blinded by cynicism, assuming that the world is so fallen and the Church so vacuous that there is little point in carrying out the Great Commission. And on yet other occasions, our vision becomes blurry due to the thin air at the heights of self-importance to which we rise, believing that we are smarter or more authentically pious or generally know better than the parishioner in the pew.

Unaided, our effort alone cannot dispel our blindness. And if we leave this place and enter into parish ministry with clouded vision, we are bound to lead those we are called to serve into darkness. It is a good thing, I think, that seminary graduation is in the Easter season. It reminds us that Jesus Christ knows us and calls us by name. If we will listen to his voice-and if we will take the time to listen to the communion of saints such as Schleiermacher-then, like the sun, the light of Easter will imprint itself upon the world before our eyes. It will guard against fear, against cynicism, and against self-importance. It will allow these things to die on the cross on Good Friday and effect for us union with God. The light of the resurrection will then empower us to see and face turmoil and challenge with speechless joy. Thanks be to God.