The Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee



Easter Day, Year A, April 24, 2011, Christ Church Cathedral Nashville

“Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead” (Jo. 20:8-9).

When Khufu became Pharaoh of Egypt in the time of the Old Kingdom, about 2600 hundred years before the birth of Christ, construction began immediately on the Great Pyramid at Giza that would be his tomb. Things in Egypt are old: even the ancient Greeks were intimidated by the antiquity of Egyptian civilization. Herodotus was so impressed by the Great Pyramid that he believed his tour guides when they told him that 100,000 men had labored on its construction. For all I know Egyptian tour guides are probably still telling that story. It may be a tall tale but there’s no doubt that the hewing of the massive stones and their shaping by mostly copper tools and their transportation to the west bank of the Nile was an unparalleled technological and societal achievement. When the foundations of the Great Pyramid were laid down it was oriented according to the stars, to the four points of the compass, and it was mathematically configured almost exactly as a true square. Astronomer Carl Sagan remarks that the pyramids were an attempt on the part of this ancient civilization to come to terms with problems of cosmology and immortality (The Cosmic Connection, 67). In other words, when Khufu’s embalmed body was borne to its final rest so long ago, equipped for the afterlife, a whole society was making its bid not only for the stars but for life itself.

Chemist and Nobel Laureate Harold Urey said somewhere (I’ve got this from Sagan) that the space program perpetuates the purpose of the pyramid builders, something Sagan understands in these terms of restless human inquiry and desire for transcendence. The footprints of the astronauts on the moon, Sagan writes, will last a million years in its vacuum. And the Pioneer 10 spacecraft launched in 1972 now bears our society’s artifacts and greetings and some of our basic knowledge (bits of it dating back to the time of the pharaohs) out into the void on a trip that may last millions or perhaps even billions of years. That voyage too represents a bid for immortality.

Our Gospel today brings us not to the Great Pyramid or out into the trackless wasteland between the stars, but its meaning is not unrelated. The story of Easter Day stands in contrast to projects of a pharaonic scale, colossal and noteworthy, taking place in an obscure and out of the way corner of the Roman Empire far from the monumental memorials of human endeavor. Pilgrims travel to the Holy Land today, of course, but as many of you know there’s scarcely anything to look at relating to our Lord’s Resurrection that isn’t a reconstruction after the fact. The Gospel of Easter Day brings us to a simple grave in a garden, perhaps a little grander than some but after all only borrowed. There a few humble people, Peter and Mary and John, confront an empty tomb and burial clothes carefully folded. They do not know what it means, though perhaps the Beloved Disciple understands. They are surprised by transcendence and life; so surprised in Mary Magdalene’s case that she cannot even recognize the Savior when he stands before her. He has to call her name before she knows who he is.

We human beings are restless seekers after knowledge with a desire to transcend ourselves, and we have travelled far in search of these things. We have thought and inquired and built in pursuit of them. God’s wisdom brings us to a surprising place to have these hopes fulfilled. God is the Master of the not so obvious as he raises Jesus Christ from the dead. Human beings in search of life and immortality and a pathway to the stars are unlikely to have looked in the garden burial ground, but there it is. The human project may lead us from the Great Pyramid to the Pioneer spacecraft and beyond, but God’s project to bring forgiveness to a fallen human race and life to the dead is something else again. We come to the tomb knowing what we know but God teaches us there something new. We may not be surprised like the disciples because we know how this story goes, but I bet if we dig down just a little bit we will still find our expectations confounded and our deepest convictions about how the world works challenged to their core by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Here we human beings find transcendence and life, indeed the Risen Savior himself, and God’s true knowledge of how the world really is and what we are destined for.

- The Rt. Rev’d John Bauerschmidt, Bishop of Tennessee

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