In the name of the Risen Lord. Amen.
Alleluia,
Christ is risen! I can’t tell you all how much I miss hearing “The Lord is
risen indeed. Alleluia!” come echoing back at me. I miss you all. I miss the sundresses
and the seersucker suits, the kids hopped up sugar from Easter candy, the
college students returning home, having a church full of flowers, brass
instruments, and most importantly – you. This is an Easter unlike any other in
Church history, as the vast majority of responsible Christians around the world
are not in church this morning. And that has to be acknowledged. I won’t pretend
that this Easter is normal, because I never want empty churches to be the norm.
The women at the tomb experienced both fear and joy, and so we have permission
to feel both of those as well. We can be afraid of the Coronavirus while still
being joyful that this is Easter.
It
strikes me that Easter was made exactly for moments such as this one. After
Jesus’ crucifixion on Good Friday, the disciples were scared, they were
uncertain of what comes next, they isolated themselves out of fear. The
absurdity of the Resurrection is what makes it so amazing, and powerful, and
beautiful. As Jesus was on the Cross, no one said, “Oh, don’t worry about all
this, he’ll be back in three days.” The Resurrection was completely unexpected
and unimaginable. This pandemic is also an absurd and unimaginable situation
where we are filled with fear, uncertainty, and are locked away from one
another. And just as it was Good News on that morning in Jerusalem, Easter is the Good News we need today. Though there is a pandemic that has
disrupted every aspect of our society, it is no less true that Jesus Christ is
risen today. That’s one thing this pandemic can’t stop – the Easter
proclamation of Alleluia, Christ is risen!
The
message of Easter as we see it in Matthew this morning is “He is not here.” The
angel invites the two Marys to come and see where he lay, but he is not there.
Easter is not a celebration of the empty tomb, it’s the celebration of the
living Christ. That’s why the empty tomb isn’t the symbol of Christianity. As
glorious as the empty tomb is, our faith is not built upon an empty and cold
tomb. It is about a living, loving, liberating Jesus who is on the move even
today. Our faith is not about where Jesus used to be, it is about where he now
is.
The
angel tells the women to go and preach the Good News for the very first time to
the disciples – “tell them that Jesus has been raised, and more than that, he’s
going on ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” This is Good News of
Easter, not that the women couldn’t find Jesus because the tomb was empty,
rather the Good News is that Jesus has gone to meet us in the places of our
lives and there we will see him. Galilee is where the disciples were from, it
was their home, it was the familiar. And that’s exactly where the angel says
Jesus will meet us.
Jesus
will meet us where we are. You don’t have to spend hours in prayer, as wonderful
as that might be, to find Jesus. You don’t have to go on a pilgrimage to a holy
site to encounter Jesus. You don’t have to wait until death to meet Jesus. You don’t
even have to be able to make it to church on Easter Sunday to see Jesus. No,
Jesus has gone ahead of you to your Galilee, to the places where we are.
And
the way to know that we’ve seen Jesus is when we encounter his saving and
redeeming Resurrection life. There were guards at the tomb that Easter morning.
There was a concern that people would try to steal Jesus’ body and claim that
he was raised from the dead. On that Easter morning, the whole earth quaked
with the glad news of the Resurrection and the angel rolled back the stone and
sat on it. The guards, who very much were alive, saw this all and became as
dead men. While at the same time, Jesus, who was very much dead after his
crucifixion, is raised to new life. The Resurrection is about transformation of
death into life.
It’s
spring, and so creation herself reminds us of this as new life surrounds us. As
we hear in that great Easter hymn, “Now the green blade riseth, from the buried
grain… Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.” We see things that
are dead coming to new life every time forgiveness is offered and
reconciliation takes place, and Jesus is there. We see it when medical
professionals put their own health at risk to treat those with the Coronavirus,
and Jesus is there. We see it when someone who has struggled with addiction is living
in sobriety, and Jesus is there. We see it even at the grave, when we make our
song of “Alleluia,” and Jesus is there. This is the Good News of Easter and our
faith, that Jesus is not in the tomb, he has gone on ahead to meet us where we
are.
The
important thing to bear in mind about Easter is that it is the beginning of something,
not the conclusion. This is why the angel tells the women to go to Galilee to
see Jesus. Of course, Easter is rooted in the events of that first Easter
morning, but we’re not here to tell stories about something amazing happened back
then. Easter is about Resurrection in the present tense. That invitation from
the angel to come and see is still valid for us.
Over
the past few months, we’ve had to be thinking about a death a lot more often
than we used to, which is why this Easter message that death has been defeated is
so vital right now. What we’re going through is something that we thought
happened over there or in ages past, but we’re dealing with a pandemic right now
where people are dying – young and old, rich and poor, this virus doesn’t make
a distinction. All of those things we had done to ignore death or pretend that
it wasn’t an everyday possibility have been demolished.
And
with that specter of death around us, many of us are having to wrestle with the
inevitability of the grave. What makes death so challenging is that it seems
like a judgment – how much did you accomplish before you succumbed? What will
you be remembered for? What is your legacy? Those are pretty intense questions.
But what Easter has to say to us is that just as death was not the end of the
story for Jesus, it is not the end for us either. In a great hymn, St. Francis
writes, “And even you, most gentle death, waiting to hush our final breath, O
praise him, Alleluia! You lead back home the child of God, for Christ our Lord
that way has trod.” What gives Francis such boldness to call death “gentle” is
the fact that Jesus is not in the tomb, he is alive. One poet said, “I will
die, but that is all I will do for death.” So even as we are all making our
ways towards the grave, the Resurrection assures us that even though we will
all die, we will always be alive in the love of God in Christ Jesus.
And
notice that this gift of new life doesn’t come with any strings attached to it.
Jesus doesn’t say anything about pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, or
partnering with God to do anything, or proving our worthiness to inherit
eternal life with him. No, the gift of Easter is a pure gift of new life for
those of us who are dead. The first word that Jesus speaks to the women is cai,rete
– which means “Rejoice” or “Greetings.” That’s the word that Jesus has for us, “Rejoice
and welcome to this gift of Resurrection life.” Resurrection isn’t something
you earn, it’s something you enjoy by the grace of God.
In
our Burial liturgy, as we are burying our dearly departed, we say that it is
our “sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life” that animates
our faith. My brothers and sisters, because of the Resurrection, our hope is
sure and certain indeed. There are a lot of things right now that we are unsure
of and uncertain about. When will we get back to normal? Will any of our loved
ones died from the Coronavirus? What is this going to do to my retirement
plans? Am I going to be able to pay rent next month? Am I ready to face death? This
pandemic has had a way of making us question a lot of things, it’s making us
rethink our priorities, it’s changing how we see the world.
In
the face of those uncertainties, I want to offer you our sure and certain hope
that is rooted in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Though there is much that
is scaring us, that is confusing us, that is overwhelming us, I want to share the
Good News that is absolutely sure and certain:
·
God loves you and sent his only Son that you
might have abundant life through the Spirit that lives in us.
·
God’s perfect love casts out our fears.
·
Jesus knows your pains and your burdens, and
wants to carry them with you, for his yoke is easy and his burden is light.
·
By the grace of God and Jesus’ loving sacrifice,
your sins are forgiven.
·
No matter the situation, Jesus has gone on ahead
of us and will meet us there.
·
Through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from
the dead, the grave has been conquered; and even though we die, we will live
into eternity with God and all those whom we love but see no longer.
·
And because of all of these things, we can be
sure and certain that all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner
of things shall be well.
You can be sure and certain of these things.
As
we heard St. Paul write in Colossians, “your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
In other words, God is holding you tenderly and gently in those almighty hands
of love. So rejoice in the fact that in Christ, death has already done its worst.
Easter tells us that what lies ahead of us, from this moment onwards, is eternal
life in the grace of God. We are alive in Christ, Alleluia!
