John
20:1-18
We had to memorize a
poem in fifth grade that was probably one of the least appropriate for anyone
that age. When you’re in fifth grade,
you are told what to eat and when. You’re
told when you need to be in bed and when to get up. Sometimes you are directed what clothes to
wear. Often you are told what you will
or will not like. Fifth graders used to
have their handwriting corrected on a regular basis, not only their spelling. Just ask them about it. They have to answer. They have no choice. Anyway, Mrs. Boyer’s fifth-grade class at
Sabold Elementary School were required to learn and recite perfectly the
following poem.
“Out of the night that
covers me,
Black as the Pit from
pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods
may be
For my unconquerable
soul.
In the fell clutch of
circumstance
I have not winced nor
cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings
of chance,
My head is bloody, but
unbowed.
Beyond this place of
wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of
the shade,
And yet the menace of
the years
Finds, and shall find,
me unafraid.
It matters not how
strait the gate,
How charged with
punishments the scroll:
I am the master of my
fate:
I am captain of my
soul.”[1]
“Very
good, Tommy! Good job, Suzy! Now finish your sandwiches and run out to
recess.”
I would like to think that we
achieve mastery of more as we grow older.
In fact, we have more choice and more competence. I’m not sure we really have more control,
though. Again, think of the areas where
you might be called the one in charge.
Dog
owners used to be called their “masters”.
I’m glad we’ve gotten away from that, not least because anybody who has
a dog knows it isn’t true. Even the
best-trained dog does not always do as told, and a puppy is sure to learn very
early that little trick of responding to her name and running up just close
enough for the human to lean over and then darting out of reach – again and
again and again. I won’t even suggest
what a cat owner goes through.
What
about machines? Don’t they always do
what they are built to do? When you turn
the key in the ignition, doesn’t your car always start? When you turn on your computer, doesn’t it
always open right up, and doesn’t your browser always go directly to the
address you type in?
Maybe
I might at least be master of my own words.
Maybe I may never speak too soon or use the wrong expression. Maybe I will never let anger draw something
out of my mouth that I will regret later.
Maybe I will never tell a joke that will be taken the wrong way. Even better, maybe I will always know exactly
what to say when someone is hurting or grieving or scared.
Forget
the notion of being in control of my thoughts.
Have you never been in a situation where you saw something as funny and
couldn’t keep from giggling? It was
always fun to watch the old Carol Burnett
Show because Tim Conway and Harvey Korman were always making each other
crack up and you could watch them struggling to go on with a sketch once the
laughter began to build up. They just
couldn’t help it.
The point I’m trying to make in all
of this is that there isn’t much that we truly control. There is little that we could be said to
master. There is even less of which we
could be said to be “lord”.
Jesus’ experience was no
different. His life began when he was
born in a stable because there was no room for his parents in the inn. By the time he was two, King Herod was trying
to kill him and his family was forced to become refugees in Egypt, and could
only return when Herod died. Then that
Herod was followed by another, and when he finally got hold of Jesus (who had
been confronting the ugly ways that Herod had been exerting power to control
the people), Herod got together with the Romans (who were manipulating Herod in
their own ways) and they had Jesus tortured and executed. Could Jesus have escaped all this? Yes, he could have. He said,
“For this reason the Father loves me, because I
lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my
own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.
I have received this command from my Father.” [John 10:17-18]
Despite
having the power to avoid the powerlessness that we go through, and the
troubles that come with it, he chose to remain in complete and utter solidarity
with us. He was like the captain who
chooses to remain on the sinking ship so that the passengers can escape, even
though he will go down to the depths in their place. In the moment that he did that, he alone of
all human beings really and truly became “master of his fate” and “captain of
his soul”. In that moment it became
clear that he really and truly could be called, “Lord”.
Three days later, the full meaning
of that began to dawn on his followers.
If there is one part of life where we don’t even get to pretend we have
a say, it is our mortality. Jesus,
however, carried through with what he had said would happen. He rose.
He rose from the dead. When they went to find his body, it was gone.
“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark,
Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from
the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the
one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the
tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’ Then Peter and the
other disciple set out and went towards the tomb. The two were running
together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb
first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there,
but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into
the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had
been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a
place by itself.” [John 20:1-7]
He
had become “Lord”. He had mastered human
life, and now he had mastered death. And
he let his followers know that he would be moving on to even greater glory.
“I am ascending to my
Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” [John 20:17]
Hear the good news: from there he
continues to exercise lordship over life and death, not on his own behalf, but
on ours. The life that he lives, we also
can live. The troubles that he overcame
in his life: poverty and fear and temptation and sorrow and pain and all of
that, we, too, can overcome because of his power at work within us. The dying that he faced with faith, even when
he felt abandoned by God, we can face with confidence because he is Lord over
the world in its entirety, and the eternal life that is open to all people is
open because of him and through him, because he is Lord of life.
“For
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life.” [John 3:16]
Thank
the Lord! Amen.
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