Matthew 28:1-10
Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia!
The Easter flowers have been nicely arranged, beautifully decorating the church for Easter, our music director and choirs have been working hard, in different places to put together for us some beautiful hymns (voices and bells) that we can listen to or sing along with, at home. So, let the Easter celebration begin. Kids, for the first time in all of your years of having to go to church on Easter morning for a worship service, today worship will not keep you away from your Easter candy and gifts; enjoy! Just one thing, you might want to know why we give this candy and or gifts; why we celebrate this day?
(Now, all of you) Try to put yourselves in the place of Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (on that first Easter morning); put yourselves in the place of Peter and the other disciples; put yourselves in the place of some 500 others who on that first Easter day and in the weeks that followed, experienced Jesus in an all new way. Jesus who had been terribly abused, maligned, whipped, crucified, nailed to a cross, had thorns put on his head as a crown, belittled, then stabbed before having his dead body removed from the cross, was wrapped and placed in a tomb, this Jesus now stood before all these people, not together but at different times and in different places, alive! Alive! And not just the normal kind of alive, he ate and he drank like normal people, but he also walked through locked doors and seemed to go from place to place as though there was no distance to manage. All these witnesses saw what none of us have, but what all of us might hope and pray for. Well we give candy and gifts, so that our children may think of this day in a happy way, even before understanding the meaning of Easter; we want our children to see it as a joyous occasion.
The story of Easter is a simple and special story. On the first day of the week, on the third day after Jesus’ body had been put in the tomb, as Mary Magdalene and the other Mary made their way to the tomb to properly anoint and prepare Jesus’ body to remain in the tomb, what seemed like an earthquake opened Jesus’ tomb. Mary and Mary, had wondered how they would get into it. But, before they arrived at the tomb the soldiers who were assigned to guard the tomb were struck with fear, fear such that they could neither move nor speak. When the women arrived, they saw the tomb open; they saw an angel sitting on the stone that had formerly enclosed the tomb and they knew real fear. But their fear was not long lived; it was not like the fear suffered by the soldiers; the angel who sat on the stone comforted them, speaking with them, the angel took away their fear and told them what they were to do, for the now risen Jesus. He was risen; the man upon which they had placed all of their hopes for joy and happiness, for release from oppression and release from their very own sin, was not lost to them, he was raised from the dead. They surely believed that everything would begin as it had been before, after all they had seen Lazarus after he was raised from the dead and he went back to being his normal self. They surely thought that Jesus would again minister all about the regions of God’s people, healing the sick, preaching and teaching. His ministry was surely not yet finished. Their hope and joy were restored.
And then the nearly bumped into Jesus; they threw themselves down to the ground in joy and worship, overwhelmed to see for themselves that what the angel had told them was true. They held onto Jesus’ feet praising God. They were as happy as could be, overjoyed and ready to go back to what was before. This is the kind of happiness I pray we all will experience, but the happiness of these two women and for that matter most of the other witnesses was just the beginning; they needed to learn of an even greater reason for their happiness. You see, life was not going to go back to how it had been; life was moving on in a new way; many of the talking heads on TV news reports, who talk about what it will be like after the pandemic say something similar; life will not be the same and yet we will need to move forward. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary didn’t know what their lives were going to be like after Jesus’ resurrection, they didn’t know the extent of the forgiveness and the love of God, at least not yet; they didn’t know about the promise of salvation, but they would learn of all of this and they would move forward, even after Jesus went to be with his heavenly Father, and they would move forward with joy and happiness.
This pandemic, feels to a lot of us, like Good Friday and the Saturday before the resurrection (remember the Marys’ and the Disciples and the other followers of Jesus, didn’t really believe that Jesus would rise from the dead and bring to them such gifts of love). Well, for us, we don’t know what everything will be like after the pandemic, but I tell you that with the struggles there will be joy; there will be a kind of resurrection when we will all want to just reach out and touch, and as Mary and Mary held onto Jesus, we will want to hold onto our family members and each other and for a time not let go. This social distancing is, for so many of us, a kind of death. While we will surely experience a kind of resurrection when this pandemic comes to an end, the truth is, those good feelings will in no way be equal to what Jesus’ followers felt when Jesus’ resurrection took place; they will not compare to the resurrection’s meaning for us and the feelings that Jesus’ followers experienced at that time; in fact it is Jesus’ resurrection that still inspires us to move forward, to live.
The candy and the gifts are to help our children associate good feelings, happiness with Easter. We were not around at the resurrection, but I ask you to open your hearts and minds to the resurrected Jesus and look to see what those early witnesses saw, listen to hear what they heard, open your hearts to feel what they felt and know in your minds and hearts why it is that we celebrate Easter. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, the disciples and some 500 others witnessed Jesus’ resurrection and the things that he said and did so that they could share it with you, with me, with the world, so that we may find this joy and happiness and share all of this further. Have a joyous, though different Easter! Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia!