Acts 10:34-43
Colossians 3:1-4
Luke 24:1-10
Matthew 28:1-10
When I was a little girl, we always had to wear hats to church. Women and girls are supposed to cover their hair .... it's their glory, and that might be distracting or dangerously seductive to someone.
If you didn't have a hat,
you usually carried in your purse a little lace doily called a chapel cap.
And if you can't come up with a chapel cap,
a kleenex on your head would do.
Of course there's nothing at all distracting
about seeing someone in church wearing a kleenex.
(At least as long as Elaine's beagle isn't in church that day.)
This all makes women look like fools. The church, of course, has been doing that since the beginning.
When Luke tells the story
he says that when the women came from the empty tomb
to tell the other disciples the good news,
the men did not believe them.
This IS a crazy story: A guarded tomb, sealed with a huge stone, is mysteriously open. And there's no body. And it looks like Jesus walked out without his clothes; the grave clothes were still in the tomb, but not Jesus.
This is nonsense, the men thought. These women are crazy with grief and lack of sleep. They're delusional. It's utter foolishness.
Matthew presents a slightly different picture of Easter morning.
Matthew's version suggests that's it's a trick.
The disciples must have smuggled the body away somehow.
Matthew tells us that the priests even bribe the guards to say
that they fell asleep while the disciples came and stole the body.
It's all a trick. The church, many people think, is good at that. "Hocus pocus!" And bread becomes body and wine becomes blood. Why not also, "Presto chango!" A brand new resurrected Jesus.
How many of us have friends who think we are crazy fools to come to church?
(Not even to think what they would say about those of us
who get up before dawn to sit in a dark church)
How many people today suggest that our worship is a great trick,
a psychological crutch,
"the opium of the people"?
These ideas are not new.
People had those same questions that very first Easter morning.
The disciples thought they had things all figured out, but suddenly the rules seem to change. They thought Jesus would be their victorious messiah. But it looks like the rules changed and the victor hangs on the cross. The disciples had only begun to adjust to this cruel twist in their hopes, when by some unexpected sleight of hand the body of their beloved rabbi disappears. No wonder the women disciples were frightened and confused. No wonder the men disciples didn't believe the story.
The powerful people also thought they had things all figured out, but suddenly the rules seem to change. The authorities thought the whole thing was a joke and a trick. First they mocked Jesus, scornfully calling him "the king of the Jews"; then they put an end to the trickery, neatly sealed away in the tomb. But it looks like the rules changed, the body's gone, the world is shaken, and there are angels in the garden.
For everyone it's a crazy combination of fear and joy, of hope and confusion, of faith and frustration and questions. I'd like to tell you that after almost 2000 years it's different for the disciples and the authorities today. But I think the believers and the questioners are still dumbfounded.
At this season every year, preachers all over the world preparing for Easter Morning, stand in front of that empty tomb and wonder what to do next.
We may even turn and hear Jesus tell us to "go and tell" .... We may run with fear and joy to announce the good news. And still half the world considers it nonsense.
I shout from the pulpit, "The stone is rolled away! Christ is risen!"
And someone says, "Sure. There was an earthquake."
"But the grave is empty!"
"Umm. Those tomb robbers at it again."
I can keep trying.
"But Jesus told us this would happen...."
"Yah, sure. . . . Are you having that great champagne brunch again this year?"
Doesn't matter what you say. The story really is crazy. It's like some great cosmic joke turning all our expectations and neat systems inside out and upside down. In the Greek Orthodox tradition, they recognized this and the day after Easter was devoted to telling jokes. They felt they were imitating the cosmic joke that God played on Satan in the Resurrection.
God tricks evil and death, and in the process looks like a great fool to love and save us sinners. The resurrection is not rational. It cannot be explained.
That's the point.
That's the mystery.
That's God.
People who can explain everything have no place for God. . . . Go ahead .... try to explain it all away, order the world into neat little categories, and seal up all the unanswered questions in a guarded tomb. But it won't work.
The explainers think they have sealed God up, but they have not. It is themselves they have sealed up in the tomb. When we try to explain the Mystery that is God, we imprison ourselves, and we roll a great stone between us and Life.
And God, I think, does not like that.
I believe God will blast away our stones every time we set them up between ourselves and God. Every time we run from the Unexplained Mystery to arrange a neat, safe little prison, God will roll away the stone and snatch away the graveclothes.
Easter is about liberation. The stone is rolled away from the tomb, not to let the Resurrected Christ out, but so we can see the Truth. Every stone that we have put between ourselves and God is rolled away. It is not Jesus who is set free on Easter morning, it is us. We are a resurrected people, now, today.
All the stones are rolled away: The pebbles of lies and hatred, and all the rubble of our sins --- rolled away. The rocks of defensiveness that we pile up to separate ourselves from others, our finely chiseled neat answers to hard questions, and the neat brick walls we build to cover up the unanswerable questions --- rolled away.
And finally, death itself is rolled away from the tombs of our lives. And we are free.
Free to live. To live with the foolishness of faith and the joy of liberation. To live with the mystery and the unanswered questions. Free to accept the gift of life and love that God has given us this Easter Day.
Christ IS risen. He is no longer in the tomb. Jesus, our liberator, has gone ahead of us to show us the way.
And when sensible, rational people tell us it's all a great trick, and remind us how foolish we are to believe ..... instead of trying to explain that mystery of faith, you might want to look around for stones to roll away.
Remember that we have been set free, free to share Christ's life and love with others. That may mean rolling up our sleeves and getting to work rolling some stones.
