The Day of Resurrection: Easter Day-The Rev Melanie Lemburg

The Very Rev. Melanie Dickson Lemburg

The Day of Resurrection:  Easter Day

April 20, 2025

 

        There’s so much fear.  I’d never noticed it before this year.  I had always thought that maybe it was about competition.  But this year, I realize….there is just so much fear.

        The unthinkable has happened.  They’ve been going about their business, doing good things for society, and the authorities have come in and arrested their friend.  He has been handed over to a foreign government.  He is tried under false charges in a sham of trial.  He is tortured, publicly humiliated to prove a point about who’s really in charge here, and then, he is brutally, publicly executed.  Like a criminal.  Even though he was innocent.

        His friends are terrified and hopeless.  What if they come for them too?  Who’s to stop them from being arrested and tried as his followers?  It’s no wonder that next week, we will see them huddle together in a locked room, hunkered down in fear.  Afraid to go to work.  But today, we see them trying to do the next right thing, to prepare the body of their friend for the hasty, disgraced burial he has already received.  They are terrified, and they are trying to keep on doing the next right thing.

        And their fear is evident, if we know how to look for it.  There’s so much running, hither and yon, accompanied by panic.  We recognize this because we’ve seen it in ourselves from time to time.  When we are threatened, our primitive fight or flight response kicks in.  Mary Magdalene panics and runs from the tomb to retrieve Peter and John and she tells them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”  Peter and John race back to the tomb with Magdalene running behind them.  When the disciples verify that the tomb is indeed empty, they wander lostly back home.  What else is there to do in the face of such mystery? 

        But Mary Magdalene stays, and she finally succumbs to a complete and utter melt-down.  It has all been too much, and all she can do is stand there and weep.  In her standing still, in her grief, she encounters two angels who ask her a question:  “Woman, why are you weeping?”  Her response is wrapped in fear: “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know what they have done with him.” 

        Now, how do we know this is fear?  It’s because we do this ourselves when we are afraid.  We pin all our fears and distrust on the shadowy “they”.  The ones who aren’t like us.  Who don’t think like us, don’t look like us, don’t act like us. Who’s the “they” that Magdalene keeps referring to here?  We don’t really know.  But what we do know is that it is not us. 

        And that’s when the risen Christ shows up.  Mary Magdalene starts to blame him for moving Jesus’s body, thinking he’s the gardener.  Because maybe, just maybe, he is one of them:  “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”  And then Jesus calls her by name, and she recognizes him. And all of those “us versus them” categories disappear for her as Jesus stands before her resurrected from the dead.   

        If I were to ask you what you think the opposite of fear is, what would you say?  (probably courage, maybe persistence, maybe even hope?)  What if I tell you that I think that this story shows us that the opposite of fear is awe?  We see it, over and over again, in the gospel:  people going about their business in various shades of fear or woundedness, and the power of God is revealed in their lives or right in front of them, and their fear vanishes in the face of their awe. 

        We get a glimpse of this transformation for Peter in the Acts passage for today.  Peter, who was so afraid that in the face of the empty tomb, he just goes home.  We see him preaching in Acts after some time has passed, and he has been transformed by encounters with the Risen Christ and the manifestation of the glory of God in and through the faithful actions of Jesus’ disciples.  Peter preaches:  “I truly understand that God shows no partiality…”  Peter’s fear has been driven out by his awe and he now understands that in the Kingdom of God, there is no us versus them.  There is only us. 

        Back in January, I preached a sermon about sin and awe, and I spoke about how sin divides us but how awe connects us.  We could say the same thing about fear and awe as well.  Fear divides us; awe connects us.  I recently came across this definition of awe.  Awe is “an emotional experience in which we sense being in the presence of something that transcends our normal perception of this world.”[i]  Researchers have found that awe ‘leads people to cooperate, share resources, and sacrifice for others’ and causes them to ‘fully appreciate the value of others and see themselves more accurately, evoking humility.’  Some researchers even believe that ‘awe-inducing events may be one of the fastest and most powerful methods of personal change and growth.’”[ii] [iii]

        Fear divides us.  Awe connects us.  Back in January, I talked about how we cannot generate our own awe, how we have to be on the lookout for moments when awe breaks into our ordinary lives, and then be attentive enough to allow it to transform us.  We might argue that’s why we come to church today.  We are trying to show up for the awe of God’s mighty work through Jesus’s resurrection from the dead to astound us, to break us open, to transform us. 

        But guess what?!  I have recently learned that just like we can practice other spiritual disciplines like gratitude and hope and mercy and forgiveness, we can practice the discipline of awe! Scientists have actually studied this, and they have named a pattern that is found in the heart of most religions as a way for us to practice awe.  These scientists call it “microdosing mindfulness” and they have identified a five to fifteen second, three step process to help us cultivate and practice awe in our lives. 

        They call it the AWE method.  The first step-the A-is Attention.  Start by focusing your full and undivided attention on something you value, appreciate, or find amazing.  The second step-the W- is Wait.  It means slowing down or pausing, taking a breath, inhaling deeply while you appreciate the thing or person or idea that you are focusing your attention on.  The third step-the E- is Exhale and Expand.  Make a slightly deeper exhalation than normal, allowing what you are feeling to fill you and grow.  Pay attention to what you notice about yourself.  Did you feel a surge or release of energy?[iv]

        The invitation of this day, of Easter, is for you to think about what all of your running around (literally, figuratively, spiritually) reveals about how fear is motivating you?  Because it is only when Mary Magdalene stays put, standing still and grieving near the empty tomb, that she becomes open to awe in her encounter with the Risen Christ.  In that moment, her fear is transformed, and she is deepened in her connection with Jesus, empowering her to be the one who delivers the good news of his resurrection to the other disciples and ultimately the world.  Her awe thus connects her with believers throughout time.  How might your life, your faith be transformed by practicing AWE during the next 50 days in this season of Easter?[v] 

    In closing, I'd like to share with you a poem about resurrection awe that can be found in everyday life.

What It's Like to Rise Again

By Tania Runyan

Not just the first crocus bulb poking 

from the ground, but its pollen 

shining saffronly on the legs of a bee. 

The reverberations of a hammered 

dulcimer or the puff of sweetness escaping 

between peel and pith of a ripe tangelo. 

It's an old woman admiring her hair 

in the mirror—the curl that bounces back— 

and an anonymous (to you, at least) 

possum in the woods yawning

as she stretches front legs then hind.

It's a teenager mountain-posing 

by an open window, his childhood 

blanket his mat, and yes, I can say it:

unclasping an underwire bra after church 

and just letting your humanity be. 

It's riding the elevator after the doctor

tells you, we can't say why the scans 

are suddenly clear, or, if you're exhausted 

from trying, time to surround yourself 

with people you love. It's waking 

in the middle of the night, looking out 

at the silhouettes of trees and realizing 

there is nothing lonely about silence. 

It's cruising a wide-open Montana highway

or swinging your hips to the rhythm 

of a street-corner bucket drummer 

and daring the stares. It's not the cicada 

blooming from its shell as much 

as the shell itself, balanced

on the finger of a little girl, then 

tumbling along the grass tips

among the unkillable dandelions. 

---

[i] Eagle, Jake and Michael Amster. The Power of Awe:  Overcome Burnout and Anxiety, Ease Chronic Paine, Find Clarity and Purpose-in Less than 1 Minute Per Day. Hachette Books:  New York, 2023, p 19.

[ii]  Brown, Brene.  Atlas of the Heart:  Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience. Random House, 2021, pp58-59

[iii] This section is originally found in my Epiphany 5C sermon for 2025 preached at St. Thomas.

[iv] Eagle, Jake and Michael Amster. The Power of Awe:  Overcome Burnout and Anxiety, Ease Chronic Paine, Find Clarity and Purpose-in Less than 1 Minute Per Day. Hachette Books:  New York, 2023, p 185

[v] Here are resources to learn more about the AWE method.  https://thepowerofawe.com/what-it-is/