+ Now I know we’re well into the 50 days of Easter, I know that we’re weeks—months—removed from the season of Advent. That the focus of Easter is not on Jesus’ mother Mary at all.
But today, on the day we hear yet another story about how the risen Jesus appeared to his disciples in the most ordinary of settings, I want to talk a little bit about Gabriel’s extraordinary visit to Mary on the most ordinary of days and in the most regular of circumstances. I’ve always envisioned the visit as taking place while Mary was gathering laundry off the line. I see Mary as a bit disheveled, busied by ordinary household texts. Nothing special, nothing unusual. I think that’s an important frame through which we view the entirety of Jesus’ life. In fact the entirety of what we call salvation history.
It’s important to remember that experiences of the holy are less Charleton Heston on some sound stage mountaintop and more peasant girls saying yes and being brave.
It’s also important to remember that the work Jesus has left for us to do—feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, loving the unlovable, embracing the outcast and seeking justice for all forever---isn’t work only for the strong and mighty, the rich and the famous, the wise and the wonderful, but that it’s also for the regular and the routine, the plain and the ordinary, the you and the me of this world.
You see, the power of God is simply a bunch of “sound and fury signifying nothing” unless and until we invite that power to work in and through us. Only then will God’s power, wonder and Grace be able to do what it needs to do---change this world once and for all.
And that’s why, as we shout alleluia and celebrate the empty tomb, we remember Gabriel and his visit to Mary. Because only then can we understand the significance of the simplicity of Jesus’ appearance to his friends on the beach, over a breakfast of broiled fish.
When the angel Gabriel visited Mary he didn’t tell her that God had chosen her because she was perfect, pure, and immaculate. No, the angel Gabriel tells Mary that she’s loved by God and because of that love, God’s going to use her to set into motion the greatest story of all time.
Fast forward some thirty years and the story continues with that same God incarnate showing the disciples that the story must continue through them-- not because they’re perfect or exceptional or even above average, but because they’re loved by God and God will use them to spread that love to everyone, everywhere, always.
The miracle of Christ’s birth and the miracle of the empty tomb isn’t because of God’s omnipotence; the miracle of the virgin birth and the empty tomb is because of God’s penchant for using the ordinary and the mundane to do the extraordinary and the awesome.
The magnificent thing about Mary wasn’t her alleged purity, or her youth or her devotion, nor was it even her incredible bravery and her outstanding witness. No, to me the most magnificent thing about Mary was her ‘yes.’ Her willingness to open herself up to be used by God and to, through God, give us Jesus. It’s easy to say we’d never have the bravery or the fortitude of Mary, and perhaps we wouldn’t, but the fact is we could. We can. God didn’t ask Mary to sing a song of protest, or to be there from crib to cross, God simply asked Mary to be an instrument. And Mary said yes, she lived yes, she is the embodiment of yes.
The story of God living and moving in this world, from Abraham and Sarah to Moses and Miriam to Ruth and Naomi, to Elizabeth and Mary, is full of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Of ordinary people saying yes to God. Sometimes with trepidation, other times with annoyance, still others with defiance, but in the end the yes said by young peasant women, shepherds, fishermen, tentmakers, silk merchants and carpenters has changed the world.
Which is why the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus are so fascinating. When Jesus discarded the bounds of death, when he emerged from the tomb, it was not in a blaze of glory, but in the regular and the usual: a quiet hello to Mary, ‘Peace Be With’ instead of a rageful ‘how could you’ to the disciples behind those locked doors. A ‘go ahead and touch my wounds’ to the trembling Thomas, a shared meal on the road to Emmaus and then this morning, a simple fish breakfast on the shores of the Sea.
The “big moments” in Jesus’ life are simple encounters between God and humanity, between an angel and a girl, between a hoped for messiah and his band of sisters and brothers, between a teacher and his students, between God in the flesh and God’s beloved….you and me.
And right there is our Easter message---
We needn’t look for God only in the magnificent and the awe-inspiring. Because that’s not how God reaches out to us. You see, God understands that we expect to encounter the Holy in the big, the dramatic, and the amazing. But God doesn’t want to see us ONLY in our Sunday best. God is much more interested in our regular-ness than in our spectacular-ness. God does most of God’s work in the regular and in the routine. Like fishing off the coast, walking in the garden or in the breaking of the bread.
Our Easter task, my friends, is to listen for God in the whispers of daily life.
Our Easter task is to hear God.
Our Easter Task is to see God.
Our Easter task is to be God ‘s hands and feet in the world. To follow Jesus. And to take care of Jesus’ lambs. Each and every day.
Our Easter message then, is this:
God speaks to us in the ordinary.
God speaks to us in the mundane.
God speaks to us.
All we need to do is say, Yes, here I am.
For when we do that, God joins our Easter song of Praise: Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.
Amen!
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