April 9,2023

Apr 14

Written By Beth Janoski

“What?! No Way!”

Sermon by Rev. Trip Porch

April 9, 2023 Based on John 20: 1-18

There’s a creator on TikTok who has been popping up in my newsfeed algorithm relentlessly lately.

He’s a blue-collar mechanic with a bushy beard. The name of his channel is “What? No way!“

The reason why will become obvious in a moment. [https://www.tiktok.com/@whatnooowaaay]

The whole premise of his channel is that he finds other videos of little hacks and tricks to do with tools in a workshop and films himself reacting to them before going out to try the hack out for himself in his own shop. For instance, you know how when 5-gallon buckets stack on top of each other sometimes they can create a vacuum seal that is so strong no one can pull them apart. Well, this tiktoker found a video of someone simply grabbing the shop air compressor and blowing it at the seam and they separated immediately.

His reaction… “What?! no way!” Hence the name.

He then goes to find two buckets in his shop which have been stuck together for 3 years! He tries it and it works.
“What… no way!”

Easter is a “What?! No way!” Story.

I mean just follow the emotional journey that led Mary Magdalene to this morning. She was there on Palm Sunday as Jesus humbled himself and entered Jerusalem to a crowd shouting of praise… A heightened energy moment of Joy.

She was there when Jesus then went to the temple to flip over the tables and call out the corruption of the people with power. A tense moment for sure, but also a high moment of pride, watching their leader being so bold in confronting their civil and religious authorities.

She was there later when Jesus invited them all together to celebrate Passover in an upper room. There Jesus knelt down to wash their feet. They then shared what would become their last meal together, he broke bread and shared his cup, an intimate and meaningful moment, that quickly became overshadowed by shock and fear as she watched the disciples deny him, betray him, and abandon him as he got arrested.

She was there when they tried him and executed him, no doubt the shock, disbelief, and grief she felt would have been incomprehensible. This would have been her lowest moment. I mean, this was not supposed to happen! Her teacher, Her Rabbi, the leader of their movement dead at the hands of the state and all the other disciples, all of her and Jesus’ community and friends …run away.

A day of grief, mourning, and sadness passes while the reality sinks in that Jesus is gone, and with him all that he stood for, all that he hoped to accomplish… And then early in the morning, she goes to the tomb before sunrise, maybe to say her final farewell. But she arrives and the stone is rolled away. Mary panics thinking that something terrible has happened and she runs away to get two of the disciples to help figure out what has gone wrong. They all rush back to the tomb, and they see that the stone isn’t just rolled away but his body is gone and the linens that covered him folded up in his place. The two disciples struggle to understand and decide to go back to where they are staying, but Mary stays behind outside the tomb, crying, the result of the emotional roller coaster of fear and uncertainty she has been on.

It is here in this desperate and low place that messengers appear to her, asking her why she is crying. through her tears She explains all that she assumes has, and then the one she thought was a gardener says her name. “Mary”

All of the sudden Mary must have felt “What?! No way!”

She recognizes him immediately, and though she doesn’t fully understand what has happened, she knows something incredible has taken place. And I mean that by its original literal definition, something so profound that it is incredible. Not believable. Something that should not be possible and yet the evidence stands right before her. “What?! No way!”

I experienced a “What?! No Way!” moment earlier this week. It was something that I never thought was even possible until I saw it with my own eyes.

Almost two years ago our church said yes to housing refugees from Afghanistan in one of our houses. As the pastor of this church, I met them each, one by one and learned their stories, and on that first day I met Faridullah Sahil the first words out of his mouth were… Sir, I know sometimes Leaders of faith communities are able to help in immigration situations, I was separated from my wife Wagma and our four children at the Kabul Airport. I was able to get out but they are still in Afghanistan, Please sir they are in danger, is there anything you can do to help?”

I sensed his desperation, but in the back of my mind I had echoing the training I just attended about welcoming refugees and how reuniting families in refugee crisis can take up to ten years if it will ever happen at all. In other words, I felt like his situation was hopeless and that our role would be to walk alongside this man in support, come what may. To help him hold on to hope even if this situation as entirely hopeless. And I told him as much… “I don’t know much of anything about international immigration law, I don’t know what I can do but I can say that you are not alone in this, we are here for you, and we will do whatever we can to help you.”

The next months of this family’s life brought impossible ups and downs in ways I could never capture in a sermon. Just about everything that could go wrong did. His family fled the country to neighboring Pakistan going on an arduous journey through the mountains. They were confronted again and again by Taliban soldiers who were challenging them for traveling without a male escort, but they made it across the border. We thought this might be a path for them to eventually get to America but after a few months their visa’s expired and they had to go back to Afghanistan where they lived in hiding for almost a year. Sahil wasn’t there in body, but he was there in spirit, journeying with his family through deep sadness and celebrating when things went right.

He never let go of hope, he never let go of the vision of his family safely here with him at last. And all the while he kept fighting for his family from thousands of miles away, working as much as he could to send money back to support them there, and when he wasn’t working, he spent sleepless night after sleepless night trying to find a possible path to bring them here.

Sahil would come and talk with me each time he thought he had a new path for their arrival, and all the while I’d be supportive, but in the back of my head I felt like this was impossible. Even when he had all of the paperwork for his family approved by the state department, I still felt like something would go wrong. And it did, with everything formally ready for his family to leave Afghanistan we still had to wait more than 6 months for them to schedule a flight for his family. Even after we were able to get in touch with Sherrod Brown’s office and had help from the white houses’ immigration team to schedule their flight out, I still felt like there would be no way this could actually happen.

It wasn’t until Monday night at midnight when I saw the incredible sight of his wife and his four kids turning the corner at their gate and running down the hall at terminal B in the Columbus Airport that I believed the incredible thing that was happening right before my eyes…. “What?! No Way?”

Friends today is not the day that we need to try and understand everything perfectly well. Today is not the day for clear answers, or even asking questions, we’ll get there soon. Today is a day that we bear witness to the incredible. Which, when we see it for ourselves, with our own eyes, we cannot help but hold on to hope.

Sisters and Brothers, May we watch with Mary with this day.

May we see God emptying tombs of suffering and death, and believe.

And when the risen Christ appears to us and calls out our name, may we who have seen, go out and tell.

Friends, alleluia, Christ is risen,

He is risen indeed.

WE GATHER IN AWE AND PRAISE

PRELUDE Sinfonia Henry Purcell arr. S. Drummond Wolff

Brass Quartet and Organ

Good Christian Friends, Rejoice and Sing! arr. Phillip M. Young

The Sanctuary Bells

Jesus Is Risen Today/Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee arr. Sunghwan Kim

INTROIT i thank You God Lloyd Pfautsch

WELCOME Rev. Trip Porch

*CALL TO WORSHIP