“A Way out of No Way”
Luke 24:1-12
Luke 24:1-12
First Sunday of Easter: April 8, 2007
Preached at Kingston Road United Church by the Rev. Richard C. Choe
Preached at Kingston Road United Church by the Rev. Richard C. Choe
* * *
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.
… Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.
* * *
A way to nowhere.
I remember the long walk my two brothers and I took about 40 years ago. We had just moved back to Seoul from a very small village called Ji Gyoung Ri near the Demilitarized Zone in South Korea. The village was so small and remote that there was no electricity and the water had to be drawn from the town well. It was good to be back in the city but we desperately missed the friends we left and the beauty of nature. So, one Sunday morning a few weeks after we moved to Seoul we decided to go back and visit the small village. I was about 9 years old, James was about 7, and Tom was about 4.
We didn’t know the way but all I knew was that the last turn was at the big hill. So I figured that if we could just find the hill, we could see our way back to the small village. We started early in the morning and walked through the city market. Once we passed through the market, we turned right. Then, we walked toward the hospital. Then, we turned left and walked all the way to the top of the big hill. It took the whole morning and part of the afternoon just to reach the top of the hill. It seemed to take forever to get to the hill.
When we finally reached the top of the hill and looked down, my heart sank. There was no small village to be seen down the road. What I saw was another vast city much larger than the neighbourhood of our new home, and it stretched out to what seemed like eternity.
As I looked down, I realized that my brothers and I would not be able to walk back to that beautiful village we had once called our home. We turned and walked all the way back to our new home – our hearts heavy and our spirit completely depleted. I still remember that feeling of emptiness and abandonment, hopelessness and despair. We had walked the long road to nowhere on that Sunday.
Reading today’s passage brought back my memory of walking on the way to nowhere. Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the Mother of James, and other women went to the tomb where Jesus was buried after the crucifixion and found the tomb empty of his body. And they were terrified.
There are different accounts of the story of the empty tomb in the Bible. Biblical scholars tell us that there are various ways of reading and understanding the story of the empty tomb. Even today, Christians accuse one another of not having faith or being too literal based on how we understand the story of the empty tomb.
Some of us believe that Jesus was physically resurrected and believe that every detail of the story in the Bible is factual historical record of the event. Some of us believe that the story of the empty tomb is a parable – a metaphor where the point of the story is that Jesus lives on through the believers. Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, biblical scholars, suggest that “parables can be true – truthful and truth-filled – independently of their factuality… The importance of parables lies in their meanings… Indeed, it may be that the most important truths can be expressed only in parable.”
Borg and Crossan assert that just the way no one would say that the story of the prodigal son is not true just because there may not have been a father who lavishly welcomed his son home, the story of the resurrection cannot be denied even if it did not happen the way it is recorded in the Bible.[i] Some of us, however, may also believe that the entire story of the resurrection is just nonsense.
Regardless of what we believe and how we understand the story of the empty tomb, what happened after the crucifixion of Jesus impacted the lives of his followers in such ways that they began to spread the teachings of the Way of Jesus, knowing that they could be crucified like him. And by spreading the Way of Jesus, they transformed their own lives along with the lives of millions in human history.
For me the story of the empty tomb is more than just finding the meanings of the resurrection by understanding it as a parable or a factual account of history. The question for me is how we can experience resurrection in our own life and be able to express our understanding, belief, and conviction of the story of the resurrection through our own life. How do we live out our understandings of the story of the resurrection in our own life?
A radiologist discovered a large lump in my lungs a few years ago. It was a size of a grapefruit on the bottom part of my left lung. I was going through a rough divorce and I was not enjoying my work at Church House. Nothing seemed to be going right at the time. It was a time of extreme stress and vulnerability. I was lucky that the lump was not cancerous; however, the surgeon decided that the lump had to be removed. I remember the moment I had to sign the form that was releasing the surgeons and the hospital of the legal responsibilities in case I do not wake up from the surgery table. One in hundred, the doctor told me, was the chance that I may not wake up. I remember thinking about the possibility of not seeing my daughters again. I also remember thinking that I might be missing a movie that was going to be released in the New Year. It is strange how our mind works in time of stress.
The surgery was successful. I began to walk as a form of exercise while I was recovering from the surgery. Each day I walked at least 30 minutes. My favourite course was to walk around the High Park. One early Spring morning, as I was walking along my usual path in High Park, I found a strange scene unfolding in front of me. During the winter, the path I was walking on was the only path I saw. As snow was melting, I realized that there were many paths in and through the park.
Nature presented me with a delightful truth about life as the snow was melting in the park with the arrival of Spring. I realized that I had been living as if there was only one way. I thought that I have exhausted all the possibilities and hopes in my life as I was going through a divorce and working in a place where I was not finding much support or comfort. My life was full of emptiness. I realized that just because I had not seen another possibility did not mean that there were none.
That experience of seeing many criss-crossing pathways in High Park as snow was melting became a turning point in my life. Along with the melting snow, my despair and hopelessness that had frozen my being also began to melt away. I experienced resurrection from the empty tomb of my own life.
Edward Jones, an African American writer, won the Pulitzer Prize for his fiction, The Known World. When an interviewer asked him why women in his story wield roles of extraordinary power this is what he said, “When you are raised by a woman who had it hard and you are sensitive to how hard a life she had, you don’t necessarily look around and think of women as fragile creatures, whether slave or otherwise. You develop the belief that they can “make a way out of no way.”[ii]
Nelson Mandela, I think, is one of the persons in our time to have lived a life of a resurrection. He was imprisoned over 28 years of his life for his struggle against the apartheid South African government. Many White and Black South Africans were fearful of the impending violence once the apartheid government falls. Nelson Mandela was freed in 1990 and was able to not give in to hatred or revenge but to move people toward reconciliation and peaceful transition into the future.
In his inaugural address in 1994 as the first democratically elected State President of South Africa, he said,
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are we not to be? … Your playing small does not serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do…. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”[iii]
Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the Mother of James, and other women went to the tomb where Jesus was buried and found the tomb empty of his body. I believe they were women who made a way out of no way. They were the ones who made the Way of Jesus known to the world even when the other disciples believed that the Way of Jesus had ended with the crucifixion. As they were liberated from their fear of finding an empty tomb, they began to see new possibilities of the Way of Jesus Christ. Resurrection was experienced as they began to dream of new possibilities of making ways of being together in God’s compassion.
“Hope is a dimension of the spirit. It is not outside us, but within us.” Vaclav Havel, the 1st President of the Czech Republic, wrote this to Olga, his wife, as he was struggling to birth an independent and a democratic country.
I believe that a way to hope is a possibility if we can trust that there are ways that we will see in the near future.
In 1998 I was finally able to visit Ji Gyoung Ri, the small town I left thirty years after the long walk my brothers and I took. Everything had changed in that village. It is now a small city filled with cars zigzagging around instead of cows peacefully roaming in the field. Although so much has changed in that town, the small village of my memory is still in my heart as a spiritual home – a place where I discovered the Milky Way at night and a place where I discovered God’s presence as I walked around the mountains and fields.
The followers of Jesus accompanied one another after the crucifixion of Jesus and ultimately found the resurrected Jesus. They found a way out of no way. We are also walking together along the way that leads to hope. May the season of Easter bring new possibilities for each one of us. Amen.
I remember the long walk my two brothers and I took about 40 years ago. We had just moved back to Seoul from a very small village called Ji Gyoung Ri near the Demilitarized Zone in South Korea. The village was so small and remote that there was no electricity and the water had to be drawn from the town well. It was good to be back in the city but we desperately missed the friends we left and the beauty of nature. So, one Sunday morning a few weeks after we moved to Seoul we decided to go back and visit the small village. I was about 9 years old, James was about 7, and Tom was about 4.
We didn’t know the way but all I knew was that the last turn was at the big hill. So I figured that if we could just find the hill, we could see our way back to the small village. We started early in the morning and walked through the city market. Once we passed through the market, we turned right. Then, we walked toward the hospital. Then, we turned left and walked all the way to the top of the big hill. It took the whole morning and part of the afternoon just to reach the top of the hill. It seemed to take forever to get to the hill.
When we finally reached the top of the hill and looked down, my heart sank. There was no small village to be seen down the road. What I saw was another vast city much larger than the neighbourhood of our new home, and it stretched out to what seemed like eternity.
As I looked down, I realized that my brothers and I would not be able to walk back to that beautiful village we had once called our home. We turned and walked all the way back to our new home – our hearts heavy and our spirit completely depleted. I still remember that feeling of emptiness and abandonment, hopelessness and despair. We had walked the long road to nowhere on that Sunday.
Reading today’s passage brought back my memory of walking on the way to nowhere. Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the Mother of James, and other women went to the tomb where Jesus was buried after the crucifixion and found the tomb empty of his body. And they were terrified.
There are different accounts of the story of the empty tomb in the Bible. Biblical scholars tell us that there are various ways of reading and understanding the story of the empty tomb. Even today, Christians accuse one another of not having faith or being too literal based on how we understand the story of the empty tomb.
Some of us believe that Jesus was physically resurrected and believe that every detail of the story in the Bible is factual historical record of the event. Some of us believe that the story of the empty tomb is a parable – a metaphor where the point of the story is that Jesus lives on through the believers. Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, biblical scholars, suggest that “parables can be true – truthful and truth-filled – independently of their factuality… The importance of parables lies in their meanings… Indeed, it may be that the most important truths can be expressed only in parable.”
Borg and Crossan assert that just the way no one would say that the story of the prodigal son is not true just because there may not have been a father who lavishly welcomed his son home, the story of the resurrection cannot be denied even if it did not happen the way it is recorded in the Bible.[i] Some of us, however, may also believe that the entire story of the resurrection is just nonsense.
Regardless of what we believe and how we understand the story of the empty tomb, what happened after the crucifixion of Jesus impacted the lives of his followers in such ways that they began to spread the teachings of the Way of Jesus, knowing that they could be crucified like him. And by spreading the Way of Jesus, they transformed their own lives along with the lives of millions in human history.
For me the story of the empty tomb is more than just finding the meanings of the resurrection by understanding it as a parable or a factual account of history. The question for me is how we can experience resurrection in our own life and be able to express our understanding, belief, and conviction of the story of the resurrection through our own life. How do we live out our understandings of the story of the resurrection in our own life?
A radiologist discovered a large lump in my lungs a few years ago. It was a size of a grapefruit on the bottom part of my left lung. I was going through a rough divorce and I was not enjoying my work at Church House. Nothing seemed to be going right at the time. It was a time of extreme stress and vulnerability. I was lucky that the lump was not cancerous; however, the surgeon decided that the lump had to be removed. I remember the moment I had to sign the form that was releasing the surgeons and the hospital of the legal responsibilities in case I do not wake up from the surgery table. One in hundred, the doctor told me, was the chance that I may not wake up. I remember thinking about the possibility of not seeing my daughters again. I also remember thinking that I might be missing a movie that was going to be released in the New Year. It is strange how our mind works in time of stress.
The surgery was successful. I began to walk as a form of exercise while I was recovering from the surgery. Each day I walked at least 30 minutes. My favourite course was to walk around the High Park. One early Spring morning, as I was walking along my usual path in High Park, I found a strange scene unfolding in front of me. During the winter, the path I was walking on was the only path I saw. As snow was melting, I realized that there were many paths in and through the park.
Nature presented me with a delightful truth about life as the snow was melting in the park with the arrival of Spring. I realized that I had been living as if there was only one way. I thought that I have exhausted all the possibilities and hopes in my life as I was going through a divorce and working in a place where I was not finding much support or comfort. My life was full of emptiness. I realized that just because I had not seen another possibility did not mean that there were none.
That experience of seeing many criss-crossing pathways in High Park as snow was melting became a turning point in my life. Along with the melting snow, my despair and hopelessness that had frozen my being also began to melt away. I experienced resurrection from the empty tomb of my own life.
Edward Jones, an African American writer, won the Pulitzer Prize for his fiction, The Known World. When an interviewer asked him why women in his story wield roles of extraordinary power this is what he said, “When you are raised by a woman who had it hard and you are sensitive to how hard a life she had, you don’t necessarily look around and think of women as fragile creatures, whether slave or otherwise. You develop the belief that they can “make a way out of no way.”[ii]
Nelson Mandela, I think, is one of the persons in our time to have lived a life of a resurrection. He was imprisoned over 28 years of his life for his struggle against the apartheid South African government. Many White and Black South Africans were fearful of the impending violence once the apartheid government falls. Nelson Mandela was freed in 1990 and was able to not give in to hatred or revenge but to move people toward reconciliation and peaceful transition into the future.
In his inaugural address in 1994 as the first democratically elected State President of South Africa, he said,
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are we not to be? … Your playing small does not serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do…. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”[iii]
Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the Mother of James, and other women went to the tomb where Jesus was buried and found the tomb empty of his body. I believe they were women who made a way out of no way. They were the ones who made the Way of Jesus known to the world even when the other disciples believed that the Way of Jesus had ended with the crucifixion. As they were liberated from their fear of finding an empty tomb, they began to see new possibilities of the Way of Jesus Christ. Resurrection was experienced as they began to dream of new possibilities of making ways of being together in God’s compassion.
“Hope is a dimension of the spirit. It is not outside us, but within us.” Vaclav Havel, the 1st President of the Czech Republic, wrote this to Olga, his wife, as he was struggling to birth an independent and a democratic country.
I believe that a way to hope is a possibility if we can trust that there are ways that we will see in the near future.
In 1998 I was finally able to visit Ji Gyoung Ri, the small town I left thirty years after the long walk my brothers and I took. Everything had changed in that village. It is now a small city filled with cars zigzagging around instead of cows peacefully roaming in the field. Although so much has changed in that town, the small village of my memory is still in my heart as a spiritual home – a place where I discovered the Milky Way at night and a place where I discovered God’s presence as I walked around the mountains and fields.
The followers of Jesus accompanied one another after the crucifixion of Jesus and ultimately found the resurrected Jesus. They found a way out of no way. We are also walking together along the way that leads to hope. May the season of Easter bring new possibilities for each one of us. Amen.
-------------------------
[1] Marcus J. Borg & John Dominic Crossan, The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’ Final Days in Jerusalem, New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006, 190-194.
[ii] An Interview with Edward P. Jones, Edward P. Jones, The Known World, New York: Amistad, an imprint of HarperColins Publishers, 2003, 3.
[iii] Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love.
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