Acts 10:34-43 • Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 • 1 Corinthians 15:19-26 • Luke 24:1-12
"But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they 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."
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Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!
These words are words we hear every Easter season without fail. We come to Easter Day today knowing them well. We come to speak and sing them today: it is our Easter proclamation.
And we do not sing them alone. We sing them with all who know death very
well. These words of praise to Christ were sung by an unexpected group of children recently. A college student relief trip in January witnessed children singing praise songs in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, following the earthquake that had struck there on January 12th. It was a miracle. Impossible. Unthinkable. Hunger, no shelter, thousands of dead, thousands of mourning. And singing? After such devastation and tragedy? Hard to believe. But the children were exuberant even as they sang hymns through the tears running down their faces. Was their laughter an escape from the suffering they had experienced? Had the students wrongly assumed that these Haitians’ lives were trapped forever in tragic poverty and injustice, in this poorest country in the Western hemisphere? The college students had been absolutely certain that they would find destruction and sadness. They came away amazed. They couldn’t help but join in singing with these brother and sisters. (Christian Century, March 23, 2010, p. 12)
Someone else affected by the Haitian earthquake knew that song of resurrection joy, sung in the midst of death. Long before he died in the same earthquake, ELCA Seminarian Ben Larson wrote a song as he was preparing for ministry whose lyrics were: “If you are in search of certainty, then you are on the wrong ship. If you are in search of control, then you are sailing in the wrong waters. But in this world not all is uncertain: there’s the love of God and my love for you…” (The Lutheran Magazine, August 2010, p. 47) One would think we could be certain that Ben would have sang a tune of despair and sadness as he lay dying in the rubble of a collapsed Haitian building. But instead, his wife heard him singing a song of what he was certain in: the love of God, known to us in the risen Christ.
What was it that made those Haitian children and Ben sing with such joy? Without question it was the risen Christ, who sang a new song into their lives that drowned out death’s song of suffering. The risen Christ brought them in touch with eternal life. But how could they have been certain? How could they have for sure known it was Christ who would raise them from the dead? How could they be singing? How can we be singing today?
They sing with us today because Jesus has trumped what seems certain—what seems to be the only story we see told over and over again in the world: a story of tragic, scandalous death. The resurrected Christ trumps what seems to make us so certain about the way the world turns. Jesus rises, having taken death for a spin and turns our world upside down. Jesus says no to death with his love, no to answering violence with violence. The cycle of death stops at his empty tomb. Jesus rises so that life has the last word. He rises to resurrected life, not to make us defenders of life at any cost, but to erase our fear of certain end at the hands of death. And Jesus’ victory over that future fear now dramatically alters our present.
“Death is a part of life” we often say to those who mourn, as we try to comfort them. “It’s something we have to accept.” “Jesus is risen” exposes these lies for what they are. Death is painful. Death hurts. But Jesus’ rising means he’s conquered it. It isn’t something to fear, because of him. “Jesus is risen” means instead of “death being a part of life”, we can say “our death is now swallowed up in his risen life.” Our death is no longer ours. It is in the hands of the crucified, and risen, Christ.
Resurrection isn’t easy for us to understand. It can take time. But Jesus doesn’t wait for the disciples to understand what his resurrection means before he goes to the cross. He tells them three times he will die and rise again, and they say, “What?!” Jesus rises and the women at the tomb go and tell the disciples what they’ve seen. And you can guess the response. Luke says the disciples though Jesus rising was “an idle tale” (Lk. 24:11); in other words, baloney, hogwash, nonsense!
We like the disciples seek certainty. We want all the answers. We want resurrection to make “sense.” Or more honestly, we want to be certain we have the “truth”, that we can claim the resurrection as “ours.” Or, we want proof. We want to know where Jesus’ body is, since today’s Gospel from Luke doesn’t tell us. We want to know what it looked like for Jesus inside the tomb, pushing aside that stone, seeing the light come into the dark room.
Especially in these challenging economic times, we crave certainty more than we may have in past years. We crave the certainty of seeing our 401k go on a more dependable upward trend; we crave a job we can keep as long as we want; we crave getting back to a “normal” economy. Our confidence in our future is uncertain for these and so many more reasons today.
But maybe today, Easter tells us that the point isn’t being certain. Maybe Easter is not just about knowing the outcome of victory over death. Maybe today isn’t about understanding resurrection. Maybe it’s simply about amazement, and awe, and trusting that somehow, some way, in his rising from the dead, Jesus changes everything. Isn’t amazement why we come today? Isn’t that why we hear “Christ is risen” year after year, and it never gets old?
Maybe we can take a cue from Peter, who goes into the empty tomb to see for himself, and even though it doesn’t make sense to him at all, his response is to be “amazed” at Jesus overcoming death. (24:12) Maybe as we begin this season of Easter, and as United Lutheran begins to prayerfully consider the capital campaign that is now before us, we can enter into this seven week church season as a season of being amazed by God who has Easter-ed us. Maybe, dear Easter people, we can consider during these seven weeks leading up to commitment Sunday on Pentecost, May 23rd, When have I experienced resurrection here at ULC? When has this church amazed me? How could we join together in God’s amazing work to bring life out of death in the world? It’s amazing to me that last month 15 young adults gathered next door at the parsonage for a potluck first meeting of a new twenties and thirties group at ULC. It’s amazing to me that 3 people were baptized last night at the Vigil of Easter, and 3 more Affirmed their Baptism—all 6 becoming new members of this church. We cannot be certain what our answers will be at the end of these seven Easter weeks. We don’t know what will come. But Jesus, crucified and risen, will amaze us!
Jesus is risen. This is our cry, our plea and our hope. It’s not ours to possess. It’s not truly comprehensible by anyone. But it does make us sing a different tune than the one death would have us sing. We can dare sing “Jesus is risen” with our brothers and sisters in Haiti who with us have been re-amazed by a resurrected Jesus. We can sing with Ben the song of hope that puts Jesus at the helm of our life’s boat, our life that he makes sail on baptismal waters that claim us for eternity. These waters now follow the lead the Lord of our lives to places we have no certainty of what they will look like. But Jesus does promises that wherever these waters lead, we will be singing, as his amazed witnesses, as he leads us home.
Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!
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