Easter 2017

Easter 2017

April 16, 2017

    Can you imagine what that first Easter morning must have been like?  Peter, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Jesus, the disciples… they must have been exhausted that first morning.  There had been nothing but chaos and death that followed them.  It must have seemed as though they were losing their minds sometimes.  Things had seemed to be going OK; when they all showed up in Jerusalem, things looked like maybe they had been worried for no good reason.  The people seemed to love him.  Palm branches were strewn across the ground, cries of Hosannah followed him as he rode through town.  It all seemed like it was going well… then he had to start talking about betrayal at dinner that night… He washed their feet, … like a house servant… spoke about love… and he spoke about betrayal.  Peter winced when he thought about it.  Judas was not the only betrayer… Peter must have heard those words over and over again since Jesus said them:  Before the cock crows three times, you will deny me… and Peter did.  He was afraid… after all they had been through together, Peter was afraid… again.  And, he denied Jesus whom he loved.  Peter, on whom the church was supposed to be build was no more a rock than a pile of sand.  He denied his friend, he denied their teacher.  In the end they all did.  Only some of the women and his mother stayed until the bitter end.  No one really cared what the women thought or said.  It didn’t matter… But Peter and John and the rest… well, they could be next.  If there was any chance that the empire didn’t kill the movement along with Jesus, then, soon they would come looking for Peter and the rest.  And he was scared.

    Mary Magdalene was also scared, and grieving deeply, and so she goes to the only place she can…. She goes to the tomb to weep there… but… the stone has been moved.  The body isn’t there… in her fear, she doesn’t remember what he said… he told them he would die… and in three days he would rise again.  But who on earth would believe that?  And so she runs and gets Peter who comes to see for himself.  It is as Mary has said.  He’s gone.  And so off they go, probably even more confused than before… where did they take him?  What could they possibly want with the body?  Hadn’t they done enough?  

    Woman, why are you weeping, whom are you looking for?  Her heart must have broken into a million pieces again… Where is he?  Please tell me, and I will take him away… I will make him safe… I will do for him what I could not do when they killed him… and then, suddenly, he speaks her name as she heard it so many times, and suddenly, Mary knows the truth… he isn’t gone… he isn’t dead… He is alive… he is risen, just as he promised them… in all of the horrors of the last few days, it was so easy to forget, so easy to let fear take over… and yet… here he was… talking to her, just like he did just a few days ago… Here, here is God’s truth; they tried to silence him, and not even death on the cross could do it.  They called him names, they mocked him, they lied about him and they killed him… and yet; God’s love, and God’s truth, lived in the life of Jesus, are alive again… Perfect love and truth Risen from the dead, and proving for ever that no matter what happens, God’s love will always overcome fear, hatred, and death.  Nothing is impossible with God.

    Beloved, the miracle of that morning, is our miracle today; as Mary, and Peter experienced that first Easter morning, so too, you and I, experience Jesus’ resurrection today… Today, the Good News of God lives in Jesus, the one whom God has raised from the dead.   It is a new morning, and new world, made new by the God who created it.  The resurrection of Jesus gives us the gift of eternal life with the God of Love.  We are reunited, brought into the very life of God because of the life God lived on earth as Jesus… and that is a bond that will never be broken by anyone, or anything.  God has shown God’s infinite love for humanity by embracing all that we are on the cross… and then bringing it into Jesus’ resurrection...  This is God’s radical, life giving work done

on behalf of Mary and Peter… done on behalf of you and I, done on behalf of all whom we love who have gone before us.  This miracle, this mystery of faith isn’t just about the afterlife… it has implications for us right here and now… Resurrection, like much of what Jesus did in his ministry is something that stands against earthly power.  Power seeks to multiply at all costs… God doesn’t need earthly power.  God’s whole cause is love… from before creation until this moment, this morning, God shows us love that we cannot destroy, even when we try our hardest.  

    God chose us… Jesus chose us by showing us what perfect love looks like, by putting relationships above power, by letting love conquer fear, hatred and death… so beloved, what are we going to do in response?  How are you and I going to choose Jesus this day?  How will his resurrection change us so that we might chose perfect love?  Alleluia, Christ is risen!