Sermon on April 12, 2020: Easter Day

Life can sometimes sneak up on us on a way that is absolutely terrifying. We know this to be true, don’t we? I mean, one moment you’re living your life and going along on your merry way, and the next moment you’re afraid to leave your house, and when you do you wear a mask and latex gloves, and other people cross the street rather than pass by you on the sidewalk. All the normal patterns of everyday life that we take for granted have suddenly vanished. The carpet has been ripped out from under us. And it’s absolutely terrifying.

Occasionally, though, it can be humorous. For example, the likelihood that most of us are attending Easter services today in our pajamas. In fact, my assumption is that you’re watching this livestream in your pajamas right now. And if that’s you, friend, then please know that I do not judge you in the slightest. You are doing the best you can—you’re hanging in there! Like the parents of all the children who will never, ever be going back to school—we’re hanging in! We can definitely help our kid do distance learning and do our job from home and never leave the house and have good mental health, all at the same time. Sure. So, like I said, when life sneaks up, it can be terrifying. Or humorous. Or maybe both at the same time, but for different reasons.

So if today seems like a strange day to you, know that you are not alone. Isolated though we may be, we are in fact in very good company, because we keep company with the likes of Mary Magdalene, and the rather unfortunately named “other Mary.” These two Marys know what it’s like to keep getting the carpet ripped out from under them. Barely three days earlier, they saw the man whom they believed to be the Messiah arrested, put on trial, mocked, beaten, crucified, and killed. They may have heard him talking as though it was going to happen, but they never really expected that it would happen. And then it did. And days pass. And they just want to go to his grave, even if only to be near his dead body. That’s all. Just the normal stuff that grieving people do.

Instead, when they arrive, there is an earthquake, and an angel who looks like lightening appears, and rolls away a giant boulder, and shows them the empty tomb, and informs them that Jesus has been raised. This story may be familiar terrain for us, but it wasn’t for them. There’s a reason why it starts with an earthquake. The landscape has shifted. All the normal patterns of life that they took for granted have suddenly vanished. It turns out that resurrection can be terrifying.

Fear is the principal theme in Matthew’s resurrection account. The angel appears, and the guards shake with fear. The angel tells the women, “Don’t be afraid,” and although they depart the tomb with great joy, they are also fearful. Even when they encounter the risen Jesus, he also says to them: “Do not be afraid.” Of course. Resurrection is terrifying. We have no framework for it. The walking dead must be zombies. Either that, or they were never really dead to begin with. Because the dead stay dead. And the crucified definitely stay dead.

For us to celebrate Easter in a time of pandemic, we must resist the spirit of fear that plagues us. And when I say that, what I don’t mean is pretending the pandemic isn’t real, or that it isn’t that bad, or that the death toll will be any less serious. We can’t celebrate Easter by pretending that death does not exist. We must make our way to the tombs, and stare into them, and believe that they are not the final resting places. And the warrant we have for this belief is the testimony of two women, of Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, who encountered their risen Lord outside of his tomb, after God had raised him from the dead.

Some say that Easter is a lovely story, and nothing more. That Jesus did not really rise from the grave, but that those who thought so were mistaken, or had an agenda, or that their stories were corrupted later on, and therefore Easter is simply a metaphor for how life always emerges from death, like spring always emerges from winter. And who knows, perhaps they are right. But the thing is, I have no time for lovely stories. I have no time for fancy metaphors. The Easter story is true or it is not, and if it is not, then it’s not worth my time, and it’s not worth yours. To quote St. Paul the Apostle, patron of this church, “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile” and then he says that “if for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” Paul didn’t have time for lovely stories either. Easter is only worth celebrating if it’s true that death is not the end, that God raised Jesus from the grave, and that he will one day raise us from ours.

Last night, at the Great Vigil of Easter, I read the famous Paschal Homily from St. John Chrysostom, the fourth century Archbishop of Constantinople. Toward the end of his homily, there is a line that gets me every time, that comes after a series of the call- and responses. He says this:

Christ is risen, Truly, he is risen—and not one dead remains in a tomb.

What an utterly astonishing statement. Because Christ is risen, all tombs are temporary. Not one dead remains in a tomb.

Do we dare to believe that? Do we dare to believe that death is not the end, that Christ has opened to us the gate of everlasting life?

If we do, it may take some rearranging of the normal patterns of life we take for granted, and that can be terrifying. It may mean seeing in a way we aren’t used to seeing, and resisting the fear that death is our master. It is not, because not one dead remains in a tomb. The two women have seen the first. And one day, at the end of time, we will see the rest.

Do not be afraid. He is not here; he is risen. Alleluia.

I have spoken these words to you today in the Name of the everliving God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.