Thursday 19 May 2022

Lions' dens and empty tombs: an Evensong sermon

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him.

 

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Throughout the scriptures are laid, as it were, trails of crumbs for us to follow, and which point us to mysteries yet to be revealed and to be fulfilled. The trail takes us to an open tomb, from which life emanates.

 

So our trail tonight is the resurrection.

 

We see the pointers to resurrection in the Exodus and also in the prophets:  for instance, in Hosea ‘after two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up that we may live before him’ (Hosea 6.2); in Jonah ‘But the Lord provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights.’ (Jonah 1.17).

 

In the New Testament, the account of the Raising of Lazarus in John 11, who has been in the tomb four days, is a trailer for Jesus’ resurrection power, as Jesus said to Martha, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ (John 11.25, 26)

 

And tonight, we have a resurrection trailer in the Book of the Prophet Daniel. Daniel’s plight is familiar to all who seek to practice their faith in authoritarian settings. Daniel the Jewish exile in Babylon is forbidden with his fellow exiles to pray freely and, by sneaky means, Daniel’s enemies trick the king into issuing an edict that traps Daniel.

 

And as the story goes the king, with a heavy heart, throws Daniel to the lions. There is a foreshadowing of the Christians, the murdered martyrs, who the Romans threw to the lions as a public spectacle in the Colosseum in Rome, Carthage and around the Empire.

 

Tyrants do not like people who pray; secular and atheistic cultures do not like people who look beyond to things eternal (that’s true of the Romans, Stalinism, Nazism).

 

In scripture, as in much great literature, lions symbolise power. To describe Samson’s great strength one of the stories about him is that he wrestled and killed a lion ( Judges 14:5-6). From that incident comes something sweet. As an aside, the lion is the emblem of St Mark the Evangelist, the author of the gospel reading this evening: through his words he speaks of the power of the resurrection. It’s little wonder C.S. Lewis represents the messianic figure of Aslan as a lion.

 

The thread that weaves together the account of Daniel, the raising of Lazarus already referred to, and the arrival of the myrrh bearing women, in Sy Mark’s gospel, is the moment of arrival and wonder and the revelation of life.

 

The first moment of arrival and wonder is in the book of Daniel when we read, ‘Then, at break of day, king Darius got up and hurried to the den of lions’ (Daniel 6.19).

He went hoping, but not really expecting, that Daniel’s God, the God of Israel, the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, had spared him from the lions: ‘When he came near the den where Daniel was, he cried out anxiously to Daniel, ‘O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God whom you faithfully serve been able to deliver you from the lions?’ (Daniel 6.20). (There’s a twist in the narrative, the powerful king, who threw Daniel to the lions’ den for praying to God, not himself pleads for God to save Daniel). At the threshold of the lions’ den Darius sees the power of Daniel’s God – our God – who has preserved him from death.

 

The second moment of arrival and wonder in the raising of Lazarus:

 

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. (John 11.38-42)

 

Jesus went to Lazarus’ tomb knowing and expecting that a great work of power would be revealed to the sceptical world. At the threshold of Lazarus’ tomb he who was dead now lives, although as a mortal he will die again.

 

The third moment of arrival and wonder as the three myrrh bearing women – holy Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome:

 

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’ When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. (Mark 16.1-6).

 

The women came to the tomb not knowing what to expect, not saying anything, but simply to anoint the body that was dead, only to find an empty place from which flowed life and power that now filled the whole world.

 

In all places where we arrive, may we always be alert to the wonder of the signs of resurrection life.

 

For we stand at the threshold of life in all its abundance.

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