Readings: Acts 10:34a, 37-43; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-9
Given the timing and the weight of accumulated history,
it was inevitable that people would go looking
for symbolic significance
in the fire that came close to destroying
Paris’s cathedral of Notre Dame this past week.
Some suggested that it was a metaphor
for the crisis of European Christianity,
beset by decades of declining membership and church attendance.
Others, mindful of Holy Week, saw it as a symbol
of the destruction of the temple of Christ’s body—
and drew hope that Our Lady’s cathedral, like Christ himself,
would one day rise again in glory.
But maybe the lesson of the fire at Notre Dame
is not some deeply hidden message or metaphor,
but something pretty obvious:
the things we human beings construct—
no matter how beautiful or culturally significant—
catch on fire and burn.
They also rot and decay;
they get swept away in floods
and brought down by earthquakes.
And, in this way, they are like us, their makers.
The message of last Monday’s fire
is the message of Ash Wednesday
with which we began this Lent:
remember that you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.
Eight-hundred and fifty years is a long time,
but it is not eternity;
and even if, as seems likely, Notre Dame is restored
and continues for a time as a place of Christian worship,
we know that one day this too will come to an end,
shall return to dust like everything we humans create,
as we ourselves shall as well.
Pretty somber news for an Easter morning.
But in the face of this somber new
we Christians proclaim the Good News
of Jesus’ resurrection.
Even as what is beautiful and noble falls to ruin,
Christ’s resurrection brings us glad tidings:
we are indeed dust,
but we are dust bound for glory,
for our life is hidden with Christ in God
and Christ is truly risen.
All that is good,
all that has value,
is treasured eternally
in the heart of the risen Jesus.
But because there has never been a silver lining
that I could not find a dark cloud to wrap around,
I am afraid that I have news this Easter morning
even more somber than the inevitable mortality
that shadows our lives.
There is something more deeply wrong with the world
than the finite timespan of every creature.
This something is what we call “sin,”
and we can see it at work in the death of Jesus.
For Jesus doesn’t just die
because his human lifespan runs out;
rather, he is killed.
As Peter reminds the assembled crowd in Jerusalem,
“They put him to death by hanging him on a tree.”
He is killed
because something far darker than death
has invaded human life.
He is killed because we have a rage within us,
a cruelty that makes us heedless of each other
and willing to cut short
the finite and fragile miracle of human life.
In a sense, the real events of recent days
that capture the full disaster of the human condition
is not the accidental fire that nearly destroyed Notre Dame,
but the deliberate burning
of three historically African American churches in Louisiana--
and now I suppose we must add
the churches bombed and the scores of people killed
this morning in Sri Lanka.
These were, of course, far more humble structures
than the gothic glory that is Notre Dame,
but they were temples no-less-holy,
where worship was offered to the living God.
And while the fire at Notre Dame
speaks to us of the world’s fragility and finitude,
the burning churches of Louisiana,
the bombed churches of Sri Lanka,
speak to us of sin.
They speak to us of those deeds
that grow from fear of what it different,
from a distorted sense of superiority,
from a twisted love of self,
even to the point of contempt of God and neighbor.
They speak to us of something that we can see
in our own selves,
in our own petty deeds
of fear and pride and self-involvement.
But even this somber news of sin
must yield to Easter joy.
As Peter tells the crowd gathered in Jerusalem,
“everyone who believes in him
will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”
The good news of the resurrection
is not simply that we
have been made sharers in eternal life,
but that the wounds of sin
can be healed through faith.
Our world can be different.
You and I can be different.
John’s Gospel tells us that Mary Magdalene
came to Jesus’ tomb “while it was still dark.”
We too come to this Easter morning while it is still dark.
For the shadow of mortality and the wounds of sin
still darken our world
and make it hard for us to see the tomb standing empty.
But if we lift our eyes to the horizon,
if we heed Paul’s call to “seek what is above,”
even in the darkness of death and sin
we can see the light of the resurrection
breaking in upon us,
illuminating our world
with the Spirit’s gifts of faith, hope, and love.
It is still dark,
but the light of Christ’s risen glory
is already dawning.
It is dawning in the people of Paris,
who, kneeling as they lift their eyes
to their beloved cathedral engulfed in flames,
sing Je vous salue, Marie, Hail Mary…,
a song of hope in the face of tragedy.
It is dawning in the Rev. Harry Richard
of Greater Union Baptist Church
in Opelousas, Louisiana,
who says, “We’ve been through the fire…
We are heading for a resurrection.”
It is dawning in you and me,
fragile and finite and, yes, sinful,
but called by God to be witnesses of Easter joy,
called by God, while it is still dark,
to reflect the light of Christ’s resurrected glory.
Christ is truly risen, alleluia.
