Well, I decided this week it is true that kids say the darndest things. Some of you know that phrase is a reference to one of the early kings of television, Art Linkletter, and his afternoon TV show called “House Party” which aired in the 50’s and 60’s. The first fifteen minutes of the show he interviewed some forgettable guests, but the last fifteen minutes he played the straight man as he interviewed four children ages 4 – 10, and often got the most outrageous answers to some very simply questions. I remember that my mother watched this show every day and laughed robustly at these interviews. I guess I was such a boring kid, so she felt obliged to turn to the tube to hear other kids say funny stuff. She also watched something called “Queen for a Day,” but that is another sermon. Well, I was thinking about the funny things that kids say this week because of a young five year old that I met at the hospital, but more on her in a minute.
I did a search on “House Party,” and one on “Kid’s Say the Darndest Things,” and basically could not find any good stuff from the old show, but instead was directed to book sites where you can buy Linkletter’s books and read these yourself. Linkletter is an amazing 97 years old by the way, and in very good health, as is his wife of 74 years. But not to be deterred, I did find a site that had some funny kid things, and being interested in science I simply want to quote a few about science that I discovered (http://www.rinkworks.com/said/kidscience.shtml), so listen to our children:

• One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes to drag a horse 500 feet in one second
• Some people can tell what time it is by looking at the sun. But I have never been able to make out the numbers

• You can listen to thunder after lightning and tell how close you came to getting hit. If you don’t hear it, you got hit, so never mind
• When people run around and around in circles we say they are crazy. When planets do it we say they are orbiting
• South America has cold summers and hot winters, but somehow they still manage
• Vacuums are nothings. We only mention them to let them know we know they’re there.”
• A blizzard is when it snows sideways
• A monsoon is a French gentleman.
• Most books now say our sun is a star. But it still knows how to change back into a sun in the daytime

• Some oxygen molecules help fires burn, while others help make water, so sometimes it’s brother against brother
• A vibration is a motion that cannot make up its mind which way it wants to go

• Genetics explain why you look like your father, and if you don’t why you should
Well, those are pretty good and funny. Occasionally though, a kid comes out with something more profound than funny. Such as the child who said “When they broke open molecules, they found they were only stuffed with atoms. But when they broke open atoms, they found them stuffed with explosions,” or the kid who said, “Rainbows are just to look at, not to really understand.” Wow. Profundity out of the mouths of babes.
Now back to that five year old. I met a young lady who may have said the most insightful and honest thing anyone has ever said to me in 28 years at the hospital. Her name was Zoie, she was five years old and cute as a button. Unfortunately, I met her on the occasion of her grandfather’s death. I was on call and received a call to Baptist at about 10 pm, saying a man had passed away and that his family was very distraught and they needed me ASAP. I got to the hospital quickly as I was still in town and still in my suit after visiting with friends after the Maundy Thursday Service I attended at First Methodist downtown. While driving to the hospital, I sometimes imagine what I will find when I enter the doors of the place. As you might imagine, in 28 years of disease, disability and death I have seen more than my share. And when the nurse on the phone said the family was extremely distraught I flashbacked to some previous scenarios that were enormously difficult to manage. Scenarios that often featured a number of highly hysterical or volatile family members. However, this would not be one of those kinds of situations. Instead, I found a loving family by the bedside of a man who passed away. One daughter was a hospice and palliative care nurse from another state. It was a sacred time. The family gathered around the bed and held hands while I prayed. It was at the “Amen” that Zoie spoke up, breaking the silence and the soft tears with a very emphatic, “well, that didn’t really help any.” The room burst into laughter, and I said, “Sweetie, you might be absolutely right, it didn’t really change a thing did it.” Her dad shook his head and said, out of the mouth of babes. I told the family that in my years at Baptist I am not sure if I had ever heard such an honest and astute statement. I ask the families permission to use her statement in my sermon, and they were please for me to share this story.
“That really didn’t help any.” You see, even Zoie could see that her grandfather who lived with her for her a couple of years was still dead. The family was still hurting and grieving just as hard after the prayer as before. What did the prayer do? Did it help at all? I simply said to little Zoie, “well, if it didn’t help any I hope it at least didn’t hurt any as well. In reflection, I wonder what help our faith gives us on a practical level. You see, we have a magical view of our faith where we are all supernaturalists or magicians at heart. And the truth, real life doesn’t work that way, even Zoie could see that. Whatever our faith gives us, it often doesn’t fix what we want fixed in our lives. In that sense, it simply doesn’t help us. You see, we who are called Christians like to fix things, fix others, and fix our own lives. That is really all we are about. Fix people’s emotions and fixing their souls. Some even claim to be able to fix relationships and to fix people’s finances and the like.
The truth is, most of us like to fix things, all kinds of things. I take satisfaction in fixing my cars and other broken possessions myself; But I am not alone. What do you like to fix? Maybe your specialty is fixing up relationships; or match making; or solving the world’s problems. Maybe you have ideas about politics or for fixing the economy. Maybe you know what to do about the crime in America. Maybe you know how to solve computer problems or can understand a VCR. I believe that we all wish to fix something at heart. Every new student I have gotten for 28 years at the hospital goes through a “fix it” phase. We sometimes, somehow feel responsible to correct the problems that people bring to us, no matter how difficult they are to fix.
The truth is, that there is plenty in the world that disturbs us. We see heartache, grief, sickness, death, poverty, crime, war, and a host of other concerns that impact us on a day to day basis. We hear of peoples’ hurts, and we hear their cries and sad stories. We shake our heads and wish we could do more. We offer comfort, a listening ear, prayer, and emotional support. Yet, we wish we could do more to ease the pain, to fix the situation. We wonder if we can help any, we feel helpless and out attempts to fix others are often ineffectual.
The central character in today’s lectionary verses of scripture is Mary Magdalene. Mary was evidently there when Jesus was on the cross, and she is the first to arrive on that Easter morning, finding the empty tomb. Not much is known of Mary in scripture. Some have suggested that she is the same as Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus who anointed Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume. This is only conjecture, however. Some have suggested that she was a prostitute, again only a guess. What is known is that she had seven devils cast out of her in during Jesus ministry, she was with Jesus mother at the cross, she was the last to leave him, and she was the first to see the empty tomb. Seeing the risen Christ was not enough, but when he called her name, hearing became believing. She quickly told the disciples of her seeing the lord. The other thing we know is that Mary was crying at the tomb.
“Why are you crying,” a refrain that echoes twice in these verses. These are words that echo in our own lives with a haunting realism as we face life on a day to day basis. I don’t have to affirm the obvious to you, but life is difficult. It is hard. It is not fair. There is someone every single day who was on top of the world yesterday who has the world turn on top of them today. There is much that needs fixing if we only knew how. Mary needed help and the words she was hearing really didn’t help any—at least at first.
Scott Peck began a best-selling book with a sentence only three words long: Life is difficult. Life starts difficult, when we are forcibly pushed from the warm, soothing womb into the cold, glaring lights only to find ourselves to be turned upside down and smacked. Life ends difficult, when we are struck down with a terminal illness, an acute illness or simply old age. Ands every day in between has some degree of difficulty. We have health concerns, financial concerns, job concerns and relationship concerns. There seems to be more misery than not, more brokeness than wholeness, more unhappy days because life is difficult. Peace and contentment may be the most elusive quantities in the universe.
Very early on in life we learn to soothe our pain. We cry till momma comes and holds us. We suck our thumb or hide under the blanket. We soon discover more socially advanced ways to numb our pain. We get a good grade, make somebody laugh, make friends even the wrong kind at times, we get dressed-upped, fixed-upped, we do what we can to get compliments. We escape through the movies, TV or the Internet, sports or even work or school. We drink colas or beer, pop chocolates, smoke cigarettes. We manufacture adrenaline by watching scary movies, driving fast or engaging in risky behaviors, getting angry or filling our time full of activities. But the BOTTOM LINE is, we still have pain, BECAUSE LIFE IS DIFFICULT!!! There is a lot of pain out there and in here, and there are a lot of broken things and people, it is the human predicament.
I don’t know what Mary Magdalene’s seven devils were, I shutter to guess. But Every day, Every single day, I see people with all kinds of devils. I see brokeness, I have stared it in the face every day in the lives of countless thousand s of people whose names I don’t really remember. I have seen so many people that I have wanted to fix but could not. I have left them only with hurt and myself only with frustration, and I get up and do the exact same thing the next day. And you know what? Zoie hit the nail on the head, I really don’t often help people very much. SO from where I sit the stupidest thing I have ever read I the Bible is in this passage, not once mind you but twice, “WHY ARE YOU CRYING?” I hope it was a rhetorical question but if not, I will tell you why: We cry because we are broken people, and our faith really doesn’t help much. We have only a response of crying when dealing with all of life’s predicaments.
You see, all we can do is cry when life caves in around us and we pray to a seemingly silent God. All we can do is to cry, because life is difficult and we don’t know what else to do or how else to behave. All we can do is cry because we learn in life that there are some things that simply cannot be fixed, that will never be as they were before.
So Mary Magdalene at great risk, in the middle of a great grief finds and empty tomb and she cries. The two angels ask her why she is crying, and then the resurrected Christ asked her why she was crying. She explained it was because Jesus was dead, and to make matters worse, she had feared that his grave had been robbed. But with one word, her name, “MARY,” her tears melted to unbelievable joy.
Whatever else the cross, that ultimate expression of brokeness, that ultimate injustice, the ultimate proof that life is difficult meant it meant this: Whatever is broken can be fixed. Because Jesus died sure, but more importantly, because he was raised to life, Whatever is broken can be fixed. There is help for the helpless. Paul said it best in Romans 5:10
“If we are reconciled to God through the death of Christ, how much more then being reconciled, are we saved by His life!” It was his death that set us straight with God, but it is his life that fixes us. We are reconciled to God by his death, that is, we are made right in God’s sight by his death. But it is by his life that we are continually being saved (present continuous action).
It has been said that Christians are optimistic about the future, the pie-in- the- sky-bye-and-bye theory, and pessimistic about the present life because our faith make no difference in the here and now. Albert Camus, a famous historian and atheist, said the only difference between him and Christians was that he was optimistic about the present life and pessimistic about the future. Christ death takes care of the pie-in-the-sky-bye-and-bye part of it. But because of the empty tomb, and because we are being constantly saved by his life we can be optimistic about the present. Because of the empty tomb, the living Christ lives in us. Because of the empty tomb we have hope not only for tomorrow but especially for today. Because of the empty tomb, Whatever is broken can be fixed, because quite simply and quite profoundly, we are being saved by his life.
Because of the empty tomb, sadness is no longer a part of human destiny. Its sting will not always have power over us. Granted, we only see in part thru a glass dimly, but because of the empty tomb Whatever is broken can be fixed!!
The empty tomb helps us to make sense of a sometimes senseless world. But the empty tomb is only part of what Mary found. Here tears were turned to joy when Jesus called her by name, and then and only then she saw the Lord. Because of the empty tomb, he is still calling us by name, and many of us have indeed seen the Lord. And it is a vision that will forever change us. A vision that helps us endure the hardest hardships of life; a vision that helps us to make sense of all that happens in life. A vision that gives us hope. And it does not ultimately matter if you have seven devils or seven times seventy, if you have seen the Lord, because that is the good news that has changed the world.
You see here is what I know what life has beat into me for years and for what Zoie reminds me of and that is this: I can’t fix things or people very well. I can’t fix Stan Wilson, I can’t fix you, I can’t fix anything about Providence Baptist Church. I can’t heal the sick and I can’t change the world. But because of the empty tomb, I know that there is one who can! So today, the best good news ever, the central message of Christianity, the reason to go on, the reason to have hope, the reason that I still go to work every single day and dare pray in hopeless situations anyway, the reason to risk life is the reason that helps us to answer the question that Jesus asks. And the dumbest question I have ever heard becomes the sharpest test at the core of my faith. “Why are you crying?” For you see, the risen Christ calls us by name and says to us, Whatever is broken can indeed be fixed. And when we grasp that, there your tears will take second stage. Because the ultimate example of brokeness has just been fixed, been raised from the dead the firstfruits of all of us who will do likewise. Whatever is broken can indeed be fixed and it does matter, it does help more than we can ever understand. We echo this morning with the songwriter Henry Lyte, “Abide with me; fast falls the eventide; the darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide. When other helpers fail and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, O abide with me.” And on this resurrection morning, that is now possible, because Jesus Christ has risen from the dead just as he said, and is alive for evermore, fixing the broken, and helping the helpless, and that my friends is the Good News. Thanks be to God! Amen.