Rev. Tessie Mandeville
April 08, 2007
Christ Covenant MCC
Decatur, GA 30033

It all started with the Call of the Wild. We heard the voice of the Wild One, our amazing God of Love and Grace, on Ash Wednesday calling us to return to God with all our hearts, minds, bodies and souls. We then heard the call of Wild Surrender, that call to die to our own ways of thinking and controlling our lives. The next week we heard the call to die to fear and anxiety so that we can say the Wild Words we are called to say. After that we heard the call to die to old and hurtful images of a punishing God in order to see the Wild Ways of a loving God. And then, the call of Wild Mercy came to us, that call to die to wanting to get even with others so that we can show mercy to others in the same way that God shows it to us. We then heard the call of Wild Fragrance, that call to gift one another with the fragrance of God’s love and to become God’s love to each other. But we weren’t through yet. The call came for us to be Wild Followers rather than Wild Fans of God because sometimes our journeys take us to places we’d rather not go and it takes the commitment of followers to go all the way. And finally we just walked with Jesus through the last week of his life. Through the betrayal on Maundy Thursday to the trial, the abandonment, the pain and the execution on Good Friday.

I don’t know about you but I’m ready for some resurrection! The season of Lent is a season of death but it is also a season of resurrection because the Wild One never leaves us in the wilderness, on the cross, or in the tomb.

Mary Magdalene experienced this first hand. It was deep and abiding love that brought Mary Magdalene to the tomb. She was one of Jesus’ closest confidantes and friends. She was one of his beloveds. You can imagine how worn down she was with tears and grief after his crucifixion. You can feel the devastation she felt over the loss of someone she loved so much. The scriptures tell us that she came to the tomb while it was still dark. I think she came while it was still dark because she couldn’t sleep. Grief has a way of keeping us up at night doesn’t it?

While it was still dark she came to the tomb. When everyone else saw the empty tomb, they went back home. But Mary stayed. She wept. She looked inside the tomb for Jesus’ body but it wasn’t there. In that moment, Jesus appeared to Mary, though she didn’t recognize him. You know, we experience times in our lives when we are blinded by our despair and we can’t see what’s right in front of eyes. When I lived in San Francisco, I used to take buses to work. I rode them all the time and was quite familiar with them. There was a particular time in my life in which I was filled with grief and despair. I could no longer see what was right in front of me and I ended up on the wrong buses time and time again. My vision was cloudy. My eye lids were full from the weight of tears. That’s how I imagine Mary Magdalene that day.

Mary thought she was talking to the gardener. Until she heard him call her name. “Mary.” Her life changed when Jesus called her name. It was then that she fully recognized resurrection and claimed a power greater than us all. A power that can roll rocks away. A power that can move us from despair to hope. From sadness to joy.

The Wild One calls our names and asks us to claim that resurrection power that can roll rocks away.. There was a huge rock in front of Jesus’ tomb. That rock was supposed to seal his fate forever. That rock was supposed to put to rest all those wild predictions that he would rise again after three days. That rock was to prove to the world that death had won the day. But it didn’t! Death did not have the final say for Jesus and it does not have the final say for us!

Some rocks are probably easier to roll away than others. Rocks come in all sizes, including the personal-sized ones. The rocks that represent our own struggles. The rocks that roll between us and God and the rocks that roll between us and other people. We all have rocks that keep us captive. That seek to close us off from one another. That seek to seal our fate.

I don’t know what your particular rocks are but this I know: If on a deeper level the Bible story is our story too, then this must mean that our particular rocks, whatever they are, can be rolled away too.

The Wild One calls our names and asks us to claim that resurrection power that can bring us from despair to hope. When Mary arrived at that tomb, she was full of despair. Read the gospel story on your own. Notice how many times it says that she’s weeping. Mary understood despair. And we’ve experienced some despair this Lenten season. Many of us have had to endure things we’d rather not endure. We’ve faced break-ups, health crises, financial struggles, deaths of friends and family. Some of us have battled depression this Lenten season and come face to face with despair.

Mary came to the tomb full of despair but she left with some hope. I am not convinced that she had immediate resurrection because if there’s anything I know about resurrection, it’s that it takes time. Resurrection is a process for us. It rarely happens overnight. It is rarely easy and often messy. It takes time to move from despair to hope, from death to life, from sadness to joy. When you read the gospel you realize that each experience Mary had brought her closer to resurrection. We could say that resurrection happens in small steps, and with each step, we get closer to hope.

I love how Anne Lamott describes hope: Hope comes as a surprise. Almost every time for me, just when you think all hope is lost, it’s the cousin to grief. It’s a cousin, the first cousin, and both take time. You can’t short circuit grief and you can’t short circuit hope. You can’t short circuit the emptiness and you can’t just patch it up with your bicycle tube repair kit. It doesn’t work that way. The only thing that heals broken spirit is spirit. It’s like the only kind of blood you can have a transfusion of is your own type which is spirit or the universal type “O” which is spirit.”

The Wild One calls our names and asks us to claim that resurrection power that can bring us from sadness to joy. We have in us hearts that break with sorrow and hearts that burst with joy. The prophet Kahlil Gibran says it this way, “The same well from which our laughter rises was often filled with our tears.” Have you ever felt that the depth of your sadness was the measurement of the depth of your joy? What I have come to believe in my own life is that my capacity for joy is greater than my capacity for sadness, because it is from deep sadness that I have also learned deep joy. The promise of resurrection is that weeping may endure for the night but joy comes in the morning. And we’ve all had experiences where we didn’t think we’d ever move through a terrible sadness in our lives. But step by step we did. Remember: Resurrection is a process.

It all started with the Call of the Wild One who knows who we are and calls us by name. The Wild One, our amazing God of love and grace, acts in our lives. Shows up to us in our deepest moments of despair and death. The Wild One rolls away rocks that try to seal our fate. The Wild One cannot be tamed. The Wild One will never leave us in the wilderness, on the cross, or in the tomb.

May the resurrection process start in all of us today and may we always follow where the Wild One leads us because it will always be to Wild Resurrection. That is the power of Easter. Claim that power today and it is so. Amen.