Podcast/Sermon – Lord, We Have Come… April 8, 2007
A Sermon Delivered by The Rev. John D. Painter at Centenary United Methodist Church – Metuchen, New Jersey April 8, 2007 (Easter Sunday)
Text: Luke 24:1-12
On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Re-member how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Pe-ter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened. —Luke 24:1-12, NRSV
It was only the second time I had been inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusa-lem. In some ways, once had been enough; I really didn’t care for the place all that much. And on this particular day it was unusually crowded and noisy. The line to get into the small chamber over the site of Jesus’ tomb was almost as long as one to get on a ride at Disney World, and those in line were not much less noisy or polite. “I’ve been before,” I thought to myself. So, rather than stand there again, I took the time to walk around the monstrous edifice which claims to encom-pass within its walls Calvary and the garden tomb. The sounds of chanting from the Armenians holding a service behind the Sepulchre itself caught my ears, and so I walked back there and watched for a while. Then there were the sounds of bells and smells of incense from the Eastern Orthodox in the main nave, which drew me to the gate to watch. Then I wandered, back where I had never been before. Through the side aisles and pillars, looking up through the haze toward beams encrusted with the dust of centuries; into scaffolding erected to hold up the dome and the roof after the major 1927 earthquake; at Byzantine walls lying in hodgepodge fashion within Crusader walls. The place was a cacophony of sound and sight and architecture—an embarrass-ing witness to Christendom’s most sacred moment.
On toward the east I walked until I encountered stairs which led me down to a small chapel below ground, a dank and cold place, dimly lighted. Yet the floor was composed of beau-tiful mosaic tiles, so delicate that ropes barred me from walking on them. Where was I? I looked in my guide book. “The Chapel of Saint Helen,” it said, named after the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine. It was Helen who had first ordered the construction of this building at the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. How ironic! Constantine and his mother had killed Christians for sport until one day Christ caught him as surely as Christ had snagged Paul on the road to Damascus. In a matter of historical moment Christianity had gone from being the most persecuted faith in the Empire to the official religion.
To the right more steps led deeper into a cave, and I descended, under a limestone over-hang. It was dark and cold and musty. Where am I? The guidebook: “The Cave of the True Cross.” Here, it says, Helen, mother of Constantine, discovered the remains of the true cross on which Jesus was crucified. “Oh sure!” I thought, closing the book. “Like it had his name written on it.”
I retraced my steps up the stairs into the main part of the church and headed east, only to discover that most of the rest of our group were still in line waiting for their brief visit inside the Sepulchre. I stepped out of the dark, cold building into the warm sun of the courtyard, sat on some steps and waited. It was Saturday, February 15, 1992.
Four days later—Wednesday, February 19th—I was back in the same courtyard, this time with classmates from a preaching seminar. We were waiting for the head of the Armenian Chris-tian community in Jerusalem, Archbishop Guregh Kapikian, a friend of Don Strobe, our instruc-tor. The Archbishop had told Don he would come and meet us at 3:45 p.m. for a special visit to some unusual places in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Our class had arrived at the Church at around 2:00 p.m., and we had been inside for some time looking at places the general public sel-dom sees. All of that was interesting, but the church was dark and cold, and the sun outside was inviting, and we were doing nothing more than sitting around waiting for the Archbishop. So some of us mutinied and headed for the outside sun and fresh air to wait for him. The rest fol-lowed.
Right on time he walked into the courtyard, a simple man dressed in the traditional garb of an Armenian ecclesiast. He greeted us with a smile as warm as the afternoon sun, and soon we were all encompassed into his followers as he led us into the building toward the east and down the stairs into the Chapel of St. Helen. “I have been here before,” I thought. “Now what?”
In what now seems like a matter of seconds he guided us into a narrow passage behind the side altar, a space barely passable by one person moving sideways. We emerged one by one into a cavern, where temporary lights had been arranged. The Archbishop explained that this was an area of recent excavation which had turned up a fascinating discovery. He pointed up toward the natural ceiling above us. “We are standing under the eastern slope of Calvary,” he declared. Herod used this limestone mound as a quarry for his temple, excavating underneath its slopes. I was aston¬ished and amazed at the same time. I was standing under a pile of limestone, just a hundred feet west of its summit, where three holes marked the site of public crucifixion.
He led our eyes down toward a low wall to the right. I heard him say things like, “built by early Christians,” “as early as AD 40,” “a place of worship.” My mind computed the dates he was suggesting—AD 40?, less than 10 years after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection?!
Then, as quickly as I say it, Archbishop Kapikian walked to one of the stones in the wall—near the eastern end, as I recall now—and pointed to some graffiti that had been left there. A boat, and beneath it some crowded Latin letters. Those who drew the picture and wrote the letters did so around AD. 40, within ten years of Jesus’ death and resurrection, he declared. It was a Mediterranean sailing craft, nothing native to Israel. And the language was Latin, not na-tive to Israel. Those who had drawn the picture and placed the words were pilgrims. They had come to this place and left their mark.
And what were those Latin words written under the boat? “Domine ivimus”—“Lord, we have arrived.” I don’t mind telling you that at that moment my heart was struck and my eyes were brimming. Within a decade of Jesus’ resurrection, some anonymous pilgrims from across the Great Sea had made their way to this limestone cave, built a wall, worshiped, and left a sign for the ages. We came! We arrived! We were here!
Joining the others, I knelt in front of that stone and tentatively reached out my hand to touch it. It was as if I were in touch with the whole panoply of Christian history—with all the noises and smells, confusion and affirmation, and haze and dust accumulated in the main church above and behind me. There was a strange silence in the cave at that moment. It was as if we knew we were in the presence of something—or Someone—special. In the awkward moments that followed, someone finally offered to pray. And so we stood there in prayer, linked inexora-bly to the events that had happened so closely—crucifixion and death, resurrection and life—and to those unknown sisters and brothers of ours who had come here in a pilgrimage of faith, and left their mark.
All too soon we were outside in the courtyard in the fading rays of the late afternoon sun. A raw, damp breeze was blowing in from the west, up the Judean hills from the Mediterranean. We walked quietly back to our hotel. It was our last night in Jerusalem. We had arrived only to leave. How strange that on the last day, moments before leaving, I had discovered something so new, so startling. Four days before, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre had seemed to me Christi-anity’s embarrassment—a holy scandal. Now, suddenly, it held a precious and special place in my heart and life. I was drawn to it then, even as I am now. Someday, somehow, I will go back. And it will look different to me then than it ever has before—even with all of its dirt and dust and haze and noise and confusion and cracks and incompleteness.
Yet, standing there in that massive mess, I will remember that no one place and no one time can ever contain the life of the resurrected Christ. Easter announces that we have moved beyond limits, that we have exceeded the boundaries, that we are in the presence of God wher-ever we are and whatever we do.
“Lord, we have arrived.” We have arrived at this Easter Day almost two thousand years after the women found an empty tomb in the garden and ran to tell the good news to a bunch of disbelieving disciples. We have arrived at this day, with all of the recent successes and disap-pointments, joys and fears, victories and defeats of our lives fresh before us. We have arrived here to worship you, much as our anonymous sisters and brothers in the faith before us traveled across the treacherous waves to arrive at the place of your death, burial and resurrection. You alone know what it has taken for us to arrive here, at this moment and this place. And you alone have provided a resurrection that enables us to move on, unafraid and confident, into the un-known days before us. Amen.