'On the first day of the week, at early dawn, the women who had come with Jesus from Galilee came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. 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." Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.'
--Luke 24: 1-12
It’s amazing, isn’t it?? How every single year, he wins. Every year we tell the story once more, but even still some years it looks like he might not pull it off. Years of pandemic and heartbreaking transitions. Years of oppressive regimes and the fear of what could happen next. Years when Friday’s grief feels like it will never end and Sunday is merely a dream whispered on the wind. And yet Jesus proves everybody wrong year after year after year. Even this one. He wins again. God wins again. Love wins again. Preachers try every Easter to put some new spin on the story, something that’s gonna make the newcomers or someone who hasn’t been in church for a while say, “Man, I’ve been missing out; I gotta come back next week!” But nothing quite captures the image of an empty tomb and the rhetorical question, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”
Because Christ is alive. That’s not a theory or a pleasant thought or a theological statement based on research. It’s a fact. Christ is alive – present tense – no longer bound to distant years in Palestine, as the hymn says. Despite his newfound aliveness, we don’t see Jesus in the Gospel text for Easter Sunday morning. Mary Magdalene, Johanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women must have, no doubt, been more than a bit disappointed, but Jesus’ no-show is, I suspect, kind of the point. The women didn’t just stand there, they went and told others what they had seen – or, rather, what they hadn’t seen. They expected to see death but didn’t; instead they got a message of life. They expected to see sadness but didn’t; instead they got hope and meaning. Leaving that empty tomb and sharing their experiences, the women were, in the words of the poet Wendell Berry, practicing resurrection.
When we speak of resurrection we often confine it to this happy morning and to Jesus’ actions and his alone. The Day of Resurrection is about Christ conquering death and the grave, being raised to newness of life, yes, however if it is about Jesus alone, then it is little more than a pleasant story. But through our baptism we are the Body of Christ, meaning that his resurrection is our resurrection, not only the promise of physical resurrection after our own physical deaths, but the everyday resurrections that we must keep an eye out for, that we must cultivate in this world of freed Barabbases. And believe me when I say this, resurrection happens every day.
Last Sunday I was on my way home and picking up some Chinese takeout because nothing fuels you for the start of Holy Week like General Tso’s chicken, and I met a young family outside the restaurant. A mother and father and their daughter Harmony, who had just turned 2 years old that day, they said. Seeing my clerical collar they flagged me down. They asked for no money, just a meal. So we went inside, and as her father ordered for them, Harmony climbed all over the chairs, telling everyone she saw hi as they walked by with a grin that woulda melted the coldest heart. I asked where they were staying. Harmony’s mother told me, “In a tent, over by the railroad tracks.” And before I could say another word, she pointed to the ceiling and said, “But he’s been so good to us, Pastor!” There was nothing more for me to say. That family is practicing resurrection.
To practice resurrection is to have a kind of perspective and knowledge that comes from walking the way of Jesus and experiencing for ourselves a version of the thing that only Jesus did. And I’m not talking about being raised from the dead because that happened to his friend Lazarus a few days earlier. No, what Jesus did was go to hell and come out clean on the other side. And let me tell you, if Jesus can go to hell and come back out the other side, then what in the world is there that cannot be done, huh?! Tell me: What is impossible now?! To quote from the Paschal Homily of St. John Chrysostom, which we heard last night – and quite possibly the greatest sermon ever written by anyone about anything– “Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with. It was in an uproar because it is mocked. It was in an uproar for it is destroyed, it is annihilated, it is now made captive. Hell took a body and discovered God. It took earth and encountered heaven. It took what it saw and was overcome by what it did not see. Christ is risen, and life is liberated!” Jesus literally loves the hell out of each and every one of y’all! And when we live our lives truly believing that, deep down in our very dry bones, then we can practice resurrection. Like that family I met. Like the patient facing a terminal diagnosis who refuses to let death have the final say. Like the queer teenager who will not retreat into the shadows and let their identity be erased, even in the face of legislation that threatens to do just that. Like the faithful nonprofit whose funding has been slashed but whose workers keep showing up day after day. Like the migrant worker who puts the needs of his family ahead of his own and takes a bold risk each time he steps out his door just to try to make a better life for the ones he loves. Like the Christians in Jesus’ own homeland, who despite bombings, the reality of apartheid, and the threat of ethnic cleansing still, somehow, came together this week and in the face of occupation and death still managed to shout, “Alleluia! Christ is risen! They are all practicing resurrection because they have all walked the way of Jesus. The way of love. And if the Gospel teaches us anything, if Easter teaches us anything, it is that love always, always wins.
We are an Easter people. Jesus Christ is risen today and everyday. We need only eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to believe. What would our lives be like if we lived them each day, not just believing, but knowing, way down deep inside, that it’s all true: the cross, the empty tomb, all of it? Some of y’all might have heard the saying that you may be the only Bible anyone ever reads? Well, you may be the only Jesus anyone ever meets. You may be the example of resurrection that loves the hell out of someone else, that preaches light and life where someone has known only darkness and death. Mary and the other women told Peter. Peter told the folks who were too scared to go to the tomb themselves. Who will you tell? Who
Everything is changed because of what Jesus has done. We have been changed. This Easter Sunday, the first day of the week, the ever-new day of Resurrected Life, allows us from here on to read all our lives backward with understanding, and read them forward with hope, the kind of hope that tells us that things finally have a victorious meaning, no matter how grim they may seem. So, Easter People, what will you do with this wild, resurrected life of yours?
