St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Palmetto, Florida

Easter Sunday, March 27, 2005

The Rev. Lee Miller

When I was just a kid, not yet in my teens (My mother believes I was around 7 or 8), I wrote a story for a national publication. I didn’t realize it until later but that story was part of a bigger story - a story I would only later begin to understand. Although the story I wrote had no religious significance (It was about a lazy little Easter rabbit), the writing caused me to ask life’s most important question, “What’s it all about? Why am I here?” The larger story began two thousand years ago when Mary Magdalene arrived at the tomb of Jesus just before dawn. The stone that had sealed the tomb had been taken away. Jesus had risen from the dead! Today, that resurrection holds tremendous significance. It helps us with life’s most important question and in the process removes three major barriers from our paths. The first barrier removed is DEFEAT. Jesus, in His life had failed so far as humankind was concerned. Many times the great miracles and teachings were misunderstood. The glorious feeding of the multitude was misunderstood. Jesus would say later, “You came not because of spiritual filling, but to fill your stomachs again.” At Capernaum, the town he would make His headquarters - that very town would turn against Him, although many miracles would take place there and many signs and wonders would indicate this must be the Messiah. Jesus would fail and so would His disciples. Those twelve He had gathered around Him would run away, argue about who would become the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven or deny him as he was being led to crucifixion. Jesus had failed but He was not defeated. That’s the bigger story.

Failure and defeat are not synonymous. Jesus turned his failures into glorious triumph on that Easter morning. His dying on the cross brought freedom from the bondage of sin to us all; his failure became our greatest triumph, and His Easter became our greatest success. Can we take our failures - those times when we have low self-esteem because of what is happening to us, when it seems like everything is all wrong - and turn them into something that is all right? Can we make sense of the cumulative failures we make in life that seem to weigh us down, which seem to say we are nobodies? This barrier can be moved when we understand our story is just part of a bigger story. In one of his bon mots, John Wooden in his book They call me Coach said, “The team that makes the most mistakes wins.” It may be true, you know - the team that makes the most mistakes wins. It would hardly seem so, but sometimes the team that doesn’t make so many mistakes has an over-abundance of self-confidence while the team that’s making the mistakes know that they have to get in there and give it all they’ve got. You have to get in there and work twice as hard. You have to get in there knowing that failure is nipping at your heels and if you recidivate into old habits, you perish. The little failures in life give us the strength to ward off the defeats, and we’re never defeated unless we deem it so. We are never defeated if we can understand how our story is part of that bigger story.

Mary Magdalene was nervous on that great resurrection morning and arrived very early in the day while it was still dark. When she found the stone removed from the tomb and the body missing, she became perplexed as did two of Jesus’ disciples when they arrived. They tried to rely on their own understanding and with their own abilities comprehend what had taken place. Despair followed. The obstacle DESPAIR can also be removed from our path because of His resurrection. If you’ll look at the pictures of people who have been painted in the Gospels, those little vignettes of the way people lived and the way people responded to life, you will see pictures of us. People were uptight even then. They had burdens weighing them down. Jesus might say to them, “Chill out. Understand that what you think is so important may not be important at all. Consider the lilies of the field. Don’t make such a big deal of your story. Understand how it fits into the bigger story. Ashley Smith’s story had not been pretty. Arrested for petty crimes as a teenager, she had, in her early 20s been charged with drunken driving and assault. Her husband, victim of a stabbing, died in her arms. But Ashley began to see a story beyond her own during a two month stay at a Christian clinic where she had gone to combat drug abuse. It was perhaps here that this troubled soul found the resolve that touched another troubled soul - a man hunted by police for a shooting spree in Atlanta. Held hostage in her apartment by the suspect, she talked to him about God and read to him from a book by Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life. The book seeks to answer the question, “What on earth am I here for?” He allowed her to leave, calling her “an angel sent by God.” She had told him of the larger story.

Another barrier was removed for us on Resurrection Day. It was DEATH - that final exit from life which says there is an open door on the other side. When a group of us went to Israel a few years back, I hired a guide. A few people questioned why. They said, “You’ve been there several times before, haven’t you, and you know the country. Why don’t you just hire a bus driver and you won’t have to pay the enormous expense of having a guide taking us to all those places? Well, the truth was I had been to Israel a few times and I did find some of the terrain very familiar and I did find some of the places we visited familiar, but not as familiar as a guide who had walked the streets every day, every week, every year, who took people into the holy places and explained to them what had happened there. We needed that guide because that guide had firsthand experience. We read books today about people who have had death experiences or should we call them near-death experiences, and they give us hope, but we wonder, “Is this a one-of-a-kind happening? Did it really happen?” That’s the difference with Easter Day. Jesus met death head on and He triumphed. He wasn’t dead just a few hours in the operating room and came back. He was buried and three days later He rose from the dead. Death was conquered.

That is why I wanted to share with you my story of the childhood writing. When I submitted my story for publication it was a large stack of paper filled with my youthful scrawl. Also, every few pages had artwork - some of my best, I thought - of this Lazy Little Easter Rabbit. So, it wasn’t a surprise when I received notification that it had been accepted for publication. Who wouldn’t print something this good! It was with all the speed I could muster on bare feet that I made my way to the rural mailbox. I could see the postman putting it in - the magazine with my story. Quickly flipping the pages, I found it and my heart dropped. Then I became angry. My lengthy story was now just a single column and my pictures - the best I could offer - were nowhere to be found and probably not considered at all. Ironically, life can be like that - life lost somewhere in the maelstrom of living. I have later reflected on the story of my little story and realized that it was indeed the telling of a greater story - a story of an open tomb and a resurrected Lord and the understanding of life free from defeat, despair and death - a life of service to others. It was the ultimate answer to the question, “What’s it all about? What am I doing here?” It helps us all understand that our little story is part of the greatest story of them all.