By Pastor Lynn Sawyer Parks

Luke 24:1-12

It is Resurrection Sunday and Christ has risen! When I was in Jerusalem, we visited the Church of the Resurrection, also called the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and were able to see what is thought to be the site where the crucifixion took place but we didn’t go down into the section where it was thought that the resurrection took place because the line was so long. The actual stone slab where they think Jesus’ body was laid is covered up in this marble box so you can’t see it. But the week we were there, this box had been opened for the first time in more than 500 years, and our guide showed us a picture of it on his phone. It was amazing to be there and to think that this could possibly be the site where Jesus rose from the dead and where the angels appeared to the women and told them “He’s not here. He has risen.” We know it happened somewhere around there if not at that actual spot.

I also visited the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, which is over the site where Jesus was supposedly born. I asked Sam, who is also from Bethlehem, if that really was the site but he seemed a little skeptical. But it was somewhere around there so I was closer to the sites of Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection there than I am here. In reading through this account from Luke 24, it struck me that it’s similar to Jesus’ birth story in that there are angels there, dressed in shiny clothes, with a message to give to people. When the women at the tomb see these 2 men, they are frightened to the point that they bow down with their faces to the ground. It doesn’t sound so much like they are showing honor to these men as it does that they are cowering down, hoping these men don’t do them harm. The women were already confused and upset by the fact that the stone has been rolled away from the tomb and Jesus’ body isn’t there. Now here are 2 shiny men that they don’t know.

It seems that all this happened within just a few minutes so I can imagine that these women are having a hard time wrapping their minds around everything. They came to the grave expecting to find Roman soldiers guarding it and a big stone in the way that they were going to have to figure out how to move, and then a dead body to wash and prepare. But they haven’t found any of that. So they are confused, frightened, grieving and shocked.

But unlike the story of Jesus’ birth where the angels said “Fear not, I bring you good tidings of great joy” these angels don’t offer any comfort at all. In the birth story, the angels are all nice and kind, and they speak of peace and good will. But here at the resurrection, these angels say, “What are you doing here? Why are you looking for the living among the dead? Don’t you remember he told you he was going to rise again.” It’s like the women have no business being at the tomb because they should know Jesus is risen. I don’t think the tone the angels took was quite as harsh as I’m imagining it, but it strikes me as almost comical. These poor women are all tore up and confused and these angels aren’t helping a bit. They are just frightening them more.

And then there’s the matter of there being no choir here at the resurrection. At the birth of Jesus, a whole choir of angels appeared to the shepherds singing praises to God. Yet I would think the resurrection is at least as important as the birth. Surely a choir is appropriate for the resurrection. But there isn’t one. So, what might we learn from comparing these angelic interactions at these 2 great events in salvation history?
First, I think the angels’ attitude at the tomb is to goad the women into getting on with what they need to do. They don’t need to waste any more time mourning and dealing with death. There’s no stone to be moved, no body to wash and prepare, so don’t waste any more time here at the tomb. There’s literally nothing to see there because Jesus is risen. They need to remember what Jesus told them, that he would rise again on the 3rd day, and then they need to get on with getting the message out that Jesus has risen.

Jesus didn’t waste any time when he rose from the dead. He didn’t sit there in the tomb and ponder what had happened. He didn’t pause to remember all the tragic events of his arrest, trial, and crucifixion, and feel all the feelings. He didn’t wait to see which of his friends might show up to visit his grave and bring flowers. He rose from the dead and was out of there. His followers need to do the same thing. They don’t need to waste any more time in the graveyard, but they need to get on with the business of being disciples.

We need to get on with the business of being disciples of Jesus, which means we need to stop hanging around the graveyard. The graveyard can be symbolic of so many things for each one of us. We need to stop thinking about what has happened in the past, the trauma we’ve been through or the losses we’ve had. We need to stop thinking about the failures of the past, the sins of the past, the dreams that haven’t become reality, the disappointments we’ve suffered. Jesus has risen and if we are looking for life in Jesus, we won’t find it in the place of death. We’ve got to get out of the place of death and follow Jesus into new life.

These women needed a minute to wrap their minds around the fact that Jesus’ body wasn’t where they thought it should be. They needed a minute for their brains to register and understand what it was these shiny men were saying to them, that Jesus was alive just as he had told them. But once that message sunk in, they left the grave and went to the other disciples and told them that Jesus was alive. We have to let the message sink into our own brains that Jesus is risen from the dead. We have to grasp for ourselves that Jesus was dead, was buried, was in the grave from Friday evening until Sunday morning, and then came back to life again. We have to accept for ourselves that this is the truth. It’s not that Jesus was in a coma and then resuscitated. It’s not that Jesus died and his disciples concocted some elaborate hoax to steal his body and make up a story that he had risen. It’s not that Jesus was resuscitated and went to some other country and later died of old age. Jesus is risen and is still alive, the firstborn of the dead, the one who has conquered death and the grave. This is the gospel message and we have to believe it ourselves if we call ourselves Christians. And it can take a minute for this message to permeate our brains and our lives if we’ve been living with death for a while. But God loves us too much to leave us in a place of death. His word to us is “why are you seeking the living among the dead? He is not here, He is risen!” Once we’ve grasped this truth, then it’s time to move out of the place of death and into new life.

Believing this word about Jesus, we also have a mandate to tell others that Jesus is risen. In the gospel of John, the risen Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene and, when she realizes who he is and that he is really alive, he says to her, “Go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” This is good news. Jesus has risen and His Father is now our Father, His God is our God. We are the sent ones with the message to the world that Jesus is risen.

So this brings us to the reason why there is no angel choir at the tomb. We are the choir now. The angels did their bit in announcing Jesus’ birth, but now we are the choir sent out into the world to announce that Jesus has died and rose again, our sins are forgiven and we can now be reconciled with God. In thinking about this, it struck me that most people in the world believe in the Baby Jesus, meaning they believe Jesus was a real person who was born in Palestine and lived a good life, was a good teacher or even a prophet, did good things for others and then died.

Most people in the world have no problem with Sweet Baby Jesus. But they don’t believe in the risen Jesus. They don’t believe that Jesus died and then physically rose from the dead. They don’t believe that Jesus is alive now and will never die again. They can’t wrap their minds around a Jesus who is fully human and fully divine, who has conquered death, hell and the grave, and who is coming back again to reign on the earth as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. There are people who call themselves Christian who don’t believe that. Ron Sider has started a blog, and in a recent post, he mentioned that there is a minister in the United Church of Canada, a Christian church, who is an atheist. She doesn’t even believe God exists, much less that He became human in Jesus, died on the cross and rose again. It’s not enough to just believe in Sweet Baby Jesus, we have to accept all of who Jesus is, including the Risen One, the Living One, the one who was dead and is now alive forever. In accepting this about Jesus, in believing it, we also need to tell others about it.

Today we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. But we also celebrate the incredible hope the resurrection gives us. We don’t have to stay in the graveyard anymore. We can get on with living. We don’t have to stay in the place of death and mourning. There’s nothing there for us. We have been given life. This is the greatest news there is. Jesus has given us eternal life. Our sins are forgiven and we live reconciled to God right now. God is our God and our Father right now. Paul says that right now we have all the rights and privileges of children in God’s household. We are heirs of the kingdom of God. All of this is ours because Jesus died for our sins and rose again.

My father was someone who believed in Jesus his whole life, but he struggled with this idea of new life, of Jesus calling us out of the place of death into new life. My Dad grew up poor, the 2nd of 10 children. His mother’s family were from a Holiness background and I think the message my Dad internalized growing up was that he wasn’t good enough for Jesus. His behavior wasn’t good enough, or he himself wasn’t good enough. But there always seemed to be in Dad a respect for Jesus and something of a desire to know more. I remember asking him once, what he had wanted to be when he grew up and he said he had wanted to be a minister. That’s the only time I ever remember him mentioning that, but I believe he was telling me the truth and that he didn’t pursue that idea because he didn’t think he was good enough or had what it took. My Dad didn’t go to church much during his life. He claimed that it was too loud in the Pentecostal church we attended and he didn’t like the preacher yelling at him. I hope no one here feels like they’re being yelled at.

I remember being in college and praying for my Dad, that he would come to saving faith in Jesus and as I was praying, I got a picture in my mind of a rock with water dripping on it. I felt like God was telling me that He was working on my Dad, like water dripping on a rock, wearing away all the hard layers Dad had built up against God. Another time, I got a picture in my mind of my Dad as a child kneeling on the floor crying and behind him was a chest full of treasure. All he had to do was turn around and take the treasure, but he was crying because he didn’t feel like he was worthy enough to take it. That treasure represented a relationship with Jesus. I prayed for many years for my Dad, and I’m not the only one who prayed for him, but it wasn’t until he was diagnosed with brain cancer that he finally found the courage to turn towards God and take that treasure of new life in Christ. He realized that time was running out and he would never, on his own, be good enough. He had to turn to God just as he was and when he did that, he found the Risen Jesus, the one who has conquered death, hell and the grave.

For the last year of my Dad’s life, he walked in new life with Jesus. My mom said he would be at the oncologist’s office and would be witnessing to the other patients, telling them that they needed to pray to Jesus, that Jesus would get them through because Jesus was giving him the strength he needed to get through. He would pray for Jesus’ help when he was in pain or sick from treatment. Before this, he would have turned to the bottle because he was an alcoholic. But he never once, during his battle with cancer, turned to alcohol. The last Father’s Day that he was with us, I had the privilege of baptizing him and serving him communion. I also had the privilege to be with him the last few days of his life including taking care of him the night before he died. When he died, I have no doubt that the Risen Jesus was there to welcome him home.

You see, this is the message of Easter. Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again, and those who believe in him have eternal life and will never die. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. We are not abandoned to death and the grave. We have hope in this life and in the life to come. And since we have this great hope, we are very bold, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3. He goes on in chapter 5 to say, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassador’s, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” We don’t have to clean ourselves up first before coming to God. We come as we are, and we receive new life. And since we have this new life, we need to get on with living it and telling others about it. We are the choir now!

Since we are the choir, we are going to sing. I want to invite the worship team up now. We have something to be excited about! Jesus is risen and we are being called out of the graveyard and into new life. There’s no reason to hang around the tomb because Jesus isn’t there. He’s out in the streets of this city. He’s in the homes of our families and friends and neighbors. He’s in our workplaces. He’s down at ShopRite and over at Dunkin Donuts. And he wants us to join him in all these places and share with others the hope we have and the new life we’ve received through Jesus. So let’s celebrate this morning and then let’s get on with the business of following Jesus into new life!