Mark 16:1-8 The Message (MSG)
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so they could prepare his body for burial. Very early on Sunday morning, as the sun rose, they went to the tomb. They worried out loud to each other, “Who will roll back the stone from the tomb for us?”
Then they looked up, saw that it had been rolled back—it was a huge stone—and walked right in. They saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed all in white. They were completely taken aback, astonished.
He said, “Don’t be afraid. I know you’re looking for Jesus the Nazarene, the One they nailed on the cross. He’s been raised up; he’s here no longer. You can see for yourselves that the place is empty. Now—on your way. Tell his disciples and Peter that he is going on ahead of you to Galilee. You’ll see him there, exactly as he said.”
They got out as fast as they could, beside themselves, their heads swimming. Stunned, they said nothing to anyone.
My German friend, Ingrun, once had a child ask her what was in a paper bag she was holding. She pretended to think about it, then asked back, “What do you think could be in it?” and she and the child proceeded to launch into a game of “let’s pretend” as they came up with more and more exciting possibilities for what might be in the bag.
Until the child’s mother charged into the room and shouted, “There’s nothing in the bag! It’s empty! She’s just lying to you!”
Some people are happy to speculate on the possibilities for life – seeing the many wonderful things that might be.
Others, incapable of coping with uncertainty or speculation, would rather choose a “certainty” of nothing, rather than chance being mistaken. Some people, unfortunately, are incapable of hope. (But God is still working with them!)
Hope is exactly why we are here this morning.
We have just been through Holy Week, and chances are, we’ve been told somewhere in there that it is all our fault. That Jesus had to suffer because we were bad. This is, after all, the traditional point of view that we, most of us, have been given at some point in our lives. Jesus died for my sins. It’s all my fault.
But what if it isn’t all about judgment and guilt? What if the whole thing is about love?
It isn’t guilt that keeps us waiting in the darkness for the sun to rise again – it’s love. It isn’t guilt that finds us in the garden weeping, it’s grief at the loss of love.
Jesus did not die and rise again to show us how bad we are. He didn’t do it to show how powerful he was. He did it to lift us up and prove to us – as often as it takes – that we are loved. Loved beyond reason. Just loved.
We are redeemed, yes. Not redeemed from God’s judgment, because God only judges us as beloved children, but from our own brokenness – our self-inflicted selfishness and violence and cowardice – and our own self judgment that says we are never good enough. Of course we’re not “good enough,” whatever that is. What we are is loved, and through Christ’s living and dying we are redeemed from of own self-judgment, our own sense of unworthiness.
How does this all happen? I have no idea – it doesn’t matter that I don’t know “how.” What matters is that I believe it happens. I know, through my own experience of God in my life, that it happens.
I have recently been reading a book by Nadia Bolz-Weber, who is a Lutheran pastor and writer who ministers to the broken and lost among us (that would, of course, be all of us). In one of her Easter sermons she wrote: "God simply keeps reaching down into the dirt of humanity and resurrecting us from the graves we dig for ourselves through our violence, our lies, our selfishness, our arrogance, and our addictions. And God keeps loving us back to life over and over.”
God simply reaches into the dirt of humanity and raises us up from the graves we dig ourselves through our brokenness.
Jesus didn’t rise again to lift himself. He rose to lift us. He didn’t rise just to show that he could. He rose to show us that we can. He defied death to set us free from fear and absence of hope. On Easter morning, we are resurrected.
Again, Nadia Bolz-Weber: “Like Mary Magdalene, the reason we stand and weep and listen for Jesus is because we, like Mary, are bearers of resurrection, we are made new. On the third day, Jesus rose again, and we do not need to be afraid. To sing to God amidst sorrow is to defiantly proclaim, like Mary Magdalene did to the apostles, that death is not the final word. To defiantly say, once again, that a light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot, will not, shall not overcome it. And so, evil be damned, because even as we go to the grave, we still make our song alleluia.”
Or as Rob Bell says it in one of my favorite lines – one that is tacked up, on a post-it note, over my computer: “The world is being redeemed – the tomb is empty – and a new creation is bursting forth right here in the midst of this one.”
Right here. Right now. With Jesus it isn’t about what happened 2000 years ago. For Jesus, all time is right now.
Today is Easter Sunday. It is also, this year, April Fool’s Day. I find that somehow fitting. As St. Paul so famously put it, there is a certain foolishness to our faith. Foolishness to trust in a story that is unlikely, at best. Foolish hope is all we have. We have no historically dependable record of what happened, just the written down remembrances of a small group of people who believed what they were writing. That’s it. So we either believe it or we don’t. We hope, or we don’t.
We question, we walk a tightrope between faith and doubt – but still we hope. We Christ-followers insist on believing – against all evidence except the evidence of our own hearts - that there is something perfectly wonderful to be found inside that paper bag.
He is risen, indeed. Alleluia!
Until the child’s mother charged into the room and shouted, “There’s nothing in the bag! It’s empty! She’s just lying to you!”
Some people are happy to speculate on the possibilities for life – seeing the many wonderful things that might be.
Others, incapable of coping with uncertainty or speculation, would rather choose a “certainty” of nothing, rather than chance being mistaken. Some people, unfortunately, are incapable of hope. (But God is still working with them!)
Hope is exactly why we are here this morning.
We have just been through Holy Week, and chances are, we’ve been told somewhere in there that it is all our fault. That Jesus had to suffer because we were bad. This is, after all, the traditional point of view that we, most of us, have been given at some point in our lives. Jesus died for my sins. It’s all my fault.
But what if it isn’t all about judgment and guilt? What if the whole thing is about love?
It isn’t guilt that keeps us waiting in the darkness for the sun to rise again – it’s love. It isn’t guilt that finds us in the garden weeping, it’s grief at the loss of love.
Jesus did not die and rise again to show us how bad we are. He didn’t do it to show how powerful he was. He did it to lift us up and prove to us – as often as it takes – that we are loved. Loved beyond reason. Just loved.
We are redeemed, yes. Not redeemed from God’s judgment, because God only judges us as beloved children, but from our own brokenness – our self-inflicted selfishness and violence and cowardice – and our own self judgment that says we are never good enough. Of course we’re not “good enough,” whatever that is. What we are is loved, and through Christ’s living and dying we are redeemed from of own self-judgment, our own sense of unworthiness.
How does this all happen? I have no idea – it doesn’t matter that I don’t know “how.” What matters is that I believe it happens. I know, through my own experience of God in my life, that it happens.
I have recently been reading a book by Nadia Bolz-Weber, who is a Lutheran pastor and writer who ministers to the broken and lost among us (that would, of course, be all of us). In one of her Easter sermons she wrote: "God simply keeps reaching down into the dirt of humanity and resurrecting us from the graves we dig for ourselves through our violence, our lies, our selfishness, our arrogance, and our addictions. And God keeps loving us back to life over and over.”
God simply reaches into the dirt of humanity and raises us up from the graves we dig ourselves through our brokenness.
Jesus didn’t rise again to lift himself. He rose to lift us. He didn’t rise just to show that he could. He rose to show us that we can. He defied death to set us free from fear and absence of hope. On Easter morning, we are resurrected.
Again, Nadia Bolz-Weber: “Like Mary Magdalene, the reason we stand and weep and listen for Jesus is because we, like Mary, are bearers of resurrection, we are made new. On the third day, Jesus rose again, and we do not need to be afraid. To sing to God amidst sorrow is to defiantly proclaim, like Mary Magdalene did to the apostles, that death is not the final word. To defiantly say, once again, that a light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot, will not, shall not overcome it. And so, evil be damned, because even as we go to the grave, we still make our song alleluia.”
Or as Rob Bell says it in one of my favorite lines – one that is tacked up, on a post-it note, over my computer: “The world is being redeemed – the tomb is empty – and a new creation is bursting forth right here in the midst of this one.”
Right here. Right now. With Jesus it isn’t about what happened 2000 years ago. For Jesus, all time is right now.
Today is Easter Sunday. It is also, this year, April Fool’s Day. I find that somehow fitting. As St. Paul so famously put it, there is a certain foolishness to our faith. Foolishness to trust in a story that is unlikely, at best. Foolish hope is all we have. We have no historically dependable record of what happened, just the written down remembrances of a small group of people who believed what they were writing. That’s it. So we either believe it or we don’t. We hope, or we don’t.
We question, we walk a tightrope between faith and doubt – but still we hope. We Christ-followers insist on believing – against all evidence except the evidence of our own hearts - that there is something perfectly wonderful to be found inside that paper bag.
He is risen, indeed. Alleluia!
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