Luke 24:1-12
At the crack of dawn on Sunday, the women came to the tomb carrying the burial spices they had prepared. They found the entrance stone rolled back from the tomb, so they walked in. But once inside, they couldn’t find the body of the Master Jesus.
They were puzzled, wondering what to make of this. Then, out of nowhere it seemed, two men, light cascading over them, stood there. The women were awestruck and bowed down in worship. The men said, “Why are you looking for the Living One in a graveyard? He is not here, but raised up. Remember how he told you when you were still back in Galilee that he had to be handed over to sinners, be killed on a cross, and in three days rise up?” Then they remembered Jesus’ words.
They left the tomb and broke the news of all this to the Eleven and the rest. Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them kept telling these things to the apostles, but the apostles didn’t believe a word of it, just thought they were making it all up.
But Peter jumped to his feet and ran to the tomb. He stooped to look in and saw a few grave clothes, that’s all. He walked away puzzled, shaking his head.
The Easter Story is being read in Christian churches all over the world this morning. In many of those churches they will hear the version given in John’s gospel account. Since that gospel doesn’t have a year to itself in the rotating three-year lectionary cycle it gets plugged in on many of the major feast days. It is probably also the most poetically written of the four Easter accounts.
But this is Luke’s year in the cycle and the Easter story we just heard comes from Luke’s gospel and I suspect it may be the most true version, in terms of human emotional responses.
I think I can safely guess there is not one of us here in this room who has not survived at least one major loss in their life. Whether it was a separation of some sort, a death – sudden or one we’ve known was coming -- there is still that awful numb period just at first when we try to wrestle with a reality that says this really happened, the loved one really is gone, and there’s nothing anywhere we can do to un-do that.
When our son died this year, I was numb. I know I got up and moved around, I went through the motions, but in reality I just existed for quite awhile as my brain tried it’s damnedest to reject a reality in which my son could conceivably be dead. My husband, on the other hand, went into non-stop motion – he made an entire quilt, start to finish in one week – busy, busy every moment, working to create something new, something whole in place of the brokenness he felt. We all respond in our own ways to such losses but all those ways come from the same human place of disbelief and the rejection of a painful reality.
Luke’s Easter account is not about Jesus – he doesn’t even appear here except as the subject of everyone else’s conversation. Luke’s version is the story of those left behind, those who loved Jesus who are now caught in that numb, just going-through-the-motions state of shock. The men are in shock – grief and fear and pointlessness fill the air around them. They are numb – doing nothing – just existing right now.
The women no doubt felt the same, but they did what women the world over have always done – they got up the next morning and they did what they had to do. They tended to the children, they fixed breakfast – they did whatever their daily needs were there – and then they faced the unpleasant job of preparing their Master’s broken body for a proper burial.
And here is where the story finally turns.
They gather their oils and spices and go to the tomb expecting to find death – and they find - nothing – just an empty grave. Now this is a mystery, a puzzlement, a worry – but not yet any reason to suddenly expect glory. Until the angels appear. And suddenly it is a whole new story. Angels, it appears, have a way of changing a story rather abruptly. Numbness is gone, disbelief is gone. Now, I’ve never spoken face-to-face with an angel (except those who come in human form) but I’m pretty sure one does not remain numb after such an encounter. In just a few short minutes the women go from numb to vibrantly alive again.
The women are wide awake and excited and eager as they run back to share what the angels told them -- to be met with a roomful of men who are so deep in denial and disbelief and despair that they can’t hear a word the women are saying. They brush it off as just “women’s gabble.” No angels have yet spoken to them. They are still stuck at numb.
Except for Peter. Peter, who can be so hardheaded and so dense. Peter, who so often got Jesus all wrong but once in a very great while got him so very right – Peter gets up, driven by who knows what, and goes to see for himself. He finds an empty tomb, all right, but no angels are there to greet him. He looks around – and then he returns home, puzzled as usual but with no clear picture yet of what is going on.
It isn’t until much later that day, after the two disciples who encounter Jesus on the road to Emmaus return to Jerusalem to tell their story, it isn’t until Jesus himself stands in their midst and speaks to them that they finally start to get it. They are so human, after all. Ordinary humans caught up in something much bigger and wilder than the world they think they know – that same world we think we know.
And this is exactly the point of the Easter story where I get a little crazy with excitement and wonder. The disciples – and we here today – and all believers everywhere – we are all just human – so very ordinary. And at just this point in the story – having come all this way – Jesus, risen, basically leaves the story. There will be a few more appearances but very soon now Jesus will rise to heaven and leave his whole story behind him in the hands of just such ordinary everyday human beings as those first disciples – and us.
Jesus has done what he could to prepare us – to show us the way – to show us the possibilities. He even promises his Spirit will stay with them. “Here, this is what I can do,” he says, “Now go and do likewise.”
“Christ is risen,” we say. “Alleluia,” we say, almost as if we actually understand what we are saying. “Jesus rose from the dead. God has done something amazing.” Well, yes, God is amazing. When you stop to think of it, why should we be amazed that God is god-like? How could God be anything else?
The truly amazing part of all this is that God does this amazing thing for us. And even more mind-boggling is that God then hands it to us and appears to say, “Here - you take care of this now. I trust you.” This is the wonder and glory of Easter – not just that Jesus defeated death and failure and envy and greed but that God expects us to go out and do it too. God created us to do just that. You and me.
Christ is risen. Go and do like-wise. Alleluia.
But this is Luke’s year in the cycle and the Easter story we just heard comes from Luke’s gospel and I suspect it may be the most true version, in terms of human emotional responses.
I think I can safely guess there is not one of us here in this room who has not survived at least one major loss in their life. Whether it was a separation of some sort, a death – sudden or one we’ve known was coming -- there is still that awful numb period just at first when we try to wrestle with a reality that says this really happened, the loved one really is gone, and there’s nothing anywhere we can do to un-do that.
When our son died this year, I was numb. I know I got up and moved around, I went through the motions, but in reality I just existed for quite awhile as my brain tried it’s damnedest to reject a reality in which my son could conceivably be dead. My husband, on the other hand, went into non-stop motion – he made an entire quilt, start to finish in one week – busy, busy every moment, working to create something new, something whole in place of the brokenness he felt. We all respond in our own ways to such losses but all those ways come from the same human place of disbelief and the rejection of a painful reality.
Luke’s Easter account is not about Jesus – he doesn’t even appear here except as the subject of everyone else’s conversation. Luke’s version is the story of those left behind, those who loved Jesus who are now caught in that numb, just going-through-the-motions state of shock. The men are in shock – grief and fear and pointlessness fill the air around them. They are numb – doing nothing – just existing right now.
The women no doubt felt the same, but they did what women the world over have always done – they got up the next morning and they did what they had to do. They tended to the children, they fixed breakfast – they did whatever their daily needs were there – and then they faced the unpleasant job of preparing their Master’s broken body for a proper burial.
And here is where the story finally turns.
They gather their oils and spices and go to the tomb expecting to find death – and they find - nothing – just an empty grave. Now this is a mystery, a puzzlement, a worry – but not yet any reason to suddenly expect glory. Until the angels appear. And suddenly it is a whole new story. Angels, it appears, have a way of changing a story rather abruptly. Numbness is gone, disbelief is gone. Now, I’ve never spoken face-to-face with an angel (except those who come in human form) but I’m pretty sure one does not remain numb after such an encounter. In just a few short minutes the women go from numb to vibrantly alive again.
The women are wide awake and excited and eager as they run back to share what the angels told them -- to be met with a roomful of men who are so deep in denial and disbelief and despair that they can’t hear a word the women are saying. They brush it off as just “women’s gabble.” No angels have yet spoken to them. They are still stuck at numb.
Except for Peter. Peter, who can be so hardheaded and so dense. Peter, who so often got Jesus all wrong but once in a very great while got him so very right – Peter gets up, driven by who knows what, and goes to see for himself. He finds an empty tomb, all right, but no angels are there to greet him. He looks around – and then he returns home, puzzled as usual but with no clear picture yet of what is going on.
It isn’t until much later that day, after the two disciples who encounter Jesus on the road to Emmaus return to Jerusalem to tell their story, it isn’t until Jesus himself stands in their midst and speaks to them that they finally start to get it. They are so human, after all. Ordinary humans caught up in something much bigger and wilder than the world they think they know – that same world we think we know.
And this is exactly the point of the Easter story where I get a little crazy with excitement and wonder. The disciples – and we here today – and all believers everywhere – we are all just human – so very ordinary. And at just this point in the story – having come all this way – Jesus, risen, basically leaves the story. There will be a few more appearances but very soon now Jesus will rise to heaven and leave his whole story behind him in the hands of just such ordinary everyday human beings as those first disciples – and us.
Jesus has done what he could to prepare us – to show us the way – to show us the possibilities. He even promises his Spirit will stay with them. “Here, this is what I can do,” he says, “Now go and do likewise.”
“Christ is risen,” we say. “Alleluia,” we say, almost as if we actually understand what we are saying. “Jesus rose from the dead. God has done something amazing.” Well, yes, God is amazing. When you stop to think of it, why should we be amazed that God is god-like? How could God be anything else?
The truly amazing part of all this is that God does this amazing thing for us. And even more mind-boggling is that God then hands it to us and appears to say, “Here - you take care of this now. I trust you.” This is the wonder and glory of Easter – not just that Jesus defeated death and failure and envy and greed but that God expects us to go out and do it too. God created us to do just that. You and me.
Christ is risen. Go and do like-wise. Alleluia.
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