It’s wonderful to see you all here on this beautiful spring
morning, when we celebrate and receive the love and promise of God: a love that
was longed for throughout human history, from the moment of creation, and is so
powerful that even the cruelty of the cross could not defeat it. It’s encouraging to see the church so full,
to have everyone dressed in their Easter finest, to be surrounded by beautiful
flowers and wonderful music. It helps, too, after this long winter season that
spring finally seems to be on its way, as evidenced by the brave purple
crocuses bursting into new life on the church grounds. They started springing up here at Emmanuel
earlier this week, anticipating our Easter celebrations by just a few days and
reminding us that new life, resurrected life is coming, slowly but surely.
And, you know, it’s wonderful to remember that it’s not only
Emmanuel, inside and outside, that’s so full of life and vibrancy this morning,
but churches all over the world.
Because today, people in countless languages and cultures, from any
number of denominational backgrounds, are gathering with those they care for
most, in the communities they care for most, to celebrate the fulfillment of
God’s dazzling promise of new life, with music and flowers, with Alleluias and
Easter eggs, with jellybeans and chocolate bunnies, and the real Easter bunny,
and all sorts of joyful exuberance. By
the way, our kids here this morning, and their parents, can look forward to
some of that exuberance a little later with the Easter egg hunt outside, just
don’t stomp on the pretty little crocuses.
They’ve worked hard and waited a long time to come to life. It’s their Easter, too.
But, all of these good and hopeful things don’t mean that
Easter, in its own way, isn’t sometimes a difficult celebration to grasp and
understand, since at its center is a story, a miracle, that requires us to
believe in something that science and nature tell us is impossible—that one who
was dead is now alive. In fact, one of
the online commentaries I was reading this week in preparation for this morning
was titled rather bluntly, “If it’s not hard to believe, you’re probably not
paying attention.” Because the story of
Easter is hard to believe.
That’s why the resurrection is a matter for faith and not
science. No one can prove the
resurrection by science or logic or any other means. And no one can explain how exactly it happened. Even the Bible doesn’t try to explain
it. If you notice, it tells us stories
of the resurrection, of how people heard the angels’ message and encountered
the risen Christ, often when they least expected to see him. But the Bible never explains how it
happened, or what exactly happened—the stone is already rolled away and the
tomb empty by the time the women arrive early on Sunday morning. In fact, the gospels present the
resurrection as something that’s very hard to understand—maybe even the hardest
thing in the world to understand. And
yet, it’s the centerpiece of our faith.
One of the aspects of the various gospel accounts of Easter
that I really appreciate is the fact that in every case the people who come to
the tomb are surprised, perplexed, and don’t know what to believe. You’ll notice that when they encounter the
empty tomb and hear the angels’ say that they should not seek the living among
the dead, they never immediately shout out joyfully “Alleluia!” or “Praise the
Lord” or “Christ is Risen,” as we have done so exuberantly this morning. No, instead they’re afraid, perplexed,
shaken to the core. They don’t know
what to believe. In fact, they can’t
believe.
Our Bible translation this morning says that the disciples
thought the women were engaging in “idle tales” when they came and shared the
news of the empty tomb and the resurrection. That sounds a bit like they women
were gossiping maybe, but the original Greek could also be translated to mean
that they thought the women were delirious or crazy. I suspect that when it
actually happened in history the men really did think the women were off their
rockers, delirious, or nutty. I kind of
like that, actually. Not that the men
thought the women were nuts, that’s a too little stereotypical and sexist (a
reminder that the gospel was written by a man), but I like that the gospel
stories of that first Easter Day are so honest, so human. They might even be the most honest parts of
the Bible, filled with doubts and fears and anxieties of so many kinds. So, if you’re having trouble with this
resurrection business, with these seemingly fanciful, idle tales, take heart
and know that those who knew Jesus in person felt the very same way.
So then, what changed?
What transformed doubt into faith and fear into joy?
Well, we can’t know for certain. But here’s what I think.
I think that when the disciples—both the 12 apostles that we know the
most about, like Peter, James, John, Andrew, and the rest, and the others,
including the women in today’s gospel, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and the
rest—when they joined Jesus in his ministry of teaching and healing and
touching and loving, they were yearning for something, anything, they were
willing to try something, anything, to give meaning and purpose to their
lives. Life was so hard for them,
extraordinarily hard, and they felt so beaten down by it, that they were
willing to break any and every rule and assumption and convention to live in a
different way, in a deeper way, in a Jesus way, in a way that was connected to
God and each other.
And Jesus, in his life and ministry, helped them to make
that connection. In fact, they believed
that he was that connection—the bridge—between God and human life. That’s why they followed him. That’s why
they left everything and risked everything and endured everything, to be with
him, to learn from him, to love him and to be loved by him, to find something
really real and truly true in their lives.
And then when Jesus was crucified they thought that the bridge between
God and themselves was broken, torn down, destroyed. And their resulting grief was so profound, so searing, so
shattering, that they forgot what Jesus had told them about the new life, the
abundant life, the resurrection life that was to come. They forgot it, or maybe they remembered it
put they it aside as a fanciful dream, nonsense, and focused instead on what
they knew to be really real and truly true: pain, loss, and death.
But eventually, not right away, but eventually, and
amazingly, as they heard the angels’ message of good news, as they saw the
empty tomb, as they searched their hearts and souls, they came to the
realization, the belief, the conviction, that the only really real thing in
life, or at least the most real thing in life, must be something that most
people find unreal, just as Jesus himself had taught, showed, and lived, each
and every day. They realized, as Jesus
had taught, that life is stronger than death, that hope is more powerful than
despair, and that God always, always conquers evil. And through that belief, and remembering Jesus’ teaching and the
witness of Jesus’ life, they were able to believe in the resurrection as
well. In fact, they had to
believe in the resurrection. They had
no choice but to believe, and no choice but to trust, and no choice but to
know, that Christ is risen. He has to
be, because there’s no other option.
And the same is true for us. If we try to understand the resurrection or explain it or submit
it to the proofs of science and logic we’ll always be left disappointed. There is no explanation; there is no proof. And I suspect there never will be. But on the other hand, if we search our
hearts and souls we might just discover that the Easter story, and the promise
of resurrection are actually quite easy to believe, not because of science or
logic, but simply because we trust in the promises of God. Because like the disciples who followed
Jesus some 2,000 years ago we, too, believe that life is stronger death, that
hope is more powerful than despair, and that God always, always conquers
evil.
And if we believe those things, well, then, a belief in the
resurrection, a belief in Easter, a belief in new and abundant life, is not so
hard to come to and grasp to after all.
In fact, if we believe those things—that life is strong than death, that
hope is more powerful than despair, and that God always conquers evil—then we
must believe in the promise of resurrection as well—not only as a great,
miraculous thing that happened to Jesus some 2,000 years ago, but as something
that God does among us all, each and every day, as we live in God’s love and as
we live in God’s hope.
That resurrected life, that Easter life holds us and
sustains us, when life is hard and when it’s pretty good, too. It gives us
courage to lay aside the struggles of the past look to tomorrow with hope and
confidence. And it reminds us, as does this wonderful spring morning, with its
beautiful flowers bursting into life, that what we see is not all that there
is. And that promise, that reality,
each year and always, every Easter, leads us to shout with great joy,
Alleluia! Christ is Risen.
Happy Easter.
© The Rev. Matthew P. Cadwell
