2022 04 17 Sermon
Sermon for April 17, 2022 Easter Sunday House of Prayer Lutheran Church
Luke 24:1-12; Isaiah 65:17-25 Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
It is so good to be here with you today! This is actually my third Easter as your pastor, but it is my first Easter with you here in this holy space. There is so much about the past two years, with all of us going through a pandemic, that was so bewildering and unexpected. As our worship team was making plans for Easter, I actually had to think a minute to remember what we did last Easter—Oh yeah! We had a drive-in service! That was something I never expected to do, and it was wonderful in its own way—but boy, that feels so long ago because of all we’ve been through.
Things have kept changing since one year ago, but the world is still full of bewildering and unexpected things; many of them just break your heart. Many of us could hardly believe that Putin would go forward with his disgusting war on Ukraine—and many Ukrainians couldn’t even believe it either, until it happened. For the past two months, people of good will all around the world, of all countries, religions, and backgrounds, have been shocked and disturbed by the atrocities we’ve seen and heard about in this unexpected and bewildering war on Ukraine.
There are also plenty of other things happening in the world today that are—if not exactly unexpected—then at least not surprising, even if they are still painful or even tragic. For example, violent clashes in modern-day Jerusalem just a few days ago as Holy Week, Passover, and Ramadan observances coincided. But we don’t even have to look far across the world. Because each of us lifts up in our own prayers family members, friends, perhaps even you yourself—who are suffering through illnesses and diseases physical and mental; who are dealing with challenging personal matters. There are people who are still struggling or even dying from covid, or who have vulnerabilities that prevent them from “getting back to normal” from the pandemic. We weep; we cry out in distress; we may even succumb to cynicism or despair.
In short, we know the cross. We know the powers and principalities that put Jesus on the cross because—even 2,000 years later these things are still at work in the world. We feel the bewildering and unexpected—as well as the not so surprising, but still painful and even tragic—personal sins and systems of sin that lead humanity away from true life and peace and dignity and love for each person, and for all of God’s creation. We know the cross. Jesus knows the cross, too. And he knows that the wounds in his hands and feet and side remind us that crucifixion, and the things that go along with it, are still easy to see.
The trauma of what Jesus’ earliest followers witnessed on the night of his betrayal and the day of his crucifixion was still heavy on the hearts and minds of the women who walked to his tomb’ early at dawn on Sunday. They carried burial spices, as was the custom, because they knew with complete certainty that Jesus’ body would be there—after all, he had already been dead and sealed away in the tomb since Friday. They went because they wanted to treat his dead body with the dignity and respect that was stripped from him in the final hours of his life.
The women had just lived through a bewildering sequence of events for the past week, with giddy highs (Hosanna in the highest!) and terrifying lows (standing at the foot of the cross), but at least now they knew what to expect, because the results of the cross were easy to see and unmistakable. They knew what to expect when they walked to the tomb, just like you would, if you were in their shoes. They’re not much different than any of us. They know the cross, just like we do. The sadness, the trauma, the grief.
Then—like a loud bang that startles you in the midst of a deep quiet—when the women stepped into the tomb they did not find the body. Two men in dazzling clothes stood there instead—angels?—who said “why do you look for the living among the dead?”
What an unexpected and bewildering thing to say! What might have been going through the women’s minds at that moment? Maybe something like, “The living? The living? No, of course we’re not looking for the living! We’re looking for a dead man, our friend and teacher, Jesus of Nazareth!” But before they could say anything, the mysterious messengers continued: “He is not here, but has risen. Remember what he told you?”
That’s when the shock of good news hit them; right when they did remember the words of Jesus, from all the way back in those days up in Galilee which felt so long ago: that Jesus must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again. “So this is what he meant!” perhaps they thought, “This is entirely unexpected and bewildering! But we do remember, and now we’ve got to tell those other disciples what we’ve just learned and experienced.”
But when they get back to tell them, the disciples don’t believe it; not at first. In their hearts and minds, the disciples were still at the cross; stuck there, because they were still dazed by trauma; still hiding in fear; still suffering through grief; still not knowing what to do next. And those things are powerful—it’s hard to work your way through them. Yet God begins the healing and new life when you begin to look to the future by opening your heart and mind in trust. And that takes vulnerability.
Even if your current situation is uncomfortable, it is also uncomfortable to trust that God can lead you to something new. But faith is not a matter of comfort. Faith happens as a leap into a future that is promised by God, but is not fully known by us. When the women left the tomb, they took that leap. They lived in vulnerable trust when they shared the good news, that faith in the God who has destroyed the bonds of sin and death by raising Jesus Christ, is faith in the same God who can do a new thing in this crazy world we live in—and who can do a new thing even in our own lives. That kind of faith, kindled within us by grace through the Holy Spirit, is a shock—like the best kind of good news so often is.
Good news has the power to change your life; to give you hope and peace when you open your heart and mind in trust. Vulnerability, like that of the women at the tomb, allows us (in our limited human way) to comprehend the unexpected and bewildering possibilities of a God who promises to renew heaven and earth, to bring life out of death, to replace weeping with joy, and despair with hope; a God who makes divine strength available to carry us when we are weak, and even to raise us up to salvation when we are dead; a God who keeps his promises and whose mercy endures forever…because Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!