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First
Reading
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Psalm |
Epistle |
Gospel |
| Isaiah 25:6–9
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Acts 10:34–43
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Mark 16:1–8
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It was a task they dreaded to perform, even though they knew they had to. Early in the morning they started out to the cemetery to anoint the body of their friend and rabbi. When they had sat at his feet and traveled from town to village along the lakeshore, it seemed as if God was with them and there was always fresh hope welling up inside them like a cold oasis spring. Now it seemed all their hope had dried up and their spirits were crushed. All they had left were their memories. “Who will roll away the stone?” they worried. “How can we even accomplish this last task of respect if we cannot get to his body?”
When they arrived, the stone was already rolled away. The dead body of Jesus was not there. They were told that Jesus had risen from the dead. They would never find him in the cemetery sealed in a tomb, but he was going on before them as he had promised, and they would recognize him again, alive!
“So they fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” That’s the way the Gospel of Mark ends, not with a period or exclamation point, but with a comma, an ending yet to be added. In effect the Easter Gospel was to be continued, away from the graveyard.
We know from the other Gospel accounts that the two Marys and the other disciples did meet and come to recognize the risen Jesus: some in the early morning on the shore of a lake, others on the road to Emmaus, or on the Mount of Olives, or at Bethany, or on a mountain in Galilee, or gathered around a table for supper in a room in the city. However, wherever the place was, Jesus appeared as they met for thanksgiving, or going about their daily tasks, or on a journey and never when they huddled together in fear or as they sought Jesus’ body among the graves. To be sure the risen Christ was different than the Jesus they had known before. Of course, they were changed and different, too. That is why recognition of the risen Christ was more like a gradual process and even seemed to occur in stages.
The original Easter story happened so long ago, yet we are so much like those first disciples. How often we see ourselves in this world as trudging to a cemetery, worrying about who will roll away the stone so that we may bury our dreams and say goodbye to crushed hope. How often the promise of peace, or genuine goodwill and good intentions seem to be dashed into bitter shards of disillusionment. How often do the motives of our world turn out to be corrupted and spoiled. We never seem to benefit from any lessons of history.
Easter is about relearning again and again, that in Christ, the stone is already rolled away, and that the hope of the world will not be sealed up in one of the world’s many tombs. Very shortly as the early church began growing, Peter found that there were real problems that needed attention. How do people of differing customs, backgrounds, and experiences become the Body of Christ? It was a real headache and Peter and the leaders of the church were in a true quandary. We can certainly imagine Peter exclaiming, “Who will roll away the massive stone of all these differences? How can we possibly live together?”
Then Peter had an encounter with the resurrected Christ. Peter recognized that the stone had already been rolled away. Peter announced. “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” The seemingly insurmountable cultural boundaries of prohibitions and sensitivities of people in the early church became solvable. In recognizing the risen Lord alive in the world, the early church was able to make disciples of all nations. That would have never happened if the disciples had hunkered down in a cemetery nursing just the past recollections with Jesus.
If you come here this morning worrying how you will roll back the stone of the years in order to find the Jesus of your long past childhood, you will not discover the resurrected Christ. He is not here. He has risen to go on to lead you, into your present world with all its challenges. But take heart! Who will roll away the stone is no longer a problem.
It’s gone! Easter is about celebrating the living Christ, and understanding that the stone of our fears hiding the waters of the font of new life is already rolled away. Easter, is about us today, here in Ithaca, New York, passing the peace of Christ, acknowledging that in the waters of baptism we are raised with Christ. Hence this morning we gather around the Lord’s Table, and then go out these doors, to add our ending to Mark’s Gospel as we meet the risen Lord.
And
I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
