After an Earthquake
St. Paul’s United Methodist Church
Matthew 28: 1-10 Marianne Niesen April 24, 2011
After an Earthquake
I chose the scripture I would use for today - and the sermon title - last November when I worked on overall winter and spring worship. Of course, it is Easter so the theme was relatively clear – you know, resurrection and new life and alleluia! Still, even with a “pre-set” theme, each of the gospel writers have a different “take” on the whole event. And, last November, I was intrigued with the account of the resurrection found in Matthew. It is the one that contains enough drama to be worthy of - a Steven Spielberg movie! Listen . . .
Only Matthew mentions this earthquake. That’s what caught my attention. An earthquake. I’m not at all sure one really happened on that first Easter. After all, a bona fide earthquake would certainly have been noticed by someone else, wouldn’t it? Earthquake occurrences are hard to miss - as we know only too well. Last November, I was mostly pondering the earthquake in Haiti and our mission trips there. I had no idea that just five months later, today, we would have just recently been reminded of an earthquake’s power yet again in yet another part of the world. I had no idea that part of our Easter offering would be designated for earthquake relief in the Pacific. I was simply intrigued by the question . . . why would Matthew choose the image of an earthquake to describe the resurrection? I presume, of course, he knew about earthquakes. There were certainly many of them in the Middle East and he likely lived through one. But it didn’t happen on that first Easter Sunday. That earthquake was a choice for Matthew. Why did he describe resurrection in earthquake terms?
As I pondered this question, I spent some time researching various earthquakes through the ages. Unlike Matthew, I had the benefit of the ‘Google search engine’ and, as I searched, the thing that became extraordinarily obvious was that it really doesn’t matter which earthquake it is, the results are largely similar. Watch with me (show 14 pictures of earthquake damage.)
These photos range from pictures of the destruction in Beit Shean which suffered an earthquake in the 4th century to the San Francisco quake in 1906 to the Jerusalem quake in 1927 to Italy to Haiti to Chile to last month’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The stuff that toppled is different, depending on place and time, but the fact that things toppled is undeniable. Earthquakes do that. They change things. They are also fairly unpredictable. Even for us today. Despite modern science and all we know and our ability to identify ‘fault lines’ and understand the ‘what’ of an earthquake (what it is and how it works and what happens to the earth in the process) we still cannot effectively predict them with any precision. Nor can we prevent them. Earthquakes happen. And, for those of us who have lived through an earthquake, they change life as we know it.
And so it is with resurrection! We celebrate something today that was totally unpredictable and utterly transforming. No one saw it coming. I know there is a tradition that Jesus predicted that he would ‘rise again.’ But, few really believed that. If they had, there would have been no sorrow at the crucifixion. No horror at the end. The byword would have been “don’t worry, he’ll be back!” No one really saw the resurrection coming. Matthew was right. There was an earthquake that day. It was an earthquake of epic proportions and earth shaking import. It was an earthquake that shook the very understanding of life and death. But, its power was felt not in the moment of the event itself (which, you’ll notice, no one actually saw). Its real power was felt – and is felt still - in the ways it is always experienced with earthquakes - in the thousands and millions of moments that have come after.
There are two major things that happen after an earthquake. The first is that people take stock of where they are. I was in seminary, living in Berkeley, California in 1989 when the Loma Prieta earthquake rumbled through. In fact I was sitting in a counselor’s office when her lamp began moving off the table and her bookshelves coughed out books and sirens began sounding outside. I didn’t know what it was at first but she, being a longtime Bay Area resident, knew immediately. When the shaking ended, we looked around. Everything seemed OK - but we both wanted to get home. To ‘take stock.’ I was about a mile or so from campus and was on foot. I began walking, alert to everything around me. Some things were burning. I heard lots of sirens, saw many emergency vehicles and some crumbled walls and buckled sidewalks and damaged buildings. I realized the closer I got to home that I had no idea if my apartment building would still be standing. I saw some that weren’t. When it came within view, I was glad to see it was apparently undamaged. Then, I climbed up the hill to the campus. Just to see. Everything seemed to have withstood the quake. Within hours, organizing began for relief efforts because the word was there were harder hit parts of the city. We heard that the Bay Bridge was out and that subway cars were trapped under the Bay. This was big. Amazingly, my phone still worked so I called family and friends to let them know I was fine. And then – in the weeks that followed - the rebuilding began. Those are the two things that happen. Taking stock and taking action. Reviewing and rebuilding.
And, if you think about it, that’s how it was with the resurrection. The reading today describes the ‘taking stock’ as the reality of resurrection became clear. The women went to the tomb and tried to figure out what they were seeing. And there was a mixture of fear and joy as they ran to tell the others that he had been raised. But what did that mean exactly - raised? They didn’t know for sure. And, what does one do with a ‘resurrection’? There were no manuals on that. The earthquake had happened. Life as they knew it had toppled and everything had changed. I love the way Eugene Peterson describes Matthew’s version of the Resurrection story in The Message. He writes . . .
Suddenly the earth reeled and rocked under their feet as God’s angel came down from heaven, came right up to where they were standing. He rolled back the stone and then sat on it. Shafts of lightning blazed from him. His garments shimmered snow-white. The guards at the tomb were scared to death. They were so frightened, they couldn’t move.
And the angel says there is nothing to fear here . . . (right!) and then the women are sent down the road where Jesus conveniently meets them and says, in this version, Good morning! And they grab him – like people do after an earthquake when they embrace friends and family they thought were missing. And that’s when Jesus tells them to get on with things. You’re holding on to me for dear life! Go tell my brothers that they are to go to Galilee, and I’ll meet them there.
For, you see Galilee was where it had all started and the charge was now, after the earthquake, after the resurrection, that they were to start again. Rebuild. Remake the world. Earthquakes change everything. That’s what Matthew wants us to know about the resurrection. It’s not really about focusing on what happened in that moment to Jesus. The power of resurrection is about what happens in the lives of those who go to Galilee and rebuild.
Easter means nothing if it is not lived out today among us in our Galilee. There are so many people who spend time and energy arguing about exactly what happened that day – and where was the body and where was the tomb and who was there and on and on. But those arguments are about as productive as . . . arguments about whether we should have known about an earthquake. It doesn’t get us anywhere. The power of Easter is found in what we do with it now, going forward. In Galilee. How we live with hope amidst despair, love amidst fear. The power of Easter is found in the ways we learn to build bridges of understanding rather than blame each other for the chasms we’ve created. The power of Easter is found in the rebuilding efforts of those who follow the resurrected Christ. We live still in a world that quakes and shudders from fear and war and poverty and injustice and homelessness. The power of Easter is found not in what happened back then but in how we bring the after-shocks of new life to this world God so loves.
In 1916, Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author of the well known series Anne of Green Gables, wrote a poem called The Watchman. It is set in Matthew’s Resurrection account where Maximus, one of the soldiers stationed at the tomb, returns to his beloved Claudia after that first Easter morning. He was in the earthquake and he tells her . . .
I care no more for glory; all desire
For honor and for strife is gone from me,
All eagerness for war. I only care
To help and save bruised beings, and to give
Some comfort to the weak and suffering . . .
Scorn me not for this weakness; it will pass –
Surely ‘twill pass in time and I shall be
Maximus strong and valiant once again,
Forgetting that slain god. And yet . . . and yet . . .
He looked as one who could not be forgot!
Maximus experienced the power of an Easter earthquake. It changes everything – how we see the world, how we act, how we treat each other. We’ve seen it too – up close and personal – in our response to the earthquakes in Haiti and Japan; in our efforts with the Family Promise ministry to impact homelessness in our community; in our commitment to the healing of the children at Intermountain; in our partnership with the County Health Department to provide diapers and transportation tokens for Moms in need. That’s what Matthew wanted us to know. The power of Easter is found in how the resurrection changes us and how we then change the world. And every Easter we are invited to take stock once again and to recommit to the task of rebuilding the world so that the reign of God might come on earth as it is in heaven. May it be so. Alleluia – and Amen!
