Curses and Blessings

Matthew 28:1-10

Can you recall a moment in life that you would label a curse?  Maybe it is a day where nothing went right.  Maybe it is a sports season that ended the wrong way.  Maybe it is a job relocation that moved you away from your family.  Maybe it is a solo where the note came out wrong.  Maybe it is a day someone you love was diagnosed with a severe illness.  Maybe it is the day you were served divorce papers.  Maybe it is a day someone you love was involved in a bad car accident.  Those moments that we label curses are also moments that often stay at the front of our memories.  We struggle to let go of them, because they are too hard to forget.

            Sometimes, let me emphasize “sometimes,” those curses have the potential to turn into blessings.  I know that doesn’t happen with every curse that ever happens, but sometimes our curses do turn into blessings.  Bad sports seasons and wrong notes can still land talented students with scholarships and professional opportunities.  Some severe illnesses can lead to long and well-lived lives of sharing about the illness and walking with others through the same battle.  Some divorces can lead to even happier and healthier lives.  Some car accidents can lead to families speaking publicly about the risks of drinking and driving or texting and driving.  Shauna Niequist, in her book Cold Tangerines, puts it this way, “There are things that explode into our lives and we call them curses, and then one day, a year later or ten years later, we realize that they are actually something else.  They are the very most precious kinds of blessings.”  Some curses can turn into blessings.

            God’s story, the Bible, is filled with moments where curses turn into blessings.  When Moses and the people are starving in the wilderness the curse was met with a blessing when God sends manna.  When the chosen people are enslaved to Pharaoh, the Red Sea was parted blessing them with survival.  A baby born of a virgin, who didn’t know how she would ever explain to Joseph that this child was from God, so God sends a blessing and tells Joseph directly.  Wine that runs out at a wedding party was met with the blessing of Jesus, who turns water into wine.  Jesus was constantly turning curses into blessings.  People born blind who suddenly had sight restored to them by Jesus.  The lame walked and the lepers were cleansed.  Lazarus who had been dead for three days was raised to new life by his friend, Jesus.  There are plenty of Biblical curses that were turned into blessings.

Ultimately, what we celebrate this Easter started out as a curse.  Jesus was handed over to the authorities, because of who he was, the Son of God.  The authorities wanted to release him, but the crowd asked for Barabbas to be released.  The crowd shouted for Jesus to be crucified.  And so it happened.  Jesus was beaten, mocked, taunted, and then crucified.  His blood was poured out for us, for the very people who tried to crucify him.  To his followers and family his crucifixion was a curse.  It was the worst possible thing that could happen to them.  The Son of God had been killed.  His body was put into a sealed tomb and guarded.

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to the tomb and suddenly things started changing.  There was an earthquake and an angel appeared to them.  The angel proclaimed to them that Jesus was no longer in the tomb, Jesus had been raised.  The angel rolled the stone away from the tomb and invited the women to come and see the place where he lay.  The tomb couldn’t contain him.  Not even death could keep him.  God had done the incomprehensible.  God had brought Jesus back to life and had removed him from the sealed and guarded tomb.  As the women left to tell the disciples the good news suddenly they encountered Jesus on the way.  The angel was right.  Jesus had been raised from the dead and now he was standing with them.  The curse of Jesus’ death had become a blessing.

            The risen Jesus then sent Mary Magdalene and the other Mary on to tell the disciples.  Jesus reinforced the commission that the angel gave – others needed to know about the resurrection.  From the angel’s message to come and see, Jesus sent the women to run and tell.  The message they were to proclaim was that Jesus would meet the disciples in Galilee.  There the curse of the crucifixion would turn into a blessing for the disciples, too.  They would see the crucified and risen Lord.

Curses and blessings could also be identified as fears and joys.  In this moment the women were filled with fear and joy.  We also live lives marked by both fear and joy.  The resurrection doesn't take away all of the women’s fears and replace them with joy.  Rather, the resurrection enables them to keep faith amid their fears, to do their duty and share their good news in spite of their anxiety.  This is courage.  The resurrection gives them courage amid their fears and joys, amid the curses and blessings.  

            We know the whole story, so we never had to live with the deep, dark cursed feeling of the crucifixion that the first followers of Jesus felt.  But in this moment, on this Easter, we meet in the risen Jesus, a God who cannot be contained, confined, or even described.  As we meet Jesus in this moment, suddenly there is among us an earthquake, an earthquake of new life.  Amidst this shaking of the ground we meet a curse turned to a blessing, we meet death turned to life.  We meet the crucified Jesus turned to the risen Lord. 

Courage is what we are given this Easter, too, through the good news of the Easter gospel. This courage gives us the ability to live in the midst of curses and fears knowing the promise of God's blessings and joys.  The resurrection changes everything. Through the resurrection, we are given God's promise that life is stronger than death and that the curses in this life do not have the final word, but that the blessings will ultimately prevail. 

The funeral service of Winston Churchill took the curse of death and made it into a blessing of new life.  At the close of the service that Churchill planned himself, a single trumpeter stood at the west end of St. Paul’s Abby and sounded “Taps,” the song that signals dusk and the close of another day and is frequently played at the end of a military funeral. But after a moment of stillness that followed the last note of that song, another trumpeter stood at the east end of St. Paul’s, the end that faced the rising sun, and played “Reveille,” the song of the morning and the call to a new day. 

Churchill knew that Christ’s resurrection went above and beyond everything else.  He knew that God promised new life and everlasting life.  So, in a moment that could have been seen as the end, he planned for a song of new beginning to be included.  That new beginning was because of all that God has done through the cross and the empty tomb.  In and through Jesus’ resurrection we recognize that Jesus has proven that there is triumph and victory over the grave. 

In the curse of Jesus’ death we meet the blessing of Jesus’ resurrection.  In that curse turned to a blessing we recognize that God’s power has overturned all expectation in our world.  God’s power can and will bring about new life, everlasting life.  Jesus’ resurrection also gives us hope that in the curses of our lives, Jesus has given us the ultimate blessing of life and life everlasting.  From this day of Easter we are sent, sent with courage to proclaim and share the good news of Jesus’ resurrection.  The risen one will meet us and journey with us as we, the present day disciples of Jesus, share the incomprehensible, but not impossible, news that Jesus is indeed risen from the dead.  God will have the final word and that final word will not be death.  The final word will be life.  The final word will be a blessing.

Alleluia!  Christ is risen!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!