“I have seen the Lord!”
Perhaps it seems to you odd that the title of our Easter message today is, “Walking with Moses.” Of course, it was my intent to have you wondering and perhaps even squinting at me a little askance. I would never want to become so predictable that you felt you could skip Easter worship because, after all, it's the same story every year, right? You remember how it goes....
The Resurrection is not a story to be remembered, it is a hope to feel, a life to live, a Savior to follow for the rest of our lives. As our children sang just a few minutes ago, “Alive! Alive! My Jesus is Alive—alive forevermore—sing Hallelujah!”
For Christians, unless we have come to believe in vain (as Paul wrote to the Church in Corinth), there is no better, greater, higher, deeper, wider, more fulfilling, chilling, thrilling, fascinating, exacerbating, confusing, inducing, incredible, indelible, truth-is-stranger than fiction fact that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead! Sing Alleluia!
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary and the other women made their way to the tomb expecting to quietly anoint the Lord's body so that he would be properly buried. Their only concern was about that stone over the tomb's opening. Who would remove it for them? Yet when Mary and the others reached the place, they saw that the stone had been not just rolled away, but that it had been removed altogether.
We all know what it is like to feel your heart pounding in your chest...throbbing in your eardrums... forcing blood through your veins. You can hardly breathe, it seems, and the muscles begin to contract all over your body; you begin to tremble physically and fearfully.
Of course, Mary thought the worst had happened—perhaps that was God's intent—to have her see something that doesn't make sense; she, like we, quickly dropped from a moment of wonder into squinting askance at the oddity, and then still not able to make sense of it, she crumbled, as we often do, right into rapid-fire succession into the emotions of worry, panic, sorrow that cause us, and the women, to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Last Tuesday, I too had such an experience when I took my first “walk with Moses,” and I can tell you all of those emotions and symptoms I just described happened to me within 2 minutes. I'd never gone for a walk alone with Moses, and I was so looking forward to it. My friend Moses is an 11-month-old puppy.
We started out here at the church, turned right at the sidewalk and started up Academy Street. This was going to be a perfect arrangement: Moses would get out of his house while his owner worked, and I would get some much needed exercise.
I think I was as excited as Moses was until... just two houses up from the church, out from the backyard charged a huge Husky, barking and jumping, glaring at us with those white eyes and baring those even whiter teeth. We stopped; well, I stopped. Moses doesn't stop much. My heart was pounding, my leash arm was aching, I could hardly breathe....walking with Moses takes courage, I decided. I began to rethink this perfect arrangement as I remembered that sage advice, if you don't want to run with the big dogs, you might as well stay on the porch. The porch very quickly started looking quite appealing to me in that moment. Fortunately, the porch was the farthest thing from Moses' mind.
As we walked through the neighborhoods of Sewall Road, Parent Street, and Butler, too, I had envisioned a peaceful journey...away from the constant traffic on Main Street. I'd look at the houses and spring flowers as Moses walked along at my side. Then I remembered something—it was like an electric shock through my body. Unlike the women that first Easter morning, who brought their spices to anoint the Lord, I was not prepared to do what I had to do if Moses had to do...you know...do. I could only hope that Moses could wait until he got home.
Mary did not wait around for any explanations for this impossible thing that had happened. She ran all the way back to where the disciples were staying, and she woke Peter and John. “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then the three of them ran back to the tomb. They ran after the wrong impossible thing. It was not that the stone and Jesus' body were gone from the tomb; the “impossible” thing was that Jesus had risen from the dead—He was alive! Alive forevermore!
Not too far into the journey, Moses began taking me on this walk, sniffing the bases of telephone poles or “marking” fire hydrants. Somewhere along the way I realized that I was unprepared for the “elimination event.” The worst part was when he ground to a halt and crouched down on his hind legs; the wrong possible thing was happening. I had to laugh, though, at the irony of the biblical Moses who was the great lawgiver, and this Moses (and I) were lawbreakers.
The Resurrection breaks all kinds of laws—physics, biology, and nature's order. Many of us today find it difficult to trust good news because we're used to bad news. And that will never change until we can receive and believe the good-est news of all, that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead; that Christ is alive, alive forevermore. This is news that should not be kept quiet.
We “mosey” along in life with the information that Jesus Christ is alive. Yet what God has designed for us in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is transformation. Shall we stand inside a dark tomb of fatigue and distraction, emptiness in the midst of the rapid-fire pace of 21st-century living? Don't you long for someone to roll away that stone that keeps us locked in the tomb? Don't you want to turn over a new leash in life, not one that fits around your neck but one that is made of God's amazing grace and Christ's abiding love?
Moses wanted off his leash the other day. A woman with two small and white, curly coiffed dogs came around the corner. Moses began to strain against his leash, pulling me forward. The little dogs looked like fluffy white cupcakes to him, I am sure.
Well, the woman with the well-coiffed dogs pulled both leashes up short and squished herself and the two cupcakes between a fence...and a fire hydrant. A brilliant move. Moses thought he'd died and gone to heaven. As I struggled to get Moses away from his prey, she squinted at me askance and weakly apologized. “I know I shouldn't have stopped at a fire hydrant.” As I pulled Moses into the crosswalk , I felt like barking, too. “You're lucky you didn't get … wet.”
Cars were coming to a stop all around us, right there, and I said a prayerful apology to Sarah Orne Jewett. Finally, I had to take Moses by the collar and physically turn him around. I thanked the guy in the Ford Expedition for not running over both of us. I went walking with Moses, and we both came back alive.
Christ indeed is alive with us today because he was willing to die for us on Friday. He lives so that we may also live, and live abundantly. He lives not to protect us from difficult experiences like worry, panic and sorrow; like facing the next scary situation that comes around the corner. He lives to give us strength and courage to get off the porch and run with the big dogs.
He lives, and because he lives we can face all the tomorrows, leashed or unleashed, because we know he holds the future in his hands.
Get walking with Jesus; get talking about Jesus. Christ is risen. There's no other way to tell it. Christ is risen; He is risen, indeed! Amen.
April 8, 2012
The First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor
