Renewal of Vows
Preacher: Revd Dr Donald MacEwan, University Chaplain
Readings: Isaiah 25:6-9; Mark 16:1-6
I’ve given up making predictions. I’ve consistently got things wrong over the virus, and I doubt my predictive powers will get much better. But that’s not really a confession. It would be different if all my promises over the past year had proved to be false. How does it feel when someone breaks a promise? I’ll call you… I’ll send you an email… We’ll refund you immediately… You’ll be contacted by the mental health team early next week… We’ll have this beaten by Christmas…
We wonder why they didn’t keep their promise. Was it accidental or deliberate? Either way, we lose trust in the other party. We’re not sure if it’s worth engaging with them again.
Politicians can’t help but promising. An election manifesto, for instance, is one giant list of promises. But hear the biologist and Labour peer, the late Lord Rothschild, who spoke of the promises and panaceas that gleam like false teeth in the party manifestos. There may be the odd denture exposed over the next few weeks in campaigns for the Scottish Parliament. Over the past year, different politicians have taken different approaches to the pandemic. Some are accused over over-promising – dates, success and the ending of restrictions. Others are observed to under-promise – emphasising how much is unknown and unpredictable. These under-promisers may regularly plunge us into gloom, but at least we can’t accuse them of leaving behind them a trail of broken promises.
The Bible is full of promises. Much of it is in the future tense. I will not bring another flood. You will be the parents of a huge nation. I will be your God. I will defend you against your enemies. I will give you words to speak. You will give birth to a child who will be the Son of the Most High. Go to Bethlehem, where you will see a child wrapped in swaddling-bands and lying in a manger. (Don’t panic – I know it’s Easter, not Christmas.)
Today’s passage from the Old Testament is from Isaiah, a prophet, who envisages how the future could be. In Chapter 25, a feast of food and wine is promised – particularly apt for us this year, a year without thousands of student dinner-parties in flats with only slightly overdone vegetable lasagne, or formal dinners in Lower College Hall, led to our seats by the Chancellor’s Piper. Isaiah’s gala banquet is a symbol of a deeper promise – that God will destroy all that can make life such a horrible struggle: sin, and sorrow, and even death. Indeed Isaiah puts into words our fundamental hope in God’s faithfulness – that he will overcome everything which goes wrong in the world and in our lives. Some people have taken great courage from this hope – in the words of David Nicholas, God’s promises are like the stars; the darker the night the brighter they shine.
The New Testament believes that Isaiah’s words, this promise that our tears will be wiped away, is fulfilled in Jesus, the Messiah. With him is healing and forgiveness, community and hope, an end to tears, to sin and to sorrow.
And yet, is that not more panaceas shining like false teeth? For consider the facts of Jesus’ life. After three mildly successful years preaching, teaching and healing, it all came to an abrupt end – betrayed, arrested, tried and crucified. As Jesus was laid in the tomb, the conclusion seemed unavoidable. This man was not the Messiah, and there was no end to our tears, our sin or our death. What a trail of broken promises. What a kick in the stomach. How does it feel when someone breaks a promise? Does it feel like this? God no longer faithful? Still so many troubles? Pain in body and mind? Loneliness and isolation? Prejudice and violence? Hunger and climate change? Illness and death?
How can we trust a God who over-promises and under-delivers? A year and more into Covid, a second Easter in lockdown, nearly 3 million deaths worldwide, churches largely closed, worship seemingly dispensible. We might as well put our trust in rather more plausible candidates than the divine – vaccines and virologists; politicians or protesters.
And that I think would be quite right were it not for today’s Gospel reading. We heard that early one Sunday morning, some women came to the tomb where Jesus’ dead body had been laid. These women had been faithful. According to Mark, all three had provided for Jesus during his ministry. And they’d been there on Friday and watched as he’d died. And the two Marys had witnessed Jesus’ burial on the Friday evening. The other disciples, the famous names Peter and Andrew, James and John and the others had fled the scene. But the women were faithful, and had come, on this third day, to anoint Jesus’ body with spices, the last offices to be done to a human body before it makes its natural journey into the dust from which we come.
These three women – Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome – were the first to see that the promise wasn’t broken after all. Jesus’ body wasn’t in the tomb. Instead there was the living figure of a young man, and he spoke to them:
‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him.’
The young man then gives the women an instruction, and a promise: 7 ‘But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.’
This is the new promise – There you will see him – the promise which fulfilled all the promise of Jesus’ life. You will see the one you saw betrayed, arrested, tried, and crucified. You will see the one you saw laid out, dead and buried, in this very place. You will see the one you hoped would put an end to sin, to sorrow, to tears, to all suffering. You will see him. This is the promise to end all promises – or perhaps the promise to begin all promises. Yesterday I visited the cemetery by St Andrews Cathedral. On the gate was this notice: Please help with the reduction of the spread of Covid-19 by minimising your use of the cemetery. Could we say that: Raised on the third day, Jesus minimised his use of the tomb, the promise to begin all promises?
Today is the twentieth Easter Day in succession on which I’ve preached. Ten times in St Monans and Largoward Churches. Nine times from this pulpit. Once at St Mary on the Rock at the sunrise service. And once, last year of course, on Zoom. The gospel doesn’t change. Christ is risen! But this year, for the first time, the tone is uncertain. Last year, so new into the pandemic, the tone was clear – hope in the midst of trauma. But this year, a year and more into Covid, I’ve wondered how to express this good news. Somehow it doesn’t seem quite right proclaiming it from the rooftops, while so much of life is constrained, and impoverished, and worrying.
Yet, re-reading the resurrection accounts in the gospels, I’ve been struck by those sketchy narratives. There were no rooftops then either. Instead, three women came in the early morning, and were met by a young man. So few in number. Women – not even permitted as witnesses in Jewish law. Terrified and afraid. Mark seems to think they didn’t even share their discovery. And yet, one by one, people heard that the tomb was empty. According to Matthew, Luke, John and Paul, a few people encountered the risen Christ, for a time and then he vanished. It’s hesitant, it’s fragmentary, it’s fragile. And yet in time the resurrection became the belief which changed the world, the experience which inspired the lives of billions, the promise fulfilled in countless ways.
Another word for promise is vow. Usually, every year, I witness about 50 people making their vows right here at 25 different weddings. Since last year, I’ve witnessed six people making their marriage vows, four here, and two on Castle Sands. These vows look forward across a whole life together, until death us do part. Sometimes a couple asks for something different – they’re already married but they request a renewal of vows. It could be a special anniversary, or a fresh start for whatever reason, perhaps after a period of broken promises, loss of trust.
Today, Easter celebrates a renewal of vows from God to the world. All had seemed lost; the world had done its worst and Jesus had been given up to die. But the young man in the tomb makes a vow: You will see him. Death cannot hold him. God cannot be defeated. Jesus’ love will go on. God’s Spirit will continue to move in our world. Sin will be forgiven. Sorrow will be met by hope. Tears will be wiped away. We’ll see him in every moment of joy, of love, of hope in the midst of a pandemic. God will be faithful – for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.
The promise is renewed – first in the half-light of dawn to three women, alarmed and afraid. It’s always been gentle, been hesitant, been fragile. But Christ is risen. His promise is sure. And what better day than Easter, when the churches are open again, to renew our vows to God, to love and cherish God, and our community of creation, and those whom we can or cannot yet embrace. But we can promise that when we can, we will.
END