When the women who were the first to discover the resurrection (according to Mark) were told by the young man/angel at the tomb, “He has risen!” they fled, “trembling and bewildered.” To receive the good news of the Holy we might need, first, to be humbled in our humanity.
“So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them. And they said nothing, for they were afraid.”
That’s the way the passage from Mark is rendered in our hymnal.
In the New International Version, “terror and amazement” is translated as “Trembling and Bewildered”
“Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb.”
That’s how a lot of us feel these days.
Trembling and Bewildered
Right?
I go back and forth between the two
I tremble for myself and my loved ones
The virus
The economy
And when I’m not trembling, I’m bewildered
Bewildered by the sudden change in everything I knew before
Bewildered by what may come in the months ahead.
REMEMBER
The first response to the first Easter from the first women who discovered the resurrection
was not Joyous singing
But fear and confusion
Trembling and Bewildered
These dual feelings remind me of a phrase I learned in seminary
A phrase that theologians use to describe the feeling of encountering the holy:
Mysterium Tremendum and Fascinans
The mystery that frightens and fascinates.
The phrase is most associated with Rudolf Otto
a German Lutheran theologian from the late 19th century and early 20th century
Rudolf Otto described “the holy”
As something “entirely other”
The holy is entirely unlike any existing thing
And therefore it’s impossible to explain the holy, rationally
No analogy works
Because the holy isn’t like anything else
And therefore the only way to experience the holy
Is to experience it directly for yourself.
Emerson or the Buddha would have said the same thing
Rudolf Otto writes:
“The feeling of it may at times come sweeping like a gentle tide pervading the mind with a tranquil mood of deepest worship. It may pass over into a more set and lasting attitude of the soul, continuing, as it were, thrillingly vibrant and resonant, until at last it dies away and the soul resumes its “profane,” non-religious mood of everyday experience.”
REMEMBER
The holy is “entirely other”
And therefore we encounter it as mysterium tremendum et fascinans
The mystery that frightens and fascinates
Trembling and Bewildered
I’ve been thinking how this pandemic we’re experiencing feels “entirely other”
In the way Otto describes it
Analogies don’t exactly work:
It’s a little like the AIDS crisis – but not exactly
It’s like 9/11
Or it’s like, “our Pearl Harbor”
But it’s not really like anything in human experience
Except maybe going back to 1918
Or even earlier plagues
And the difference between 1918 and now
Is that over the course of the last century
Humans have come to believe so completely
In our human power
And our human intelligence
And maybe,
For many of us,
For the first time
Today, we’re feeling a challenge to our human power
And recognizing the limits of our intelligence
Trembling and Bewildered
Is a new feeling for some of us
And maybe that’s a good thing
The virus is not trying to teach us a lesson
But we might learn a lesson, anyway
A lesson of humility
A lesson of the enduring power of nature
greater than human power
A lesson of the limits of human nature
Our vulnerability
Our mortality
That there will forever be mysteries beyond our knowledge.
The pandemic is evoking the same set of feelings
That Otto says is evoked by experiencing the holy
Or that Mark says the resurrection evoked in the women at the empty tomb
Mysterium tremendum et fascinans
The mystery that terrifies and fascinates
Trembling and Bewildered
REMEMBER
Maybe it’s a good thing to feel trembling and bewildered
A little bit
For a little time
Because…
The basis of all spirituality
Is the recognition of
“A something greater than ourselves”
And so,
Maybe this feeling,
as frightening and confusing as it is
is the beginning of a journey
To a deeper, more healthy spirituality
From an arrogant and false picture of human power and knowledge
To a more balanced,
Realistic
And respectful
View of nature and human nature
When the women left the empty tomb
Trembling and bewildered.
They ran back to their friends
And they began to spread the word
They began a journey that started
“Trembling and bewildered”
But led, for Jesus’ followers,
To a deeper experience of the holy
Than they could have imagined
And eventually,
To the joyous singing of Easter
So…
On this Easter Sunday
Whether you are sitting trembling and bewildered
Or bursting with joy and music in your heart
Perhaps, in you
A new experience is rising to life
A deeper spirituality
A necessary humility
A returning delight in the mysteries of existence
A respect for the enduring power of nature
And a frank acceptance of human finitude
That leads to greater compassion, generosity and love
May it be so.