Love will triumph
Betty Stroud
Year C, Easter Day
I don’t know about you, but I certainly can’t explain the resurrection fully – probably not even partially. For me it’s mystery, and all attempts at rational explanations fail. It’s something that arose out of an experience rather than a well-thought out theory, and experiences are sometimes hard to explain. We can describe them, but a lot of experiences are difficult to reason out. John Wesley couldn’t rationalise the ‘warmth that invaded his heart when he felt God’s Spirit working within it.’ And I guess that most of us can’t explain fully what has been our experience of knowing that God is with us.
Rather than trying to explain the resurrection, I think we’re better off looking at it as explaining us. The resurrection establishes who we are and why we are a follower of Jesus. Because Easter happened, because the resurrection happened, the church happened. We wouldn’t be part of the Church today if the experiences of those early disciples hadn’t been told and retold down through the ages. We wouldn’t be a follower, if the experience of Christ’s living presence is not one which rings just as true for us today, as for those early disciples.
As we think about the Easter story today I want us to look at four of the details found in Luke’s story, and as we look at those details let us open our minds to think beyond the facts and to how Luke tries to explain the experiences of those early disciples who – over time, knew all about the living presence of Christ – even though he’d been crucified and buried in a tomb.
Firstly – the stone was rolled away: not to let Jesus out – but to let us in. The idea that God rolled the stone away from the tomb to let Jesus escape is inconsistent with the resurrection appearances of Jesus recorded elsewhere in the scriptures – appearances in which he suddenly appeared in the midst of the disciples, even when they were behind closed doors. Closed doors never kept Jesus in or out and Luke makes this clear in today’s reading.
God rolled the stone of the tomb away, not to let Jesus out – but to let us in – to allow us to see that Christ’s promises are true.
Secondly – the tomb is not completely empty. The woman saw two men in dazzling white and heard them speak words that would have reverberated around the place: “Why do you look for the living amongst the dead? He is not here, but has risen.’
If the women on that first Easter morning had looked into an empty and silent tomb, then our resurrection faith would be a belief based on human speculation, an assumption of the moment, an argument based on negative evidence. Those same words that echoed and re-echoed in that Easter tomb still echo in our world today – “He is risen!” The tomb proclaims the victory of life over death, and the continuation of Christ’s presence and mission in this world – first in Galilee, and ultimately to the ends of the earth.
And thirdly, – because of Easter we can turn our backs on the grave. Luke tells us that Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women who were with them who, having heard the angel’s assurance, “He is risen”, turned their backs on the grave and went to tell the disciples.
What these women were doing was witnessing to the fact that Jesus – who had been buried and laid in a sealed tomb, wouldn’t stay dead. The tomb could not hold him – and because of him, the tomb can’t hold us either.
This indeed is what Jesus promised his disciples before he died, a promise that seemed at times totally incredible, a matter, at best, of metaphor, but which – because of the first Easter morning, we know to be a matter of substance.
And fourthly, as a result of the women’s witness, which the disciples found to be an idle tale and totally unbelievable, Peter took himself off to have a look. The women’s witness encouraged Peter to find out for himself. Witness is a powerful thing.
Those first disciples who were fearful, despairing and hopeless about the future – a future without their beloved leader, gradually came to realise that death was not the end, and that fear, despair and hopelessness, were transformed in life, through their experience of a leader who was still – in some mysterious way, still living.
So how might the Easter story speak to our world today?
A world that, in many places is bound by fear, despair and hopelessness.
Many people are fearful of a USA president who seems to act illogically and on whims but who, if I’m not mistaken, is bent on turning established ways of being, upside down, who is bent on bringing chaos and disorder, hopelessness and uncertainty to people’s lives – all the while profiting from that chaos. And of course, he’s not the only leader in the world who acts in this way.
Within the Australian electorate, there is, for some, a sense of hopelessness, as they listen to leaders who pussy foot around the deep worries and issues that confront many people on a daily basis. Leaders who fail to propose real and meaningful visions for the future that will make our society more just and equitable.
Others fear for the future of children and grandchildren who seem destined to live in a world where the effects of global warming will have serious consequences. Associated with this fear is despair that issues of climate change are not being addressed with real urgency and priority.
These fears are real and the question is ‘How does the resurrection speak to people who have these fears and experience the darkness that at times threatens to overwhelm?’
Across the globe there are people who live with other forms of darkness.
What does the Easter story have to say in the midst of the misery that is Gaza, the refugee camps spread across Africa and the Middle East, or amongst the ruins of people’s lives in towns almost bombed to oblivion in the Ukraine.
What does it say in the hearts of the lonely, and the despairing? The drug addicts, the homeless and those who are alone?
I was cleaning out some files when I was home last week and came across a collection of cartoons that I have. There was one there by Michael Leunig. It is of a largish man and a smaller person – presumably father and son and they are standing looking at an image of Jesus hanging on the cross. The larger man says: ‘And here’s what happens when you can’t keep your big mouth shut.’
Jesus died because he wasn’t afraid of speaking out for truth, justice, acceptance and tolerance. Jesus died because of his love for people which meant that he helped people in the midst of their darkness and in doing so upset those who held positions of power and who felt threatened by his words and actions.
Jesus couldn’t keep his mouth shut when he saw injustice, lack of love, apathy and hatred of the ‘other’.
The women who went from the tomb with the news of the resurrection found it hard to keep their mouths shut.
Many of the first Christians couldn’t keep their mouths shut and were killed because of the seeming threat they posed.
Down through the centuries Christians – and others, through the power of God’s spirit, have not been afraid to speak up for what they believed was right and so have been tortured, killed and ridiculed.
I believe that the world today needs people who are not afraid to speak out against the forces that threaten at times to overwhelm us.
The world needs people who are willing to speak the messages of justice and tolerance and peace and hope, of compassion and love and care.
Transformation is what Christ’s resurrection is all about:
The transformation of death, fear and destruction into life and renewal.
We – Jesus’ modern day disciples, are called to proclaim – by what we say and do, that our transformational God is still around – despite what might seem to be evidence to the contrary.
Transformation, in its very nature, is about ongoing change, about renewal, about the reversal of things.
The resurrection encourages us to proclaim that the darkness we see in so many places in our world, can be infused with light.
Evil and hatred are not the end. Love and goodness can and will triumph.
This is the good news of Easter Sunday.
