University Christian Church

Have you ever experienced emptiness?

I remember the first and only time I ever ran out of gas (fingers crossed). I grew up in the kind of family that couldn’t afford newer cars, so when we kids got older and were able to drive, we got to drive the old beat up hand me down vehicles that had a lot of miles and a lot of… issues. Dents, dings, non-functional windows and broken air conditioning. And in particular, I remember this ’84 cream colored Buick with a broken gas gauge. Fill up the gas tank, and the gauge would sort of kick in - but as you drove the car, it eventually would just creep down and down to about the 1/4 of a tank mark and stay there. So every time you drove the car, you were living dangerously, trying to mentally remember the last time you put gas in the car and how far you can go.

One evening, I was at a friend’s house and started to head home. I looked down at the gauge, did my mental calculation, and decided that I should be fine to get home - but about a mile down the road, I heard this awful sound - THUNK THUNK and putter. A terrible sound. The engine died right there on a two lane country road with a line of cars waiting behind me and a line of cars coming at me.

I was so embarrassed — if I could have slipped out of that car and disappeared, I would have.

To this day, that sound still haunts me - to me, that THUNK THUNK of the gas tank running out is the sound of emptiness.

Throughout my life, I have heard that sound of emptiness in other times and places, not just when the gas tank runs dry. Maybe you have too.

- I’ve heard it in the stern words from the boss that the company is letting you go or you aren’t a fit here anymore.
- I’ve heard it in the gavel of a judge after a sentence is handed down or pen scratching paper as a divorce is finalized.
- I’ve heard it in hospital rooms when the doctor comes in with a grim look on their face or as the life support machines go silent.
- I’ve heard it in the silence of an apartment when you would give anything to not be alone that evening.
- I’ve heard it in the tears and sobs of young parents or the shock and lament of a neighborhood ravaged by violence.
- I’ve heard it in the often quiet, subtle discrimination that too many people experience because of who they are or who they love.

One social scientist calls this “disruption” - when our lives take unexpected, tragic twists and turns, things we often cannot plan for or even imagine. These moments in our lives are draining. They empty us out of our hope, our energy to get up and get out of bed. We lose a sense of direction and become disoriented.

And sometimes, it seems as if our society wants us feeling this way all the time - and offer us endless medication to fill up the emptiness we experience with digital screens, entertainment on demand, feel good products that leave us feeling less than good, and distraction after distraction. But in the end, the emptiness remains.

Mary, Peter, and John knew the same thunk thunk of emptiness in their lives.

They heard the emptiness in the crucification of their beloved friend and teacher, Jesus.

- The clanging of nails being driven into Jesus’ hands and feet
- His screams of agony
- The cruel laughter of the Roman soliders
- The wailing of Jesus’ mother, Mary
- Jesus breathing his last final breath on a terrible Friday

After Jesus had been lain in a tomb, Mary came that morning still grieving, still disoriented, still overcome with the emptiness that she had lost someone she could never replace. For once in her life, she had met a human being who lived with integrity and compassion and said the most wonderful things and did the most wonderful things, transforming her life from a nobody into a somebody. But then, in the course of about 24 hours, he was gone, executed like a common criminal. She came to the tomb to bath Jesus again in rich perfume, an act she had done only a few days before, to honor him at least one more time.

But to Mary’s shock, the tomb in which Jesus had been laid was wide open. Empty.

She knew something was wrong. This meant the tomb for her beloved friend had been desecrated. Someone had come and taken away the body.

Mary ran as quickly as she could to find Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved, which some scholars believe is John.

Peter and John, overcome with emptiness and sorrow themselves, race each other to see what has happened.

John looks first, seeing the burial clothes that Jesus was wrapped in are neatly laid to the side. Peter climbs into the tomb next, puzzled to see the cloth covering Jesus’ face folded where he should have been laying. This was not the scene of a grave robbery - this was as if someone stood up, unwrapped themselves, and walked out of the tomb.

John sees the empty space and believes - believes that Jesus’ mission was not done yet, that something more was coming.

Peter doesn’t know what to think - he is mesmerized, speechless, when just a few days before he was prepared to take up a sword and fight to the death to protect his friend and teacher.

After the two return, it’s just Mary in the garden, weeping. In this garden, this place of beauty, she felt alone, worn out, off-balance, without hope. No doubt, she thought of all that seemed possible in the presence of Jesus. And even his body, just like the dreams and stories and teachings he had shared, gone. She felt empty next to that empty tomb.

But then she heard a different sound.

It must have been a foot step or someone shifting down in that tomb, because Mary looks up and sees, through her tears, two angels sitting above and below where Jesus’ body would have rested. The angels ask her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” And Mary can’t hold back - she laments. She complains - “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

Suddenly, someone else seems to have creeped up on her. This time there is a voice - maybe ringing with familiarity but in her grief she doesn’t quite recognize it - asking her again, “Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?”

Mary, blinking back her tears, assumes this must be the gardener out this early in the morning - she asks him, assumes in his grief and disappointment and disorientation that he must know something - “Where have you taken him?”

And then in one word, one small word but one powerful word, her world changes. Jesus says to her, “Mary!”

Mary’s eyes light up. Her heart quickens. The emptiness down deep within begins to fill at this sound of his voice.

She says, “Rabbouni” - “beloved teacher!”

In her shock and in her disbelief, Mary must have reached out to grab hold of her friend - to hold on to him this time so he couldn’t leave again, so she wouldn’t lose him - but Jesus stops her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” 

I haven’t heard many preachers use these words of Jesus - they are kind of confusing. Mary’s inclination in that moment was to grab hold of Jesus. Moments before, she was reeling and not sure how to go on, but with Jesus suddenly back in her midst, she didn’t want to ever let go of him again. But Jesus was telling her that this resurrection event was bigger than just her. Now, he was going to be next to God, so no longer would he be bound to just one little corner of God’s creation, but now wherever it is that God dwells, Jesus would dwell there too. And thus wherever God is, the love of Jesus - the healing gifts of Jesus - the abundant life that Jesus offers - is available too. Not just to Mary in that moment - but now to all people, among all the empty places, among the grieving and heartbroken and victimized, among any who hunger and thirst for hope and new life.

Suddenly, this empty tomb, which had represented the emptiness of the disciples and their broken dreams and the injustice of this world, meant fullness.

Empty was not a sign of defeat - not a sign of loss - not a sign that the story of Jesus was over -

Empty suddenly meant that God’s love and story through Jesus continued.

Mary, a moment ago empty and adrift, now runs back to the rest of the disciples, overflowing and bursting with joy, shouting, “I have seen the Lord!”

The good news of Easter is that we don’t have to live lives on empty all the time. The good news of Easter is that even in those times when we are out of ideas, out of hope, out of dignity, and out of sorts - the abundant life through Jesus is offered to us. Even when we despair or believe the future of this planet or the future of our government is set in stone, this good news challenges us to see the emptiness as yet another place where God’s love might shine bright. Even when our buildings burn down or are sanctuaries are bombed, God challenges us to live in the way of peace in this violent world.

Authors Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy define this particular characteristic as “resilience” - the ability to bounce back.

Easter is more than just about Jesus bouncing back and overcoming the forces and systems of evil at work in our world - Easter is about the resilience that our Beloved Teacher offers us everyday. Like Mary, to be weeping one moment and in the next go out proclaiming a new vision to this world.

Perhaps you are here this morning because of the emptiness you are facing - if so, I encourage you to follow the example of Mary and be courageous enough to linger in the emptiness. And to go even further, to dare to share what you are experiencing with someone else. Mary tells the angels about her pain. She doesn’t hold back, and in that sharing of honesty, her understanding is transformed. Perhaps the good news of Easter for you this morning is the encouragement to find someone you can talk to about the emptiness you are experiencing.

This life following Jesus is not about having all the right answers, being indestructible, or living with an endless source of energy - even people of faith who follow Jesus struggle a lot. This good news of Easter is that we are not alone. That through the resurrection, Jesus is available to us just as he was available to Peter, John, and Mary, all those that he touched and transformed. We are not alone. Jesus is with us in the empty tombs, empty sanctuaries, and empty places.

And we also have each other - this community of faith. 60 years ago, there was just an empty field here, and God had the audacity to give a vision to a regular group of people to dream of a community, a mission church, that would go into the neighborhood and let others know that there was more than the emptiness. They were not alone.

Imagine a church for this present moment in history, when we truly face so many difficult challenges as human beings, that empties itself out - not in exhaustion, busy-ness, hot air, nonsense words - imagine a church that empties out the tombs of desperation, despair, grief, and injustice. Imagine a church where you can come and empty out that baggage you carry around, the failures that haunt you, the broken relationships and marriages that didn’t work out, the tears you need to shed, your frustration at your fellow human beings or co-workers, your anger about the way the world is…. Imagine a church where you can empty all that out, so then you can live to your fullest. You can live as God intended you to live in the way of peace and abundant life.

I need that kind of church. I think you need that kind of church too.

When my car broke down at the edge of town so long ago, God sent me angels too. Sitting there in the driver’s seat, mortified and terrified, vainly trying to start the car, these two local Native American dudes from the vehicle right behind mine, my angelic messengers that day, jumped out and came to help. They helped push my car to the edge of the road so others could pass then eagerly gave me a lift back in town to a friend’s house. My friend grabbed a gas can and also stepped into action - soon my tank wasn’t so empty, and I was on my way again.

That empty gas tank taught me something simple and important - though embarrassed and feeling like a loser on the side of the road, running out of gas plunged me into my community, into the compassion and care of strangers whose names I do not know, into reliance on friends who didn’t even ask me to pay them back. This is a small glimpse of the image of what God intends for all of the world - not violence, not division, not hatred, not injustice, not oppression, not needless sorrow - a community that loves and serves all who come empty.

Maybe you need to experience this good news today. Maybe Jesus today is calling you by name. Maybe you are at such an empty place that you don’t think another life is possible. I want to invite you to pray with me:

O Resurrected God, who provides for all of our needs -
We admit it - so often, we are weary. We are weak. We are drained.
Too often, we fill ourselves with the things of this world that leave us even more empty.
Forgive us - and fill us with Your love. Your strength. Your peace.
Help us see that this empty place in our lives might be the very tomb that you transform into life.
Give us the courage to ask for help and remember we are not alone -
and “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Amen!