It Was Open!

Mark 16: 1-8
"The tomb of Christ was not empty. It was open! It remains for us an open invitation."
-John Chryssavgis, “Light Through Darkness"
Alleuia! Christ is Risen!
The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!

Like the women who go back to the tomb we come back here every year, year after year after year, expecting to find something, expecting to learn something, expecting to see someone. That someone is Jesus. Instead there is a young man, well a once-young man, in a white robe saying, “Do not be amazed! You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified one. He has risen, he is not here….but go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you.” The tomb is empty! Or, is it open?

Alleuia! Christ is Risen!
The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!

I reckon it would be like driving all the way home, pulling into the driveway, only to find your entire house is gone! Not burned to the ground. Not blown apart by a tornado. Not pieces of it strewn all over the yard. Nothing is there. The place where it used to lie is empty. Nothing. Gone.

Alleuia! Christ is Risen!
The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!

What the women see is just not right. They have every expectation that like the last time they were there, there was a big stone in front of the little cave-like tomb. They are wondering how they will get it moved out of the way. So, right away things are just not right. The stone is rolled back. The tomb is empty. And who on earth is this young man in a white robe? Let’s face it, in this world things are so, predictable. Dead is dead. Stones are heavy. Strange young men in white do not just appear in places where you expect to see a corpse.
No wonder we are told the women are frightened. If something as certain and inevitable as death is no longer predictable, then the world has changed dramatically. The tomb is empty. Or is it open?

Alleuia! Christ is Risen!
The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!

A character in a Flannery O’Conner short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” The Misfit, puts it this way: “Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead, and He shouldn’t have done it. He has thrown everything off balance.”

We like balance. We crave predictability. We desire order. Yet, think about it. If stones can move without human effort, if Jesus really is raised from the dead, what other assumptions about human wisdom and human folly, human power and human weakness, will likewise be proved false? If the power of death has been overcome, what other kinds of power and domination might also be overthrown? What other kinds of disturbances will God work in the world and in our lives?

Alleuia! Christ is Risen!
The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!

I am not sure we really get the fact that Jesus is loose in the world. He is not present as a lifeless corpse. He is not a dim memory in our past. The young man says he goes ahead of us, into the future to meet us there and claim us as his own, not on our terms but on his! We can no longer act as if he is dead in a tomb. We come here to encounter him as a living reality. There is no escaping him. There is no containing him. There is no forgetting him. It can no longer be business as usual. It can never be business as usual. The resurrection is not a one time event in the past, but rather the promise of more surprising and even disturbing encounters to come. Mark’s Easter narrative is not so much about an empty tomb, as disturbing and surprising as that may be. Mark offers a living Christ who continues to go before us, encounter us and call us to discipleship.

Alleuia! Christ is Risen!
The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!

There’s a word for us: discipleship. That is our word. It is meant to describe us as followers of Christ. And just as Mark’s gospel begins in Galilee, so at the end it directs us back to the beginning of the story in order to take up the way of Christ which is the way of the cross. A costly path it is, but to follow Christ can any cost be too high? The women are frightened at this news since they know better than almost anyone that Jesus’ disciples failed miserably at following the way of the cross.

The struggle of discipleship in Mark’s gospel offers repeated portraits in disobedience: a disobedience which the women themselves adopt as their own. Told to go back and tell the news, instead they run away in fear and trembling, “and they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid.” Because the tomb is empty. Or is it open?

Alleuia! Christ is Risen!
The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!

End of Mark’s gospel, end of story: no one remains faithful to the end: not the disciples, not the women. No one is left to announce the news. There is no one left to call people to discipleship. There is no one left to walk the risky journey of faith. Yet, here is where Mark gets it just right. There is one group remaining to tell the story, to announce the news, to return to Galilee and to walk in the way of Jesus. There is one group of people left to carry the Word into the world, meet Jesus in the context of everyday living and take up the path of discipleship: and that group is those who hear this story! That’s right! That would be you and that would be me.

Alleuia! Christ is Risen!
The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!

"The tomb of Christ was not empty. It was open! It remains for us an open invitation."

This invitation is for us, the people of God, the Body of Christ.
The world needs you, the church needs you, Jesus needs you.

They need your light and your love.

There is something beautiful only you can do
to bear much fruit with your life and your love.

Let Jesus live in you.

Go forward to Him and go forward with Him.
He goes before us to greet us, to claim us, and to thank us for all that we do in His name.

Alleuia! Christ is Risen!
The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!

And so are we! And so are we!