Easter: the ad campaign
Thumbnail image by Oto Godfrey under Creative Commons License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
Link to video of sermon: https://youtu.be/wGHIiwgd0M4
Clare L. Hickman
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Ferndale
April 17, 2022—Easter Sunday
Isaiah 25:6-9; Luke 24:1-12
If you hear my words this morning, and don’t reel back at least a little, then I haven’t spoken clearly enough. Because the message SHOULD seem outrageous, and not just because it is told (once again) by a woman and can thus be dismissed as a foolish, idle tale.
The resurrection is outrageous. It is a huge, astonishing claim. It has to be. Because in order to mean anything, it needs to be larger than all the evil and suffering in this world; larger than our fears of what happens after death; and much, much larger than any despair we might have about the ultimate end of the story of humanity and the world in general.
Which is, clearly, outrageous. And frankly, impossible.
Imagine being asked to come up with the advertising campaign for this thing. Once they’ve rejected your first, excellent idea, because “The Resurrection: it’s GREEAAAAT!” apparently violates copyright law, seek advice from the experts on the ten most powerful concepts in advertising.[i]
“Proven” is excellent, but what you have is an empty tomb and some discarded grave cloths. Several different accounts mention mysterious shining figures declaring that Jesus has risen from the dead, but there are also mutterings about grave robbers.
Outrageous and impossible.
It’s never a bad idea to use words like “safety” and “easy.” And surely the claim that death isn’t the end of things helps people feel safer and less afraid. Then again, Jesus’ own disciples flee to hide in that upper room; and once they actually encounter the risen Jesus, he sends them out to minister to the sick and the hungry, to confront the powers of evil, and to try to convince people to forgive and to be forgiven. Life on the other side of resurrection, clearly, will be neither safe nor easy!
Outrageous and impossible.
“Free” might work. Resurrection itself does not cost any money.
And it is definitely NEW and definitely NOW. In fact, it is also “again.” And “still.” God has done this thing before, keeps doing this thing: bringing life and possibility when everything had seemed hopeless. God gives new life to the people of Israel over and over: forgiving their faithlessness, bringing them out of slavery, finding ways to turn their faces towards Him and towards all those in need. And in the resurrection, we see God put an exclamation point on that. New!! Now!! Again. Still. God assures us, in the most dramatic way possible, that compassion is more powerful than contempt, that forgiveness is stronger than our sin, that life (despite all the evidence) will outlast death.
Outrageous? I am certainly not outraged. And I desperately want it to be possible.
So, it would be great to be able to come up with a really punchy illustration of what people crave from an advertisement, which is “guaranteed results.” That one is perhaps the hardest of all, because the results are hard to pin down. Certainly, we cannot see beyond the grave; that promise remains a matter of trust. But even this side of the grave, guaranteed results prove challenging, because the astonishing evidence of resurrection exists right alongside so much evidence of death and destruction. We must accept that there are signs of ending all around us (as the hymn says), as well as signs of incredible, miraculous beginning. Must draw our hope, somehow, from how brightly the signs of love and forgiveness and transformation shine, in the midst of all that gloom.
Outrageous. And only possible on the best of days.
And so we are left with the last of the ten most powerful words in advertising: “Save” and “You.” My source was wise enough to note that save refers to more than just money. They mentioned time, but we all know there are other things to save, and other things to be saved from. Saved from despair and hopelessness. Saved from a life in which you are chained to your mistakes and failings. Saved from a fear of death that makes it impossible to fully live. Saved.
And you. It IS about you. It’s about everybody else, as well. But for right now, we can focus on you, and how you might encounter the risen Jesus in the particulars of your own life; how you might discover that the empty tomb holds the hope you need for your own struggles, traumas, and losses. There is no one advertising campaign that can bring you to that hope, just as there is not just one resurrection story in the Bible. Like all those biblical characters, you will bring your own history and your own needs, your yearning and your resistance. Perhaps, like Peter, you will run into the empty tomb and then turn right around and head in the opposite direction. Or maybe like Mary Magdalene, you will be overcome by the sound of Jesus calling you by name. Or, like Thomas, you might discover the resurrection in the stark reality of a body or a world, so deeply wounded and yet (miraculously, astonishingly, impossibly) alive.[ii]
It is outrageous. The idea of resurrection is outrageous and impossible, and yet it invites you to enter in anyway. It calls to you, calls to the part of you that yearns to believe that the future is indeed bigger than the past. That God is indeed still, again, NOW doing a new thing.[iii] And that new thing is Jesus bursting forth from the grave, transforming our despair. And that new thing just might also be you, and the person you could be, on the other side of the fear of death. May it be so, my friends. Alleluia, Christ is risen!
[i] https://gumas.com/the-ten-most-powerful-words-in-advertising/
[ii] Debie Thomas, https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/3369-rising
[iii] Sam Wells, HeartEdge Sermon Workshop video on Facebook, April 5 2022