Christ has risen. Christ has risen indeed, Alleluia!
Christ has risen. Christ has risen indeed, Alleluia!
Christ has risen. Christ has risen indeed, Alleluia!
The story goes, early, on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary came and saw the stone had been removed from the tomb, so she ran and told Peter and John, that they have taken the Lord and we do not know where they have laid him.
So they begin to run, and they get there, and they see what they see, yep, he’s gone, and they go home. End of story, right? He went somewhere, or someone took him at least; nice of them to fold the linens before going. The end. Or so it seems to the disciples.
But Mary stays behind. She’s weeping. It’s not enough. She looks inside the tomb, still weeping, and sees the angels. And they ask her, ‘why are you weeping?’ And she says again, “they’ve taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”
And then suddenly, Jesus himself is standing there, and asks, “woman, why are you weeping?” And she says, as if to a total stranger, “if you have taken him away, tell me where, and I’ll take him away.”
And Jesus looks at her and says, “Maaary!”
And the lightbulb goes on: that’s the aha moment!
And then Jesus tells her to go. He has a job for her to do--to tell the disciples that he is risen, and will ascend to their father and their God.
Do you know why church services are ordered the way they are? We gather in this place, on the first day of the week, praising God, yet maybe the weight of the week before us is still bothering us. Maybe it seems that everything is still dark. And we confess our sins--maybe that God seems far away after everything that’s gone on, and we just don’t know how to be reunited. And then we hear a proclamation that our sins are forgiven--and we rejoice, right? There’s that “gloria” thing we do....But maybe we don’t get it, or don’t quite understand, or it just doesn’t seem to be enough. We still feel in the dark. So we hear the scripture lessons and the message. We lift up our hearts with hymns and recite our creeds--even if they might feel more strange to us than familiar. We offer our lives and our resources in hopes that they’ll do some good. We pray, and maybe then we can hear that familiar, personal, comforting voice of God. But even if we have that ‘AHA!’ moment--there’s a surprise. We can’t stay here. We have work to do. Just when we’ve settled in, it’s time to go back out there into that world, the one that so often weighs us down, and proclaim the good news--that Christ is risen, and my God is your God, and our Father is the loving Father of those other folks as well.
Every Sunday is a little Easter, a little Resurrection. Good news! Right?
It’s alright though, if we don’t get that, whether every Sunday, or any Sunday, or even on Easter Sunday. After all--even Jesus’ closest friends and best students did not get it.
They didn’t expect the Resurrection. If anything, they expected grave robbers or Roman soldiers to have taken the body.
And afterwards--well, things weren’t perfect, even among the disciples; we heard right here in the story about the famous competition between Peter and John--or, as you might have heard: the guy that would become the head of the church--and the disciple whom Jesus loved. That conflict kept on, even to their own students, who finally wrote down these gospels of Mark and John.
And then Mary, who by tradition we say washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and dried them with her hair--she doesn’t even recognize Jesus, and thinks he’s just the gardener. And yet the one who weeps, becomes the first one to spread the proclamation of joy.
The thing is though, questions and not- understanding, doubts and skepticism, even cynicism are essential to faith; faith is not unquestioning belief. Grant the disciples their due for being human. After all, God became human to reach humans.
Paul writes, “If for this life only we have hoped for Christ, we are most of all to be pitied.” Instead, Christ is raised, and not just him, but us also, that death is not the end, but eternal life. Reunification. A healing of wounds and grief.
Miracles will happen, and we won’t necessarily get it. We’ll be weeping even in the midst of joy. We will be transformed in some ways and still entirely too human in other ways. And God is forgiving. After all, God knows us, and our limitations.
So even though the disciples were not perfect, and even though we are not perfect--even if we don’t understand any of this stuff that happened that we celebrate today, or celebrate every Sunday--remember: Jesus Christ is still risen from the dead. Jesus Christ still calls us by name--knows us even when we don’t recognize Him, even if we mistake Jesus for a total stranger. And Resurrection happens, even when we least expect it. And that is reason for real joy, in spite of ourselves even, on this day, and always.
Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Alleluia!
The peace of Christ be with you! Amen.
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