Sermons & Services

Wow, all of this is wonderful. The lilies. The alleluias found by the children. The bells. Peter making the organ boom, and Robinson making the trumpet flare. All of you. My bowtie. The little one I saw in a fun and adorable Easter dress. Yeah, this is Easter, the day of rising, and it’s awesome.

And if Dan can do it on his last Sunday, I can do it on my only Sunday – take selfies. Yeah, this is awesome.

It was, though, a dark road getting here, a difficult story the Gospels tell. The Bible is written from the perspective of those who already know that death has been destroyed. And that confidence is what allows the Biblical writers to be truthful about the darkness, about how difficultly of the whole thing played out.

After the empty tomb, the lens of the resurrection is applied over a pretty dark story. Before the empty tomb, the story starts with fear, and goes on to resistance, misunderstanding, defensiveness, more fear, doubt, organized opposition, betrayal, denial, death, cold, grey body lying in a tomb.

And then, the women see the empty tomb. The angels, say, with some awkward judgment in their tone: “Why are you looking for him here, among the dead? He’s not here, but has risen-up. Which is exactly what he told you would happen.”

After that, the whole dark story looks entirely different. Out of the shadows, the light of Easter is overlaid onto the darkness of the earlier story, and an entirely new story appears. It starts with honesty about fear, but also tells of astounding faith and trust, as Mary says, “Let it be with me according to your will.”

The truth of resistance to Jesus’ message of loving enemies, runs alongside the truth of those who are willing to leave everything and follow him.

The misunderstanding of those in power, born of self-protection, is matched by the clarity of those who have nothing to lose.

The blind see, the lame walk, the rich release their debtors and thus find friends.

The defensiveness of the scribes and chief priests is overshadowed by the vulnerability and generosity of the women who follow Jesus faithfully to the very end.

Jesus’ own doubt, “why have you forsaken me?” is released into trust as he echoes those earlier words of his mother, “Not my will, but yours, come to pass.”

The fear, doubt, organized opposition, betrayal, denial, death, cold, grey body lying in a tomb – all of it – it doesn’t go away, it’s not all denied, this isn’t gaslighting – but it is all told, and untold, and retold, through the reality of the empty tomb, through the divine verdict on it all, “Rise up!”

When you think about Easter, it’s interesting, though, right? Because there are no eye-witness accounts here – this thing that changed the world, this thing that saved the world – no one sees the moment death loses its grip on Jesus, the moment God breathes new and eternal life into his corpse, the moment he opens his eyes and rises-up. No one sees the hand of God roll the stone away from the tomb or sees Jesus emerge from it alive.

As a matter of fact, at first, as light dawns that day, there is nothing but an empty tomb. An empty tomb, which could be explained all sorts of ways: maybe someone else got there even earlier than the women and took the body to bury it properly; maybe the Romans changed their minds and decided not to allow a decent burial for this dangerous so called king, so they came and grabbed his body and tossed him in the common pit along with the two who had been crucified with him, and everybody else they crucified.

An empty tomb didn’t prove anything. The women stood there utterly confused, not because they were confused about whether Jesus was dead – they knew death well and good – but because they were confused about who could have taken the body.

Yeah, it’s an odd story. After he is risen-up, Jesus doesn’t go out to publicly prove he’s risen. He doesn’t stand in the courtyard of the temple with the crowds around and say, “I’m back.” He doesn’t go to Pilate and say, “Dude, you killed me, but here I am.” And he doesn’t go to Pilate’s boss, to everyone’s boss, to Rome and say to Caesar, “Death? Crucifixion? Is that all you got?”

No, with God having just conquered the unconquerable reality of death, having just proven once and for all that violence can be overcome with love, having shown that you can fight the system and win, having just changed the course of human history, having just dethroned them, and proven all authorities and powers and rules impotent, having just united humankind with God, Jesus appears…to a small group of women. He showed up to those who dared to follow him, and the women were the ones who followed him to the end. They were the only ones who actually stuck with him.

The woman didn’t spend the final night of Jesus’ life arguing about which of them was the greatest. The women didn’t threaten to undermine Jesus’ whole mission by drawing swords to fight off the Romans. The women didn’t deny him three times before the rooster crowed.

The women were the ones who dared to care for the body of a man who had just been executed as an enemy of the state, a man apparently more threatening to Rome than one who attempted to overthrow the government. The women publicly displayed their connection to a man with whom anyone concerned about their own safety should not be associated. Yes, the women are the first ones to see the stone rolled away, to see the empty tomb, to be told Jesus is not among the dead, for God has said, rise up!

Now I didn’t read the whole post-resurrection story this morning. The rest of Luke and the other gospels tell us that the women were not just the first disciples to see the stone rolled away, the body gone, and hear the angels from heaven, but Mary Magdalene at least was also the first to see the revivified Lord. Just outside the tomb, she looks right at him, and she hears his voice. But dead men don’t talk, so she doesn’t understand who he is. Then, he speaks her name, Mary, and she becomes the first human being to know that everything has changed, the first to witness the divine verdict on death, the first to grasp that the dark story of the world can be untold and retold anew. This woman becomes the first to rise up.

Later on that same day, Jesus walks with two other disciples on the road to Emmaus. They also look right at him and hear his voice, but dead men walk with you along the road, so they don’t understand who he is. Then, he breaks bread and blesses it, and they join Mary in knowing that nothing will ever be the same. They join Mary and are given the grace to rise up.

In the middle of that night, with his extended group of followers huddled fearfully behind locked doors, Jesus appears among them. They look right at him, but dead men don’t appear among you, so they think it’s a ghost. But he shows them the signs of his execution, and they join Mary, Joanna, Salome, the other Mary, the rest of the women, and the two other disciples, in knowing that it ain’t over. They join them all and are given the grace to rise up.

What these first few days after the resurrection show us is not just that Jesus came back, but that he came back for us. After the divine verdict, “Rise up!”, Jesus doesn’t go to the crowds in the Temple, or to Pilate, or to Caesar. He’s already subverted their power from below – robbing them of the fear and hopelessness on which their power was based.

No, rather he came back to and for those who dared follow him. A few women, a couple of guys, a gathering of fishermen, at least one tax collector, the rest probably field workers. His followers sure didn’t account for much, but they did follow him.

Not that all of them were very good at it, of course. Peter’s denials and his tears of shame still haunts us. Judas’ betrayal is forever part of the story. They all forsook him and fled. Our less dramatic, but no less tragic denials, are also forever part of the story. No, those original 12 men might not have been very good at following him, and we may not be today, but he came back, for us.

In fact, the deep and abiding reality of Easter is even more personal. It is that God came back for you. God said, “Rise up!” for you. And, to you. That’s right. God says to you, rise up!

God says to us, rise up!

As the light of the resurrection shines upon the story of Jesus and transforms it from fear to astounding faith, from resistance to eagerness, from misunderstanding to clarity, from complacency to generosity, from defensiveness to faithfulness, from doubt to trust, from death to life, that resurrection light also shines upon our lives. When we dare to follow him, there is nothing in our lives that cannot be transformed.

There are some parts of our lives we know we want transformed: grief, loneliness, anxiety, poverty, hardness of heart, compromises we are not proud of. And, more difficultly, there are parts of our lives we are quite happy with and we may not want transformed, even though they need to be: wealth that insulates us from others, a type of justice from which we think we benefit but that actually pulls us all down, acceptance by the folks who seem to matter but who are actually just the current winners in a shell game of social status.

When we dare to follow him, there is no story that cannot be rewritten, nothing in our lives that cannot and will not be transformed when we rise up.

So rise up, people. Rise up!