Refocused Sight

Read: Luke 24:1-12

 

Easter Day - March 31, 2013

The Rev. Kenneth R. Elkin

 

We see what we expect to see.

And often, we can't see what we don't expect to see.

 

We've all had that frustrating experience of seeing something in the distance and trying to point it out to someone else.

“Look over there!” we say excitedly!

The friend looks, squints, but still can't see.

“Over to the right, just beneath that first hill,” we say.

It seems so obvious, but not to your friend.

Your friend needs your witness in order to break out of the box of prior expectations.

 

We're so “scientific” and supposedly so observant, but that is just the way things work with us.

We build upon prior experiences, and try to fit new things into the patterns that we already know.

So when something completely new happens, we either miss it entirely, or are overwhelmed with confusion, and if it is significant enough, overwhelmed with terror.

 

The women come to the tomb on Sunday morning expecting to care for a body in a way that they did not have time to complete on Friday before the Sabbath began.

They are confused by the absence, and by the message of the angels.

 

In John's telling of the story, Mary Magdalene turns and sees the risen Lord Jesus, but does not recognize him.

Mary! Come on, wake up! You, of all people!

She expects to see the gardener, and so that is who she assumes he is.

It is not until Jesus calls to her sharply by name that she begins to refocus her eyes, and begins to admit to the possibility that something outside of her expectation and experience is happening.

That precious call by name by the risen Christ is what grabbed her head, and began to bring everything into focus.

 

Jesus did not leave Mary and the disciples  to their own devices

Jesus did not expect them to build upon prior experiences.

He came to them and turned their gaze and their thoughts from what was expected and accustomed to what was being revealed right then.

 

The rest of the time we “see through a mirror dimly”, as Paul says in Corinthians.

This once, by the grace of God, things come into focus and we see “face to face.”

This is Easter.

And Mary tells Peter, and Peter and friends tell the rest of the disciples.

The disciples in the power of the Spirit tell 3,000, and they tell still more,

until those days when our parents teachers, and friends told us where to focus our attention.

 

Those are:

the places where were are going to see a body made up of the believers who gather for worship and scatter for service,

the places where we are going to hear the promise “for you, for you”,

the places where we are going to anticipate a hint of the final and complete fellowship.

The distractions these days are tremendous, and they seem ever more insistent.

Look this way and that; spend your time, your attention, your money on the fastest, the shiniest, the newest, the most outrageous and shocking, ...or if a bit older one might opt for the one with the longest guarantee, or that is the least chancy. 

 

It could be employment, sports, exercise, care of family, or a thousand other things.

They could be things relating to basic survival, food and shelter, or

they could be the diversions of leisure time activities or even the ennui of the couch potato syndrome.

Some of them are very important to our lives, others...not so much.

The question is how they are related to each other and to Jesus.

As one of our congregational leaders regularly asks, “Where's the focus?”

Is it on Christ Jesus crucified and risen from the dead and calling us together around himself, or is it on ourselves and our own comforts, conveniences, and desires?

 

Our Crossways Bible study  has a  pair of illustrations to help us here.

Imagine a pie-graph with all of the component parts of our lives represented as pie-wedges: work, school, sports, recreation, rest, family-life, and so on.

Where does Jesus fit in such a graph?

Some would say he gets his own little wedge, safe and secure, and insulated from all of the other parts of life....a hour or so on a weekend if it doesn't conflict with other things.

Unfortunately, this pious-sounding resolve leaves Jesus out of focus all of the rest of the time.

The much better pie-graph has all of the same life components around the pie, but Christ Jesus in the center of the pie and thus related to every one of them.

In fact, we could say that if an activity does not have a proper connection with Jesus in some way, then it is something that should not be in our life anyway.

Pornography, hatred, murder, ...we have been immensely inventive with the list.

They are all things that drag life out of focus; they shouldn't be in the pie-chart at all.

 

The Good News of this Easter Day is that we don't have to wonder if there is a point to living.

Is it worth-while?  Should I bother, or just give up?

Jesus has gone through everything that life and death could throw at him; he has conquered every challenge, even the horrors of a tortuous death, and has been raised to new life.

Thus when he makes promises, he will be able to keep them, because no conditions now get in his way.

Christ is risen to be able to be at the center of life for you and for me.

In Holy Baptism he calls us by name, even as he called Mary by name.

Don't be seduced by the siren call of all of those other voices; the center of things, the focus of life is right here and it is summarized in the little refrain that we repeat throughout the Easter season:

Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.  Amen.