Last week, on the Monday after Easter, four human beings travelled around the moon in a spacecraft.
For the first time, the other side of the moon, the side that is always turned away from us, was seen.
Four human beings saw with their own eyes what humans had never seen before.
We don’t know the dates of Jesus’ birth or the events of his ministry. But there is one date we do know. Because what we call The Last Supper was a Passover seder… and that meant the moon was full, because in Jewish law, Passover always starts on the 15th day of the lunar month of Nisan, which is (in our hemisphere) the first full moon of Spring.
The Last Supper took place under a full moon.
The moon was full as Jesus prayed in the garden that night.
The moon was full as Roman soldiers took him away.
The moon was full when he was crucified.
And the moon still looked full three days later when Mary Magdalene went to the tomb.
On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.”
Peter and John ran with her back to the tomb and confirmed… the body of Jesus was gone.
Peter and John went to find the other disciples.
Mary stayed at the tomb… and wept.
Until…. two angels and then the risen Christ appeared and gently asked her why she was weeping.
Mary saw with her own eyes what humans had never seen before.
She ran to tell the disciples who, understandably, were besides themselves. Think about it – the man they loved and followed had been murdered. Angels had appeared? Jesus was raised from the dead? And all of this while Roman soldiers were looking for them to kill them.
The disciples were terrified. They didn’t witness the crucifixion. They were so afraid they fled to where they had last seen Jesus, the room where they had been together the night before … and they locked the door.
And then, even though the door was locked… Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Having said this, the savior showed them the marks of crucifixion.
The disciples saw with their own eyes what humans had never seen before.
They locked the door to protect themselves. In many translations of the Bible it says they locked the doors “for fear of the Jews” and it’s very, very important to understand the harm this translation has done. This text is used by many to support antisemitism, which is not only an abomination, it’s not the correct reading of the text. The disciples weren’t hiding from “the Jews”, they were hiding from those who wielded the power of oppression, those who had just executed their Messiah… Roman soldiers carrying out the orders of the empire and religious authorities who were profiting by their association with that power.
There was one disciple who wasn’t in the locked room, who didn’t see what the other disciples saw. We don’t know why Thomas wasn’t there, or why, after he was told what happened, he seemed to reject what his friends said. They told him they had seen Jesus, that they had seen the wounds – and Thomas responded, ”I’ll never believe it without putting my finger in the nail marks and my hand into the spear wound.”
This verse, the verse where Thomas says he needs to feel Christ’s wounds to believe, is often used to teach us that when it comes to our faith doubt is somehow a sign of weakness…but I don’t think that’s what this text is teaching us.
Because the opposite of faith isn’t doubt, it’s certainty.
Certainty is what leads us to become religious leaders who align themselves with the empire.
Certainty teaches us that there are “others” who deserve less, who are less, and who even deserve to die.
Certainty closes us off from wonder, and awe, and the miraculous.
The gospel lesson for today isn’t about doubt… These words teach us that it’s not only ok to ask questions, it’s holy. We are supposed to wonder about our faith and our church, to question what others say. Peter Abelard, an important medieval theologian, said “By doubting we come to inquiry, by inquiry we come to truth.”
Or, as others have put it “Sincere inquiry leads to sincere faith.”
“By doubting we come to inquiry, by inquiry we come to truth.”
peter abelard
Ten days ago I went to my in-law’s home to celebrate Passover. Once again, I was struck by the symbols of the Passover seder…a lamb shank, an egg, the green herbs of spring…symbols that are echoed in the celebration of Easter.
Before I married into a Jewish family, I was like almost every Christian I know… I didn’t understand Passover, what it means, how it is celebrated. I didn’t know that the Last Supper was a Passover seder. And, I didn’t know that for the first three centuries of the church the followers of Jesus broke bread, drank wine, and celebrated Christ’s resurrection under the full moon of Passover.
For three centuries the celebration of the liberation of all people through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was added to the celebration of the liberation of Jewish slaves in Egypt.
It wasn’t until the Council of Nicea in the year 325 that this officially changed. Emperor Constatine directed the church to break from Jewish tradition and the Jewish calendar. The Christian celebration of Passover (what we call Easter in English) was moved from the lunar Jewish calendar to the Gregorian calendar and to a Sunday… Specifically the first Sunday after the full moon that follows the Spring Equinox.
That’s why Christians all over the world still use the word “Passover” for what we call Easter. In the Greek of the Bible and modern Greek it’s Pascha. … in French it’s Pacques, in Spanish it’s Pascua.
So how did we end up with “Easter” instead of “Passover”?
The Venerable Bede, a famous 7th century monk, was the first to describe how this happened: “Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated as ‘Paschal month,’ and which was once called after a goddess of theirs [Germanic peoples] named Eostre, in whose honor feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate the Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance” (De Temporum Ratione).
I don’t know about you, but I didn’t learn this in Sunday school.
The idea that we might be part of a thread of God’s plan that connects us directly to a Jewish ritual, a Germanic spring Goddess, and the moon weren’t part of the story of the very white, very American, mainstream Protestant tradition I grew up in.
But I find incredible solace and even inspiration in the fact that as a follower of Christ, I am part of a story that is deep, and rich, and connected to all of creation, all of my ancestors, and the history of my faith. I delight in knowing that the creator of every molecule in the universe needed our ancestors to be part of that story, part of these connections… and that God still needs us to hold onto that thread, to help co-create and write new stories to heal the world and bring forth shalom, the kindom of God.
I find incredible solace and even inspiration in the fact that as a follower of Christ, I am part of a story that is deep, and rich, and connected to all of creation, all of my ancestors, and the history of my faith.
Two days ago, the astronauts safely splashed down in the Pacific ocean as they returned home from their voyage to the moon.
On Easter morning, Victor Glover shared this message as the crew of Artemis II approached the moon…
“When I read the Bible and I look at all of the amazing things that were done for us, who were created, you have this amazing place, this spaceship. You guys are talking to us because we’re in a spaceship really far from Earth. But you’re on a spaceship called Earth that was created to give us a place to live in the universe, in the cosmos…In all of this emptiness — this is a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call the universe — you have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist (in) together.” I think as we go into Easter Sunday thinking about all the cultures all around the world —whether you celebrate it or not, whether you believe in God or not — this is an opportunity for us to remember where we are, who we are and that we are the same thing. And that we got to get through this together.”
May the moon above help us remember where we are, who we are, and that we are the same.
May she remind us to push back against certainty and towards understanding.
May we see the moon, each other, and all of creation with our own eyes… as though we are seeing them for the very first time.
Amen
Sermons are meant to be heard, so if you’d like to listen to this one, it’s posted here. (The sermon starts at 43:20)
