Sermon by the Rev. Andrew S. Rollins

Easter Sunday (March 23, 2008)

Text: John 20:1 - 19

Title: “You, Me, and Anne Rice”

Memories of the Lord

“Someone has taken Jesus!” That was Mary Magdalene’s cry of dismay that first Easter morning. Some thief? Some soldier? Some gardener? Who knows? Tomb robbery wasn’t uncommon in those days. Mary Magdalene was the first to arrive at the tomb, before sunrise, and she saw that the stone had been removed. She ran and told Peter and the other disciple the disturbing news: They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him. They have taken the Lord!

Three times that Easter morning, she said the same thing. After Peter left, she looked into the tomb and saw two angels who asked her why she was weeping. She repeated the same thing to them: They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him. They have taken the Lord!

Mary Magdalene wasn’t one of the original Twelve. She’d never have that credential. But she’d become a full-fledged disciple of Jesus. Luke tells us that she had a past -- an occult past. Jesus had delivered her of seven demons (8:2). Luke also mentions Mary Magdalene as one of the women who "ministered to [Jesus] out of their substance" (8:2, 3). She’d traveled with him, eaten with him, listened to his teaching. And she stood at the foot of the cross when all the Twelve (save John) had fled in fear. She loved Jesus. So it must have been terrible for her to be left standing now outside the tomb with nothing but memories of the Lord.

They Took Jesus Away from Me

Your circumstances are different from Mary Magdalene’s. But maybe you can identify with what she said and what she felt standing outside the empty tomb that first Easter morning: “They’ve taken the Lord right out of my life!”

Haven’t you ever felt like someone just took God right out of your life? (I don’t suppose anyone can really do that, but haven’t you felt that way at some point?)

I know some of you feel that someone specific, even someone close, took the Lord from you and left you with just memories. It’s a sad fact that parents, family members, those closest to us, can sometimes contribute greatly to a loss of faith. A parent’s morality can have that effect. In Steinbeck’s East of Eden, which is this epic story of family lives woven together, he describes a tee-totaling matriarch. Steinbeck writes: “Drinking alcohol in any form she regarded as a crime against a properly outraged deity. Not only would she not touch it herself but she resisted its enjoyment by anyone else. The result naturally was that her husband and all her children had a good lusty love for a drink.” This matriarch was moral in the worst sense of the word. A parent who hands out only judgment, morality apart from grace, can take Jesus right out of your life.

Sometimes just reading the newspaper makes me feel like the world has taken God away. From the genocide in the Sudan, to the Chinese persecuting the Tibetans, to Eliot Spitzer, to any political candidate you would care to name, to Jerry Springer. Jack Johnson has a song called “Good People” in which he wonders “Where’d all the good people go?” He sings, “How many train wrecks do we need to see/ Before we lose touch of/ What we thought was low/ Well, it's bad, getting worse so/ Where'd all the good people go?/ I've been changing channels/ I don't see them on the TV shows/ Where'd all the good people go?” The world can just take the Lord away and leave you with memories.

Even serving in the Church can have this effect. This may be the case for those of you who are faithful Christian workers here at St. Alban’s – those who arrive early and leave late. Like the hostess who never sits down to eat the meal, the church worker can see to everyone else’s spiritual sustainance and finally starve. After awhile, you realize you’re just running on your sense of duty to the Episcopal Church (. . . and, of course, the Pension Fund).

All that’s left is memories of a time when you walked and talked and ate with Jesus, when you were close to him, when his words fed you, when your faith was alive. This really happens. So maybe you can empathize with Mary Magdalene.

Called by Name

How does this all change for Mary? How does she move from wondering who has taken the Lord from her life to her final, confident exclamation to the disciples, I have seen the Lord!

Does she purify her moral life? Does she slowly progress through religious disciplines? Does she schedule a spiritual experience? No. No. No.

Mary’s darkness and despair ended when Jesus himself, the Risen Lord, called her by name: Mary! Prior to that, he was there. In fact, he was there standing before her, but she didn’t recognize him. But when he called her by name, she knew his voice. Her darkness was removed. She experienced the Risen Christ!

This is what I hope you would hear today . . . You and I are very much like the believers described in the gospels: we have (at some point) experienced the Risen Christ. The believers described in the gospels didn’t witness the Resurrection itself. They witnessed the Risen Christ. They experienced the Risen Jesus. The gospel writer John presents the Resurrection as something that was experienced first by Mary Magdalene. John wants us to view the Resurrection as life-transforming appearance of the Risen Jesus to people -- to people like you and me. The Resurrection is not just an event that happened 2000 years ago in Jerusalem inside a tomb -- though it is that. And it’s not just a doctrine that holds a central place in theology of all Christians -- though it is that, too. The Risen Christ is someone believers experience.

How does that happen? No one can give you a 1-2-3 formula or program for that. But I think I can describe what it looks like when it happens.

You, Me, & Anne Rice

I want to close by talking about Anne Rice. She’s just released volume two in the Christ the Lord series. As you know, Anne Rice is famous for her vampire novels and her past interest in the occult. She was an avowed atheist. But she returned to the Church after her husband of forty-one years died of a brain tumor in 2002.

I’ve met Anne Rice. When we lived in New Orleans, our church hosted a violin concert in conjunction with the release of her novel Violin. She lived just around the corner from the church. The church was packed and she arrived in a black stretch limo just moments before the concert was to begin. I was just standing around in the office area, which was underneath the sanctuary where the concert was to take place, when Anne Rice swooped in with her handlers all dressed in black and wearing large gothic crosses. And she walked up to me and asked, “How do I get upstairs?” I replied . . . pointing upwards . . . “That way.” (I’m dramatizing the event a bit.)

Anyway, she has returned to the church of her youth. When husband died, her extensive research into the life of Jesus (especially the work of the Anglican theologian N. T. Wright), her own reading of the Bible, and the support of Roman Catholic friends led her to commit her life, and future work, to Christ. Granted, she’s an odd witness to the Risen Jesus. But don’t you imagine the Twelve had some anxieties when Mary Magdalene first joined up? (The home office got emails when you joined up. You’re no prize either!)

In the Author’s Note at the end of volume one of Christ the Lord, Anne Rice writes: "I offer this book to those who know nothing of Jesus Christ in the hope that you will see him in these pages in some form. I offer this novel with love to my readers who've followed me through one strange turn after another in the hope that Jesus will be as real to you as any other character I've ever launched into the world we share." On her web page, she writes, “I am a practicing Catholic, a believer. The book, Christ the Lord, is written from the standpoint of a believer. My life is committed to Christ the Lord. My books will be a reflection of that commitment.”

I have no window into her soul, but her own words recall to me the story of Mary Magdalene: her past with the occult – her desire to offer her gifts in his service – her focus on Jesus as her Lord – the fact that her conversion wasn’t something she manufactured – her courage – and, especially, her desire to tell others.

Anne Rice has a past. You could make the argument that a better spokesperson could be chosen to represent the Church to the world. She’ll probably really mess up sometime soon.

In other words, she’s just like you . . . and me! The Risen Christ appears to people like you and me. We didn’t do anything to deserve the experience. We go for some long stretches wondering, “Who has taken my Lord away?” We never stop needing the grace our Lord first extended to us.

But for some inexplicable reason, God, in His mercy, continues to give us the privilege of proclaiming (along with Mary Magdalene and Anne Rice), “We have seen the Lord. We have. We have seen the Lord.”