Erl Purnell Sermon

bEaster Day ~ April 16, 2006 ~ A sermon preached by The Rev’d Erl G. Purnell at Old St. Andrew’s Church, Bloomfield, CT

Acts 10.34-43; Psalm 118.14-29; Colossians 3.1-4; Mark 16.1-8

Alleluia. Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.

“Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here,” the young man says.

How can this be? Mary Magdalene, and Mary, the mother of James, and Salome are terrified and amazed. The tomb is empty. They flee. How can this be that Jesus is raised?

Two things are in my heart and thoughts this Easter Day morning. The first is to take a fresh look at what happened when Pilate confronts Jesus. The second is to wonder what difference the telling of the trial and crucifixion story might make to the outcome, to Easter Day.

Jesus is before Pilate, the Roman governor. “Pilate asks him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ [Jesus] answers him, ‘’You say so.’” Pilate persists and, in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus holds his tongue. Pilate is amazed.

Then an extraordinary thing happens. We’re told that Pilate had a custom of releasing a prisoner, “anyone for whom they asked,” at the Festival. Pilate queries the crowd: “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?” But the people, at the instigation of the chief priests, call for the release of Barabbas, “who had committed murder during the insurrection.”

When Pilate asks, “Then what do you wish me to do with the man you call the King of the Jews?” the crowd “shouts back, ‘Crucify him!’” So, Pilate releases Barabbas and crucifies Jesus.

Jesus has a close and personal relationship with God, and he invites all people to share his closeness, his trust, and his love of God with God and with each other. It’s that new covenant in the bread and wine, the body and blood of Jesus, representing escape to freedom from any kind oppression and turning to a new life. Jesus knows God so intimately that when he prays, he calls God “Daddy.” The Aramaic word is Abba. In the garden at Gethsemane Jesus prays, “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.”

Jesus calls his God Abba, or in the colloquial, Daddy. This turn of phrase is deeply touching. Mark, the earliest recorded Gospel, reports that Jesus calls God Abba. And I have to wonder why? What significance might Mark associate with Jesus calling God Abba?

A rudimentary look at Hebrew and Aramaic linguistics uncovers a curious fact. In Hebrew, the way a son is associated with his father is by using the word ben in his name. Jesus would have been known as Jesus ben Joseph of Nazareth. In Aramaic, the designator is bar, or in Jesus’ case, Jesus bar Joseph of Nazareth.

Now, loop back to the Praetorium on the morning Jesus is sentenced to die. What is so interesting is that Pilate releases a man named Barabbas. Using what we’ve just learned, a closer look reveals that bar Abbas actually means “son of Daddy.” Or, more profoundly in the lexicon of the Gospeller Mark, “Son of God.” Astonishingly, in Mark 15, Pilate both condemns Jesus to be crucified and he sets (bar Abbas) the “Son of God” free.

Mark is a master storyteller. He is deeply committed to the message of Jesus and to the Jesus story itself. He weaves nuance and subtlety into word pictures that portray Jesus and who he is in image, metaphor, and example. Paradox shades the material so that what seems impossible is real and what is real seems to be impossible. Feeding five thousand. Walking on water. Healing Jairus’ daughter, the Gerasene demoniac, the epileptic boy near Caesarea Philippi. Giving sight to the blind Bartimaeus—bar Timaeus, son of Timaeus. The resurrection!

The second thing on my heart today is to wonder what difference Mark’s telling might make. You see, in this Gospel, Mark makes it clear that Jesus bar Joseph is crucified but he also delicately states that the Son of God, bar Abbas, is set free and lives. Even though Jesus dies, we, the people hearing Mark’s Gospel, are not to be discouraged. Mark tells us the “Son of God” lives, he is set free!

And then, on the third day—exclaiming plainly what he foreshadowed so subtly—the tomb is shown to be empty. The young man in the white robe says plainly, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here.”

What was so real to Mary and her companions now seems impossible. And what seems so impossible to them is suddenly very real. Even death cannot separate us from the love of God. Mark insists that in the resurrection the “Son of God” is free and alive. Dare we be free and alive in our own time? Dare we, the children of Abba, live in the spirit of the resurrected Christ—replacing fear with the abundance of God’s forgiveness, compassion, justice, and love.

Blessings for a Happy and Holy Easter.

Amen.