Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

I like to think that the poet e.e. cummings heard the psalm for today. The psalmist has declared,

The stone that the builders rejected
has become the chief cornerstone.
By the LORD has this been done;
it is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day that the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it. (Psalm 118:22-24)

cummings seems to have harvested the wonder of the psalmist at the great reversal in which the hopelessness of Israel’s situation is miraculously transformed to a great novum. Something is new, and the newness cannot be accounted for within the mind and heart of the psalmist or of cummings, for that matter, whose rhapsody breaks out into these words:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Take notice that cummings’ poem ends the way the Israel and the Church responds to the on-going mystery of the universe, life, and history. There is a new openness to that which we cannot control or direct.

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

In all of our readings there is the element of surprise. First, Peter preaches to the Gentiles.

They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. (Acts 10:39b-41)

Then we heard the psalmist declare with great surprise,

The stone that the builders rejected
has become the chief cornerstone.
By the LORD has this been done;
it is marvelous in our eyes.

Paul writes about the surprising birth of the church and his own unexpected role in it when the risen Lord appeared to the disciples.

Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. (I Corinthians 15:8-10)

Finally, we hear the story of the empty tomb and Jesus’ unexpected appearance before Mary Magdalene. It is an emotional recognition scene that only those of us who grieve can understand.

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher). (John 20:11-16)

The calling of Mary’s name results in immediate recognition. We know of such recognition moments when a parent or a friend calls out our name. Or think about a child frightened in a darkened room at night and then comforted when hearing the familiar voice of her father calling out her name in the dark.

I think about my own family following the death of my brother, who died at an all too early age. Though grief-stricken ourselves, Kathy and I were more worried about my parents’ grief. How do you bury your own son? Months after Gordon’s death we learned how my father came to grips with the bereavement. Probably unable to tell his own children, my father chose to tell Kathy what happened one day as he sat in the living room. Gordon suddenly entered the room. My father said that Gordon then addressed him, “Daddy, don’t worry about me. Everything is ok now.” My father knew a sense of relief from this event. Was it a dream? Perhaps an illusion? I refuse to answer.

Brothers and sisters, what we hear in today’s readings goes beyond what we know in our human loss, fear and grief. It is the announcement of the surprising presence of God in creation. The testimony to this surprising presence is based on the promise that God is the creator of all that is. This world was created by God through the Word which is none other than Jesus Christ.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. (John 1:1-5)

It is that last sentence that brings out the challenge that concerns us on this day of surprising grace. In Jesus Christ we are not allowed to fall into some kind of “pollyanna” world by which we take a fanciful flight from the evil that we confront both outside ourselves but especially within ourselves. No, the truth of our existence is insisted upon in the announcement, “Christ is risen.” If Christ is risen, it is not because we have made it so.

The LORD has done this;
and it is marvelous in our eyes.

Yes, the evil, the cruelty, the meanness of spirit, and self-interest must be overcome. This can happen only if we recognize that the Word through whom this world was created is the Word that shines against the darkness, and the darkness has not quenched it.

Dear congregation, the mystery of faith consists in this: we are confronted daily with the evidence of death. In various ways our bodies seem to tell us that we are being propelled toward death. Most of the time we live as though life were surrounded by death. Faith understands our situation as that in which death is surrounded by life. This is the meaning of Jesus' words, "I am the resurrection and the life." This is the mystery we have come to believe through the faithful witness of Jesus Christ.

i thank You God for most this amazing day.
(i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun's birthday;
this is the birth day of life and of love and wings

And the peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.