Easter 2025C Resurrection Must Be Hard Work
Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
As we left things on Friday, Joseph of Arimathea asked
Pilate if he could take the body of Jesus to his newly hewn tomb for burial.
Pilate replied, “Why on earth would you pay good money for a brand-new unused
tomb here in prime real estate on the Mount of Olives and waste it on this poor
wandering teacher and would-be king?” Joseph smiled and said, “It’s OK, it’s
only for the weekend!”
Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
Friday evening began the Sabbath, a day of rest. Friday had
been a hectic and tragic day for everyone, and everyone could use some rest.
Evidently, most of all Jesus. But little did he or anyone suspect that he was
not through yet. We talk and sing about his being in his “three-day prison,”
but from Friday evening to Sunday morning is barely 36 hours. And I would
hazard a guess that when Shabbat ended Saturday evening the hard work of
resurrection had begun. God needed to get his only begotten Son back on the playing
field. Jesus still had more to do.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
No one witnessed the actual resurrection. It was just God
and Jesus in that new tomb. Maybe the two men dressed as if they were headed to
South Beach for a night of Disco-Mania in their bright and flashy outfits
helped with the rolling stone. The stone looks like a millstone that just rolls
back and forth, not a massive boulder. Were they men? Were they angels? Will we
ever know?
Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
At any rate, one suspects resurrection is hard work. And even
had one witnessed it, we can be sure trying to describe it would be hard work
as well. Which would explain why none of the four canonical evangelists,
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, even attempt to describe it. To imagine what it
is like one needs to be a poet, like Marie Howe, one time Poet Laureate of New
York who offers this description:
Easter
Two of the fingers on his right
hand
had been broken
so when he poured back into that
hand it surprised
him – it hurt him at first.
And the whole body was too small.
Imagine
the sky trying to fit into a tunnel
carved into a hill.
He came into it two ways:
From the outside, as we step into a
pair of pants.
And from the center – suddenly all
at once.
Then he felt himself awake in the dark alone. [i]
Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
Sounds about right. The Love of God in Christ is like that.
No small tunnel of a tomb carved into stone can contain it. It must have been
surprising, amazing and astonishing, even to him! No doubt it was hard work.
Harder even than spending an afternoon on a Roman Cross. He had repeatedly said
it would happen. But even he who, as evangelist John points out is the source
of all creation, even he cannot possibly know exactly how love’s attraction
really works all of the time. To awaken in the dark, all alone. Alone after being
with all that crowd that had followed him into the City of Peace, Jerusalem,
City of Shalom, which had become in no time at all the City of Brutality and
the Violence under the control of those who somehow believed Love could be
hammered to death. Violins. Violence. Silence.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
By the time Mary Magdalene, her associate Joanna, and Mary
the mother of James arrived with spices to make the appointed preparations for
the body, the hard work of resurrection is done. The rolling stone has been
rolled away. The body is gone. The two men in dazzling outfits announce, “Why
do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.
Remember how he told you all of this three times.” The women are perplexed.
Who wouldn’t be. They run off to tell The Eleven that the tomb is empty. Remember
how he told us that he would rise again!
The men dismiss the women’s witness as an idle tale. “Women’s
trinkets” it says in the Greek. Leave it to a group of men to look at the
wrong end of a miracle every time.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
Peter, the one who denied even knowing Jesus three times,
runs out to see for himself. Indeed, the tomb is empty! The women were right! He
goes home to sort it out. How could this have happened? The women were right!
He had told us this would happen, but how could we imagine that it could really
happen? Storyteller Luke seems to be asking: Are you going to be like the men
who think it’s an idle tale? Or, will you believe like the women do?
Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
Imagine, just for a moment that we are there – as storyteller
Luke means to take us there in the here and now. The last few days have been a
whirlwind, and danger is lurking behind every stone of the city’s historic
walls. We are the women, those first witnesses. What do we bring to the tomb?
What do we expect to see? Are we perplexed like they are? Are we capable of
being amazed like Peter? What do we bring to the tomb of the crucified One?
What would we bring?
Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
Why, Easter Baskets, sillies! Easter Baskets with eggs, candies, toys, money, Mary Sue Easter Eggs, gift cards, and a partridge in a pear tree, and whatever else we can fit in there. Or, here’s what my dear friend and poet, Pamela Pruitt of Christ Church, Columbia, MD imagines what our basket might really hold:
Easter Baskets
Each year
We try
To bring
Our Easter Baskets
To God
With all our
Accomplishments
Inside.
But,
They are
always
Empty
Because
One cannot Measure
Love
In a
Box.
God smiles
At us
Anyway.
Filling our baskets
Instead
With
the
Forgiving breath
That continues
To inspire
All our efforts. [ii]
Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
One cannot measure love in a box! One cannot measure the
love, and breath, and mercy, and forgiveness of God at all! The Forgiving
breath that continues to inspire all our efforts. By the inspiration – the
breathing in – of the Holy Spirit, all is gift. The gift is Love. Love that
cannot be measured. It is love that reawakens us renewed, restored, always to
begin again, and again, and again! All that we have, all that we are, is gift,
freely given to us by a God of gracious Love! [iii]
Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
This is the heart of Resurrection Life – Like Christ, we can
always begin again! This is the essence of the repentance to which Jesus calls
us. He wants us to know that we are God’s Beloved. That God is well pleased
with us. That we come from love, created in the image of God’s gracious,
immeasurable Love. We will one day return to love. But for now we are created
to be the love that is all around, here, there, and everywhere. This is the
deep secret of all life throughout all the created universe.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
Jesus, with all the hard work of resurrection complete,
departs from his cold and now empty tomb
to be with us
and to call us to follow him
so that we might do something beautiful with our lives
and bear much fruit.
Easter calls to us:
The world needs you,
the church needs you,
Jesus needs you.
They need your light and your love.
Know, my sisters and brothers,
there is a hidden place in your
heart where Jesus lives!
Let Jesus live in you.
Go forward with Him.
For in him and with him we are
raised
to the New Life of His Kingdom!
Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia!
Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia!
Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia!
And so are we! And so are we!
Amen!
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