Sunday, March 31, 2024 - LOL

This sermon was preached for Easter Sunday, March 31, 2024 at St. Mark's in East Longmeadow. The texts for this sermon were: John 20:1-18, Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24, and Isaiah 25:6-9.

So how many of you can confidently say what LOL is short for? Raise your hands.

Phew, I’m relieved. Because believe it or not, LOL has been common internet and texting slang for more than thirty years - plus it was formally recognized by the Oxford English Dictionary in 2011. As it looks like you all know, LOL technically stands for “laughing out loud.” You type LOL in a comment or text to someone to indicate that what they said was funny, but here’s the thing: it really quite rarely means you actually laughed out loud - at the most you maybe let out a little huff from your nose. What a striking image for how diminished, muted, literally abbreviated joy has become when we don’t set aside time to be present and actually with one another. All of us in our separate places behind our separate little glowing screens typing out LOL at someone’s joke, but barely actually laughing. Think about the last time you typed LOL (if you ever have). Were you actually laughing? Now think of the last time you remember laughing out loud, that kind of laughing that you do with your whole body - the sort of laughter that hurts your sides and makes you shake all over and brings tears to your eyes. No really, think back, close your eyes and take your time.

Who were you with in that moment? Because I bet you were not alone. Joy, human joy, is meant to be savored - and to be savored, it must be shared. 

Recently, I came across the work of Dr. Fred Bryant that backs up this notion. Dr. Bryant is a positive psychologist which means he studies happiness, meaning, and thriving. His research suggests that finding joy and meaning all comes down to knowing how to savor positive experiences. 

Now as a priest, when I read through his list of mental habits that allow us to savor joy, I couldn’t help but see all the elements of good liturgy. To savor joy, you need to show it: to sing and dance and clap and move your body. You need to be present to it: removing all distractions and choosing to be mindful. And you need to share it: celebrate with others, spread the good news, get everyone else excited. He also recommends anticipating future positive events and remembering past ones - reflecting on happy memories and looking forward to what’s coming next. What is Eucharist but that in a nutshell - remembering Jesus’ last meal with his friends and looking forward to sharing the feast with him in heaven? 

I think human beings have always known how to savor joy - we don’t really need modern-day psychologists to tell us how. It’s all right here in the patterns of our faith - in the hour we dedicate on Sunday morning each week to be present, to share and express good news, to remember and hope. I think we’ve also always known that joy is meant to be savored and shared. And I think Mary Magdalene knew that, too. 

Now, there’s a lot of frantic running around in today’s Gospel. Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb alone but as soon as she sees the stone over the grave’s entrance has been rolled away, she runs to find Peter and the beloved disciple. They run, too - but not together. It actually kind of reads like the two are competing with one another to get to the tomb first and when they do, they each have a completely separate experience of the empty tomb. We read that the beloved disciple realizes what the empty burial cloths mean - Jesus has been raised from the dead - but there’s no words exchanged. We don’t know if Peter and the beloved disciple say anything to each other. All we know is that they return to their homes, and that’s homes, plural. They leave Mary there, alone and weeping outside the tomb, clearly not having shared their theories with her either. Peter and the beloved disciple have separate, individual - maybe even competitive - experiences of the resurrection. There’s not much joy there - just rushing to and fro. Alone in their own private experiences of Easter.

But Mary stays. She pauses long enough in her confusion and sorrow and fear, present in it long enough for the very embodiment of joy to approach her and call her name. This is why Mary Magdalene is the first Christian preacher, the first evangelist: she is the first person to encounter the risen Lord. She is the one who is told directly by Jesus himself to go to the disciples and announce that he is alive again. It is Mary who gathers the disciples and tells them what she has seen, Mary who takes the Good News and makes it a church. It is Mary who knows how to savor joy by sharing it. 

Today we celebrate Jesus’ triumph over death once and for all. Jesus’ resurrection conquers death’s power over our lives. The resurrection marks the end of death as separation from God and each other. Because of Jesus’ bodily resurrection, we can trust that none of this will be lost or wasted, that all will be raised again with him on that last day. And so all the fears, insecurities, and anxieties that come right along with our fear of death, they are banished, too. Everything that creeps in to dampen our joy - loneliness, fretting about wasted time and potential, anxiety about the future, perfectionism, busyness, dread - Jesus’s resurrection conquers all that, too. 

When I look around at the world today, I worry that we’ve forgotten how to let joy seep into our life. I worry that we’re reluctant to give ourselves permission to fully feel joy given the state of the world. Or maybe it just feels so impossible to take the time and space we need to savor joy in the midst of busyness and anxiety. These days, too, with the entrenchment of social media in so many of our lives, the sharing of joy with that little share button can sometimes get almost competitive, a bit more hollow. Not authentically shared, the way knee-slapping, falling all over each other laughter is shared, as much as it is joy performed, like a typed LOL that doesn’t actually mean LOL. So I wonder, what would it look like for you, today, to savor and share, really share, your joy in the resurrection of Jesus? 

Over the centuries, the cross emerged as the predominant symbol of the Christian faith. But the earliest Christian art didn’t feature crucifixes: the catacombs of Rome are not decorated with crosses but with the rising sun, the living water, the ever-burning flame, and the Good Shepherd, a sheep laid across his shoulders. We are an Easter people, defined by life not death. The season of Lent is forty days, but the season of Easter is fifty; it’s the longest special liturgical season in the year. We are meant to savor the joy of the resurrection for fifty whole days, plus, technically every Sunday and every funeral is a mini-Easter feast, too. This savoring of the resurrection reminds us that we are more about feasting than we are about fasting. More about abundant, extravagant joy than we are about modest sobriety. Our God is so much more about love than judgment. I think a lot of us and a lot of our communities could use that reminder. This whole, weary world could really do with more sharing and savoring joy. 

Today, we gather around the font to recommit to proclaiming the good news in word and deed - with God’s help - in our baptismal covenant. 

So if you take one thing from this morning, other than the fact that Jesus is alive and risen again, I hope it’s an invitation to take the time and space to savor joy today, and in the weeks to come. Move your body joyfully - clap and cheer, sing and dance. Laugh out loud. Remember and hope. Be present to your joy. And share it, share it abundantly. For Christ is risen, indeed. 

Alleluia, alleluia. Amen.