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Matthew 28:1-10
April 16th, 2017 – Easter Sunday
There are three trees just outside the doors of the sanctuary that stand guard over the sidewalk between here and the main building. They shed their leaves and their sweetgum bulbs all over the pavement. They give us shade in the heat of the summer, and their waving branches give us the first indication from the warmth of the indoors whether or not that cold front has come in. And, until very recently, I was nervous that two of them hadn’t made it through the exceptionally dry winter. The center one had budded and looked ready for spring, but the other two lie still barren and bony looking, without a single blossom.
What would have to happen, I wondered? The cost of removing two dead trees, not to mention the scar that would leave on our beautiful campus, was depressing. I’m sure it was not what the stewards of this church had envisioned when they planted them…they were counting on many, many decades with those trees lining the walkway, and now this. It was a very sad thought.
Then, last week, after church, I was walking out and there were blossoms all over both trees. The one closest to the main building even had leaves sprouting out. When you leave today you’ll see how healthy they are looking. Now, bear in mind that by the time church has ended and I’m walking back over for a meeting or to put away my robe, I’ve crossed that walk multiple times. I’ve seen in the very early morning as I arrive at church, then again when Glen and I walk over to setup things. I often forget at least one thing that I was supposed to bring over, so it’s back and forth many times before worship even starts. I never noticed. I don’t think they sprouted out during worship…I think that I just failed to see the new life happening right in front of me.
Matthew’s version of the Easter story sets a familiar scene, only with much higher stakes, much deeper sadness. It’s been a couple of days since Jesus died and was buried, the shock and the despair are just settling in and the ritual of mourning continues to be held, as was the custom in Jesus’ time, by the women. Matthew’s version holds this up as it is Mary of Magdala first there on Easter morning. While each Gospel records Easter morning differently, they all record the women as the first at the tomb. While some have Jesus appear just outside the rolled away stone and others don’t have him show up until later, in other places, they all have the first indications of resurrection come to those who have continued to show up, who have still stood vigil…who have paid attention in the darkness. And they catch the first glimpse…they get the first indications.
Who knows how long the life was there? Were those trees bloomed out last week, or the week before? I walked past the new life right in front of me in my busy-ness of the morning – never even saw it. As my grandfather used to say, “If it had been a snake…” Though it had been predicted to them, the stories tell us…though they knew to expect it – resurrection sneaks in. And, the story of Easter reminds us, we must be looking for it.
I gave us this little drama this morning, the sort of “mini-Good Friday” impact of the hammer and nails, the closing of the tomb, the dimmed lights and heavy music for a reason. I setup the arrival of the Christ candle, the unshrouding of the features of our chancel, the symbolic sense of Easter morning arrived with full lighting and songs in major keys. And I did that because we so often get the Easter story, particularly on Easter, without the darkness, without the suffering, without the pain and struggle and death that is present in the cross. And when we do that, Easter is not surprising at all. It’s scheduled. It’s just eggs and ham and chocolate. It’s a party, not an awakening. It’s a celebration, not the shock of a transformative announcement that the world has changed. But I suspect that is a hard surprise to generate, for we all know the story already. We know how it ends – it’s the groundhog seeing his shadow, Santa delivering presents, the last big blast of fireworks on the 4th, we’ve seen it already.
But have we? The Easter we celebrate this morning isn’t a holiday. It is a total surprise. It’s a shock. It’s something you’d walk past several times because you don’t even have the eyes for it. Or, perhaps even more provocatively, it’s something you run away from. There’s not just one Easter story, you know, there are four. At least four that made it into our Bible…5 if you count Paul’s account of the resurrection. And there are many more that didn’t make the cut. They are all the stories of different communities of Jesus followers, told many decades later as a way to help each other explain an empty tomb. Mark’s gospel, for instance, ends with this stunning line – “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” It was an ending so unsatisfying to later readers, with zero appearances of the risen Christ, that they edited Mark…scribes appear to have added verses later. In some gospels there’s one angel outside the tomb, others have two. Sometimes Peter is at the tomb, sometimes he’s not. Sometimes Jesus appears immediately, but sometimes later.
There are lots of stories about this event we call Easter, not just one, because this isn’t a reporter’s segment on the 6 o’clock news. If this were an eyewitness account, then the shocking disparity between the details would make it inadmissible. I mean, let’s be honest. The whole thing is pretty incredible. I mean really…a man coming back to life? When the Easter stories claim he was both present in the flesh and yet could walk through locked doors, that he ate a piece of fish but also disappeared right in front of people, perhaps we’re left to scratch our heads. And maybe that’s the point. Because, like the disciples in the stories we have, we have to develop eyes for resurrection, and that comes from our experience, not from a story. When Jesus appears to the men on the road to Emmaus in Luke’s version of the story, they talk with him, perhaps for hours, without realizing who it is. Suddenly when they invite him to stay, when they show him hospitality, when they share what they have with him, they see who it is. Then they experience resurrection, not because he has explained scripture to them and they understand, but because of something beyond understanding.
I’m not here to convince you this morning about a resurrection that was bodily or spiritual or metaphorical or literal. Because I don’t really think it matters in the end. What matters is that the disciples who were crushed and despondent and beaten in the shadow of the cross found a victory beyond victory, a way to sing, “Hallelujah” when the world told them they were defeated. Jesus, who lived a life of liberation, of acceptance, of inclusiveness, of faith and love was met by the world with violence, hatred, power and arrogance, crucifixion and death. Yet from that tomb, they found life that had sprung up from the ground which the empire had leveled and salted and pronounced dead. Salvation for them had come in the sense that matter mattered and that God was not asking them to simply accept some sort of “holy suffering” in life, some necessary oppression now in order to attain heavenly reward some place down the road. Their struggle, their desire for justice and peace, their work for what Jesus taught them was the “kin-dom of God” in the world right here and now, a dream modeled by Jesus as one of compassion, inclusion, generosity and grace was given a great big, “YES”, by God. The dream wasn’t dead. It is not dead. For Easter reminds us that God wants to free us from the tombs of arrogance, fear, addiction, sexism and racism…the prisons of “othering” one another of misused power, rejection and hatred by following the Risen Christ.
Easter is really not a rational event. It’s trans-rational. It is beyond our ability to understand, to comprehend or contain. It comes from a God who continues to make the seed sprout and the earth turn and the sun rise and who will not be confined in a tomb. But Easter is not a solution, it is a statement. As Paul Rauschenbusch once wrote:
“Easter does not erase the crucifixion of hunger, fear, war, violence that too
many will know today. Easter does not erase the crucifying greed, destruction, sexism, racism, domestic abuse, or homo and trans hatred that so many will experience today.
Easter does not erase the cross of gun violence, destruction of the environment,
the distrust between religious traditions, the unjust prison system, the monied corruption of political systems that plague our country and the world.
Easter does not erase the agony of physical disease,
Alzheimer’s, loneliness, depression, addiction,
despair, heartbreak that are part of many of our daily lives.
Easter does not erase any of it — instead it shines a spotlight on those crucifixions and proclaims that the power of death can and has been shattered by the power of love.”
Like those trees outside, resurrection stands as a reminder to us of what Jesus lived and died for… a sign of the promise that God has made through Christ Jesus – that life may be slowed down, it can even be halted, at least for awhile. But it is always roused, it always stands up – for while death has not been banished, it’s power has. This is the mystery of Easter, given to us again this morning. We don’t need to understand it, to define it…to confine it. We just need to know it is, and to look for it’s signs, blossoming out all around us…for tomorrow certainly brings the challenges of death, the impact of violence and hatred and the threat of the tomb. And our reply as Easter people?
He is risen. Thanks be to God.