John 20:1-18
(This meditation is prefaced by a children's moment in which the children receive empty plastic eggs and hear the story of Jeremy. The story is told near the end of the sermon.)
"Greetings, Fright Fans!" Some of you will recognize those words as the greeting of the Crypt Keeper, the animated host a television horror series called Tales From the Crypt, and based on the legendary 1950's comic book series. The Crypt Keeper's welcome at the top of each episode is "Greetings, Fright Fans!"
The original Tales From The Crypt ran for 30 issues, each containing four morbid stories of murder and mayhem. They were graveyard stories of death and the occult, of the undead terrorizing an unsuspecting world. The comic books created a public outcry. They were condemned as disgusting, corrupt and perverse, and eventually the comic books were pulled from the shelves.
How times have changed! Debuting on HBO in the fall of 1989 with six episodes, the show became an overnight success and the Crypt Keeper became an American symbol of horror. He's even appeared as a guest on Jay Leno's Tonight Show! Numerous stars, including Brad Pitt, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, and Kirk Douglas, have appeared in the show. And episodes have been directed by the likes of Tom Hanks, Michael J. Fox, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Recently the show, in an edited form has been shown on the FOX network, which is where I've watched a few of the episodes, since we are too cheap to pay for premium channels! My kids know more about it than I do, actually, since in 1994, ABC made a somewhat less frightful animated version for Saturday mornings!
The stories all revolve around the mysteries of death and the afterlife, and the program is one of the most popular shows in syndication, seen in over fifty nations. I think that the popularity of Tales from the Crypt is just one sign that we live in a society that despairs over death.
It is a Good Friday World. Turn on the news and listen to the stories: children killing their classmates, parents abusing their children, terrorists bombing their neighbors. It is a Good Friday World. Bad news comes in buckets: a friend has cancer, another is divorcing, yet another grieves over a sibling's death. It is a Good Friday World. Hopelessness is the theme of the day: she works in a dead-end job that she hates, he has nothing left to spend after paying the monthly bills, the high school kids worry that they won't be able live the kind of life their parents lived. It is a Good Friday World. And it is filled with tales from the crypt.
We all have our own tales from the crypt to tell, don't we? Stories of parents who didn't love us, of children who have disappointed us, of jobs and careers that leave us wanting more, of illnesses that debilitate us, of loves lost and lives forgotten. We don't have to look far to see Good Friday in our lives. It is in every one of us, and the pinnacle of Good Friday, the peak of our quiet desperation, the climax of our tales from the crypt is death.
But this is Easter and I'm not here today to tell you tales from the crypt as the world tells them to you. For I am a Christian, and you are here today to hear about another tale from another crypt, but this tale has a different ending. There are no monstrous beings in this story to haunt our sleep, there are no losers in this story who forever despair with regret-filled lives, and there is above all else no hint of hopelessness in this tale from this crypt.
For this is the tale of a woman named Mary, who went to the crypt of her friend and teacher named Jesus. [retell the gospel story ] Through her tears, she heard the man say, "Mary!" And with the saying of her name, Good Friday ended and Easter began. When he called out her name, she knew that this was no gardener. When he said "Mary," she knew that it was Jesus. She turned her tear-filled eyes upward, and looked into his eyes, which surely were filled with joy, and she said in Hebrew,"Teacher!"
He told her that he was ascending to God in heaven, and he reminded her God was his Father AND her Father, his God AND her God.. And he told her to go and tell the others what she knew. And so Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord!"
This is a tale from a crypt, but with an ending like no other tale ever told. Death does not win in this tale, from this crypt. Good Friday gives way to Easter.
Like the rest of the world, I have seen the movie Titanic. To tell you the truth, I didn't really want to go see it. You see, I was convinced that I knew the ending. We all know the ending. Titanic hits an iceberg and sinks, and over 1500 people die in the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean. It is a Good Friday story, a tale from a watery crypt.
Then I read a review which quoted James Cameron , the writer and director as saying, "Titanic is not just a cautionary tale - a myth, a parable, a metaphor for the ills of mankind. It is also a story of faith, courage, sacrifice and, above all else, love."
So I went to see the movie. How many of you have seen it? Now, true confession time, how many of you have seen it more than once? The Titanic phenomena, people in droves seeing the movie multiple times, would not have happened if the movie had really been a Good Friday story. The reason people go again and again to see Titanic is that, in fact, it is an Easter story. Oh, there is no changing the ending. The ship still sinks, and the people still die. But in the grand story from history, the writer has the told the story of a woman named Rose who is engaged to man she doesn't love, whose exuberant heart is bound up by the chains of expectations and the pretentious cords of prejudice.
- One evening, in the height of her despair she climbs over the railing of the ship and
prepares to jump into the icy waters.
But into Rose's life in that moment there comes a savior. His name is Jack. Jack keeps her from jumping, and he opens her mind and her heart to the possibility that her Good Friday existence might have an Easter. He sets her free and fills her heart with love. As the ship heads inexorably toward its doom, Jack delivers Rose from her demons and her destroyers. As the ship goes down, and as we hear the last echoes of the band playing "Nearer My God To Thee," Rose must make a decision. Rose can board a lifeboat and spend the rest of life settling for Good Friday. But she chose to get off of the lifeboat and be with Jack, her savior, her love.
Together in the icy waters, Rose and Jack cling to one another. Rose is on a piece of flotsam, Jack is in the water. They know they are going to die, that none of the lifeboats will come back for them. Rose says, "I love you Jack." Jack takes her hand and says, "No... don't say your good-byes, Rose. Don't you give up. Don't do it.
"I'm so cold."
"You're going to get out of this... you're going to go on and you're going to make babies and watch them grow and you're going to die an old lady, warm in your bed. Not here. Not this night. Do you understand me?"
"I can't feel my body."
Jack's voice is weak, but his eyes are bright. "Rose, listen to me. Listen.You must do me this honor... promise me you will survive... that you will never give up... no matter what happens... no matter how hopeless... promise me now, and never let go of that promise."
"I promise."
"Never let go."
"I promise. I will never let go, Jack. I'll never let go."
They close their eyes. Jack dies, but Rose is rescued. And as you probably know, she lives a good life, and now as an old woman she is telling the story of the Titanic and of Jack and Rose.. There remains one last scene in the movie, and we are left to wonder if it is a dream, or if it is heaven.
We are underwater and can see the wreck lying on the bottom of the sea. We are rapidly passing over the forecastle and the superstructure. We go inside the ship. We hear a waltz playing. Slowly the rusting wreck comes alive again and as we come down the grand staircase to the ballroom we see that the room is filled with people, men in tie and tails, women in gowns. It is all so very beautiful. The crowd turns as we descend the stairs. At the bottom a man stands with his back to us... he turns and it is Jack. Smiling he holds his hand out toward us.
And we are Rose, a beautiful young woman again. The passengers, officers and crew of the Titanic smile and applaud as Rose and Jack embrace in the utter silence of the abyss.
Titanic is an Easter story. Rose is a lost girl, but Jack saves her. Though he dies, he saves her. She promises that she will live a good life, no matter what happens no matter how hopeless life becomes, she promises to never let go of Jack and his love. And in the end, Jack is there for her. In the end they are together.
There are Good Fridays. There always will be. Easter doesn't mean that we will not be hurt, that life will be easy, that bad things won't happen. Rose must lead her life, and so must we. But because we have Easter, because we have a savior, we can live our lives not in quiet desperation and anguish, but with the confidence that we will be with God in paradise, that love will never end, even if we die.
- Earlier I told the children a story about a boy named Jeremy. I didn't tell the children all of the story. It is really a tale from a crypt. You see, Jeremy was a very sick child, but his parents wanted him to be in a regular school with other children. His teacher, Miss Miller, wasn't sure it was a good idea, but she agreed to try. The class was given an assignment to fill a plastic Easter egg with some sign of new life. Jeremy gave his teacher an empty Easter egg, and she thought that he must have misunderstood the assignment. When she opened the empty egg in front of the class, she knew it could only have come from Jeremy, and seeking to spare his feelings, she reached for another egg. But Jeremy called out proudly, "That's my egg!" "Yes, Jeremy," she said, "but it is empty!" He explained, "Yes, Miss Miller, it IS empty, and that's a sign of new life. The egg is empty, just like Jesus' tomb was empty." Miss Miller asked him, "Jeremy, do you know why the tomb was empty?"
"Oh yes, Miss Miller, I know why. The tomb was empty because Jesus was killed and put in there, but his Father raised him up!" The recess bell rang, and while the children excitedly ran out to play, Miss Miller cried. Jeremy understood a lot about new life.
Three months later, Jeremy died. Jeremy's classmates attended the memorial service. After the preacher spoke, the children began to come up and put something in a basket on his casket. When Jeremy was buried there were nineteen empty Easter eggs buried with him. A sign of new life. (1)
Her challenge, and indeed our challenge, is to take the knowledge of Easter, to take the promise of Easter, to take our faith in Easter, and make Easter real today. This is our task now to make Easter real in our own lives, and in the lives of the people around us, to live Easter lives in a Good Friday world!
- Perhaps you've heard the story about Jesus returning to heaven after being on earth. The
angel Gabriel said, "Where have you been? I've missed you."
"I've been on earth ministering to the people."
"You must have had a successful ministry. You must have changed the world."
"They executed me."
"That's terrible! But surely, you must have had many followers."
"Only 12 and they deserted me."
"So your work was a failure?"
"I'm not sure. I left it in their hands."
Let us take up the challenge and become Easter people! Let us stand in the face of the world's Good Fridays and proclaim that the cross is not victorious, that the tomb never wins. Let us rejoice in the simple yet life-changing Easter proclamation: He is risen! He is risen indeed! Amen.
1. Reprinted with permission from What Was In Jeremy's Egg?, copyright 1988 by Ida Mae Kempel. Also included in Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul, pp. 239-242, copyright 1997 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Patty Aubery and Nancy Mitchell, Health Communications, Inc., Deerfield Beach, FL. Both of these resources are available at a discount through the Homiletic Resource Center.)
(Comments to pkperry@PRIMENET.COM)