In Tarpon Springs, Florida, a rather unusual religious practice occurs once a year.
It’s called “diving for the cross.”
In the Greek Orthodox Church there, boys, from an early age, are prepared for this.
Every year, from a boat, or from the water’s edge, they watch the dive take place.
They hear stories of how their fathers dove for the cross.
They hear how their brothers dove for the cross.
Each boy dreaming that one day he will be the one to emerge from the murky water with the cross in hand.
The day of the dive begins with worship at 8 o’clock in St. Nicholas Cathedral.
The barefooted divers then march through the streets to the bayou.
Following the release of a dove and a special blessing from the Archbishop, the boys, ages 16-18, dive into the chilly waters, each frantically working to be the one to retrieve the white cross.
In usually less than a minute, the moment arrives.
With thousands watching in hopeful expectation, emerging from those deep shadowy waters, the cross is lifted high for all to see.
There’s something about this image of the cross rising up out of dark waters that speaks to me of Resurrection and of the Easter icon that is on our Altar today.
What intrigues me about this icon is that it doesn’t show the actual moment when Jesus rises from the tomb—that solitary and private moment between a Father and a Son, that moment when in the cold and darkness of the tomb, with no one there to see, God’s love poured into Jesus, filling his lungs, warming his heart, making him live again.
No, this icon is quite different.
The moment of resurrection is depicted not as Jesus walking free into the light, but as Jesus standing on a narrow bridge of rock that spans a dark pit.
Beneath his feet are the shattered gates of hell.
And with David and Isaiah and John the Baptist looking on Jesus stretches forth his hands, grasping Adam with one hand and Eve with the other, pulling them up, like the cross out of murky water, up and out of the terrible darkness and into his light-filled presence.
It’s as if Jesus refuses to be resurrected alone but, instead, goes all the way back, to the first moment we chose to turn our backs on God and to go our own way, and he pulls up not only Adam and Eve, but all of us who with them were dead in our sin.
Up out of the murky darkness he draws them, up and into freedom and light.
For the Orthodox the resurrection isn’t for Jesus only; no, in that mysterious moment we all were resurrected.
In the resurrection Jesus becomes a bridge between death and life, a savior pulling us up and out of all that has bound and defeated us, one leading the way for us to follow.
Now, in today’s gospel, the gospel of Mark, this resurrected Jesus is yet unknown to the women who rise early in the morning and creep through the dark to the tomb where they’ve laid his body.
Imagine what they must feel—overwhelming grief, anger, and fear.
And, maybe even more than these, they feel despair.
When Jesus was alive, they were alive, full of hope and possibility.
Now, in his death, something in them has died as well.
They, too, go among the tombs, searching out his tomb so they can do theonly thing they can do—perfume the body that holds the stench of death.
It is not an act of faith.
The fact that they have come to the tomb with spices suggests that they believed Jesus was dead and that he would stay that way.
More that the sky was dark that morning.
Their spirits were dark, heavy, dead.
And, so, when an angel tells them that Jesus is alive and that they are to go and announce to the disciples that Jesus will meet them all in Galilee, they run away and, according to Mark, say “nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”
And this is where Mark’s gospel ends.
Generations of interpreters have been so disturbed by this ending that they have rushed to supply their own in order to get it right.
But according to Mark, it is not that the women somehow get it right.
In Mark, it is that Christ has not risen alone, but that he goes ahead of us, calling us to meet him, pulling us out of our own tombs of darkness to join him, in our own Galilee.
In the places of life where we are broken by loss, by despair, and by sheerexhaustion the risen Christ appears and calls us.
The late Peter Gomes said that preachers on Easter often sound like attorneys producing evidence, arguing from reason and science that resurrection is plausible and possible.
But finally, when all is said, all we have is a promise—“go to Galilee—to your homes, and to your work, to your hospital rooms and your cemeteries, to the bed where you cry yourself to sleep every night, to the unemployment line, to the refugee camp, to your own cross and I’ll meet you there. I promise.”
And, though, they were afraid, the women did go home and before long their lives and those of the disciples began to open up like that dark tomb and to flow with fresh passion and new purpose.
Those, who had been locked in fear, broke loose into courage.
Those, closed up in guilt, emerged free from shame.
Those, sealed up in sadness, stepped into the light laughing and singing.
Diving down into the deep murky waters within themselves, they emerged victorious holding the cross of the resurrected Christ.
I don’t know all that is buried in the depths of your being on this Easter Sunday morning.
But I do know that someone, even now is diving into the murky mess of our lives.
Standing on the bridge over our darkness and emptiness, someone takes our hands and holds them in his.
Through the sorrow of the cross and the hope of the resurrection, Jesus brings the love of God into our lives.
Jesus brings love to my friend who is battling cancer; to those you know who are sick and lonely and afraid.
Jesus brings love to our staff member whose mother died on Good Friday and to all those who are grieving.
Jesus brings love to me when I can’t seem to get it right and to each of us in the ways we need it most.
We may not ever be able to depict the event of the resurrection, but we can surely know the joy of being lifted out of the murky darkness and up into the light, leaving us gasping with thanks for the new life that is ours and for the one who has saved us.
And this is why we can forever say “Alleluia. Christ is risen.
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.”
Sermon sources: see The Dwelling of the Light: Praying with Icons of Christ by Rowan Williams; commentary in Feasting on the Word