Easter 3 - Season of Lament?
Easter 3 - Season of Lament?
by James Howell

The whole notion that Easter is a “season” is totally counter-intuitive. It happened, the eggs have all been found, the crowds in worship have dwindled – so how can it still be Easter? Yes, there are more texts, and I suppose in the year 30 the Easter aftershocks lingered for a few weeks.

But in the Acts text (rather weirdly appearing as the Old Testament reading? …this is an odd season indeed…) Peter demystifies the miraculous by sternly reprimanding those who are “staring” at him. Nobody stares at us Christians, much less the clergy, and our big need is to point to God instead of to ourselves. Then he blasts the Jews – the very people I’ve been working hard to befriend where I live, a friendship hard to win because people like Peter blasted the Jews in our Bible readings! His conclusion, “You acted in ignorance,” could as easily be turned on Peter himself.

So I’m in a mood? You bet. No miracles, impossibly prickly texts – and I’m trying to get a third week of sermons out of the resurrection. Only the Psalm text (which really is in the Old Testament) gets it right: “How long shall we suffer shame?” How long indeed! Could it be that Easter, on this side of eternity, is not best construed as a triumphal season of celebration, but more like that other complicated season we never get the hang of – Advent? It is a season of crying out, not a period of fulfillment but a zone of frustration, of exasperation, time to plead with the Lord, to pour out our hearts because of the impermanence of resurrection. Lazarus died again, as did the little girl Jesus raised – and Jesus didn’t stick around, didn’t right all wrongs, didn’t establish the kingdom of God. Just when things got good, he left – and we miss him, we wish he had stayed, we wish he’d gotten more accomplished.

And so our mood is one of lament. Jesus did eat broiled fish, as Luke 24 reports. Unsure what to make of such a mundane detail… Sounds like a healthy choice, but Jesus of all people had no need for a healthy diet! When I was growing up, fish was the school fare on Friday, for reasons vaguely attached to the Catholics, although I do not believe I knew any other little boys who happened to be Catholic; they lived on the other side of town, I believe. And why Friday? Jesus died on a Friday, he uttered the ultimate lament on a Friday – and even in his post-resurrection state in which he ate fish, he talked not one word about our great delight or our security in the teeth of death. He spoke of repentance, remorse, and lament.

Perhaps my post-Easter funk is just the right preparatory emotional reflex to gear me up to preach what nobody really expects: a sad, doleful sermon. Christ is risen… and we rightly hang our heads and weep, for the world is still broken, almost more broken because we had one glorious morning, so now we know the difference. Christ is risen… and we fall on our knees in guilt and sorrow over our lives as hollow as Jesus’ tomb. Christ is risen… so we eat a little fish, so that in at least some small respect we are very much like Christ. Maybe that’s why he ate it, anyhow.

(from www.goodpreacher.com/blog/)