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A question for you this Easter Day, something to keep in the back of your mind during the sermon this morning: Has there ever been a time in your life when you felt invisible? 

It was a little over a year ago now. I was in my office talking to HBO, as one does. The TV series, The Last of Us, maybe you’ve heard of it? They filmed at St Clement’s last year. Season 2 episode 1, if you’re wondering. The outside and the inside of St Clement’s gets about 10 minutes of screen time. It’s incredible! 

Before they filmed, some location scouts came through the church to talk to us about the project. I was seated across from one of them one day and he says to me, “We’re not allowed to tell you the name of the show, but before we go any further, we need to tell you something about what we’re planning to film.” 

I said, “Let me stop you right there. I think I know what you’re going to say. If you’re worried that we’re worried about zombies (or zombie-like creatures), we’ve talked about it at Parish Council and it’s okay. Actually, folks here are really excited. We love the show (whatever show it is you’re doing—wink). We love the human stories. We want to support our neighbours in North Van who earn their living in the film industry.”

He said, “Okay; but, it’s not zombies I want to talk to you about.” 

I said, “Well, what is it?”

He says, “There’s a scene—a new year’s dance. It’s set inside the church. There are two women and they share a kiss.”

You know, they tell us about these moments in seminary, when you’re called to defend the faith. So, I took a deep breath. I smoothed down my clericals, and I said, “What I hear you saying is, you’re wondering if my wife and I are available?”

They chose Bella Ramsey and Isabella Merced instead. Catherine O’Hara (the Canadian actress of Schitt’s Creek and Best in Show fame) sat right over there!

This episode from The Last of Us—it aired Palm Sunday. We’ve had a few things going on this week, but I’ve been totally caught up in the show—namely the interest from the public. A lot of the engagement is from young people who played the video game—a lot of LGBTQ youth who haven’t necessarily grown up in a world where you’d put church and two women kissing in the same sentence, let alone the same scene.

Then, there is the wider engagement from folks of all ages, many different walks of life, who are drawn to the show and to the episode that was filmed here in the church because of what it represents. It represents the act of making visible the invisible, of being seen in a space where you’ve felt unseen, of saying aloud those things we sometimes keep quiet about ourselves. 

In my job as a priest, I hear regularly from folks who feel invisible: folks who live with addictions, folks who are closeted, folks who live with regret or resentment (who doesn’t?), folks who carry a lot of secrets, folks who just have a lot going on in life, whatever it is. 

If we were to talk about it in terms of the Easter story, it’s feeling as if you’ve been buried in these tombs—sometimes of our own making, sometimes not—and wishing that someone, or, some group of people, would one day come and find that actually you’re no longer there, that you’ve stepped out from your tomb and are seeing and being seen in the light of day.

This is really what’s at the heart of the Easter story. You’ve got this group of women whose job it is in the first century ancient world to take care of the deceased. They go, sometimes day in and day out, and make sure the bodies of their loved ones are anointed with spices and oils, so people can come and visit their dead.

We can imagine, maybe, that Jesus’ death is  particularly difficult for these women. Jesus represented to them a leader pointing to a different way, a way other than the political regime they lived under, a religion different from the one the authorities or heck, even their parents were peddling at the time. Jesus was this Way that pointed to liberation, liberation for women and men, liberation for children, liberation for people who lived on the margins of society in a world desperate to be freed from all things which turn us from the love of God. 

But, now their saviour is dead and lying in a grave, exactly where you’d expect to find him. I mean, he was found guilty of standing with the poor and powerless and claiming to be Almighty God while he did it. So, when the women go to the tomb and see that Jesus isn’t there, they encounter invisibility of a different kind. The kind where you’re expecting to find someone where you’ve always found them, and instead you find that they’ve disappeared.

A few years ago now, a friend and I were out for lunch when a young man came and sat down at our table. He just sort of dropped down and said, “Hello!” 

We were totally puzzled. We said, “Hi, there?”

He said, “It’s me. George Isaac.” 

Our jaws hit the floor. George Isaac was this kid we’d known when we were in college and working at a youth centre. At the time, he was living close to the street. He was queer. Because of their religious views, his foster parents had kicked him out. He was using just a whole litany of substances—you name it, he was on it. 

Here George was, 30 pounds heavier, meat on his bones, big bright smile—confident. He went on to tell us that he’d gotten clean. A place in supportive housing had opened up. He’d reconnected with his birth mum, found a church where he was accepted (he was a reader for crying out loud!), and his foster parents had even walked him down the aisle at his wedding. 

We couldn’t believe it. It was like the George we knew back then had disappeared before our eyes and we were seeing him now in a life we never imagined for him.

Feeling invisible at some point in your life is a universal human experience. And, the resurrected Jesus gives us an opportunity to encounter invisibility of a different kind: the kind where people don’t see you, don’t recognize you because you’ve walked out of your tomb and left your grave clothes behind. The kind where people don’t find you where they were expecting to find you because you’ve moved on to something better, because you’ve risen from death to life. 

So let it be.