Sermon for the Resurrection of our Lord
Easter Morning Year C
April 4, 2010
Texts:  Acts 10:34-43; Psalm; 118:1–2, 14–24; 1 Corinthians 15:19-26; Luke 24:1-12

Christ is risen.  Alleluia!!

It’s a new day!
It’s a new dawn!
It is light!

The light of this morning as the women approach the tomb,
Is so different than the scene of last Friday,
When darkness covered the earth.

Last Friday, it was the temple curtain that split in two.
This morning it is the huge rock
And I mean the huge limestone slab
That somehow has been moved away from the entrance to the tomb.

Lots of mysterious things have been happening,
And frankly we don’t really understand them
And we surely can’t explain them.

But maybe that’s what faith is all about
Being open to the mysterious,
Even when it defies rational explanation. 

You are here this morning,
In the warm light of an April Easter morn,
To experience these strange and wondrous things,
Not to hear an explanation of them.

You have come here this morning for any number of reasons.
Maybe you are here every Sunday morning.
Maybe you are visiting friends or family.
Maybe you came for the glorious music, the flowers and the candles.
Maybe you came because somehow you just knew you had to be here,
And may be you just wanted to share in the community. 

Maybe you’ve heard this story tens of time before,
And maybe it is the first time you are hearing it.

But each time you hear this wonderful strange story,
About the women who find the tomb of their friend and teacher EMPTY,
Somehow it seems new!
Although it is a short story,
It is a complex one with many characters.  

Maybe you can imagine yourself in the role of one of these characters.

Maybe you are like one of the women coming to the tomb this early morning.
You are grieving your friend and teacher,
Who was murdered on that dark Friday afternoon.
You saw his body placed in the tomb,
And you saw the large boulder placed in front of the opening.

This morning, you know that you have a job to do.

Now that the sacred Sabbath is over,
You are allowed to prepare his body.
You’ve come this morning with the spices and anointing oils.
And you are going to do what has to be done
To finalize your friend’s burial.

You had no idea that you were going to find an opened tomb,
With no body in it,
And two young men in bright clothing
Who ask you the rather surprising question,
Why do you look for the living among the dead? 

You are stunned and fail down in both worship and fear.

Maybe you are one of those two young men in the dazzling clothes.
You like being the one to share good news.
And you like being the one who astounds and amazes the on-lookers.
You’ve been waiting to tell someone the Good News
That Jesus is no longer among the dead, he is risen. 

Or maybe you are one of the so-called Apostles. 
You don’t quite understand why you are being called an Apostle.
You have followed Jesus for the past year or so.
You’ve been with him every step of the way,
Except when it became too dangerous to stick with him,
Then you went off and hid.

Up to this point, you’ve been called a disciple, or a learner.
Now there’s someone calling you an Apostle, or one who is sent.
You’re wondering how you can be sent,
When you are so afraid that you are still in a room behind locked doors.

And your label is not the only thing you don’t understand.
You really don’t understand what the women say they have seen.

These women, who have followed Jesus for months,
The ones who have been hanging around,
Fixing meals and generally taking care of things,
What did they really see at the tomb this morning?

They told you there was no body there,
And that they had seen two young men in dazzling clothes,
Who said your teacher, your rabbi, had risen from the dead.

Ah---this must just be women’s talk.
They must have been too afraid to go in the tomb,
So they made up this unbelievable story. 

Or maybe you are Peter, one of those so-called Apostles.
You haven’t quite gotten over the things that happened last week.

You loved Jesus,
He was your best friend.
He showed you things you couldn’t even imagine.
You remember all the teaching and healing you saw Jesus do.

You remember in your mind that warm afternoon,
When you climbed the mountain with him
And he looked dazzling in front of your eyes.
You even remember seeing Elijah and Moses with him.

You were always the disciple that tried so hard,
But somehow Jesus never thought you got it quite right. 

You knew Jesus was special.
One time you even told him that he was the Messiah.

But you thought that you were going to follow him to grandeur.
You just knew that he was going to be the one in charge some day.

What happened?

Things seemed to go downhill quickly last week.
One moment, you were marching into Jerusalem
On what seemed to be a victory march.

The next thing you knew, the mood in Jerusalem changed.
Everyone seemed to be against your best friend.
And even when Jesus told you
That things were going to be dangerous,
And that he was praying that your faith would not fail,
You promised him that you would follow him all the way, even to prison. 

You’re still living with your failure.

As soon as your friend Jesus was arrested
And led off to high priest’s house,
You denied knowing him
And denied being one of his followers.

Even though Jesus had predicted that you would deny him three times,
You never thought that you would lie about knowing him.

What a failure you feel like.

Jesus had called you the Rock,
But you didn’t act much like a steady rock.

And now on this bright morning,
The women come and tell this fantastic tale
About how Jesus is no longer dead,
But has risen.

Could it possibly be true?

Might you yet have a chance to apologize to him
To make it up to him in some way?

You wonder if the women might possibly be right.

Will you have another chance to see Jesus,
And tell him how sorry you are?

As soon as they have finished speaking,
You dash out of the dark locked room,
Into the bright sunshine. 

As fast as your feet will carry you,
You run to Jesus’ tomb.
Your mind is swirling the whole way there.

Jesus had said all these things
About how the son of man must be killed
And rise again on the third day. 
But you never quite understood what he meant,
And you were afraid to ask him.

Could he really have meant that he would not stay dead.
That he would come alive again?

You’re at the entrance to the tomb,
You stoop down,
Look into the dark entrance,
And see those burial clothes there,
With no body in them.

That must mean he has risen.
If someone had stolen his body,
They would not have bothered to unwrap it.

Jesus must have burst the linen clothes
Just as he burst through death.

Can it be true?
What does it mean?

You are so astonished, so amazed, so much in wonder,
That you go straight home,
You don’t even bother to stop to tell the other disciples what you saw.

You need to sit with this observation for a while
And ponder what you saw and what it means.

Maybe all of us sitting here, have at least a little bit of Peter in us.

We don’t quite understand these observations,
And we have to sit with them for a while,
Ponder what they mean to us.

Each of us wants to do what is right.
And each of us wants to follow Jesus.

We know what we are supposed to do,
But somehow it doesn’t always happen.

Each of you knows your own failures and personal disappointments only too well.

You don’t need someone to tell you when you hurt a friend,
Or when you were overly critical of your spouse,
Or when you engaged in gossip that you shouldn’t have.
Each of you knows of a time
When following Jesus just became too difficult.

Or when perhaps something or someone distracted you
From loving God with all your heart.

Like Peter, you feel as if you failed,
And didn’t live up to what you see as an expectation for a Christian.

Like Peter going to the tomb, looking for a second chance,
You, too would like to be forgiven and given a new start.

The Good News of the empty tomb this morning
Is Good News for you too.

It is a new day!
God has created a new day and a new start for just you.

You have been baptized into Jesus’ death and into his resurrection.
And that resurrection means that each day is a fresh new start for you.

Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection,
Each day you have a second chance and a fresh slate.
Each day a new you rises up, cleansed from the water of baptism.

Today IS A NEW DAY!

There is a mysteriously empty tomb.
You don’t have to explain it, just rejoice in it.

Jesus has risen,
And has conquered death and evil.

Because Jesus is risen,
Tomorrow and the next day and the day after will also be new.

Christ is risen.  Alleluia!!