“Openings Without End”
Matthew 28:1-10
March 23, 2008

(He) didn’t dance for joy at the empty tomb. Nobody did. They were all scared, worried, amazed. What did this mean? What happened to Jesus? What would happen to them?

(He) seems disappointed to learn that he’s not going to die. What will he do with the rest of his life? What changes will he have to make?

How many of us would rather stay in the tomb than face a resurrected life?

A violent earthquake, an angel dressed in white, guards passing out from fear. The women left in a hurry, afraid and yet filled with joy. Then confronted by the resurrected Jesus—“Peace, don’t be afraid, go and tell.”

The angel, in appearance like lightning, said to the two Marys, “I know why you are here, but Jesus is not here. He is raised. You must not be afraid.” What did he mean by that? Perhaps this God-messenger knew that we are more comfortable with the security of closed doors than we are with the notion of openings without end.

An Arab chief tells a story of a spy who was captured and then sentenced to death by a general in the Persian army. This general had the strange custom of giving condemned criminals a choice between the firing squad and the big, black door. As the moment for execution drew near, the spy was brought to the Persian general, who asked the question, “What will it be: the firing squad or the big, black door?”

The spy hesitated for a long time. It was a difficult decision. He chose the firing squad.

Moments later shots rang out confirming his execution. The general turned to his aide and said, “They always prefer the known way to the unknown. It is characteristic of people to be afraid of the undefined. Yet, we gave him a choice.”

The aide said, “What lies beyond the big door?”

“Freedom,” replied the general. “I’ve known only a few brave enough to take it.”—Don McCullough, “Reasons to Fear Easter,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 116.

What lies behind the open door, the open tomb? Are we brave enough to go in an see?

While apartheid still maintained a stranglehold on the country of South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was asked if he remained hopeful as he looked at the pain of an uncertain future. He responded, “I am always hopeful. A Christian is a prisoner of hope. What could have looked more hopeless than Good Friday? But then, at Easter, God says, ‘From this moment on, no situation is untransfigurable.’ There is no situation,” concludes Desmond Tutu, “from which God cannot extract good.”

This is the message of Easter to the world.  God can take the worst and bring out the best. 

A few years ago one evening I experienced a riveting retelling of the Easter story. Dr. Vivian Bearing, a professor of 17^th century literature and an expert on John Donne’s Holy Sonnets, discovered the reality of the resurrection. In the Pulitzer Prize winning play “Wit” presented by the Denver Center Theatre Company, playwright Margaret Edson tells us the story of a brilliant woman entombed by her intellect, her perfectionism, her fierce pride in knowing everything there is to know about metaphysical poetry; entombed by academia and her fear of loving relationships; entombed by her determination to always be in control. Her only love is scholarship; her only life is pushing and drilling her students on the fine points of intellectual analysis of 17^th c. poetry. Then one day she is told she has 4^th stage metastasized ovarian cancer. Dr. Bearing tells us at the beginning of the play that she has been given less than two hours to live—the time it takes to perform the play. 

In a flashback scene we see a young Vivian Bearing in class with her professor, her mentor Dr. E. M. Ashford. Dr. Ashford is leveling harsh criticism at Vivian for choosing an inferior edition of John Donne’s famous poem, “Death Be Not Proud.” The punctuation is totally wrong, she tells her. In the line “And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die!” you have a semicolon after death and an histrionic exclamation point after “thou shalt die.” There is no semicolon after death. It is only a comma. There is no exclamation point after thou shalt die. It is only a period. The only thing separating this life and eternal life is a comma, a pause. Death is only a comma, only a pause.

Now considered the expert in her field, Vivian Bearing, Ph.D., is determined to learn everything there is to know about cancer, and teaming with rigid research doctors, endures 8 months of the most rigorous and experimental chemo therapy available. She rails at the hospital attendants and nurse whom she sees as her intellectual inferiors. She pushes and prods those who try to help, while at the same time being humiliated by the pushing and prodding of insensitive researchers trying to learn all there is to know about her condition.

At last, Dr. Bearing realizes that all the science in the world is not going to save her. As she lies on her hospital bed, dying, alone, frightened, she finally realizes her need for human kindness. Her faithful nurse, Susie, the one who touches her, bathes her, sings to her, spends time with her in the midnight horror of sleeplessness, is finally the only one who shows her how to live and die with dignity and peace.

In Dr. Bearing’s last painful moments, she is visited by her mentor, Dr. Ashford. Rather than recite poetry, professor Ashford climbs into bed beside Vivian, holds her close, and reads to her a children’s story, The Runaway Bunny.

(a few lines from the story)

That is the resurrection story—God turns the worst situation into the best. And God will never allow any of us to get lost.

The simple faith of nurse Susie, and the simplicity of her mentor’s last words, gives Dr. Bearing hope that John Donne’s poetry is about more than a clever use of words: it is about faith; it is about freedom; it is about the stone being rolled away; it is about openings without end; it is about resurrection.

DEATH, BE NOT PROUD John Donne (1572-1631)

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

[From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure-then, from thee much more must flow;

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones and soul’s delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well,

And better than thy stroke. Why swell’st thou then?]

One short sleep passed, we wake eternally,

And death shall be no more, death, thou shalt die.

The poetry of Jesus’ life and death and resurrection gives the same promise: death shall die. Tombs are shattered. Every door we slam shut God rips open. God does not accept our fear, our hiding in darkness. God does not accept our blindness, our lameness, our captivity. Easter faith believes that God floods every dark corner with light, opens every blind eye to sight, strengthens every weak limb with courage, and frees every heart from fear.

So once again let us proclaim: Christ is risen!      Christ is risen indeed!