March 23, 2008
by Pastor Laura Gentry
Above are the "Alleluia" flags the children distributed to begin our worship service. Every time we said or sang "Alleluia" we waved our flags to show the celebratory nature of our worship.
John 20:1-18
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her. (NRSV)
Here we are on Easter Sunday, gathered for our celebratory worship: the sanctuary is decked out in fragrant lilies, we’re in our Easter finery and we’ve got yellow “Alleluia!” flags to wave about excitedly. What could be better? The stone of the grave has been rolled away and Christ is risen, he is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Ah, but what does it mean for us that Christ is risen? What sort of demands does it make upon us? That’s right: demands. Have you ever thought of the resurrection of Christ as demanding? Yes, it is fun to worship on Easter morning with all the great hymns and scriptures and to down bags full of pastel colored candies and dye eggs but there is more to this message than that. We have to face the reality that Christ is risen, really risen!
Because he is no longer in the tomb, he won’t be quiet. He is not just a fond memory. He is a living presence with whom we can have a relationship. As a resurrected Savior, he’s entitled to his opinions about the way we choose to live our lives. Frankly, he’s concerned about our disinterest in living the resurrected life.
The question he asks us is: do you want your stone to be rolled away? Do you want to be alive with me or would you rather stay in your old, dull, dead-end lifestyle? You see, we tend to like to stay in our graves. It is safer there. There is no challenge, just go through the daily routines and everything will be fine. Do you want your stone to be rolled away? He demands an answer.
Certainly Jesus’ disciples had a difficult time answering that question. They find the tomb empty and struggle to figure out what this unexpected ending means for them. To be honest, it would have been a lot more convenient for them if he had stayed dead. Oh yes, they would miss him and all those great parables he used to tell, the exciting healings he would perform and so on. But in the grave, he couldn’t challenge them to take up their crosses anymore. I mean, they’d already dropped their nets to follow him, what more did he want? In the grave, he couldn’t give them a mission to spread the good news. In the grave, he couldn’t ask them to give up their very lives for this cause. What simple, uneventful lives they could have led if only he’d stayed in the grave.
Now the stone has been rolled away! Now his body is gone and an angel announces that he is risen. What do they do? They should be leaping for joy and holding laughter club meetings to giggle at the devil’s foiled plot. Instead, they respond with fear. “Oh no! What’s going to happen to us now?” they think. “How are we going to take up the challenges, which the risen Jesus lays before us? We had so wanted to be able to retire in comfort and, you know, perhaps write the Gospels with all our newfound free time.” They don’t seem eager to embrace the adventure that is set before them. They kind of liked it before the stone had been rolled away.
As human beings, it is our nature to want stable and predictable lives. We want life to be easygoing and God to always have comfortable messages for us. But that is the life of the grave. That is not what we were designed for. The resurrected Christ has a more exciting plan. He barges into our neatly ordered lives and demands that we drop our nets and follow him. He demands we put down our tv sets and our easy chairs and our notebook computers and anything else that stands in the way of our discipleship. He demands that we follow him, and follow him all the way to the cross. Then he rolls away our stones whether or not we wanted him to. And then he calls us to live the resurrected life with him!
To live the resurrected life means that we come out of our self-inflicted tombs. It demands that we allow the stone to be rolled away. It demands that leave behind our fears. If we truly believe that our Lord has risen from the dead and that in doing so, he has secured our salvation, then there is no room for fear. There is no room for small-minded, go-with-the-flow, be-like-everyone-else, live-a-boring-life thinking! There is NO room for it! We cannot proclaim that Christ is risen and then turn around and shrink in fear that we can’t handle our lives.
Yet so many people live in this perpetual state of fear and anxiety. It’s easy to see why they do it. The news stations broadcast a smorgasbord of tragedy every single day. You can’t even bring a full-size bottle of shampoo on the airplane with you because of the terrorist-fighting restrictions. And who can you trust to love these days? So many broken relationships and broken hearts may cause us to be cautious. Looking around at the state of our world, it is logical to want to sequester ourselves, to hunker down for a safe but boring life in the grave and ask Christ to kindly leave our stones alone. It may not be great, but this is the life we know and we don’t want it disturbed by any risen Saviors.
The ending of the Gospel of Mark is the subject of much scholarly debate. How did the original writer end it? There are actually three possibilities. Each one of the endings is possible and is supported by ancient manuscripts. Yet, the most likely ending is odd. After telling the story of the resurrection, it simply ends with the sentence: “and they were afraid.” And they were afraid? That’s not a very triumphal ending to such an amazing story! Yet it is truthful. That’s how the disciples felt when they first heard the news. Like us, they were afraid of the stone being rolled away.
So Christ asks us on this Easter morning: do you want your stone to be rolled away? Do you want me to infuse you with my resurrection power? Do you want to believe that I am alive and working in you to live the life God plans for you? Do you want to leave the sofa behind and step out into the adventure of resurrected living? Do you want to be overwhelmed with the joy of the Lord, with the peace that passes all understand, with the courage to face life’s fears head-on in faith? You, yes you, are being called forth from your graves. You are being asked to live with Christ, to really live! Let us summon the courage to say YES to these questions, my friends. Let us sing and dance and shout “Alleluia!” not just today but every day, for our stones have been rolled away! Amen.
© 2008 Laura Gentry
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