A Resurrection Earworm Song

Easter II - April 24, 2023

The Episcopal Church of St. Paul, Georgetown, DE

Broadcast simultaneously on Sirach 26:10 and St. Paul's FB

 

You can ask Barbara. She’ll tell you. 

 

Ever since the Monday in Easter week, I’ve had an earworm. You know? A song that just won’t let you go? It stays in your ear and just won’t go away and plays over and over and over again in your head?  

 

I wrote about it in Thursday’s “Almost weekly e-news”. I thought that would help to get it out of my system. It didn’t. So, here it is, back again. This time in the pulpit.

 

This is the Song that doesn’t end

Yes it goes on and on, my friends

Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was

And they’ll continue singing it forever, just because…

 

I was reminded of this silly children’s song by one of my former seminarians. It’s from the children’s program, “Lamb Chop’s Play-Along” which featured ventriloquist Shari Lewis and her sock puppet Lamb Chop.

 

Shari tries valiantly to stop the kids and puppets from singing it as the credits roll on the screen, but alas, songs that become earworms never die – they just sound that way.

 

I love this little song and actually don’t mind the mild annoyance of its visits.  It captures something about the essence of the Resurrection of Jesus that mere theology can’t convey. It’s the spirit of the Resurrection that we see in today’s gospel story of a post-resurrection encounter with Jesus and, in fact, in all the different accounts of that significant event.

 

In Matthew’s version, the women go to the tomb and there’s an earthquake which rolls away the stone and the guards become “like dead men”.

 

To hear Mark tell the story, the women arrive and the stone is rolled away. They look in and see a young man to tells the women to tell the disciples to meet the risen Lord in Galilee.

 

Luke is very careful to name all the women who also just found the stone rolled away. They talk to two men in “dazzling white” who remind them of what Jesus had told them about his death and resurrection. They run to tell the disciples who don’t believe them.

 

According to John, Mary Magdalene is the only one to see the empty tomb – also no earthquake to roll away the stone – but she runs to get Simon Peter and “the disciple whom Jesus loved”. Mary also sees two white robed men and, when she turns, she sees another man whom she thinks is the gardener, but it is, in fact, the Resurrected Jesus.

 

All four evangelists also tell several different stories to prove that this was, in fact, the Resurrected Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the one who told them that he would die and rise again in three days. They want us to make sure that we know that this is Jesus, in the flesh, not an apparition or vision.

In this morning’s gospel, we read that Thomas actually put his hands into the wounds of Jesus. St. John has him eating a fish-fry breakfast on the beach. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus walks and talks with others on the Road to Emmaus.

 

Which is important and significant – not to mention dangerous. Indeed, we see in this morning’s reportin the Book of Acts that the disciples were arrested and brought before the High Priest for teaching and preaching about – and as witnesses to – the Resurrection.

 

So, were the different accounts all fabrications? If the disciples were really witnesses to the Resurrection, why are all their stories so different? If there wasn’t an earthquake, as Matthew reports, how DID the stone get rolled away? Who were those men dressed in dazzling white?

The one consistency among all the reports is that Mary Magdalene is the undisputed first witness to and evangelist of the Resurrection. Why is that? And, why isn’t more made of it?

 

There are more questions than answers about the Resurrection. It’s a mystery wrapped up in a miracle surrounded by a conundrum and filled with thoughts too high for human understanding.

 

Franciscan theologian, Richard Rohr, writes, “The true meaning of the raising of Jesus is that God will turn all our human crucifixions into resurrection.”

 

My friend and colleague, Mike Kinman, writes that we begin to understand the Resurrection when we begin “. . .  to allow ourselves to be gripped not by the power of certainty, but by the power of wonder.”

Franciscan nun, Ilia Delio writes, “Where is this risen Christ? Everywhere and all around us—in you, your neighbor, the dogwood tree outside, the budding grape vine, the ants popping up through the cracks. We are Easter people, and we are called to celebrate the whole earth as the body of Christ."

 

I love the way author Jonathan Kozol used the term "ordinary resurrections" as the title of one of his books. Kozol has been a passionate voice and champion for the cause of quality public education for America's poorest children.

 

Bob Morris, an Episcopal priest and an esteemed colleague in the Diocese of Newark, said that there are "unnoticed ways that people rise above their loneliness and fear." He called these "ordinary resurrections."

 

Kozol writes, "Those words crystallized a thought I'd had for a while in the South Bronx -- the feeling that these kids don't give up as easily as people think. No matter how we treat them, no matter how many times we knock them down, no matter how we shortchange them, no matter how we isolate them, no matter how we try to hide them from the rest of society, they keep getting up again, and they refuse to die."

 

Resurrection – The power to wonder. The transformation of something bad into something good. Rising above our loneliness and fear. The whole earth as the body of Christ. The ability to get back up again and again, no matter how many times we get knocked down.

 

There aren’t enough stories in the world to express the power of the Resurrection.

 

I think one of the best ways to understand the Resurrection is to understand it as a song that was sung at the beginning of creation and continues throughout eternity. It might as well be the song Lamb Chop sang – a mysterious song that could easily be dismissed as silly and childish because it doesn’t end because it was there at the beginning and goes on and on into infinity.

 

The Resurrection is God’s song of new and abundant life for all. It doesn’t end. Yes, it goes on and on, my friends. Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was. And we’ll continue singing it forever just because . . . .

 

So, sing it with me. Your turn to have an Easter earworm.

 

This is the Song that doesn’t end

Yes it goes on and on, my friends

Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was

And they’ll continue singing it forever, just because…

 

. . . .the ancient Psalmist who sang another kind of song is right: “weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” (Psalm 30).

 

And, even at the grave, we make our song, “Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!”

 

Amen. 

 

(Walking out of the pulpit, singing softly  . . .This is the Song that doesn't end . . . yes it goes on and on, my friends . ..  Some people started singing it , not knowing what it was .... and they'll continue singing it forever, just because . . . .This is the song that doesn't end . ...)