A Sermon for Easter Day
The Rev. Patricia A. Gillespie
Isaiah 51:9-11
Acts 10:34-43
Luke 24:1-10
Psalm 118:14-29
When I was seven years old my father brought home a treasure. It was a hamster. Hamsters were rare then. Something new and foreign. I was the only one I knew who had one. Her name was Jingo and I loved her.
Hamsters were still unusual enough that breeders marked them with little cuts on their ear so you could tell where the hamster came from. They were all plain brown and hard to tell apart. But Jingo was soon unique. It a tussle with my brother's hamster Bingo she got her other ear nipped, so no other hamster had marks like hers.
She went everywhere in my shirt pocket. Once she even went to school in my lunch box. Then one day when it was too cold for her to go to school with me I came home and found her dead in her cage.
I knew she was dead. I'd seen dead animals before. She was cold. I even felt for a heartbeat, but didn't find it.
I put her gently back in her nest and told my mother I was going to Campbell's drug store. I walked a few blocks, asked the lady behind the soda counter for a cigar box. I got one of the fancy King Edward ones. A royal coffin for Jingo.
I knew something about funerals too. Mom had figured out what was going on. The first tears came when she asked what the cigar box was for. She helped me find a pretty washcloth and I tucked Jingo into her new nest. I closed the lid but I couldn't tape it shut. I wanted to keep petting her.
And I knew before the funeral we'd have to have a death certificate. So I waited for the doctor to come home. Daddy came home pretty soon. Mom must have called him. I thought I needed to go and look at the beach, to find a grave, so I left him to do whatever doctors do with dead friends.
When I came back they looked happy. I wanted to run away. How could they be happy when my friend was dead? Dad said come into the kitchen. There was Jingo's cage and there was another hamster in it, climbing up the side, just like she used to.
I burst into tears and ran into my room. How could he do this to me? I want Jingo not some stupid new hamster. I wanted to hold MY hamster again. I opened the beautiful cigar box. AND IT WAS EMPTY!
He took her away! I can't believe it! Did he think he could trick me, make me think it never happened? I wanted to scream and kick him. Instead I went into my closet and closed the door. I got out my flashlight and pencil and paper. I wrote the words I couldn't say on the tear-wet paper: "Daddy is dum. I hate him."
Mom came later to get me. She said Jingo was alive. I didn't believe her. But I went to see the new hamster.
There she was, still climbing the cage wall. The identification marks from the breeder were there. And so was the bite mark on the other ear. This is crazy. I look at Daddy and wonder if a surgeon could have made ears like that. My hands shake when I take her out of the cage and put her on my shoulder. She crawls straight down into my pocket, where she knows the sunflower seeds are.
I start to cry again. Daddy. How did you make Jingo alive again?
Well, do you believe it? Were my loving parents trying to protect me by getting me a new pet? Or was it a resurrection experience?
Well, not really. Hamsters hibernate -- they get cold, they look dead, they hardly breathe at all and their heartbeat is hard to find. Often they do die during hibernation.
But gently warm them and they wake up. Since then I've used "double boiler treatment" to bring several of my hundreds of hamsters "back to life."
But for me it WAS a resurrection story. I "knew" my hamster was dead. I know how the women felt to find the tomb as empty as my King Edward cigar box was. I know how unbelievable the resurrection story is and how easily the other disciples could toss it off as "an idle tale." I know too that it was love that gave new life -- my father's love for me that brought him home on an emergency call. My mother's love for me that sought me out even when I turned away in hurt and anger.
That's how God's love is, you know. Like a cold hamster in a cigar box, our lives fall apart -- someone we love dies or we suffer some other loss -- and God's fatherly love and grace surrounds us with healing. God's love is there, even when we don't see it, even when we don't believe it and name it an "idle tale."
That's how God's love is, you know. Like hiding in the closet with our anger and hatred, we reject God -- we hurt those we love, we fall into sin -- and God's motherly love and grace surrounds us with forgiveness. God's love is there, even when we run away, even when we're too frightened to believe it.
That's how God's love is, you know. That first Easter morning, when no one was shouting, "Alleluia, Christ is risen!" When the women are confused and frightened. When the men think the resurrection is only an idle tale, God's love is still there.
But this resurrection love is more than an old friend snuggling in a pocket. Even more than a friend who was dead and is now alive. The idle tale that the women tell means that ALL the cigar boxes, ALL the tombs, are empty.
We can stop looking at the broken, death-filled places in our lives. We need no longer look for the living among the dead.
If we, like the women, remember what Jesus has told us, then our dark tomb that we have made from our sins is empty. We can leave the dark, ugly, and painful parts of our past behind us. We can walk away and meet new life.
The new life of the Risen Lord is no idle tale. The resurrection is all around us, reflected in God's children. We see it in people we serve, in people who serve us, and even, if we look closely enough, in ourselves.
It's there, as clear and permanent as a hamster's ear marks -- the mark of baptism, that sign of the cross that promises us new life in Christ even in the midst of death.
In every death we meet, Christ is our life.
Alleluia! Christ is risen.