April 16, 2006 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK
Acts 10:34, 37-43 + 1 Corinthians 5:6-8 + John 20: 1-9
We come here today by many paths, along different journeys. We come for all sorts of reasons, in all states of questioning and in all the stages of faith. We are so like that group who gathered outside Jerusalem before an empty tomb. Some are here like that beloved disciple, confident in what they have believed and lived all this time. They know that the One they follow, the One they call teacher and friend, will not let them down, whatever it looks like to the rest of the world. They come looking for any sign to encourage them to say, “Yes, this is true, faith is true. Rejoice.”
Some are here like Peter, full of suspicion and perhaps some anger. Experience has told them that the world is not a trustworthy place. There is always someone to rob their joy, betray their hope, crucify their dreams, and bury their enthusiasm. They have learned not to hope, because hope disappoints them and leaves them with less than they had before. They know how powerful are the forces of destruction in the world that will hurt them and destroy them if they are not careful. So, they are suspicious. They need proof. Questions give way to more questions while they seek answers. Yet, for them the day will come when they will shout more publicly and convincingly than most that “Jesus Christ is Lord of all.”
Some are here like Mary entombed in grief. This world, for them, is a place of sorrow and disappointment. Everything they care about dies. All their dreams collapse in ruin. They met the Lord of Life once, but then he left and they had to make their own way in the world, depend on their own decisions and face their demons by themselves. They come not expecting anything more than a chance to express their grief and share their pain. It takes the power of the risen Christ to break through their stone of sorrow and raise them up out of their tomb of despair to new life; and when they find that place of joy, their Alleluia rings out above all weeping.
Some are here just to watch, curious at the commotion, not sure what to expect or what they will find. Surly they were around the entrance of that tomb as well. People running around in the early hours of the morning must have attracted some attention. The Gospel writers are just not as interested in on lookers as these events accelerate and the excitement increases. Curiosity is never as interesting as suspicion resolved to conviction, anger transformed to peace, sorrow to joy and disappointment to surprise.
We all come here by different paths along different journeys. But there is only one reason we come: because it is Easter, because one Sunday two thousand years ago some people went to the tomb of their friend and found it empty. Yet, the empty tomb is not the issue, nor is it really the foundation of our faith. It hardly matters how the body of Jesus came to be missing because in the last analysis, what convinced people that he had risen from the dead was not the absence of a corpse, but the living presence of the one who had died. And so, it has been ever since.
Some years back, the tomb of King Tut was discovered, and people went in great numbers to look at something they could understand: the contents of the tomb. When the stone was rolled away, it was the objects in it, not the man that rose again to life. In that tomb, the man had become the most lifeless of all the objects. What a startling image of our own times this may prove to be. We may become lifeless while our stuff lives on and on and on. There is quite a contrast between King Tut and King Jesus! King Tut left a lot of stuff to fill museums and entertain the curious. King Jesus left people whose lives had changed for ever.
We are a people who often live with a “me first” mentality. Children are like that, but they quickly learn that there are some situations where you definitively would rather not be first. We call those the “you go ahead” situations. We like this arrangement when we don’t want to take the risk, look foolish, suffer pain, show fear, or experience the unknown. The good news of this Easter morning is that we have looked around at the sinfulness and shortcomings of our lives, looked at the inevitability and finality of death, and cautiously slipped up beside Jesus, poked him in the side and said: “You go ahead.” And we’re here because he did.
In fact, he is the one who said: “Me first.” and pushed himself to the front of the line; through Jerusalem, into that mess in the temple, and onto the Golgotha with his cross. He did go ahead, which is just where we need him to be. Since the beginning of creation, God has been ahead of us every step of the way. God is ahead of us in pain and suffering, torture and death. God is ahead of us at work, in relationships, in our losses and in our unknowns. The secret we have revealed today is that there is no place we can go, no dare we can take, no limb we can crawl out on, where we will not find that God has already gone ahead. Perhaps then, it is time to follow not as though we will not know the way and know the end. It is Life. It is Communion with God. It is Fellowship in Faith. It is the Kingdom of God, because Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will Come Again.