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Easter Day, Year
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Acts 10:34-43 Alleluia! Christ is Risen! Some life events are so deep and stunning that for a time words fail us to speak of them. When I was fourteen years old, I was baptized – outdoors in a creek, by the way. It took me several years to be able to talk about that in some meaningful way. It wasn’t until I grew up and started reading church history that I learned the preferred way for the early Christians to be baptized. It was full immersion in cold, flowing water. Once again I was dumbstruck by my identification with the Communion of Saints through the ages. Some feelings are too deep for words. I thrill to imagine the reaction of the women who took spices to Jesus’ tomb that first Easter morning. The women probably could have traveled the dark streets of Jerusalem unnoticed simply because they were women. It was the first day of the week, so the markets would have been open. They could have been on their way to buy food to prepare meals. Instead, they went to the spice merchants and bought spices to give Jesus a more proper burial. This would have been the women’s job. They were sorrowful and bogged down with practical matters, wondering who would roll away the stone for them. But when they arrived they encountered angels and the empty tomb, with that troublesome stone rolled away. They were dumbstruck. They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground. Some feelings are too deep for words. The Gospel according to Luke, which we are reading this year, gives us a very particular description of the tomb in which Jesus’ body had been laid on Good Friday. It says that Joseph of Arimathea “went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down [from the cross], wrapped it in a linen cloth, and laid it in a rock-hewn tomb where no one had ever been laid.” This is the key phrase -- “where no one had ever been laid.” In those days, in that hot Mediterranean country of Israel, dead people were put in tombs, and when their bodies had been reduced to bones, the bones were collected and put in an ossuary, or “bone box.” The bones could then be buried in a smaller space. Maybe this is the origin of the phrase He/She knows where all the bones are buried. The fact that only Jesus’ body had been in that tomb offers further proof that only Jesus could have been raised from the dead in that tomb. Whenever I am called upon to officiate at a funeral, one of my major obligations is to make sure that everyone there knows that the deceased is really, truly, dead. They can’t be only merely dead -- they must be quite sincerely dead. I should not use any euphemisms to soften that reality. In the Episcopal Church, we bury only dead people. Another major obligation of a priest at a funeral is to bury the dead “In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (BCP, 501) On this Easter morning I feel that one of my major obligations is to make sure that everyone knows that on Good Friday, Jesus was really, truly, dead, and was buried in a specific tomb. That makes Easter morning all the more glorious, when we joyfully proclaim, “Alleluia! Christ is Risen!” The Gospels make it clear that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead bodily on the third day after his crucifixion and burial. The tomb was empty. After his resurrection he ate and drank with his disciples, and even prepared breakfast for them on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus’ resurrection is not to be confused with resuscitation or immortality of the soul. Jesus was not resuscitated – that is, he was not restored to his previous mode of human existence. Instead, he was gloriously transformed. His body was changed in some mysterious way that allowed him to appear to his disciples at will. Jesus’ resurrection set in motion the transformation of the entire cosmos. The Christian hope is that when we are raised from the dead to eternal life, we too shall have a glorious body like Jesus’ own glorious body. We will have a new body that will never die, because Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again. Our Catechism says the significance of Jesus’ resurrection is that “By his resurrection, Jesus overcame death and opened for us the way of eternal life.” BCP, 850. When Jesus’ disciples realized that Jesus had been raised from the dead, they began living as though the world had been made new for them. It was as if something inside of them had also been raised from the dead. They were accused of turning their world upside down. Remember Maundy Thursday when the disciples deserted Jesus and fled? Remember Good Friday, when John and Mary were present at the cross, while Peter looked on from a distance? At some point on the first day of the week, things changed. When Sunday arrived, most of the disciples became convinced that Jesus had risen from the dead. Their lives were transformed. It took a while for them to grasp the reality of it, so Jesus gave them some time to pray and reflect on all that had gone on before. We call this the Great Fifty Days of Easter. We celebrate Easter for fifty days until the Day of Pentecost, which this year will be May 27. On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came and gave the followers of Jesus the right words to talk to everyone about the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. After that, no one could stop them. They could not help but proclaim the Good News of God in Christ Jesus. Any reasonable person studying the early church would recognize that something major happened in order for the disciples to go from hiding out to proclaiming openly that Jesus had been raised from the dead. For this they risked their lives, and eventually lost their lives. I believe what happened was that they encountered the risen Christ. Before Jesus’ death, many of his followers thought he would liberate them from the Pagan Roman forces. St. Paul figured out that the Pagans were not the problem, but that sin and death were the problem. Paul proclaimed that sin and death had been defeated in Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus had set free the whole cosmos so that we can all have eternal life through faith in the risen Christ. The “time of Christ” for St. Paul began on Easter morning. Since early times the Church has baptized new Christians on Easter. This is to symbolize that becoming a Christian is like dying and rising from the dead. This is how that St. Paul could say that we have “died” and our “life is hidden with Christ in God.” This is the central message of Christianity. This is the Good News. Make no mistake about it. The belief that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead is unique to Christianity. This belief is what makes a Christian a Christian. Theologians call it the “scandal of particularity” that sets Christianity apart from other beliefs. There is still a lot of controversy about Jesus that is popular in current thought. A lot of people are making a lot of money from misinformation. This will lead some people astray. There is nothing really new about that. But as we come to this altar for Holy Communion we remember and proclaim the Lord’s death and resurrection until he comes again in power and great glory. When we come for communion, we join with Christians through the ages who believe and proclaim: Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia! Amen.
On the grounds of Honey Creek
The Rev. Linda McCloud, Pastor |
