"He Is Not Here!"

Luke 24:1-12

The women that day, and for a couple of days before, had been preparing to minister to Jesus, who was dead. They were preparing to minister to the dead. They, in fact, had seen and experienced Jesus' death. They knew the story. They had watched from the foot of the cross. They knew what it was all about. They heard his cries. They saw him struggle and die. They saw the dead body lifted from the cross and followed to the grave site. They saw the stone rolled in front of the grave, and the guard posted at the door or the tomb. They saw it all. They knew that Jesus was dead.

They knew also what was expected of them, as women, and as friends of the deceased. You make your visits, you give your condolences to the family. You make some food for the meal afterward. You send a card. They knew it all by heart.

And so, on the first day of the week, they helped Mary prepare spices, to go and anoint Jesus' body, so that it wouldn't smell too bad as it decayed in the tomb. They did what every good Jewish woman did for her family and friends. And Jesus certainly was family and friend to them. Their discussion on the way to the tomb, according to one of the Gospels, centered on who would roll away the stone, so that they could do their work. They probably wondered how sensitive the Romans would be to their need to do what was prescribed for them to do. They didn't talk about resurrection, or about other heady matters. That wasn't their job. It wasn't even on the radar screen. It wasn't something they would have thought about thinking about - it wasn't a possibility.

But when they arrive, they are met by two angels. The biblical word actually means, "messengers," although the fact that they are angels is also rather clear from the text, because it says that their clothing shone dazzling white. I don't think it was Clorox.

The angels seem a bit perturbed with them. They ask them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead?" Then they remind them of what Jesus had said to them, just a few days before his death - what, in fact, he had reminded them of for weeks before he died, "that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again." But back then, it seemed like an idle tale - not real. What was real was his terrible agony and death. What was real was what had happened since then.

But as the angels spoke, Luke goes on to say, "They remembered his words." They remembered what they had forgotten. While they had forgotten, they thought that death had the last word, but now, remembering what he had said, they realized that something else was possible - a different explanation, a different ending to the story. And so they ran off to share their new-found realization with the disciples, who also, it seems, are failing to remember - who view what the women tell them as an idle tale - women, after all, are full of "idle tales," they are always seeing things that men don't see, so who could believe them - even if they are often right? And so the disciples are stuck thinking that Jesus is in the grave, that that is the only possibility worth entertaining, and that that is the end of the story.

Every year, around this time, the news magazines come out with "special" editions quoting various scholars who say that the resurrection didn't happen - "It just isn't in the realm of possibility," they say. Then they go on to talk about the resurrection as a symbol of new life, or as an "idle tale" similar to other stories in antiquity about heroes journeys, but not something that actually happened. They sound a lot like the disciples. Yet we have this testimony also from Paul who says, "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ," in other words, if we see him just as a man, as a good teacher, as a miracle worker, as one who was especially gentle and kind, as a profound intellect - but not as the resurrected Lord of life - "we are of all people most to be pitied."

If it is a false hope we live in - if we are running around looking at the world through rose-colored glasses, believing in something that isn't true, are we any better off than the "flat world society?" We are like those who believe that the holocaust didn't happen. Or that no one landed on the moon. Of course, it's worse than that, really - because those aren't facts that affect our every-day life, that define who we are and how we live. If the resurrection didn't happen, then this truly is a dog-eat-dog world, and the devil take the hindmost. If he didn't rise from the dead, then this world is all we have, so we'd better make the most of the few days we have here, and get what we can while we can. If it is a false hope we live in, it would be better, wouldn't it, if we gave up on pie-in-the-sky and got real about life before it's gone?

Too many of us live somewhere in between faith and unfaith, between believing and not believing in the resurrection. We give mouth service to the resurrection, then live as if this was all there is. We are like the disciples, who would certainly, I think, have liked to believe it, but consider it an "idle tale," too good to be true.

The women believed that way too, until they were reminded of what Jesus had said to them, and, in the face of what happened, they then believed. That is what Easter faces us with today as well - a choice. We can believe that Jesus is risen from the dead, and live in that faith; or we can regard it as an idle tale, and live for the day. In terms of the Gospel, we can give ourselves over to death or to resurrection. We can believe that the end is in the hands of a God of life, or in the gods of death.

To believe in the gods of death is to believe that this is all there is, that there is no real meaning to life - that we live out our few years here, and then the worms get us. To believe in the gods of death means that I've got to look out for number one, that there is only so much life, so many days and years, so much in the ways of this world's goods to go around, and that I have to protect what I have - because this is all there is. To believe in the gods of death is to believe that I live for myself alone - that others are o.k. insofar as they help me to pursue my ends, and not o.k. when they are a hindrance to my goals. To believe in the gods of death is to live in fear that I may lose what I have, and to live in fear, all the time, that death is lurking around the corner, waiting for me.

To believe in the God of life, however, means knowing that there is someone who holds my life - that it is a gift to me that continues to reside in the hands of someone greater than me. To believe in the God of life means that we live out our life here in the light, not of a few passing years, but in the context of eternity. To believe in the God of life means that what I have here is passing, so I can hold it lightly - even life itself, and can give extravagantly of myself, because there is always more where that came from! To believe in the God of life means that I live in hope rather than fear, in anticipation of good things to come, because it is not death that waits for me at the end of life, but an even greater life. To believe in the God of life means that others are not means to whatever ends I may have in mind, but gifts of God to help me along the way, and souls whose lives are also eternal and precious to God.

The women came to the garden that morning, expecting only death - but there, in a garden of death, found life instead. And at the end of the story, Peter also runs to the garden, to see what there is to be seen there. We are told that, stooping in, he sees the linen cloths by themselves, and goes home, amazed by what he has seen and heard. He does not yet believe, although he has seen the evidence. The evidence, and what Jesus has said, prepare him, however, to believe. It will only be when he, and the other disciples, finally meet the resurrected Lord, that they will finally come to faith.

It may be that Easter is not so much a time for faith, as it is a time for preparation for faith. Faith is God's work. All we can do is to prepare ourselves for it. The open tomb beckons us to "come and see." It calls us to open our hearts to new possibilities. It calls us to open our minds, to believe that there may be alternative endings to life other than just death. The tomb beckons us to examine the evidence, not so that we might believe based on the evidence alone, but so that our hearts and minds might become the fertile ground for faith to grow. The open tomb beckons us to "come and see," to open our hearts and minds to this possibility, so that God can finish his work in us - that promise he gave us in our baptism - that he would grant us faith and, in faith, grant us new life in him as well. It is still his strange work, after all - this business of resurrection. It's nothing that can be proven, or the magazines would certainly be full of that story. And it is always a kind of "work in progress," not an end, but a journey in which we meet Christ along the road. But that is another story, for another day.

Today, God calls us to open hearts and open minds - to engage the possibility of the resurrection, of new life, of life in him. Today he calls us to begin to leave the realm of death, and entertain the notion that there is a different ending to life, and that what we proclaim here is no idle tale, no fairy tale, but the heart truth about life, and about him. "He is not dead." Death is not the end. "He is no longer in the grave." And neither are you. "Why do you keep looking for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen." He is risen indeed. Alleluia. Amen.