Same/Different

"Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that......No, there is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate."

So wrote Charles Dickens in December 1843 as a bit of a knock off thing, A Christmas Carol.

Leave it to Deacon J to draw a parallel between the secular and the sacred/the sacred and the secular, Easter and Christmas. OK, now that I have your attention, I beg your indulgence by looking deeper and seeing some commonalities here.

The disciples, huddled in a room, unwilling to experience fully the ache of loss and loneliness of being without the Rabbi they had followed, studied with, ate with, argued with, traveled with, invited into their own family homes... sat numb, their hearts hardened, or numb. HE WAS DEAD. "There was no doubt whatever about that". Anecdotes from antiquity attest to there being such a man and this man being killed. He was killed as a heretic, as a possible political figure in opposition to Rome... and his followers could have been hunted down next. They dared not come into real contact with other people, and it pained them immeasurably to think about the man they loved, they trusted, as gone, dead... and now missing. How could they go on? What would they do? Who could they trust?

See a man, E.Scrooge, inhabiting a body that went through the motions of life, a life devoid of life. He had pulled the very essence of himself away from interacting with or being able to be touched by others because he had been loved and abandoned and feared if he dared love again he would be abandoned again. Better then not to love at all,not to risk losing something...or risk being loved. By cutting himself off from others, that is a fear he would not have to confront. He had had Marley as a business partner, the closest thing to a friend he had known. His sister was gone, his friend was gone. His exquisite pain often seemed a numbness.

THEN SOMETHING HAPPENED.......

The apostles and some women stayed in the room, behind locked doors, for fear of others....

Scrooge sat in his room, behind locked doors, for fear of his overactive imagination....

JESUS CAME INTO THE ROOM, ALTHOUGH THE DOORS WERE LOCKED, and stood among them

JACOB MARLEY CAME INTO THE ROOM, ALTHOUGH THE DOORS WERE LOCKED, and stood some paces from him

They were doubtful and terrified,

Scrooge was incredulous and terrified,


Here's where they parted ways....... but not all that far, really

Jesus breathed on the gathered and gave them hope, gave them Spirit, gave them their lives back...

Marley gave Scrooge (through some rather unorthodox therapy) the hindsight and the foresight to see how life could be if he lived into it; he revealed to Scrooge the means to get his life back.



We could, I suppose, split hairs about the Resurrection... was it REALLY physical, what KIND of transformation was it, could Jesus REALLY be touched, could HE REALLY eat and drink and cook fish on the shoreline or walk on the Road to Emmaeus, what would WE have done, had we been there?

Oh, we can speculate and read any number of theological theories....

In the final analysis, we KNEW Jesus lived... a Passionate Life, died a Passionate death and by means only of a gift called faith we believe HE came back to encourage us to live fully, not to ourselves alone, in communion with others in Gods love...

That we may live into this reality of grace and faith, of life beyond life, of Love that can transform us and all things... we may truly say, with Tiny Tim... [then gesture w/hand toward ear or a conducting stance - let the congregation complete it... GOD BLESS US, EVERY ONE!!!!]