Meet the Easter Kleagle!
John 20:1&2/11-16a
Woodmont Church—> Nashville Tennessean Easter article
Dr. Gary Straub
April 16 2006
Couple weekends ago, I spent a MONTH in Nebraska! Seemed like it took THAT long to get home! But well worth it to learn about a tiny broken-down town: Broken Bow, NB. In the 1920’s the KKK ruled this town in a terrifying way—doing what they do worst! With only 2 African American and 1 Jewish family in Broken Bow to bully, they targeted the Catholic Church. The town was ruled by cruel gossip, slander, lies, secret phone calls, anonymous letters and the annual spring parade, not unlike an Easter Parade— but without an ounce of Easter in it! It was all about the Grand Kleagle- a regal, robed, masked & mysterious figure. Nobody but NOBODY knew his true identity. Sure, there were rumors, but nooobody sure enough knew!
Just as the Regal Grand Keagle marched majestically with his minions down Main Street, a small dog came bounding out of the alley, yip/yapping at the royal robes of the Grand Keagle, who was bumfuzzled and started kicking at the dog, ordering it: “Go HOME, Rascal!” Word spread through the crowd: “Hey, ain’t that Doc Jensen’s beagle, Rascal?” Lickety split, here comes Doc Jensen’s boy chasing Doc Jensen’s beagle yelling: “Here Rascal!” Snickers from the crowd escalated to guffaws, hoots & hoo-haws of laughter! Old Doc did his derndest to remain regal, but the crowd was on to him, and took up the cry: “Go home, Rascal!”
You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool your dog anytime! This was the grand unveiling of Rascal’s Easter Epiphany! That march ‘broke the back’ of the Broken Bow Klan, and released a town from terror. EVIL CAN STAND UP TO ANYTHING BUT A BLAST OF EASTER—THE SUDDEN REVELATION OF THE GOD’S HONEST TRUTH!
I recall that first Palm Parade unmasked evil’s intention—to end Jesus, not honor him! We all thought Good Friday would be the end of Him for Good. Look: Evil strutted its stuff right down Woodmont Blvd, bragging/boasting like the Regal Grand Kleagle of Broken Bow! All day Saturday, the devil danced on Jesus’ grave…but NO way got away with it! Just like the Regal Kleagle was undone by a beagle, so evil was undone by God’s Easter Epiphany! What else are we to make of Matt 27:51-53? NO ambivalence here, no split decisions, just split rocks and split open graves and the revelatory rumble of an Easter Earthquake. Easter is THE day God’s enemies got laughed out of town!
Do you hear Rascal barking yet? That Centurion beneath the cross musta heard that beagle bark, and blurted out his own Easter Epiphany: “Truly this man was God’s Son!” (Mt 27:54) Folks, step back—because this very Easter morning, The Lord God is on a Resurrection Roll!
Early this a.m. two Almighty Angels from the Army of the Lord of Hosts marched up to the Tomb, zapped those guards into la-la land, flipped that 10 ton stone like it washer a tiddly-wink. THEN, God’s own angels experienced their Easter— apparently even the angels didn’t get up early enough to get in on Easter’s first Epiphany, because God Almighty already reached down and raised up Jesus.
I just came down to Tennessee this morning, to announce to you with great joy the GOOD NEWS: Jesus got up—GOT UP with the Easter power of God all over Him! “Death could not keep its prey; Up from the grave He arose, with a mighty triumph o’er His foes!” Time to Eastersize! Time for Easter Epiphanies to stand on tip-toe like tulips and bark like dogwoods! Today trumpets the triumph of God’s Easter power trumping all tensions and traumas, trials and temptations, tribulations and tedium that have TOO long intimidated and terrorized us—TOO long locked us into inertia & angst; TOO long trapped us in tired, trite, Easterless lives. Let’s be done with defeat and despair—Because CHRIST LIVES!
Now, mind you: this is not Abercrombie’s Easter, this is God’s Easter! And while we enjoy being splendiferously arrayed & beautimously attired — we want to go home w/ MORE than a compliment.
Mary came to Easter early and empty…. empty handed/empty hearted. NO nifty adjectives to describe her “empty”—she just was! She had nothing to give, because it had all been taken away. All she knew for sure was where she left Jesus’ body, because she, Joseph and Nicodemus wrapped the body for burial on a Bad, BAD Good Friday. MY point: the angel’s initial epiphany didn’t pack much Easter UUMPH for Mary. “Humph- they must have stolen the body” How humiliating is that?
But the ‘powers that be’ couldn’t be content to just injure Jesus, they had to humiliate and desecrate. Ask the Rangers of Mogadishu’s Black Hawk Down about how what happens to the body of fallen comrades matter! Ask Tennessee’s own Airborne 101st why they assume enormous risk to recover soldiers who braved the battle. Ask Vanderbilt Hospital, who treated a young mom named Kim, who last Friday hovered and covered her children, shielding them from tornado harm with her body, and broke her back. The same maelstrom hovered over Jesus as he hung on the cross to shield us from tornado & terror—the onslaught of evil. Evil broke through, broke all over his back & body—then it broke his heart.
Again, Christ’s final words: “forgive them” and “it is finished!” NOT: “I am finished,” but God’s purpose is finished. Mission complete. With just a few precious words, Jesus twisted the intentions of evil into an instrument of God’s own peace. Assignment accomplished. Death defeated— Hallelujah, cuz Easter’s on the way!
Yet all the Easter happy/happy talk isn’t enough Easter for Mary as she comes thru the gloom to the tomb. She is not distracted by the Music City Marathon that Peter and John ran. She is not comforted by the angel’s antiphon:He is alive. She needs to know WHERE!…. She longs to locate Easter, not in Dillard’s display windows, but within the intimate recesses of her hurting heart – her sinking soul – her dying hope.
All we know for sure is that God’s Easter comes to Mary at her lowest ebb. She is caught off guard by the Gardener, who asks to help. Mary bristles at his inquiry until Jesus whispers her name ….. “Mary.”
Just her name—no touch, no secret handshake—no high sign. Jesus did not give Mary the last four digits of his Social Security or the expiration date of a major credit card… Just called her name— AND SHE KNEW!
- In an instant, Christ healed Mary of all the wounds of her troubled past. Once and forever she is whole, and the healing is hers to keep always!
- In this moment, the grief and heaviness of a very UNholy Week is finished, as God’s Almighty Easter energizes her misery-driven mind.
- In this instant, Mary jettisons bye-gones and steps up into her God-given destiny.
- Mary would never be the same—-because the Risen Christ called her name.
Our oldest daughter Jennifer had been trying to get my attention for weeks leading up to Easter. I was too busy attending Easter in everybody else’s life that Easter hadn’t quite happened in mine; and truthfully—I was grumpy and preoccupied at home. So when Jen approached me to discuss her confession of faith, I was spectacularly UNreceptive. Told her: she wasn’t old enough to understand everything she needed to understand in order to be baptized. She hadn’t been thru pastor’s class. What about her S.S. buddies who would want to follow suit at only age 8? I had a whole litany of theological objections that would have made Luther’s 95 thesis look like a little ol’ grocery list. Then the week before Easter, she crawled up under my newspaper and sat herself square in my lap, took my face her hands and said: “but Dad, you don’t understand— I hear Jesus calling my name!” WHOOOM! Talk about an Easter Epiphany!
Who but the Risen Christ alone could call our name, could evoke the Easter we need? Who but the Risen Christ could help us find a way to laugh at the ludicrousness of those prideful powers who attempt to defeat us as Christians? Come on folks: We have got a bit of hallelujahing to do!
Remember Broken Bow— when fresh fears come barking at your heels: Say: “Rascal, go home.”
