Year C
Luke 24:1-12
The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn
Celebration News!
Happy Easter! The Lord has risen! Jesus is alive! What joy this news brings us. The Risen Lord is with us and we who have journeyed with Jesus not only during this past Lenten season but our whole lives, know that this journey with Jesus doesn’t end. Nothing can end this journey with the risen Lord, not even death. For on Easter we hear once again the news that is almost too good to be true-God raised Jesus from the dead and everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins and when the inevitable fact of life, death comes they are risen to life with God forever. Nothing can take us away from the presence and love of God that is ours through Jesus Christ. It is a day of great celebration. Yet, not everyone is feeling this joy or feels like celebrating.
There is a story roaming around about a little boy who was not exactly happy about going to church on Easter Sunday morning…I’m sure some of you parents can you relate? His shoes were too tight, his tie pinched his neck, and the weather was just too beautiful to be cooped up inside. As he sulked in the back seat, his parents heard him mutter, “I don’t know why we have to go to church on Easter anyway; they keep telling the same old story and it always comes out the same in the end.” Truer words were never said. We know the story well. Each of the gospels has different details but they all agree that the women, who remained with Jesus to the end, arrived first at the tomb and were startled to find it empty and to hear, “He is risen.”
Luke tells us they run back to tell the disciples and no one is quite sure what to make of this news at the moment. They can hardly believe it. It would be hard to believe. When the heavenly messengers first announce the news of Jesus’ resurrection, no one says, ‘Praise God” or “I knew it! Not one, at first believes the news and some still find it difficult to believe. I mean we know a lot more about the tragedies, the crucifixions in our world than we do about resurrection. Of all the mysteries our faith invites us to believe, the Resurrection is by far the most astonishing because it completely shatters everything with which we make sense of our world. What makes sense to us is the grief of Good Friday.
We can definitely relate with the women that first Easter morning as they made their way to the tomb feeling hopeless and depressed. Their friend murdered. Their hopes dashed. Their dreams crushed. How hopeless and grieved the followers of Jesus must have been in the days immediately following that first Good Friday. They were so depressed that when they received the good news that Jesus was alive, only Peter, Luke tells us decides to go to the tomb to see for himself hoping that what the women have claimed is true. I’m sure he must have spent the days after Jesus’ death in agony, revisiting in his mind the scene in the high priest’s courtyard when he heard the cock crow each time he denied knowing Jesus. It took courage for the women to tell the story to the disciples and courage for Peter to dare to hope that it is true.
Author Diana Butler Bass in her book, Christianity after Religion, tells this story. A diverse group of folks are sitting around a table during the break at some big meeting. There are clergy and laypeople, college and seminary students, denominational officials and a bishop, all having coffee and chatting. The conversation turns to Easter which is just a few weeks away for them. As they discuss the meaning, and meanings of the resurrection a college student asks the bishop, somewhat defiantly, “Bishop, do you really, honestly believe in the resurrection?” the bishop thinks for a moment and then answers, “I have to. I’ve seen it too many times not to believe in it.”
I feel the same way…I have to believe in the resurrection because I’ve seen it too many times in my own life and in others. I’ve seen the Lord’s presence with me in good and not so good times. I’ve known the Lord’s healing touch and on those I love and on many of you. And I believe what the scriptures testify to that Jesus died and God resurrected him. It’s even recorded in the history books. Nothing is impossible with God…right? If God can raise Jesus, then doesn’t that change everything? Paul tells us that because Christ was raised from the dead, we who believe are made alive in Christ therefore, death, no longer needs to be feared, or anything else for that matter. If God can raise Jesus, than we, like the apostles in Acts have no choice but to tell this incredible life-changing story.
When we tell others that God has raised Jesus from the dead, we confess that salvation for us and for all who hear. We plant seeds and even though the resurrection is beyond us-we cannot create such a miraculous act, we can tell others where we’ve seen the resurrection in our lives, and we can live out of the confidence and courage resurrection brings. The empty tomb forever changes everything. It certainly did for Peter who denied his Lord; Mary and the women who found the courage to go tell the incredible story to unbelieving disciples; and Paul who at first persecuted the early Christians. God used all these people to spread the good news of God’s purposes to save, bless and redeem the world.
If God can work through these imperfect persons, then we can trust God’s promises to use us as well and therefore, we can throw ourselves into the work of helping and loving others. We can do this because of the good news of great joy we hear today. That Christ has died. Christ has risen, and life and death are no longer the same. We are promised eternal life with the one who loved us into being and the one who will love us into eternity. Easter is a gift from God to us and it invites us to take our place with all who have believed in the risen Christ. We have much to celebrate. Happy Easter!