Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
When I worked as a camp counselor as a college student, there was one week of the summer reserved for children in foster care through the local Lutheran social services agency. Many of the kids who came that week had not ever been to camp before, and were not familiar with Bible stories, or church.
The focus of one of our daily Bible studies that week was on the Easter story, and I remember being taken aback to see how sad the kids were when we talked through the stories of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday - of Jesus’s betrayal, and suffering, and death. Oh, it’s okay, I told them. Jesus doesn’t stay dead. He rises on the third day!
Their minds were blown. He what?! Confusion and surprise filled their faces. What do you mean he doesn’t stay dead? Was it just pretend? No, no, I continued. He died, but then God raised him from the dead, and he went and found his disciples again, and then, later, he went up into heaven to be with God.
It was perhaps my first conversation about Easter with people who didn’t already know the story - didn’t already know the ending - and I had forgotten how truly surprising and perplexing and strange it all sounded. It doesn’t really make sense, doesn’t match what we’ve experienced about life and death. For all its familiarity to us, the Easter story is, ultimately, a story of the unexpected.
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| Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash |
When the women set out at early dawn, they expected to find a body to anoint, inside a sealed tomb. They expected to go about this sad, tender work together, then go home to begin to piece together what life would be like without Jesus, their teacher and friend.
Instead, they arrive at an empty tomb, stone rolled away. What had happened?
Then, still trying to piece it all together, they turn to see two men in dazzling clothes. The women are, understandably, terrified.
“Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” the men say. “Jesus is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son-of-Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”
It was a lot to take in. It was early, remember, and, on top of that, their minds were shrouded in grief. I can picture their whispers to one another as the wheels in their heads started turning. They started to piece it together, heard Jesus’s voice in their heads talking about this very thing, remembered all the times he had spoken of it before. They had come to the tomb that morning expecting death, and closure, perhaps, and yet, somehow, the story was not over.
We, too, think we know how the story ends. We’ve seen it before - injustice triumphs, the powerful do what they want without consequence, the dead stay dead. We know how things work, how they always work, regardless of our hopes for an alternative.
And yet… God promises a different ending. God promises the unexpected - that the lowly will be lifted up and the mighty cast down; that the first will be last, and the last, first; that death is not final; that evil will not be victorious. God promises that we are loved and valued apart from what we do or fail to do. God promises that we are forgiven, that we are more than the worst thing we’ve ever done. God promises that grace, and life, and love get the last word. God promises that because Jesus lives, we shall live also.
It’s hard to believe when we look around at mountains of evidence to the contrary. A different ending than what appears to be inevitable absolutely sounds like an idle tale - unrealistic, unbelievable, not worth dwelling on.
And yet…And yet, we’ve seen glimpses of God at work in our own lives; have seen glimpses of God doing the unexpected. We’ve seen new life in unexpected places, and moments of grace and hope and kindness in the midst of grief and violence and despair.
Perhaps you come today ready to joyfully hear the good news of the resurrection. Or, perhaps it still sounds unbelievable. Perhaps, like Peter, you’re unsure but you’ve come to see anyway, and will go home amazed.
The good news can take some time to sink in, especially when it’s so unexpected. And, like the women at the tomb, like the eleven and all the rest, we need others to remind us of Jesus’s words, to remind us of all that God has promised.
If you need to be reminded, you’ve come to the right place. Today, here, in story and song, in prayer and proclamation, in the water and in the meal, we are reminded again and again of God’s unexpected, glorious good news. The tomb is empty! Jesus is risen! The powers of death and evil and Empire are defeated; love and life win the day.
It’s a lot to take in. We will need to be reminded again and again. And so we gather, even when we’re unsure, and confused, even when we’re tired, and grieving. We gather, because it is through one another that we see God at work. We gather, because Jesus promises to meet us here.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
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