To watch the video form of this sermon, visit the Gethsemane Lutheran Church Facebook Page.
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn,
the women 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 people in dazzling clothes stood beside them.
The women were terrified
and bowed their faces to the ground, but the people 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 Humanity 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.
- Luke 24:1-10
For many Christians (for many followers of Christ),
and for many of us,
the discipline of Lent,
that is,
the discipline of setting our face toward Jerusalem
with Jesus
beginning with his descent from that Transfiguration Mountain where we heard the voice of God
just 40 days (+ Sundays) ago,
[the discipline of Lent]
is the spiritual task of [metaphorically] “looking for crosses.”
That is Lent
(the season which is now completed)
for many of us
is a time set aside
both to look deep down within,
and to look at the world all around us.
It is a time to uncover the pains
and the oppressions
that lay hidden here and there,
hoping that some air
or some balm might help them to heal;
It’s a time to name
blatant oppression and abuse
that often parades out in the open
and yet usually goes unacknowledged;
a time to ‘call a thing what it is,’
hoping that in naming the demons that silence or captivate us,
we might yet cast them out.
The secret memories.
The buried scars.
The systems that continue to hang people from trees.
The structures and the fears
that leave so many left-for-dead on the side of the road.
In Lent, we look without and within for the crosses,
knowing that Christ,
the Son of God,
our prophet and our healer,
calls us to the places of crosses, to the crucified people,
to do the work of healing,
the work of liberation,
and
the work of dismantling the tools
used to deem any person
and any part of creation as less than a child of God.
In Lent, we look for crosses.
And we seek to transform them into Banquet Tables.
That is, we look to participate in God’s work of resurrection.
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Such a discipline was not unfamiliar to the women in today’s story. Indeed, for the last three years with Jesus, they were immersed in it.
For them,
every day with Jesus was an opportunity
to transform a world
that didn’t mind tossing them out as trash,
into a community
where each member was honored,
and each member was called an indispensable
and well-beloved Child of God.
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The women
were with Jesus (amen?)
when he proclaimed
“Release to the captives!”
They were with him
when he shouted,
“Good News to the poor!”
The women were with him when he taught,
“the Last shall be first
and the hungry shall be satisfied.”
The women were there.
They were there when he fed the 5,000,
welcoming the many
and learning their names.
They were there
when he healed and restored the sick
and the secluded.
They were even there
when he forgave the ones the priests called unforgivable.
The women were there
when he raised the young woman
and the old Lazarus,
when he exorcised the demons who had taken the people’s voice,
when he taught that love of our enemies
is the good and perfect way.
At each and every occasion, they were there.
When he washed their feet.
When he was betrayed.
When, as he was lynched,
he said to the other criminalized man,
“Surely, you will be with me in Paradise!”
The women were there.
Mary and Mary and Joanna and more.
They were there.
They were there, looking for the crucified among us,
providing community and sustenance and hope.
They were there.
They were there being healed, receiving forgiveness, and filled with joy at Jesus’ dreams of the world to come.
They were there.
Looking for crosses.
And bearing witness to the resurrection
long before Easter Sunday ever arrived.
They were there.
+++
As the women approach the tomb and the stone,
early in the morning,
perhaps the angels didn’t realize how deep these women’s history ran with Jesus.
Perhaps they didn’t realize that these same women were there when he gave up his spirit and breathed his last.
Perhaps these angels didn’t realize that,
even as Jesus died,
and the men scattered,
and even as they waited for the Sabbath to pass,
that these women were still preparing another act of devotion and love for Christ, their brother and their friend.
+++
And so:
“Why do you look for the living among the dead,” the angels ask.
“Why do you look for the living?”
Why?
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Perhaps (in asking this question) the angels did not realize what the women did--that his whole life Jesus was resurrecting the crucified--that, indeed, he is the resurrection.
Perhaps the angels didn’t realize that if you were ever to find Jesus it would be here: among the graveyards and gardens,
where the crucified and marginalized dwell.
Perhaps they did not realize
what the women already knew
about the Crucified One who is the Resurrection and the Life.
+++
However,
to be fair,
that’s not why Mary and Mary and Joanna and the others were there.
They (actually) were not looking for the living, as the angels implied.
[Rather], they had come this morning looking for the dead.
For their messiah, for their brother, for their friend.
To prepare his body.
To love him and anoint him one last time.
No wonder then, these women were perplexed
when the stone was removed
and when they heard the angels’ words:
“He is risen!”
and
“He is not here.”
+++
Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
+++
Though some of them had spent the beginning of their adult lives
following him around into the graveyards and the gardens,
the houses of worship,
and the homes of those he loved,
though they knew him already
and had experienced him already
as the resurrection and the life,
though they participated in his ressurective mission
of feeding and healing and exorcising,
though they themselves had been agents of new life
as they walked alongside him,
not just witnesses but agents
and conduits of his healing,
though they had been looking among the crucified for three years
with him,
seeking out opportunities
for the rising up
and the healing of the crushed and the pierced,
though they lived and breathed his actions and his words,
though each night they dreamt his dreams,
nonetheless,
this morning, for the women, was a surprise.
+++
Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
+++
In Lent, we spend our time digging inward and looking around for crosses, pains, oppressions, that we might walk with Christ into Christ’s healing and resurrective work.
And Yet,
on Easter,
we celebrate and perhaps we are even surprised
that resurrection happens beyond us,
despite us,
and perhaps even in spite of us;
that resurrection happens to us at rock bottom,
in the deepest night,
when there seems to be nothing at all that we can do.
Resurrection happens.
It takes place.
In and beyond us.
Though, indeed, we are called into this work,
this vocation of Christian love and life...
though, indeed, we are called into it,
that gift from God, that God who is Love that dwells deep within us,
also extends far beyond us.
And to this Love there is no limit and no bounds.
Easter testifies that this Love and this God
even extends far beyond death
as it rolls the stones-that-keep-us-entombed
away.
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“Why do you look for the living among the dead?”
the angels ask.
Why do you look for the living?
Why are you perplexed that the stone is rolled away?
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As we make our way through this pandemic and through the struggles of our day-to-day lives, may God surprise us, again and again.
May you find, as you arrive at your spaces of pain, as you inhabit or walk through them,
that your stone has been rolled away.
And, until then, may we gather at the tomb together, looking for the living among the dead.
+++
Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
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Amen.
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