Sermon Easter Sunday March 31, 2024
“Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here.”
Today we read the Gospel according to Mark, who tells us that Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome brought spices to the tomb to prepare the body of Jesus for a proper burial. But when they arrived, the stone that had sealed off the tomb, had been rolled away. We can imagine that they were perplexed, confused, and scared of what they might find in the tomb. Had the body of Jesus been disturbed, or perhaps even desecrated? Could the horror of the cross they experienced two days prior get any worse? Now what’s happening?
They entered the tomb and to their surprise they encounter a young man in white sitting on the edge of the tomb and they were naturally afraid and alarmed. They did not find what they expected to find that morning. This angel in the empty tomb spoke to the women’s confusion and fear. “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here.” And then added, “Go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”
Of all the themes that Jesus addressed that we find in the gospels, Jesus is constantly telling his followers do not be afraid, do not fear. We seem to live in a world dominated by fear. When I was a kid, it seemed that the no one was afraid of much. Even at a young age I remember leaving on my bike on summer mornings to play with the neighborhood kids, probably returning home around lunch time, unless one of the moms gave us lunch…then we’d play all afternoon…. rarely checking in at home all day long.
In the summers it didn’t get dark in northern Michigan until 10:00p.m. so the signal to come home was when the sun started going down around 9. I am sure many of you had similar experiences growing up.
Yet today, kids are rarely given that kind of freedom out of fear that something might happen. This fear is somehow been inbred into parents these days. As a parent I try to resist that urge, even when my kids were younger. In our neighborhood where there were lots of kids, our rule was to let us know where you are going and to check in, but my kids were allowed to wander in the neighborhood. We would let Joshua ride his bike alone to the community center or to the Storrs Center to poke around the shops. And our teens still hang out in Storrs Center with their friends. I know there were parents who thought we were crazy since there are all these headlines in the papers about things happening to kids.
The facts are that crimes perpetrated on children were much higher when I was a kid than today…it’s just that you didn’t hear about it back then other than the occasional missing kid pictured on milk cartons. Today every crime wherever it happens in the world is instantly broadcasted and makes it seem like things are worse although in fact they’re better than in the 1960s.
Our political discourse also seems driven by fear from both extremes on the right and the left. All the horrible things that were predicted to occur by the far right under Obamacare have not happened, and the world has not collapsed because spending cuts that the far left predicted.
It is so easy to give into fear of what might occur…or to be driven by fear because we don’t have an understanding about something and anticipate the worse.
Today we are invited to reject fear…. what appeared as a grave robbery that startled the women and made them afraid turned out to be something very different. But those women could not grasp what happened at the time….so they gave in to normal human instincts and anticipated the worse…. just like we do when we pick up the papers or hear reports on the news. We don’t have the full story and we jump to conclusions based on our world view and experience. And, now with artificial intelligence the fears will multiply.
And, the fears promulgated in this political year are just ramping up. The challenge for all of us will be to try and sort through the mis-information being put out there by foreign players, some in our own country or created by AI. Just a couple of months ago fake robot calls were sent from a fake Joe Biden telling the people in New Hampshire to stay home and don’t vote in the primary election. While the voice sounded like the President it was reported by the NH Attorney General, John Formella a Republican, who verified them as fake calls. However, today is about saying no to fear and celebrating new life in Christ Jesus who stands between us and the fears all around us.
There is one of the dimensions of resurrection that I want to emphasize today. In many cases it takes time to recognize resurrection. It is not something grasped immediately, but becomes clearer as time goes by.
Given time we can see where God was working doing something truly unexpected and life giving during what seemed like a completely dire situation. Resurrection may come to us…. but it takes time for us to see it and know it as resurrection. The women at the tomb had no way to interpret was had happened that morning.
I’ve talked with many people over the years who have lost a loved one…. while the grief is often intense it is often mingled with moments so beautiful and profound that the only thing, they can be called are resurrection moments.
We do not have to look far to understand this idea of new life and beauty springing out of what was death, sadness, and fear. Several weeks ago, we heard the extraordinary stories of Cathy Litwin and Allison Forrest. Cathy shared how amid her brother Billy’s death; new life was given to two individuals who were given the gift of sight thanks to Billy’s corneas that were given following his death. Allison shared her own journey recounting her father who needed a kidney transplant and her own brother’s gift of a kidney to her.
And, just recently the story of Jeff Baez’s heart and kidney transplant is a dramatic resurrection story. Some family somewhere (not known to us now) had a loved one who was taken off life support and they intentionally gave their loved one’s heart and kidney to Jeff so he could have life. What was remarkable is that Jeff got word of his heart transplant one year exactly to the day when he entered hospital on March 20, 2023 fighting what was seen as an incurable infection and came through it. During this year Jeff has been in and out of hospital with infections, heart attacks, and mini strokes. Now on this Easter Sunday we experience resurrection with him, his family and all of us who have journeyed with him. He is the 121st person in the entire country to ever had both a heart and kidney transplant together. So needless to say, there is still a long way for his recovery, but on this day, we can proclaim with confidence that new life has emerged from a situation of death for one family that brought new life to another. I pray the family who lost their loved one finds a modicum of peace knowing that in the midst of their loss they’ve given the gift of life to another.
My friends, Easter is the final word… Out of death comes life, even if we cannot see it in the moment. The truth of Easter is that God will not leave us alone in our confusion and fear. The risen Lord always goes ahead of us, calling us to live in the fullness and possibility of God’s love for us, and for the whole world.
So, this Easter, I invite us to ask, “What fears need to be rolled away from the tombs of our own lives? What hinders us from believing the reality of Jesus’ resurrection? What constrains us from telling the world that Jesus is alive? What are we afraid of?”
I believe clues to the answer lies in the message of the angel…”Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” Jesus is indeed going ahead of each of us where we will experience him in resurrection moments that come in ways we cannot now anticipate…. yet will come for us. Amen.