On the night of September 14, 1927, one of the most famous dancers of that age got into a Amilcar CGSS, a low-riding model of a French sports car that won the Monte Carlo Rally the same year. The woman’s trademark was her beautiful flowing scarves, and it was her scarf that did her in that night, for these were the days of open-wheeled vehicles, and the scarf she was wearing caught in the passenger side rear wheel, pulling her from the vehicle and breaking her neck. While the accident happened in Nice, her cremains ended up in Père Lachaise, the Paris Cemetery that contains a who’s who of famous artists and thinkers, both French and international, for Paris has long attracted the creative, the brilliant, the dissolute, the mad, the city of lights and lovers and artists.
So there, along with that dancer, Isadore Duncan, you can find tombs that hold or once held the remains and cremains of Richard Wright, Gertrude Stein, Maria Callas, Édith Piaf, dozens of others. I was wandering in Père Lachaise one bright spring day, guidebook in hand, looking for the tomb of Oscar Wilde, when I was stopped by another tourist, one who was clearly having a very good time, maybe too good of a time to be strictly legal if you know what I mean. “Dude, you’re going the wrong way. It’s over there,†he informed me, gesturing off in exactly the opposite direction. He was directing me not toward the great Irish writer, but toward the grave of Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors, and a source of consternation for the families of others in the cemetery.
Some bodies that are in Père Lachaise were not originally buried there, like Abélard and Héloïse, famous and tragic lovers from the 12th century, relocated to promote the cemetery, while others that were originally buried there are now gone, like Maria Callas, whose ashes were stolen, and when recovered, scattered in the Aegean to prevent future theft. Most of Frédéric Chopin is in Paris, but his heart is in Vienna.
It is weird, really, that a cemetery should be a tourist attraction, yet earthly remains have always held a special power for us, as if somehow there is a suspended presence of the person long lost. The veneration of relics, the finger bone of Saint So-and-so, the chattering we do at the graves of dead spouses and parents, it is as if time and space collapse and our hearts and spirits are open and a connection is made that feels very real, despite the lack of empirical evidence that there is any presence at all, chemical reaction and electric charge long dissipated. Even where bodies remain, preserved, there is no spark of life, and yet there is something, something that draws us to the grave, to the desk where she wrote those poems, to the site where they fought that battle. Just a place, really, but more than a place.
The sense of presence is so powerful that we go to extraordinary lengths at times to either nullify bodies or to capture them, the disposal of Osama bin Laden’s corpse as sea, the painstaking effort to recover every bone fragment from the remains of the World Trade Center, mirror testimonies of the power to be found in these bodies, even those that have been drained of vitality, that are scattered, that seem lost forever.
John’s gospel tells us only that Mary Magdalene has come to the tomb before dawn. We are missing the other women and the purpose of her visit, whether she has come to cleanse and further prepare the broken and bloodied body of the rabbi, as in Mark and Luke, or to simply see the tomb, where he is located, all that Matthew states. But there she is, this disciple, discovering that the stone has been rolled away. She immediately fetches Simon Peter and another unnamed disciple, presumably always John in this gospel. It is Peter that finally summons the courage and goes into the tomb and sees that not only is the body missing, but it has clearly been unwrapped, for the linens are still there. The gospel tells us that they still don’t understand what is happening, and the two men turn and leave, hiding from the violence and cruelty of their world. But Mary remains at the tomb, weeping.
Mary Magdalene is stuck, her heart and her mind and her body stuck. She does not know what is going on. The events of the last three days have been horrifying, the arrest, public torture, and gruesome execution of this man she thought was going to change the world, this can’t be right! The male disciples are mostly hiding while the women are getting on with what needs to be done, but even the women must have been in a thick fog of shock and confusion. What next? What life can there be after this? And then, even the body, the shell of the man, is gone too.
So Mary is just there. She must see for herself what Peter and John have reported. She steps into the tomb….
She could have run away. She could have gone and hidden behind locked doors. She didn’t. Sometimes running away from the pain and confusion isn’t the answer. Sometimes we have to step into our fear, and so she does, and encounters two angels. Even in the presence of the angels, she doesn’t get it, does not recognize them for what they are, does not realize that she is standing in a place charged with holiness. And then she sees him, this man they have spent every day with for months, for three years for some of them, and she does not recognize him until he speaks her name.
The four gospels are filled with contradiction, but never more so than what it means when we say he is risen from the grave. On one hand, they emphasize his physicality, Thomas touching the wounds. What sort of spirit lights a campfire to stay warm and cooks fish on the beach? On the other hand, he is not himself, maybe not even material, as he passes through a locked door, as his followers are unable to recognize him, not just Mary Magdalene, but the unnamed disciples on the road to Emmaus, who only discover the true identity of the man who has journeyed with them, teaching them, when they offer him their hospitality.
The first Christians would struggle to understand what it means to say he is risen, what those followers saw in the weeks after his public execution. What was it that convinced them that he was still very much present to them?
Some would argue that he was only ever a spirit, though they would be condemned as heretics. Others would argue that he was only spirit after resurrection, but they too would be condemned. In so many churches today, they insist on checking some credal box, but even if we have passed some litmus test of faith, most of us don’t really know what we mean when we say he is risen. I am content just knowing that the worst brutality Rome had to offer could not stop the good news, could not stop a movement that believed in a loving God, one that was more parent than judge. I am content to know that he was very real to them for weeks after they had seen him die. I believe he is risen enough to have it tattooed into my flesh even if I don’t know exactly what it means.
I know this. He told them that he’d always be with them, when they were gathered in his name, when they remembered him at table, when they cared for the poor, the sick, the broken. When did we visit you in prison, Jesus? When you did it for the least of these. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that he is only revealed at Emmaus in their act of hospitality. All that talking on the road, all of that teaching, and it was only when the bread they have shared was broken that they could see that Christ was with them. Mary, looking right at him, the burial wrappings right there, and she thinks he might be the gardener. Only when he speaks her name does she recognize him.
Of course, love wins. If we didn’t believe that, why would we bother to gather today. We’d be better off spending our time on hedonistic schemes, animals seeking unbridled pleasure, scams and speculation as if earthly wealth could protect us from the grave.
But that is not us. We know that we are more than that, that there is something powerful and good and creative at work in the world, beauty and love that does win, though we but dip our toe into that stream. So we gather and tell this story.
But I can’t just say love wins, sing alleluia, and walk away. Because some are still with Mary Magdalene, shocked, not knowing what comes next. Some face cancer, other diseases, aging bodies and failing memories. Some have loved ones who need care and we don’t know if we can provide it, if care is even available. Some struggle to pay the bills and worry about trade wars and wild swings in the stock market, while others worry about the lobster stock. Some have lost faith in our democracy, in our ability to be civil and work together for the common good, while children and African-Americans are gunned down. So no, we are not all at alleluia this morning. We might believe that love is going to win in the end, but it sure feels like the game is going into overtime for some of us.
So here is the word for this morning. Don’t run away if you are still at the tomb. If you are stuck, look carefully. See the wrappings in the tomb. Listen to the angels. Christ is going to call, you just might not recognize him at first, because he is not going to look at all like you expect. But he will call. He has been calling those who confess his name for two thousand years, because he is risen and is with us and has been with us just as he said, when we gather in his name, when we come to the table of love, when we are present to those who are most vulnerable and scared, when we welcome the sinner and give them the chance to experience a new life, when we stand up to the caesars of this world.
He is risen. You might not know what that means exactly. You might not even feel it yet. But this man more powerful than empires, more powerful than death, is risen. His word is to us and for us, and it is this. God is love, and loves you, and you are more than this body, just as he was more than that body that was beaten and nailed and pierced and entombed. He was more, and you are more, and love will win.
So maybe your Easter is today. Maybe it isn’t. Just be there. Don’t run away. He is risen. Listen for the call. But do me a favor, and keep your scarves short. Amen.