Christ is Risen!
Grace and peace to you, my siblings in faith, from
God the renewer of life, Jesus the first of the living and the Holy Spirit the
breath of re-creation. Amen.
My dear friends, we are here together in this place
to bear witness to the Resurrection of our Lord, Jesus of Nazareth. We have
come to tell the story again of how our God beat back sin, death and the devil
all in order to reconcile the entire world to God-self. What an amazing place
to be as a people of God, to shout alleluia, alleluia, alleluia to the heavens
in thanksgiving.
Christ is Risen!
He certainly has.
In Matthew’s telling of this story we are reminded
just how utterly disastrous this day must have been for the disciples and the
other followers of this Jesus. This past week we witnessed how Jesus was
welcomed into Jerusalem with shouts of Hosanna! Those shouts quickly turned to
cries of Crucify! Crucify! Crucify! Jesus was betrayed by a dear friend. Then
arrested and tried for a dubious crime. Then sentenced to die. There on the
cross, the hope of the world suffered and did indeed die, for all to see. This so-called
messiah was mocked and spat upon. He was derided and kicked. Who is the savior
of the world now?
Max Lucado reminds us that, “The greatest pain of
the cross was the pain of sin. Jesus didn’t deserve to feel the shame, but he
felt it. He didn’t deserve the humiliation, but he experienced it. He had never
sinned, yet was treated like a sinner. He became sin. All the guilt, remorse,
and embarrassment– Jesus understands it…”
And there he hung abandoned.
Before we get to the two Mary’s and what they were
up to, I think it is a
And so, it was that Mary Magdalene and that other
Mary went to see the tomb. They expected to see, as theologian Thomas Long
describes it, the grave of Jesus, a monument to the sadness they felt in the
soul, a confirmation of the cruel truth that the world finally beats mercy and
righteousness to death.[i] These
women gathered up true courage, courage that allows you to see your emptiness
and hopelessness up close. To confront loss. For in that confrontation, you
find healing. Not running away from it or denying it.
But, somewhere along the way they travel from one
world and entered another, as Long puts it.[ii]
They crossed a thin place. They went from the old world and entered the new. A
place where death has no hold on the world. They left the old way where hope is
in constant danger of being overwhelmed. Where peace has little chance. Where
truth is an arbitrary thing and the Pontius Pilates of the world only honor
themselves. They left the place where Jesus was as dead as a doornail on Friday
and entered a world where the tomb is laid open and empty. We have never been
the same.
We encounter another set of men. These holding
weapons of war and clothed in armor and helmets. Men who know how to kill and
who know the ways of fear and intimidation. These are, as Matthew elegantly
puts it, scared to death!
Where the angel of Lord says do not be afraid, the
Marys believe it and become curious. The men, well once again, have failed to
grasp the situation. In this the women become the witnesses to the world. They
are all that is left to hear the word of truth. To bear, like children in the
womb, the Good News out into the world. To birth if you will, the word of God
as that first Mary did at the beginning of this story.
Their shout to the world is, Christ is Risen!
But does the world believe it? These two Marys leave
this holy ground to
This our move as well. We came here crossing a
threshold, leaving the world out there of Mueller Reports, Climate change, 200
dead in Sri Lanka and black churches burning to be transfigured ourselves by
the news that indeed this Christ of ours, this Jesus, this Messiah is risen.
That there is hope that our God will bring resurrection to our lives.
But we too must move back into the world that doubts
resurrection, that doubts that this faith of ours can change the world. Do we
dare speak the words, Christ is Risen, in our work places, our schools, our
homes? Or are we struck numb by the enormity of it?
This is the Good News for you this day. Jesus
forgave the disciples. Jesus forgave Peter. Jesus forgave the criminals who
hung on their own crosses. Jesus forgave them all for they did not know what
they had done. Jesus forgives us.
This forgiveness, offered freely by Christ, comes
with no strings attached. We are loved so much that God gave us God’s only Son.
Not to condemn us, but to free us.
My family of faith, I rejoice with you that our God
has broken free from the bonds of sin, death, and the devil so that we are no
longer ruled by them. We indeed are set free to love one another, as Jesus
loved us. And to dare speak like Mary Magdalene and that other Mary …
Christ is Risen!
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