Easter Sunday (David Hyers)  


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How wonderful it is to gather together this Easter morning. Outside the sun is trying to shine over the horizon. The trees are bursting forth with their spring buds. Maybe a few Easter eggs are still hidden in a forgotten bush. The popular images of Easter are very connected with the springtime: Easter egg hunts, chocolate bunnies, gossamer-winged butterflies, baby chicks, puppies and kittens.

I’ve begun to wonder about something. What does Easter Sunday look like when it is fall rather than spring? What might Easter look like in New Zealand with the leaves falling from the trees, with cool, rainy, even stormy weather? What if we were to see autumn colors rather than pastels, fall leaves rather than green grass? How might that change our experience of Easter?

In the same way, I began to look at the different gospel accounts of Easter morning. I was intrigued by the differences each brings to the story of Easter morning and of how a reading of each different gospel account might change my understanding of Easter. Mark seems to be subdued and straight to the point with his account--this and this and then--while Luke’s account is more detailed and refined.

As I read Matthew’s account, I am struck by the drama of the text, the vividness of the images he paints for us. He begins the story as the dawn is breaking. We see the Marys, silently and solemnly, arrive at the tomb. Then, shattering the still of the morning is an earthquake. Everything round them shudders; pandemonium is unleashed. Perhaps they are knocked off balance. Maybe they fall to the ground, scared and petrified. It seems as if earth itself is shaking apart. And as if that isn’t enough to bear, there is an Angel descending from heaven. Now hold on a minute--this isn’t a Michael Landon on Highway to Heaven or a cute little Hummel angel floating down like Cupid, heart-shaped bow in hand. This is the Angel of the Lord, a messenger of God whose appearance is like lightning, whose clothing is white as snow. This is an angel who is terrifying and beautiful all at the same time. Perhaps with a sweep of the hand the angel rolls away the stone in front of the tomb and sits down on top of it.

Just look at what happens next. The guards are so afraid, so overwhelmed with fear that they start to shake, and then they just pass out like dead men. Then in what strikes me as a moment of irony, the angel says to them, “Don’t be afraid.” I’d be like “Um yea tell that to the guards.” I understand their reaction. Earthquakes are exciting until you live on a fault line, and then they are simply terrifying. Then, as if this were not exciting enough, the angel speaks. You can almost feel it crackling in the air. It is as if all of heaven and earth are caught up in the proclamation the angel begins to make: “I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. Jesus is not here, for he has been raised, as he said.” Then the angel says, “Come, see the place where he lay.”

You see, Jesus, who on Friday was dead and was not sleeping or hiding, was dead! But here on Easter morning, the tomb is empty. This same Jesus is not here and is not dead but alive! Jesus Christ is alive! And in the midst of the fear, there is now hope. In place of a sealed tomb, the hope of the ages bursts forth, alive and loose in the world! And there is promise, the wondrous promise that the power of sin and death is once and forever broken.

It is here I find myself standing in front of the empty tomb, looking at this terribly beautiful angel, scared out of my wits, standing in the light of Easter morning, filled with such awe and fear that I am afraid I can’t move and will be stuck like those guards. And in the very same moment, I am filled with such great joy and hope in the good news of the gospel that I feel as if I am going to burst at the seams.

But hang on, I am getting ahead of myself and the angel hasn’t finished speaking yet… “Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, 'He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.' This is my message for you." You see, like the Marys standing before the empty tomb, we are called to go proclaim the Good News with every fiber of our being, with our very lives.

Yet it’s still easy to understand the fear. One of Walter Bruggemann’s prayers states it this way:

We know ourselves to be held,
over night, for two nights, too long,
held by fear and anxiety,
held by grudge and resentment;
held by doubt and fatigue;
held by too much stuff,
by all manner of the forces of death.
Held, powerless…but turned toward you.
You in your risenness, make Sundays even for us.
even among us,
even here,
even now,
no longer held. Amen.

Therefore, daily we are called to embrace the grace of God that enables us no longer to be held and to go to run and tell of the good news. The two Marys left the tomb quickly, yes, with fear, but also with great joy, and they ran to tell his disciples, to proclaim the Good News.

Living into the newness of God’s reality isn’t easy, isn’t without fear, isn’t without risk and cost, yet daily people of faith all over the world rely upon that grace, proclaiming, living the good news of the gospel in big and small ways. During WWII there was a small French village in the mountains, where a strong Christian community lived side by side a smaller but equally strong Jewish community. After France fell to the Nazis and the Jewish persecution began to grow stronger and stronger, Jewish families in this village began to disappear. After a time the entire Jewish boarding school disappeared, One afternoon the students and teachers when out for a walk and simply never came back. Now rather than a tale of tragedy, this is a story of Easter hope, of gospel promise. These Jewish families were disappearing into hiding; the Christian members of the community simply took in their Jewish neighbors, hiding them and in many cases helping them to find a way to escape into Switzerland. Soon word spread about this village, and many other Jewish families began to arrive seeking help and deliverance from the holocaust.

Throughout the war this continued. When the allied troops entered this 2000-person village, they found 2000 more people in hiding. It is amazing to me that for every resident in the village one more person was hidden and kept safe. Years later one of the boys, who had been hidden in the village, returned to make a film to tell the story. He went back to the family that had hidden him
and asked why. Why did they risk everything to hide his family? How did they decide to do this? The mother of the family stood for a long moment. Finally looking up, she turned her head to one side and said quietly and simply, “We never thought about it; we are Christians.”

We need not only look to scripture or to the past to see such examples of Easter faith breaking the bonds of sin and death. I am truly grateful and proud to be one of your pastors as daily I am blessed to see life in the midst of death, resurrection promise breaking forth into Easter faith. As people of faith, our lives are filled with such Easter stories, big and small, no less risky or fear filled, and no less bursting with great joy of Easter.

We are all called. Because we are Christians, because of who God is, we are called. In the light of Easter morning, in the shadow of an empty tomb, we are called to go forth, to go forth in fear and great joy to proclaim the good news, to shout with the very living of our lives the joyous claim: That Jesus Christ is Risen! Alleluia! Amen.

 

 


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