Sermon by Reverend Dr. John W. Mann | March 31, 2024

Easter Sunday

The women who went to the tomb were going there to do the dirty work – the unclean work of handling a dead body. The plan was to get it done before the start of the day. The only problem would be to find someone to roll away the stone. Most people were still in bed. And so it was in a time-frame when most people are still in bed that God chose to change things forever by raising Jesus from the dead.

If we could plan such an event for our time and place it would be at time of convenience – likely when the most people could enjoy the show.

Tune in next Sunday at 3:00 P.M. live from US Bank Stadium for the pre-resurrection events of the day, leading up to the main event starting at 7:00!

Sponsors would be lining up to put their brand on it. There would be souvenir items for sale. Everyone who was anyone would be there to see it. Commentary would be made on who sat where and who said what to whom. There would be endless chatter as to what it means and how it would change everything. And after it was all said and done, people would go back to their lives and the world would carry on pretty much as it had before.

It’s a good thing it happened when it did when no one was around to see it. Only a few women who were there to do the dirty work discovered the difference. You never know what might happen when you get up at an hour early enough to be called “ungodly” by most folks. In God’s realm, the dead things we look for and expect when we’re doing the hard work in the ungodly hours aren’t always there. The resurrection happens. Not a cause for alarm; but an opportunity to grasp a new reality.

As the old saying goes, “The early bird gets the worm,” so we might say, “The early angel rolls away the stone.” The angels who roll away stones are God’s first responders. They were the ones who rolled away the stone a couple of days after Jesus was killed. They were the ones who said, “You can’t be laying around here in this tomb. Get up, there’s work to be done!”

Every year since then, every day and every minute, God says to the angels who are the first responders in the realm of light and life: Roll up your sleeves; there’s work to be done.

Jesus is coming and so there is work to do. Roll up your sleeves and rise to the occasion at hand – there are still people in your world who bear the labels of reviled and rejected. Look at your hands and see that they are healing hands and so reach them out on behalf of Christ.

Set a place for him at the table and remember that he invited everyone to come as they are. And so it is you and I who must feast for him; we must say the grace and break the bread and pass it to the left and dish up the meal and pass it to the right.

And whoever you encounter – treat each one so tenderly as though just this morning she or he made the personal effort to make it back from heaven or back from hell but certainly from death to be by your side.

Because if by some miracle (and why not a miracle?) he came walking through the door, how would he want to see us? Wouldn’t it be great if by our actions and our words he was prompted to say, “This is what I meant!”

And we could say it took us a long time…but we finally figured it out. Oh, let us live to make it so. You are the resurrection and the life.

I remember a scene from an Easter Sunday of years ago. The 9:00 AM worship service in Clarion had ended, I was able to grab a cup of coffee in the fellowship hall, talk to folks for a few minutes and then make the 18 mile drive to Dows in time for the 11:00 AM service.

It was a grey morning, more post-winter than springtime. I was driving along with the strains of Jesus Christ is Risen Today echoing in my mind and thinking about the next service. I noticed something in one of the farm fields. There was a farmer driving a big John Deere Tractor plowing the field; getting it ready for planting.

I thought to myself, “But this is Easter Sunday! Shouldn’t this be one day of all days that we set aside the demands of work? Can’t we for a moment lay down the competition to be the first to plant our fields?”

It was clear that the farmer in the field viewed this Easter morning like any other morning – a work day like any other. And if there were any demands being made by the notion of Easter and its empty tomb, they were met with a resounding, “So what?”

Granted, maybe the farmer had been up early and attended a sunrise service somewhere and for him Easter was over. I don’t know, I can’t truly judge his particular motives.

It was an Easter like every Easter before and since and a day like every day since the women found the tomb empty on that day of resurrection.

We will never find Jesus in the tomb. It will always be empty and each day will be a day like any other, filled with the same life-goes-on quality that is the nature of the day.

The farmer driving the tractor tells us that an Easter Sunday is like any day – an opportunity to be seized and made the best of.

The empty tomb reminds us that every day is a day that God has taken hold of and that each day holds the possibility of resurrection and life. Like why we are here today. We gather today in humility, awed by the stone rolled back; and the surprise of the empty tomb.

We gather in defiance of the pain and the injustice that came before; and of the pain and injustice that will likely come again.

We gather in hope that life can begin anew; that our differences can be bridged that the beloved community can arise at last.

We gather in faith, that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.

We gather in wonder of the beauty we can see; and of the mystery of all we can never know.

Here amid the lilies, amid the warm glow of friends and families come home:  we seek in the resurrection of Christ the faith and strength to stand for what is good; to do what we must to live lives of integrity and peace.

We look for the renewal of gratitude and joy in this community; for the beauty of this day; for the hope and love promised in this ancient story, in the stone rolled away.

The women in the Easter story were expecting to find a body. It was their grim task to prepare it for burial. As far as they were concerned, the story of Jesus was over. There was no reason to believe otherwise. Dead was dead and it was never any different.

They were expecting one ending to the story and God revealed to them an alternative ending. “He has been raised up,” they were told. “He is not here. Look, see for yourselves.”

Empty tombs can be fearful things. When God writes a different ending to the story, the possibilities can be frightening. But if you look for the risen Christ, you will find him. As the angels said to the women on that first day of resurrection, “he is waiting for you.”

One challenge of resurrection is that it must always follow death. God does not promise us lives free of pain and suffering. The promise is resurrection; that pain and suffering are not the end of the story and that on the other side, even the other side of death, there is new life.

If you want to know what the resurrection means for you, or how it applies to your life, consider the empty tombs you have discovered; those times and events when God presented you with a new ending to the story. Something perhaps that you never imagined you could get through, but you did; something you never thought you would recover from, but you did.

Even when something or someone precious to you was lost forever and the empty place they left in your heart and soul would never be filled again. And it wouldn’t because empty tombs remain that way. But even the emptiness points to the life beyond. Because it is there where the risen One waits for us. As near or as far as we go from here, there will we find him. He is waiting for us. Amen.