Sermon at The Church of the Holy Apostles, New York City
April 8, 2007
The Sunday of the Resurrection: Easter Day, Year C
The Reverend William A. Greenlaw, Ph.D., Rector
Acts 10: 34 - 43
Psalm 118
Colossians 3: 1 - 4
Luke 24: 1 - 10
 

 
     Alleluia.  Christ is risen!  The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia.

     It is the first day of the week, the early dawn, and the faithful women are coming to pay their respects to their dead leader.  The devastation, the horrible agony of the cross that they had witnessed, the end of whatever they might have hoped for.  They come heart-broken, in what had to have been a gut-wrenching task of seeing to it that their fallen leader at least had the proper rituals done to his lifeless body.  This is where our Easter gospel from Luke begins.  It follows directly from the events of Good Friday, interrupted only by the proper observance of the Sabbath.

     As I tried to ponder off and on through the Holy Week we have just come through what kind of message I could offer in my Easter sermon, I came across an article which raised a question about this gospel I don’t think I had ever before considered.  And that was what significance there might be in the women discovering that the great stone at the entrance of Jesus’ tomb had been rolled away.  Indeed, one might wonder just how these women were going to anoint Jesus’ body if the stone were in place, as they surely imagined it would have been.

     But there is more to this.  For consider, was it really necessary for the stone to be rolled away for the risen Lord to get out of the tomb?  The fact is that in several of his resurrection appearances, Jesus clearly has a resurrection body that is not limited by such things as locked rooms and other normal worldly constraints.  Though he can be touched and even break bread with his disciples, he can also simply vanish from their sight.

     If the stone did not have to be rolled away for a resurrection to take place, then surely its significance must be more for those women, and for all who would hear their testimony.

     And so, the women approach the tomb where Jesus has been laid, and they discover that the stone has been rolled away.  They enter the tomb, but Jesus’ body is not there.  To put it mildly, they are perplexed.

     Then suddenly, two men in dazzling clothes stand beside them, and the women are understandably terrified.  They bow in fear and awe, but the men ask them that wonderfully leading question, “why do you seek the living among the dead?”  And then their fantastic words, “he is not here, but has risen.”

     The men then remind the women of the words Jesus had spoken  “Remember,” they said.  “Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”

     The context suggests that these words must have been heard by the women and not just the twelve, for they seem to recall them when prodded.  But we need to remember, these words were not only not understood, they were resisted mightily, so offensive were they when they were first heard.  Still, we from our vantage point might well wonder, in the light of Jesus’ passion and death and Jesus’ followers considering what their future might possibly hold, that at least then, they might have remembered.  But no, it seems they needed to be jarred into recognition, into remembering that specific utterance of Jesus—that he told them more than once.

     Finally, something of the significance of these words dawns upon them, and they go back and tell the eleven and all who were with them what they have seen and heard.  The women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and an unknown number of “other women,” according to Luke’s account.

     It is worth noting that all four of our gospels mention Mary Magdalene, known to the Eastern Church as the “Apostle to the Apostles” and claimed by us as one of our “Holy Apostles.”

     But how do the eleven and those who were with them receive all this?  Three years from now when we next hear this Easter account in the third year of our lectionary cycle, the Episcopal Church will have adopted the “Revised Common Lectionary,” and we will hear the next two verses.  But in this last year of our Episcopal Lectionary use, our gospel simply ends with the women telling all they have seen and heard.

     But the next verse really tells it all with the disciples’ reaction to the women’s story: “…these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.”  But just to make sure, Peter then runs to the tomb.  He peers in and sees the linen cloths, and goes back to the other disciples “amazed,” but still uncertain.  In Luke’s account, it is only later that day, which is to say still the very first Easter Day, when finally the resurrected Lord appears to the disciples, and they finally begin to grasp at least a little bit of what all this might mean.

     I say “a little bit” not to in any way demean those disciples about to become apostles, for we are very much in the same boat.  We understand but “a little bit” ourselves, and that only if we are very lucky indeed.  I say this because even in the excitement and energy and explosive growth of the early church, the world was still a world of suffering and despair and death—the hope that the resurrection gave them seemed more for the other side, when Christ would come again, than for the world they knew.  And yet it completely changed their understanding of the world in which they nevertheless still found themselves.  It gave them energy and purpose and hope, even in the face of all the world could throw at them, including even martyrdom for many of them.

     Of course, it must be conceded that the early church believed the world was coming to an end very soon, even immanently, and that absolutely everything would be changed when Christ would come again.

     If we jump ahead nearly 21 centuries, is the world any different for us, except that the world is still very much with us, and that we have perfected death and destruction and injustice and forces of evil that dwarf anything that has gone before?  But the world still has not ended—in spite of some Christians still predicting its immanent demise.  One might even argue that there has been some real if still ambiguous progress in the human condition and prospect—although the looming ecological situation hardly bodes well for our good planet earth.

     Because we are both Americans and Episcopalians, and perhaps also even New Yorkers, and perhaps because most of us have been dealt a pretty good hand, we desperately want, I desperately want to believe that the human condition is improving—that even the church might incarnate more fully the inclusive vision of our risen Christ.  That we might even have some small part in making the world a better place, where love and justice might have a chance finally to blossom.  We yearn to think we can make a difference, and that our efforts will be blessed.  The symbol of the resurrection could be the final capstone of God’s blessing upon us.

     Yet as much as we might wish, as much as I regularly and quite desperately wish, the journey we have taken through Holy Week to get to this day, not to mention paying just a bit of attention to the news of world and church, make me believe that things are still vastly more complicated and ambiguous than our hopes and dreams can very readily accommodate.

     Another article I came across this week cut through my own confused fog of hopes and dreams very starkly and directly:  “[Our Easter hope] is grounded in God’s power to salvage life from dying, not in our latent resources to negate death and live forever…..   [Easter is] not simply a rite of spring, a time to say life is real and death illusory.  More accurately, we experience endings; God offers beginnings.  That Christ is risen means the future is intact.  This is a verity we can live by.”

     Still another writer put it this way: “The resurrection of Jesus from the dead… is God’s ultimate testimony that the worst thing that can happen is never the last thing.”

     Which brings us back to that empty tomb with which we started.  Christ was laid in that tomb.  Christ passed through that tomb.  The stone was rolled away not for him to exit, but rather for us to enter.  To enter with open eyes the tombs of death and injustice and disease and despair and to realize Christ has passed through, has gone before us even there.  We must pass through as well.  Just as Christ could not be contained in that tomb back then, so Christ cannot be contained in any of our modern day creations or experiences of death and disorder.

     Easter proclaims that the love of God in all and through all is intact still.  That even death cannot limit the power and love and grace of God.  And our hope and glory is not in our own creations and destinies and strivings, but in our risen Lord who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

     I wonder if this train of thought might not help us to understand something of the meaning of our Epistle, from Paul’s Letter to the Colossians.  I have to confess that through the years, I have often felt those three sentences we hear every Easter Sunday morning were more on the order of pious platitudes than anything else.  But listen again: “If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.”

     What might it mean, to seek Christ and to set our minds on the things that are above, except to say that we have been given a different set of perceptions, a different set of values than the ones the world would offer us as normative?  To have our minds on the things that are above just might give us the strength and courage we need to be engaged with the hurts and despair of the world as Christ was, rather than as some form of escape.

     What might it mean to understand our lives as hidden with Christ in God except that the path of faithfulness and discipleship may well make us next to invisible—and certainly not of much significance to the rulers of this world and those who follow the ways of the world.  We are almost invisible at times in part because we are incomprehensible in terms of the values we hold and the gospel we would proclaim.

     And yet, and this is really crucial, to have followed Christ as he goes before us means that we already have a foretaste of what it might mean to be raised with Christ who is our life.  And that ultimately, in God’s providence and sovereignty and love, we and this whole world will be revealed with him in glory, and all will be changed.

     Paul’s word for us is far from pious escapism, still more simply horrible platitudes we would rather sidestep.  It is, rather, the faithful and even glorious realism and freedom from bondage that is given to us by our risen Lord, even as we seek to engage and love this world, just as he did.

     We may live in a world of death.  We may ourselves be very near to death, figuratively, or even quite literally.  But because of that empty tomb and all that that means, our future is gloriously and wondrously open.  Because as always, Christ goes before us, and beckons us follow—as we participate in his resurrection life.

     Jesus Christ is risen today.  Alleluia, alleluia!