Easter Sunday

[The following is the text of my Easter Sunday sermon, for those who missed it. Next week I hope to return to a weekly blog based on the upcoming Sunday's lectionary.]

Jesus has died. There’s no mistaking that. He had suffered on the cross, watched by a lot of people, including a group of women who had followed him. They saw his body lowered from the cross and put in a tomb. They saw a big stone rolled against that tomb, and went away crying.

Mary Magdalene was one of those who had watched. As soon as the Sabbath day was over, long before dawn the next day, she went to the tomb to cry some more. There was enough light to see that the stone had been rolled back and the tomb was empty. So she ran and told Simon Peter what she had seen.

Peter went barreling out in the darkness to see for himself, with another disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, often identified with John the Evangelist. The scene is almost comical, with the young John outrunning Peter, who eventually arrived, huffing and puffing. John didn’t have the nerve to actually go into the tomb, but Peter didn’t hesitate. They both saw the cloths, but no Jesus. So they went back home, totally baffled.

Mary must have gone with them, because she stuck around to cry some more. So she is the one who has a conversation with the angels. And she is the first one to see Jesus, even though she doesn’t recognize him at first. It’s only when he calls her by name that she suddenly knows that he is the one she’s been looking for, and she holds on to him.

Each of the Gospel writers has a gripping story of the first Easter. Each one is a little different. But there are the same elements in each: the first witness to the resurrection is Mary Magdalene. The male disciples don’t believe her; they have to see for themselves. And no one seems to know what’s really going on. All of this is just what you would expect from people who have actually witnessed an event. If it were all made up, everybody’s story would be the same.

When we think of the resurrection, if we think of it at all, we often jump straight to the picture of paradise that we heard this morning in the passage from Isaiah. It was actually written during the time of Israel’s exile in Babylon, and the prophet was promising a new and much better life back in Israel. But the promise is expressed in cosmic terms: there will be a new heavens and a new earth, and a new Jerusalem. It will be a place where there will be no weeping, where people will live to old age in their own houses and eat the fruit of their own vineyards. They would be blessed by the Lord. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. It’s a wonderful series of images. But it doesn’t much sound like earth now, does it?

And it doesn’t much sound like the Gospel stories of the resurrection, either. That’s because the resurrection of Jesus Christ was only the beginning. A new world started at Easter, and continues to embrace us through the power of the Holy Spirit, given to us at baptism. In the words of British Bishop N.T. Wright, the project that began at Easter, the defeat of sin and death, has not yet been finished. The full and final redemption of God’s good creation, and ourselves with it, will come when Jesus once again reappears.

So what’s to be done in the meantime? If you look closely at each of the resurrection stories, they don’t talk about personal hope. There’s no mention of life after death or eternal life. They don’t say, “Jesus is risen, therefore you will be too.” Those ideas don’t show up until later, after the Church reflected some more on the resurrection of Christ. No, if you listen carefully to these earliest Easter stories, they all say the same thing: “Jesus is risen, therefore you have work ahead of you.”

Consider the conversation Jesus had with Mary Magdalene in today’s Gospel. Jesus doesn’t say, “Tell everyone that they’ll be resurrected just like me.” Instead, Jesus says, “Go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your God.’” And so Mary goes out and becomes the first Apostle to the Apostles. She announces to them, “I have seen the Lord.”

What work does God have in mind for you? Where is God calling you in your life? One way to figure that out is to think about what you are passionate about. The author Fredrick Buechner put it beautifully when he said, “God calls you to that place where your deep joy meets the world’s deep longing.” That is where you are called to be a witness to resurrection life. That is where you will be able to say with Mary, “I have seen the Lord.” Easter is a beginning, not an end. The resurrection of Jesus Christ proclaims a new kind of life, a new heaven and a new earth. Jesus is risen, therefore you have work ahead of you. May you find that deep joy within you and may you be blessed in the work which God has given you to do. Amen.