Readings for the Day:
At The Liturgy of the Word
- Genesis 1:1-2:4a [The Story of Creation]
- Genesis 7:1-5, 11-18, 8:6-18, 9:8-13 [The Flood]
- Genesis 22:1-18 [Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac]
- Exodus 14:10-31; 15:20-21 [Israel's deliverance at the Red Sea]
- Isaiah 4:2-6 [God’s Presence in a renewed Israel]
- Isaiah 55:1-11 [Salvation offered freely to all]
- Ezekiel 36:24-28 [A new heart and a new spirit]
- Ezekiel 37:1-14 [The valley of dry bones]
- Zephaniah 3:14-20 [The gathering of God's people]
At The Eucharist
Sermon:
Original Manuscript:
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It is interesting how I always meet so many new people at Easter. It is the largest Sunday morning service attended all year after all. But is that really what Easter is all about?
The story we certainly hear about would seem to suggest “no”. As we’ve seen in the services these past few days, Jesus was taking time to prepare for the Passover not with throngs of people, but with a group of His chosen Disciples. When Jesus is put to death, it is the most humiliating kind of death possible in the Roman Empire, leaving Him with the stain of being a criminal, and the worst kind at that.
Plus Jesus died during the high holy celebration of Passover, so there weren’t people lining up to view His body, lest they be made ritually unclean and thus unable to participate. Even if people had wanted to come, there were guards to keep them out.
This is the setting we see in the Gospel. Two, only two, of the women closest to Jesus come to prepare Jesus’ body. The angel comes, rolling the stone away. The guards run away frightened. Jesus is no longer there.
Only two people, two woman, two people seen as less important in the society they lived in. That’s all who were there to witness the empty tomb.
None of the Disciples were there with them. They only witness Jesus after the Marys tell them what they have seen. It is only then that Jesus tells them to go gather just His brothers, but not at the tomb, not in Jerusalem, but in their own home region of Galilee.
The story of the Resurrection is not one filled with lots of people. It is a very isolated event. It’s one where Jesus goes to great various small groups of people, but He does not do so right away but slowly, carefully, methodically.
The Easter story is not one of spectacle. It’s a very personal and intimate moment. Yet this moment was what it was all leading towards, as we see with our great depth of Scripture we have read through this evening. This is the path where all things were moving towards. It is the path from which all of our lives have come from since. There weren’t throngs gathered then, just a few important people.
We are isolated in the unknown, as Jesus’ loved ones were. We have an opportunity this year to live into the story of the Resurrection in a way we never have. We can celebrate this time as Jesus did with His first followers. We may be alone, but even in our aloneness, Jesus is present there with us, just as He was for the two Marys and just as He was for His Disciples.
Living into the moments of the past is what these past three days have all been about. These celebrations of Holy Week and Easter are about bringing us into the stories and living in them. Our ritual is intended to remind us of what our faith is all about. Our worship reminds us of the scope of Scripture pointing for millennia to the life of Jesus. The timing, both of the year and in day, let us live into these stories we hear more fully.
Don’t see our separate as a cause of alarm. See it as an opportunity. Easter comes but once a year, but we celebrate it every time we worship together, no matter the time or place. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary never thought they’d see their Lord alive again, but we know that we will. But for now, seize this moment. Live into the story more fully. Be transformed and renewed by it, just as we have all been transformed and renewed by Jesus and just as we will remind ourselves of in the Renewal of Baptism in this service.