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At Deep Dawn1
Luke 24: 1-12
James S. Lo wry
Lake Murray Presbyterian Church, Chapín, South Carolina
I wonder if while circling the earth in outer space
you can see an arched line
that can only be described as earth’s deep dawn.
I am sure there is such a thing as deep, deep dawn;
but,
except for the eyes of the heart
and the eyes of the mind,
I have never seen such a thing;
nor, I suspect,
has anyone else
unless it is from outer space looking back.
It’s hard to imagine an actual line.
I remember the night on earth Pappy didn’t come home.
That was a night of deep dawn.
Actually,
I can’t be sure what I remember is that night.
What I more likely remember
is being told the story ofthat night so often
it’s as though I remember it.
We were living in Henderson, Kentucky, at the time.
The whole world was at war.
We knew it would happen.
We knew one night Pappy just wouldn’t come home…
no phone call…
no message…
he just wouldn’t come home.
As I said,
I can’t be sure I really remember the night;
but I surely remember the story
and the deep darkness of it.
I was very, very young…only four or five years old.
I do remember the house
and I especially remember its bathtub.
Strange the details childhood memories gather.
The bathtub was on legs
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like the ones at my grandparents’ houses except it was the smallest one I had ever seen. The only way Pappy could get his 6′ 3″ frame in the tub was to lean back and prop his feet in the lavatory that was strategically located at the end of the the tub where my brother and I would each wash one foot. We would tickle him, of course. That was part of the game.
What fun! What devotion… What security; but, then, one night he just didn’t come home. We knew it would happen. We just didn’t know when; but when it happened it meant Pappy had been shipped out. He was a company commander. His company had been shipped out to some undisclosed place… to Europe or Africa or some such far away continent to fight in the second war to end war.
The next morning, Mom packed up the 1941 Plymouth, two-tone blue with the gear shift on the column, and she drove us… two sons and a dog named Penny…. On rationed gasoline, she drove us across several states and a range of mountains to be near family until Pappy came marching home again…
if, at all, Pappy would come marching home again.
By my estimate, though I was too young by far at the time to know what it was, somewhere winding around and across the Great Smoky Mountains, deep dawn set in for my mother.
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Oh, we only traveled in daylight. She promised Pappy that much. Still, deep dawn can happen anytime of day or night. I suspect it was on some pre-interstate winding road that my mother knew the heart and meaning of deep, deep dawn.
Deep dawn is that indefinable time between darkness and light… that time when the promise in which you believe is true; or the promise in which you believe is a lie.
If everything you believe in is true, then there is hope. If everything you believe in is a lie, then there is no hope.
At just that moment of clarity, according to the messengers of God, what you must do is remember what Jesus taught you.
Interesting, is it not, that it was women who came to the tomb at deep dawn. It may be a gift given mostly to women… this being able to see at the moment of deep dawn; ν or maybe it is a gift given also to that within men that is feminine; or maybe we simply have to trust the women in our lives to help us get it right.
All the gospel writers agree it was women. They disagree on the names and number; but they all agree it was women:
For John it was Mary of Magdela alone. For Matthew it was Mary of Magdela and another woman named Mary. For Mark
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it was Mary of Magdela, Mary the mother of James and Solóme. For Luke it was Mary of Magdela, Mary the mother of James and Joanna plus some other unnamed women;
only, for some reason, Luke didn’t name any of the women until late in the story. Each likely had a reason for remembering the women they named and when they named them.
The one on whom they all agree, of course, is Mary of Magdela. Mary Magdalene, you may remember, was the seven-demon woman. Tradition has it that she was a prostitute; but there’s not one ounce of biblical witness to a shred of truth to such a myth. What we know is that she was disturbed… severely disturbed… pathologically disturbed; and she was made calm and sound by the power of her belief in the grace and truth of Jesus. For each of the gospel writers, it seems to have worked like this:
If the grace and truth of Jesus can bring hope and wholeness to Mary of Magdela, the grace and truth of Jesus can bring hope and wholeness to anyone.
I wonder if my mother felt possessed of seven demons as she wound across and around the mountains with her two sons and their dog named Penny on the morning after Pappy couldn’t come home.
On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdela and the other women went in the tomb with spices prepared to ward off death’s indignity.
Only Luke described the moment
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as being at deep dawn.2
John says Mary came early. Matthew says it was toward dawn. Mark says it was very early. Only Luke says it happened at deep dawn.
Even for Luke most translators render the phrase early dawn; but, for Luke, the poet, and for Luke, the believer, the phrase really is deep dawn. Maybe the translators think there are not enough poets and deep believers among us to understand when deep dawn is.
Perhaps from outer space you can see the arched line that separates earth’s daylight and darkness. I can tell you, however, as one who regularly haunts the early morning hours right here on earth,from earth, the line between daylight and darkness is not a line you can actually see. All you can say is that, for those who have eyes to see, at deep, deep dawn light begins to happen….
Maybe on earth, it is not a line everyone can see; but it is a time everyone knows:
Deep dawn, for example, is that moment just after the doctor comes in and says it’s cancer… and then says these are the things she can do; but she can make no promises.
At that moment, everything you have been taught to believe about hope is true or it is alie…
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either you believe there is hope or you believe there is nothing but disease.
At that moment, you must remember what Jesus taught you.
Deep dawn is that moment just after you hang up the phone and you have to go the police station to pick up your son or your daughter.
At that moment, you believe there is hope for a new beginning like Jesus taught; or you believe there is nothing but angry rebellion and angry retribution.
Deep dawn is that thin-line moment when the authorities finally let you pass and you first stand in the debris of the twin-tower symbol of wealth’s shallow hope or in the debris the five-sided symbol of wishful security with the relics of shallow hope and wishful security buried with family mementos and body parts.
At that moment, you believe there really will be peace on earth as the angels promised when they announced the birth of Jesus or you believe there is nothing but an angry god winking at terror’s destruction.
According to Luke, on the first day of the week, when the women, led by the Magdalene, went to the tomb and didn’t find a body, all it did was leave them perplexed.
An empty tomb proves nothing. An empty tomb means everything; but an empty tomb proves nothing. What the empty tomb means can only be known by truth known to faith… by the truth born of the God of belief.
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According to Luke, when the women found the tomb empty and were standing there perplexed, the angels… or whatever the men in white might have been… the angels did not say to the women:
“See the tomb is empty; and that proves Jesus is risen.”
What the men in white said to the women was this:
“Remember what he taught you… remembering what he taught you is what will help you believe your Jesus is alive.”
It happened at deep, deep dawn….
Like at that moment just after we read in the paper or heard on the news there is some faint shadow of a prospect of peace on one front and we are reminded of how tentative peace on earth really is… of how peace in Northern Ireland or peace in New York City or peace in our town or peace in any known family room is dependent on people a lot like you and me.
Today we must remember how Jesus taught us the meek really will, at last, inherit the earth. We do believe that, don’t we? Today we must remember how Jesus taught us the peacemakers really are the children of God. We do believe that, don’t we? Today we must remember
that the ones who stand for what is right will be blessed.
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We do believe that, shouldn ‘t we?
It all happened at deep dawn on Easter morn.
Like that moment just after some wild and disheveled person gets out of a beat-up car full of dirty children and meets you in the parking lot after worship to ask for a hand out.
Remember just then how Jesus taught us faith really can cast out demons which in the language of the twenty-first century is the same as restoring calm… calm and its partner hope. In most cases giving money in the parking lot won’t help and it could even do harm, but remember just then how Jesus taught us that feeding the hungry really is the same as feeding Jesus; and working together with other people of faith, we really can make a difference… we really do make a difference. When you see the dirty children in the beat-up car, at least remember how Jesus taught us that of such is the Kingdom of God.
It always happens at deep dawn.
Deep dawn that moment just after the news is bad like when one parent comes home and says to the other I don’t love you any more… or when someone says I am powerless over my addiction… or when the boss says your job has been phased out….
Just then you must remember
“Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest…” “I am with you always even to the close of the age…” “This is my body broken for you…”
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then you will know there is hope that will not let you go.
Perhaps you’ve heard me say it before, and you’ll likely hear me say it again, but it is nevertheless still true:
I do not know anyone who first believed Jesus rose from the dead and then believed in Jesus. Everyone I know who believes Jesus rose from the dead, first believed in Jesus.
Like my mother on the morning after the night my Pappy couldn’t come home:
To know hope, she had first to remember what she had been taught, though I suspect, for her, what she had been taught was so much a part of her she could not possibly have forgotten.
If you long for hope that will not let you go… If you want the children to grow up surrounded by kindness born of truth; If you long for the world not to self-destruct, this is the story you must remember and this is the story the church must tell:
Remember how once a long time ago a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. Then remember and tell how Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea; and how he was tempted in the wilderness; and how when he was baptized the heavens opened and God said, “This is my sow…listen to him” and how he took little children on his knee and said, “Of such is the kingdom of God”; and how he taught us to turn the other cheek
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and to love neighbor as self; and how he made sick people well and crazy people sane; and how when the disciples were in trouble he walked to them on water; and how he fed a multitude with five loaves and two fish… never mind that the ones we tell are not apt to believe such wild stories as those just so long as they know the stories so they, too, when the time is right, can remember; and we must remember and we must tell the story of the Prodigal Son and of the Good Samaritan; and the Lost Sheep; and the Invested Talents; and all the rest.
And we must remember and we must tell how he demonstrated that dying for someone else’s sin is the love that will keep the world from self-destructing.3
Do not misunderstand. I don’t think for one minute we should pressure anyone to believe the story. Rather we must be sure we remember and we must be sure the children and others know so they, too, can remember. Belief will come in God’s own time.
In those moments of deep, deep dawn, when you remember what he taught you, you will know… you will believe… you will be sure there is hope so strong not even the grave can contain it.
That hope for us is the truth of Jesus of Nazareth.
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Notes
1 I am grateful more than I can say for the excellent work of Rick Spalding presented in a paper on the
text to the 1998 meeting of the Movable Feast. In particular, I am grateful for his emphasis on the translation of the text that resulted in the title of this sermon. 2 Ibid.
3 This summary of Luke’s Gospel is contained in several of my earlier sermons.
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