The Chaos of Easter
Luke 24:1–12
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.
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Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ has risen indeed! Today we bask in the light of new hope and new life. Yet as glorious as Easter is in its splendor, the first "Easter" was undoubtedly anything but quiet or majestic. The massive stone sealing the tomb rolled away, mysterious figures cloaked in bright light appeared, and disciples tucked away in a hidden place only to be startled and roused by the testimony of women who they did not believe. Easter is a season of the unexpected. It is a season for us to catch a glimpse and hold onto the things that should be, not are. In many ways, our Easter this year is like that first Easter morning. The world can't seem to catch a break, and in the midst of war, social injustice, and fears about the future, we hear the rumblings of the stone rolling away, revealing what our hearts have been longing for all this time.
On this Easter morning, let us attempt to experience what new things God is doing in our presence today:
An Empty Tomb: Nothing is Impossible
First, we have the empty tomb. It must have been disorienting for the women who stumbled upon this startling sight. Though, to be fair, we too would be shaken if we discovered a person's resting place to be disturbed and opened. However, it is in this empty tomb where we are challenged to see the unexpected, the innumerable opportunities that lie before our God. It is in those empty spaces, the void, where God does something new. For from the beginning, God transformed the emptiness of space and created light, water, and dry land. Today, we need to pay attention to the new things God is doing or, at the very least, open our hearts to perceiving these acts. Nothing is impossible with God. And this Easter, we are reminded that we often ignore or pay no mind to what God is doing around us. Let us be watchful and receptive to what God brings forth from the tomb.
Joyous Proclamation: Share Without Reservation
Secondly, we find the women (we aren't told how many) who discover that Jesus's tomb is now empty. Easter is not about staying quiet. What kind of Easter would we have if the women ran off and didn't say anything to anybody? The women find where the disciples are hiding and bust into the room. They didn't care about the looks on their friend's faces (they were probably shocked, annoyed, or even angry); the news was so good they had to share it! There were no loud renditions of "Jesus Christ is Risen Today," only their words of the excitement of what they saw and what they heard from the angels cloaked in radiant light. What makes this proclamation so joyous and so life-giving? The women who ran to the disciples and their friends remind us that our eyes cannot be forever locked on what was or what was sealed away in the cold stone tomb. Instead, their focus, and ours, should be on the good news of our current and future hope. If we do try to keep something tucked away, I believe Jesus will roll the stone away. I mean, he did it once and will do it again every time we try to hide or act like a stubborn child.
Jesus Isn't Here: Looking Elsewhere
Finally, we hear the most important reminder from the men in dazzling clothes, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen." Why do we look for Jesus among the dead, among the collection of things past and long gone? Jesus has risen! Jesus has risen and brought us the gift of new life! And do you know what that means? It means that we need to stop longing for the things in the tomb, those ways of living that did not bring new life. It means going out and looking for Jesus in parts of our communities that Jesus would serve, that Jesus would love, and Jesus would die for so that new things might take root! God's ways are not our ways, and we are taught that lesson again this Easter season as we are asked where we can go to find Jesus; Jesus who is in the tears of the oppressed and persecuted, the sighs of those who mourn, the cries of those who long for justice, and the weary earth beneath our feet that yearns for people to care for it. So let us go and look for Jesus there!
Easter is not a "once a year" holiday but a conscious choice to live or not to live as people who the love of God has touched. We choose whether we want to roll away the stone and remove those toxins from our hearts that keep us from the divine earth-shaking chaos of Easter. We are Easter people, a resurrection people. And our discipleship will always involve an element of Easter ministry. That is the type of good trouble, silence-shattering, that Jesus wants us to carry on. None of this, though, is possible without the sustaining and empowering presence of Jesus. It's a presence that draws our attention to places in our soul that require the silence-shattering proclamation of Easter so that we might bring that proclamation and share its blessing with others. So may we let Easter draw our eyes not to the empty tomb but to the task at hand to live in the light of God's kin-dom.