Mark 16:1-8
Do
you know why the date of Easter changes? It has to do with the cycle of the
moon and the church calendar. Easter is the first Sunday after the first full
moon after the vernal equinox. For the most part that means Easter falls
somewhere between March 22 and April 25. Of course, and this is one of the best
parts, the churches that use this date for Easter have what’s known as an
“ecclesiastical calendar”, meaning the church occasionally has slightly
different lunar dates than the astronomical calendar, kept by, well,
astronomers. But for the most part, the formula has held true since 325 A.D.
(for churches using the Gregorian calendar).
Easter
has earned a special name, since it does not have a fixed date. It is referred
to as a moveable feast. Moveable feast. And all the dates that are coordinated
with Easter’s date are also moveable feasts: Transfiguration, Ash Wednesday,
Holy Week, Ascension, Pentecost, and Holy Trinity Sunday. All moveable feasts
because their celebration is always a given number of days from Easter. (For
example, Ash Wednesday is always the Wednesday before the sixth Sunday ahead of
Easter.)
Why
am I talking so much about calendars? It’s actually not the calendar part I
care about. It’s the name: moveable feast. It sounds like a picnic on the go,
something that comes with us, that we can carry, that carries us. A moveable
feast sounds like a banquet, a glorious table spread with all kinds of amazing
foods. But when you’ve been really hungry or exhausted, a moveable feast is a
shared crust of bread and the slug of liquid that makes you feel like you can
keep going. Easter is both of these kinds of feasts.
Mary
Magdalene, Mary- the mother of James, and Salome were not in a feasting mood as
they headed toward the tomb for that first sunrise service, a service of laying
on of hands and prayer. They probably ate very little the day before, since it
was the Sabbath and because they were probably still stunned from the crucifixion.
At some point during that day, each of them quietly set aside ointments,
cloths, spices in a little basket. Not a feast, just little odds and ends to
tend Jesus’ body, to mend it, to commend it to God through washing and prayer.
Tears pouring down their faces, they crept out of their houses at first light,
before their families were awakened. Instructions were given to oldest
daughters and daughters-in-law about the morning meal. And then the quiet slap
of sandals on hardened dirt streets.
The
mother of James probably thought she was the only one, until Salome hurried to
catch up to her. They both saw the figure of Mary Magdalene ahead of them and
scurried to be by the side of that beloved apostle on the way. Still stunned by
how abruptly it had all ended, the ringing of the hammer on the nails in their
minds… the feel of Jesus’ body gone cold as they laid it in the tomb… the
confusion as to where the disciples had gone… was it true about Judas… how will
they move the stone. It was all too much. These women were not ready for a
feast of any kind.
But,
ready or not, they arrived to hear of resurrection. They come with one task in
mind, if they can accomplish it. That task proves worthless, all their
planning, their grieved collection of materials. The task they came to do is
moot and they are given another task, but it’s too much to absorb. We want to
imagine them leaping in excitement and leaving the symbols of sorrow in their
wake, a trail of spices, cloths, and broken perfume bottles leading to the
empty tomb.
They
are stunned and afraid. What if this is a trick? What if Jesus’ body has been
stolen? Do they go tell the apostles, who will doubtless come to the same
conclusion and, possibly, accuse the women of knowing what happened? What do
they do? Only minutes before they had a momentous task, honoring the body of
Jesus. Now they have a different, monumental task… becoming the body of Christ.
Carrying words as a balm, hope as the fragrance, faith as a spice. They nibble
at the edges of this feast, easing the hunger of their grief.
Why
does the angel tell them to go his disciples and Peter? Is it because Peter is
special, is elevated, or because Peter denied Jesus and it’s important to
express plainly that he is still in the fold. He is still a sheep of Jesus’ own
flock, a lamb of God’s own fold, a sinner who has now been redeemed. The
messenger is clarifying for the women that there are no side tables at God’s
feast, no people who wait for scraps in the kitchen, no one who will be turned
away from the banquet of resurrection. Even Peter has a place at the Easter
feast, when it reaches him through the witness of the women.
That’s
the thing about a moveable feast. It comes whether you’re ready or not. Whether
you are in your own extended Lenten season, wrestling with crucifixion, lying
in the tomb- unable to rise, the moveable feast comes. A moveable feast offers
us hope until we can taste joy. A moveable feast offers expectation until we
can drink from faith. A moveable feast fills us with courage until we are
stuffed from encounter.
Easter
is the moveable feast that brings us the food for our souls when we need it and
when we can receive it. Sometimes in April. Sometimes in September. Sometimes
in December and January. The news of resurrection comes to us in our deep
hunger and edges us into fullness, into renewal, into strength.
Who
would believe the story of three women who say they saw a heavenly messenger at
the empty tomb of an itinerant preacher from the backwater of Nazareth? Who will
listen to that story? Who will take their word?
People
who are hungry for forgiveness. People who thirst to believe God is still
acting in the world. People who believe in the possibility of redemption.
People who crave justice and peace. People smell the scent of equality and long
to have their fill. People who have tasted of true freedom and want to revel in
it again. That’s who will listen to their story. That’s who will believe them.
People who are hungry for the feast of Easter. Hungry for it on the first
Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. Hungry for it on the
day after. And after that. And after that.
Do
you dare to believe that this is a moveable feast for you? That is for the
person beside you and beside them? That this feast has moved from an empty tomb
to Galilee to Judea to all of Palestine to the entire world? Do we dare to
speak up and say this is a feast to which everyone is invited?
Our
hymns and our words mainly speak of Easter joy, but that first Easter (and
maybe every one since) wasn’t about joy. It was about hope. The hope in the
truth of the resurrection. The hope in the triumph of the God of life over the
power of death. The hope of grace and forgiveness and the family of God. You
may not always feel like feasting on first Sunday after the first full moon
after the vernal equinox, but we can believe the feast is there.
The moveable feast of resurrection, of Easter is bound human
limitations, then or now.
When is resurrection?
When is Easter?
Thanks be to God that the moveable feast of Easter is always
right when the world needs it to be.
Amen.
Comments