April 20, 2014 - Easter Sunday
Matthew 28:1-10
1After the sabbath, as the first day of the
week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2And
suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending
from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3His
appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. 4For
fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. 5But the
angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for
Jesus who was crucified. 6He is not here; for he has been raised, as
he said. Come, see the place where he lay.7Then 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.” 8So
they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.
9Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to
him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. 10Then Jesus said to
them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they
will see me.”
Sermon: “Rolling Stones”
We’ve heard the
resurrection story from Matthew so many times, right? We know it backwards and forwards don’t we?
It goes like this: 2 guards hang out by Jesus’ cave grave. Mary Magdalene and another Mary go to see the
tomb early in the morning. Suddenly
there’s an earthquake, a blindingly bright angel descends from heaven, the
stone is rolled away, and that angel has a seat on it. Then Jesus is raised from the dead. The ladies see him and he tells them to go
and tell the others.
Pretty much how we remember
it, right? So I can just wrap this
sermon up now?
Well, no. You see, that’s not actually what happens in
Matthew. All of those dramatic events we
hear about: earthquake, angel swooping in, stone rolling away, are not preludes
to the resurrection. They’re
postludes. They happen after Jesus has
already been raised in this text. The
angel speaks to those faithful women in past tense, “He is not here, he has
been raised.”
And when that stone rolls
away, Jesus doesn’t come walking out. That
tomb is already empty! The women don’t
even see Jesus until after they leave the tomb, and are on their way to tell
the good news that Jesus is alive, purely on faith (without having witnessed
him alive for themselves). Only after
they’ve taken such a faithful step does the risen Christ appear to them.
So why all the drama? Why does the resurrection need the dramatic
effects: the earthquake, the glowing angel, the rolling stone?
Full of these questions
about all of this smoke and mirrors stuff in our story, I did the obvious
thing: I asked a magician friend of mine.
(He also happens to be a Presbyterian pastor.) And no, don’t worry, I will not at any point
this morning be saying that the resurrection was some sort of elaborate magic
trick by God. But I do wonder how drama
serves to help us grasp the impossible, or believe the unbelievable.
My magical friend said
this:
“Sometimes, a flash/bang device is used for distraction, and
sometimes it's just used for dramatic emphasis.
It can be used to direct someone's attention AWAY from something, but it
can also be used to direct someone's attention TOWARD something - as if to say
in dramatic fashion, "Hey! Look at
this! This is really important!"
In his opinion the angel and
corresponding earthquake and stone rolled away were pointing to the more
important thing happening: that Jesus was raised from the dead.
So, I can’t help but re-read this
familiar story from Matthew in this way:
The resurrection had already
happened. It happened sometime before
those women arrived at the tomb, it happened while those guards were completely
unaware, perhaps catching a pre-dawn nap.
It happened quietly, invisibly, actually. No one seemed to notice it at the time. But when there were people who God wanted to
recognize what happened, God pulled out all the stops, like how a magician trys
to draw attention to something really important. Angel descending, earthquake, rolling stone –
Jesus didn’t need these in order to be raised from the dead.
But those women needed the
flash/bang effect. They needed the drama
so that they wouldn’t miss what God had already done. And they needed the angel to tell them those
six words of what Easter is really all about: “Do not fear! Go and tell.”
And in the going, to do the
telling, they caught up with the resurrected Christ, who was already going on
ahead of them. He echoes those same
essential six Easter words, “Do not fear!
Go and tell.” And those two women
do just that. And because they do,
millions of people gather this day to celebrate the good news that Jesus is
alive, including us.
But though we gather to celebrate
this good news, we do not do it because the resurrection happens just today, or
because it happened once-upon-a-time over 2,000 years ago. We gather because resurrection is still
happening, over and over again, often before we even realize what God is doing,
many times in such quiet, subtle ways it’s easy to miss. But God knows that we human beings aren’t so
good at quietness and subtlety when it comes to faith.
We like the drama – we crave the
glowing heavenly being, the foundations of the earth shaking, the rolling
stone. I don’t think we crave this
resurrection drama because we’re addicted to high drama television and having
our senses be constantly over-stimulated by technology (though we of course
are).
I think we need a dramatic
resurrection because the forces of death are so very dramatic in this world:
there is nothing quiet or subtle about war, hunger, poverty, cancer, bullying
or broken relationships. The forces of
death are loud.
And so we need the forces of
resurrection – of new life – to be even louder.
Give us the smoke and mirrors, give us the ground shaking beneath our
feet, give us the tangible presence of heaven, give us the impossibility of a
weighty stone rolled away so that we might believe that new life is also
possible. We do not want a whispering
Easter, we want a Rolling Stone Easter, that sings over and through all that
deals death in our world and our lives, overpowering all of that noise.
Sometimes, like those women that
day, we are lucky. Sometimes, God brings
resurrection with all the fanfare so that we realize that something really
important has happened, and we can’t miss it.
We awake one day and suddenly find that all of our anger and bitterness
has been rolled away from our hearts like a stone we thought would never
budge.
But I think just as often, God
brings quiet resurrections, resurrections we might not even fully see until we
let go of our fear and go tell someone the good news we are so desperate for
ourselves. Those women were prepared to
go and tell of the resurrection before they actually saw it. So must we.
For still, it is in the going and the telling (not in the sitting and
the pondering) that we really encounter our Risen Lord.
However Easter comes to us,
quietly or loudly, we do know this: it comes first. God’s resurrection power is already at work,
already bringing new life, already defeating the forces of death in our
midst. Because the Risen Lord is still
going ahead of us, leaving resurrection in his wake.
And he is still speaking those
same six Easter words to us, speaking into our worries and doubts, into our
illness and exhaustion and anger: “Do not fear, go and tell.” Whether those resurrection words of hope are
loud and obvious or subtle whispers, we can be sure of this: even whispers of
God’s resurrection have more power than the loudest shouts of death in this world.
Even hints of new life through
Jesus Christ are enough to fill the darkest places of grief and fear with
glorious light.
Even echoes of Easter are enough
to roll away our heavy stones of worry and despair.
Christ is risen! Do not fear, God
and tell. Alleluia!
Amen.
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