In our gospel reading for Easter Sunday, we hear about three women who have the task of anointing the corpse of their dead Messiah, Jesus Christ. And on the way to the tomb, they ask each other, "Who is going to roll away the very large stone for us, so that we can get in?" It seems to them that Jesus is very secure in the tomb, at least, according to what they know about death. But these women receive the biggest AND SCARIEST surprise ever recorded in human history, so scary that they fled in terror and amazement. Jesus is risen! And death will never be the same again....
We've seen the cycle all our lives. People are born, they live to hopefully some ripe old age, and then they die. As young children, we witnessed that cycle with our pets and our livestock. As adults, we experienced that cycle as we brought children into the world, and as we buried our grandparents and maybe our parents. Birth, life, death. It's not something we have to think about very often, because it is so basic for us.
So as Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Salome were heading to the tomb of Jesus on Easter Sunday morning, their concern was NOT “Gosh, I sure hope Jesus is still in the tomb.” OF COURSE Jesus would still be in the tomb, because dead people don't move. And the three women also were NOT concerned about Jesus spontaneously starting to breathe again as they anointed him, because people who are dead, stay dead. And the women were not going to the tomb of Jesus ready to listen to him, because of course, dead people do not communicate.
Now think about the scariest movie or TV show you've ever watched. Chances are good, one of the things that made it scary for you is that one of these basic facts about death was overturned. Did the movie have skeletons or ghosts that roamed about, terrorizing people? Did the movie have vampires or zombies that just would not stay dead? Did the movie have whispering spirits or communication with “the other side”? No wonder the women in the gospel reading ran away from Jesus' tomb, terrified. In raising his Son Jesus, God has messed with the most basic thing we thought we knew – death.
And if death is not how we think it is, then a lot of what we do while alive, makes very little sense. For example, we let manufacturers use our conscious or unconscious FEAR of death to manipulate us into buying things that make us feel younger, safer, and more vibrant. We let governments use our fear of death to grab more power, and enforce more restrictions and safety codes. We let bullies, from individual muggers and carjackers, to rogue organizations and nations, use our fear of death to coerce us to release what is important to us. And in our fear of death, we tend to surround death with silence, never discussing it at a deep level, or truly dealing with it honestly and openly with the ones we love. The fear of death quietly dominates our actions and our attitudes.
But in raising Jesus from the tomb, God has changed death forever. Death no longer has the last word – instead the last word is the new life of Christ. Death is no longer the scary monster that waits in the shadows for all of us – instead death is the gateway to the kind of life that happens next. The plan is now: birth, life, death, new life. And so, we are not limited to the life that we can see in front of us, however miserable or short or meaningless it may seem. There is new life to come – new life to prepare for in this life – new life to look forward to.
And that new life permeates the life we live now in Christ. It changes the way we think about ourselves and about each other. It brings hope to us, whenever we see what looks like death to us – whenever our world seems more and more deadly and more and more intent on spreading death.
It brings hope for life in our relationships with each other. We lose our taste for dealing death to each other, and instead choose to follow Christ’s example of dealing life. We give of ourselves to others in ways that enrich them, and in ways that enrich us. We forgive others and we receive their forgiveness, rather than holding and receiving a grudge. We live in the peace of Christ with those around us. We receive the new life that Christ promises through our relationships.
The new life in Christ also brings hope for life in our relationship with God. We release the guilt that crushes us from the sins we have committed in the past, and we accept God’s forgiveness through what Christ has done. We follow God’s guidance for our lives, as the instructions of a loving Father, hoping to see his children live more fully, and avoid the actions that deal death to ourselves. We receive the new life that Christ promises through our restored relationship with God.
And the new life in Christ brings hope for eternal life in God’s kingdom. We no longer fear our own deaths as an ending, but eagerly anticipate the resurrection that will come to us. As our fear of death is removed, we can release the illogical things we do in the attempt to avoid death, to concentrate on living life abundantly now. And we take a different perspective on the loss of loved ones, knowing that this loss is not permanent. We receive the new life that Christ promises into eternity.
Gracious God, we thank you for raising your Son, Jesus Christ, away from the place of death, and into eternal life. We trust in Christ’s victory over death, and the promise of life it brings to us. Grant that we may share this hope of life with those around us, in Jesus’ name, amen.