Easter 2022

 Alleluia, Christ is Risen!  Christ is Risen, Alleluia. 

This is the week that reveals the depth of the favorite of all Bible verses, “For God so loved the world,  that God gave the only Son, so that all who believe in him may not perish, but may have eternal life. God did not send his son to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”   Christ and his love is revealed in the cross and resurrection.  Christ and his love is revealed in the cross, which we have been focusing on all this week in Palm Sunday, in Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.  And Christ is revealed in the resurrection, which we celebrate today.  This is how Jesus, the son of God, shows how much God loves the world. 

God so loved the world.  God did not just love the world, but so loved it.  And loves it even still, and not just the world but the cosmos, all the created universe.  This is love and focus and longing for relationship, frustration and worrying and hand wringing, trying to get through to us that we are loved, trying to convey the lengths, the pain and heartache that God has endured trying to show us love, teach us love, and order our world, our cosmos in love. 

God gave the only son, not just to be born among us and live our life and teach us, but that Jesus would be given into our hands, to the enraged mob, to the jealous kings, to the denying disciples, into our world of violence and war.  God would not keep the son from any of it.  But that the son would be given to do what he does best, which is to love and to show no partiality and to offend us by treating the poor and unworthy as siblings and not treating the rich and deserving better.  And because Jesus did not use his love to lift up those we thought he ought to, we crucified him.  This is what we did when God gave us the only Son.

So that all who believe in him, or who he believes in…  It depends on who you ask, whose belief our salvation rests with.  We know that a mustard seed is enough belief.  We know that at times the disciples are described as believing and doubting at the same time.  We know that nothing can separate us from the love of God on Christ Jesus.  Someone believes in someone and invests in someone.  Many times we find it is God believing in us, especially the plural us—the community, the body of Christ, the gathered ones with accountability and checks and balances and who are open to sharing love.  Sometimes we find ourselves believing, hoping, yearning, giving, and when we do, we know that belief comes from God in the first place.

May not perish, but may have eternal life.  We don’t hear today how the disciples responded to Mary’s news that he is alive, but we can assume from next week’s reading, when they are locked in the upper room, that they seem to have some anxiety that the one they denied and betrayed was walking around and might pay them a visit and seek vengeance, their perishing.  In Jesus’ farewell discourse in John’s Gospel, he goes on for chapters about giving the disciples peace and leaving them peace, but they have a lot of reason to feel afraid.  The one they believed to be the Messiah was killed—their best friend was arrested, tried, and executed.  They did nothing to stop it and they might be next.  But Jesus didn’t come into the world to condemn the world.  We seem to be able to do that pretty well ourselves.  Jesus came for love, even in the face of violence and sin and hatred.  Love is his thing, love is powerful, love is free, and love is something that can’t be killed. 

God so loved the world that God gave the only son that we would not perish, but have eternal life.

So the question for us, is how do we respond to such a love?  Mary goes to the tomb empty handed.  In other narratives, she goes to perform a function and anoint Jesus’ body.  Today, Nicodemus already did that.  She goes empty handed.  We go empty handed to the tomb.  We go grieving, bringing our loss, our frustration, our disappointment.  We bring our heartache for everything we’ve let go, everyone who died, all our expectations that weren’t met.  We bring the pain of our divisions.  Our losses during Covid, all the things we’ve given up.  And we take that to the tomb where Jesus body was laid.  We, like Mary, come with empty hands.  Does that mean that our hands are open, that they are ready to receive the gift of the resurrection?  Does that make our hands ready to serve those in need in our midst—the sick, the hungry, the imprisoned, the unloved?  I hope that’s what it means and that is part of our response to this love of the cosmos.  I believe that we are made to be open so that God’s love would come to us and then be passed on by us, that it would flow to others through us, so that all might know God’s love and blessing.

The one thing Mary brings that day, is her broken heart.  This is the day when we can really see the beatitude in action, blessed are those who weep now.  Those who have been weeping are blessed, because while the disciples run off, Mary stays weeping, and because of that, she encounters the risen Christ.  Blessed are those who weep, for they will be consoled. 

Blessed are those who are empty, for they will be filled.  The tomb, this Easter morning, is empty.  It is filled, first with one disciple, then other, then two angels.  The tomb becomes the first place where Jesus reveals himself as the temple of the Lord.  Jesus said early in John’s Gospel that the disciples would see the heaven opened and angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man and the Gospel of John goes on for 19 more chapters with no angels until now.  This is the moment at the empty tomb Easter morning that Jesus was referring to.  The ark of the covenant had a carving of two angels upon it—the ark of the covenant where the presence of God could be found among the people, the meeting place of heaven and earth, was in the tabernacle that the isrealites traveled with in the wilderness for 40 years, in the temple, and now is the tomb where Jesus was raised.   These two angels seem to mark this tomb as the holy of holies where the ark of the covenant stood.  Or maybe they are indicating the one who is standing right there, because just as Mary sees the angels, she turns and sees Jesus.  This Gospel is indicating that Jesus is the place where heaven and earth come together.  This is good news for us because, we meet him all the time in the poor and hungry and imprisoned and immigrant, and we meet him all the time in the Lord’s Supper and in the word, the promise, the good news of the Bible. 

The tomb, all that has gone before, our expectations, our grief, all combined on this resurrection day, all we’ve lost during the pandemic so far, all our fears and regrets, combined in this moment of life, forgiveness, second chances, stepping from the darkness of the tomb into the light, still not fully understanding what it means to be born to eternal life, to follow Jesus to the cross and through to rise again on Easter morning, not knowing what the future holds, but sharing peace, letting go, and stepping bravely forward to follow Jesus.

What is our response to God’s love for the cosmos?  It is to go with him to the cross and grave, to live a life that values and loves people and creation that others see as unworthy, it is to go toward the challenges and difficulties and face them with love in our hearts.  Our response is to be open—open handed, open-hearted, ready to receive, ready to share.  Our response is to die to the old ways of injustice and prejudice and greed and fear and violence.  Our response is to rise to new life, to wake up to the reality of God’s love reshaping us and our world.  God’s love won’t let us stay the same.  The stone is rolled away from the tomb, from our hearts, from our doorways.  Let us step with him from the tomb and follow him to a new community of hope, of mutuality, of compassion, of sacrificing, of so loving the world so that all would live in abundant life.