Matthew 28:1-10
28:1 After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.
28:2 And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.
28:3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.
28:4 For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men.
28:5 But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.
28:6 He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.
28:7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples, 'He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.' This is my message for you."
28:8 So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.
28:9 Suddenly Jesus met them and said, "Greetings!" And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him.
28:10 Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."
William Archibald Spooner was a late 19th, early 20th century English cleric who had a “gift” for a unique type of syllable-shifting malaprop that have come to be known as “Spoonerisms.” One of my favorite word-mixing Spoonerism occurred when he was once asked to lead a hymn at a large public gathering. He embarrassingly declined, telling the crowd that he only knew two tunes: “Pop Goes the Queen,” and “God Save the Weasel.” I’m not sure which of these I like best…
Which leads me to the words of a “child’s version” of a little ditty often called just, “Pop Goes the Weasel”:
All around the Mulberry Bush,
The monkey chased the weasel.
The monkey stopped to pull up his sock,
Pop! Goes the weasel.
And this leads me to one of the most frightening toys I had as a kid—a Jack-in-the-Box. I’ll bet a number of you had these. “Jack” was a really scary-looking clown, and he resided in the darkness of a metal box. There was a small crank on the outside of the box, and when you turned it, the tune of “Pop! Goes the weasel” played. When the tune reached the “Pop!” strain, the lid to the box flew open and up popped the clown. I never got over the fear that thing invoked, nor did I ever really get used to the “surprise” when that thing jumped out of the box. As a little older child, I discovered the tiny, metal latch that could be pulled back to make the lid pop open without playing the tune, and this gave me ultimate control over when and IF the clown would pop out. Having control alleviated most of my fear.
And all of THIS leads me to the subject of this sermon—Easter! After three days in the dark tomb, POP! Goes the weasel! The Matthean text puts the “pop” in the resurrection story of Jesus Christ. Just look at the drama:
“…and suddenly there was a great earthquake…”
“…an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.”
“[The angel’s] appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.”
“For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men.”
“So [the women] left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.”
Other gospel accounts don’t seem to go as “Hollywood” in their accounts of Jesus “popping” out of the tomb. As we veteran preachers know, there are many ways to tell a story, and each storyteller has her or his own way of embellishing and emphasizing its parts to get the desired attention and reaction from the audience. Matthew wants this to be a real “Pop! Goes the Weasel” moment, like my clown-in-the-box, scaring the wits out of everyone, and yet it is a fear leading to “great joy.” What novel emphases can the preacher add to the story of the resurrection of the Son of God to cut through the eggs, the chocolate rabbits, and the fashion finery of the “culture” of Easter so we marvel once again at this history-changing event? How can we make the “weasel” go “POP!”?
As one who tended to be didactic in my preaching over my 36 years of ministry, I would retell each year how what occurred in the resurrection was a cosmic miracle, not just the revival of a three-day corpse. I would mention the Apostle Paul’s metaphor that in the resurrection, Jesus became the “Second Adam,” raised by God as the “firstborn of the dead,” to usher in a whole new way of thinking about life, death, and life AFTER death. Jesus is raised in a “glorified” body that no longer is ravaged by age or disease. He has corporeal form (as evidenced by the incidents of Thomas’s touch and Jesus’s eating fish on the shore of Galilee), yet he was now no longer held captive by linear time. From now on, for the resurrected Jesus, his “now on” would never end. And the writer of the Epistle of John would say that someday, “we shall be like him,” meaning this “Second Adam” experience was the “prototype” for an eternal, non-perishable existence for US, too, not as disembodied spirits roaming around some cosmic heaven, but as living, breathing beings in what the Bible calls the “second resurrection.” We will taste death in our current, human form, but then, thanks to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, “Pop! Goes the Weasel” for us, too! This “teaching” is one of the places where science must at least temporarily give way to faith. That we will “inherit eternal life” because of the resurrection of Jesus is something to believe, and yet that same Jesus and the story of Easter is our evidence of that promise!
Some Easters, I might wax philosophical with my best Sherlock Holmes hat on, suggesting that the “facts of history” are a pretty good “proof” of a spectacular event that occurred on that first Lord’s Day a couple thousand years ago. Fact is, even as the gospels tell us, there were many powers-that-be in that day who would have LOVED to produce the body and bones of Jesus to refute any thought that he had “risen from the dead,” but of course, none were to be found. The gospels—and other historical witnesses—tell us that the disciples of Jesus ran away after his crucifixion, afraid that they would be rounded up next. SOMETHING happened to suddenly transform them into brave, public witnesses willing to give their lives for the gospel they would preach, and this was even before the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. What could it be, short of experiencing the Resurrected Christ? And finally, we have the witness of “Saul,” a Pharisee and oppressor of Christians who is suddenly poleaxed by his experience on the road to Damascus—he is directly encountered by the living Christ and is immediately transformed into a passionate, sacrificial, driving force in the fledgling “church.” The Gospel of John says that these early apostles “turned the world upside down,” and that nothing could have empowered them to leave behind their fears but the fact that they were getting their marching orders from the Living Christ!
Over the years, I ALWAYS lifted up the courage and brave faith of the women who DON’T run and hide. They, too, were seen with Jesus, probably as much as the twelve, and yet they went to the tomb with little fear of reprisal by the authorities. In more than a few sermons, I suggested that, if they had NOT gone to the tomb on humanity’s behalf, God might have been so discouraged that the Divine might have just spirited Jesus off into heaven and given up on us all. But, because the women RESPONDED and went to the tomb, they may have been the exclamation point on this event for all of the world. Not that we ALWAYS don’t, but certainly in this historical event, we owe so much to the courageous women.
Some years, when life has been hard for so many, such as in the pandemic Easter, I tried to use the image of the Resurrected Christ as a universal symbol of hope and new life. After all, resurrection can be about FAR more than just being “raised from the dead.” Often, in our hearts of hearts and our pain-inflicted psyches, a resurrection of the “dying” is what is prescribed. We believe in a God not only who raised Jesus from the dead, but one who gives second chances to all who fear they blew the first one, and who breathes new life into the stale air of tired lungs. We BELIEVE in a broad-based “resurrection” that frees us from all that afflicts us and holds us down. To quote a popular phrase, “When they go low, we go high,” or we Christian believers might say, “When things get us down, God lifts us up!” In those toughest of years, Easter became a time not as much for celebration, as for healing and wholeness, comfort and the loving embrace of God.
But this year, I chose to focus on the “surprise” of what happened on that first Easter Sunday. While all of these other stories of the event are most certainly still valid, at my age, and in a day when many are eschewing faith, we need a little “pop” in our Easter. Matthew thought so, too!
Now, someone will protest that I’m calling Jesus a weasel. Weasels are clever animals, escaping predators by their speed and prowess, and they do their best work when buried! There is a reason both weasels and Jesus “POP” up from the earth. One of my favorite Easter hymns is “Lord of the Dance,” and the last verse that says,
“They cut me down and I LEPT UP HIGH,
I am the dance that will never, never die,
I’ll live in you if you live in me,
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he!”
In the nursery rhyme about the monkey chasing the weasel, I suppose we humans could be seen as the “monkeys” doing the chasing, as this is precisely what “religion” is—some practice meant to “catch the weasel,” or apprehend the Divine and attain a blessing. But the Christian story has the weasel surprising the monkey, popping up when least expected. Jesus IS the “weasel of God,” and on Easter we celebrate his “popping up.” We no longer have to chase the weasel. God came to US, conquered sin and death, and now lives on in the heart of each and every believer. Matthew captures the energy of the Risen Christ in his account, when he reports that Jesus tells the women he is going on to Galilee, and to tell the twelve to meet him there. Even after his triumphant resurrection, Jesus is going on to Galilee, and the Good News marches on! POP! Goes the weasel! If the Celtic Christians can embrace the Wild Goose as their symbol of the Holy Spirit because it “pops up when least expected” and “goes where it wills,” so we Easter Christians can appropriate the crafty, scurrying weasel as a symbol for the Jesus we love and serve, and who is always going on before us!
And, lest we ever again grow complacent in our discipleship, we might adopt another Spoonerism as our rallying cry. Supposedly, in one of his sermons, in meaning to say that the Lord is a Loving Shepherd, he malapropped that the Lord is a “Shoving Leopard.” May our Loving Lord ALSO be the “shoving leopard” who keeps us growing up in faith, out in witness, and forward in mission and service!
Happy Easter, Beloved. Christ is RISEN! He is RISEN INDEED! POP! Goes the weasel!
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