"He is not here!" Easter sermon 2016
Sermon for Easter Sunday 2016
Lutheran Church of the Redeemer,
Jerusalem
English-speaking congregation
The Rev. Carrie Ballenger Smith
***
Grace and
peace to you from God our Father and the Risen Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
On Tuesday of
this Holy Week, a group of Armenian, Greek Orthodox, and Franciscan priests gathered
in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher to do something a little unusual: they were blessing scaffolding. This isn’t just any scaffolding—it is the support
structure holding up the shrine over the tomb of Christ. Two hundred years of
candles and pilgrim traffic, along with the weight of the marble edifice, have
caused the little building to sag desperately. The priests gathered Tuesday to
bless scaffolding because soon a long-overdue renovation project will begin there,
at the site of God’s greatest miracle. Actually, it’s a small miracle in itself
that the multiple, often bickering, traditions in the church managed to agree
on the renovation project in the first place!
Still, miracle
or no miracle, I couldn’t quite get over seeing this news headline about the renovation,
shared during Holy Week: “Christ’s tomb to be restored soon.”
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| Church of the Holy Sepulcher, closed for prayer on Maundy Thursday Photo by Carrie Smith |
Christ’s
tomb—which he no longer inhabits—is being
restored. Christ’s tomb—which he exited
as soon as possible—is getting an expensive facelift. Christ’s tomb—which the
women entered on the first day of the week and
found empty—will soon look as good as new. Clearly, this renovation is a
good idea in terms of historic preservation. Still, whenever I visit the church
and see long lines of faithful people waiting hours for just a moment inside
the tomb, I want to tell them: “Guys, you know he’s not there, right?”
Alleluia,
Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Recently, a
friend who is a tour guide was explaining to a group how the actual stone tomb of
Jesus is located far below the shrine, in the basement of the church. It is only
accessible if one priest from each of the various churches is present to
witness the event. Impressed by this fact, one of the tourists asked, “That’s
so cool! Did they ever find anything in the tomb?” To which my friend responded,
“Uh, no. It’s empty. Actually, there’s a story about that. Maybe you’ve heard
it…”
This
morning, we rejoice to hear the story once again. We are gathered here in this
place to remember how on the first day of the week, at early dawn, the women
went to the tomb. Finding the stone already rolled away, they entered the tomb
but the body was not there.
This Good
News, the simple but perplexing fact of an empty tomb, is the source of our joy
and our hope. For this reason, we got up before dawn and made our way here to
the Mt. of Olives. For this reason, the musicians have prepared for weeks to provide
joyful music. For this reason, some of you have traveled many miles to be in
Jerusalem, the City of the Resurrection, on the Day of Resurrection.
Yes, the
tomb is empty – for this reason let us say again,
Alleluia,
Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Such is the
astounding headline news of this Easter day –and yet, on Tuesday the headlines
were different.
On Tuesday,
my News Feed read like this:
“Brussels
Attacked.”
And
“Christ’s
tomb to be restored soon.”
Yes, Jesus
is risen! But we are still hanging around the tomb.
Isn’t this
true about so much of our lives?
On Sunday
mornings, we rejoice in the risen Christ. We sing “I’m so glad, Jesus lifted
me!” and “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” We share
the peace of Christ with those in the pews next to us. We break the bread and
drink the wine and give thanks for being raised with him. Sunday morning is all
about Resurrection.
And then the
rest of the week, we are about the business of caring for the dead places in
our lives: Rearranging the furniture. Putting on a fresh coat of paint. Trying
to make the tomb seem less dark, less dead.
When my
little family and I were in graduate school, I would sometimes spend entire
days rearranging the stuff in our tiny apartment. I would stack the toddler
toys and move around the books and try to hide the things that had no home, but
in the end, it was still a tiny, dark, damp, windowless basement apartment. No
amount of redecorating was going to change that fact.
Sisters and
brothers, Christ is risen! And still, we keep tidying up the tomb.
We keep trying
to make peace through war.
We keep trying
to achieve justice through hatred of the other side.
We update
old paradigms instead of adopting new ones.
We renovate
systems of injustice rather than toppling them.
We fortify walls
and borders, instead of stepping into the light.
We keep looking
for the living among the dead.
But who can
blame us for thinking the tomb is the place to be? After all, death makes
headlines. Violence always gets our attention. Hate sells, and even wins
elections. Who can blame the women for looking for Jesus where they last saw
him—among the dead? Who can blame them for being perplexed when the tomb was empty?
We aren’t conditioned to expect resurrection. We aren’t accustomed to life
outside the tomb.
A dear
friend of mine struggled and suffered for years in an abusive relationship. She
would often say that as a person of faith, she believed in resurrection. Couldn’t
God resurrect even this relationship, even if the love was dead or dying?
For years my
friend tried renovation, redecoration, hoped for restoration, and prayed for
resurrection, but at long last the relationship—and the abuse—were over.
And you know what? There was indeed
resurrection. There was indeed new life. But it was not found in the tomb of
abuse. It was not found in the tomb of disrespect. It was not found in the
darkness of violence and fear. My friend found resurrection, liberation, and
life abundant in the light of the Risen Christ. It happened when she remembered
the stone was already rolled away. It happened when she remembered nothing could keep
her in that tomb.
Suddenly two visitors in dazzling
clothes appeared and said to the women: “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 Man must be handed over to sinners, and be
crucified, and on the third day rise again.” (Luke 24)
Dear friends
in Christ, hear again the Good News: Jesus is no longer in the tomb.
You will not
find Jesus hiding in the darkness, held down by hatred, defeated by violence, wrapped
in a death shroud, or imprisoned by a stone.
He is not there!
And that
means Life is not found there, either.
Hope is not
found there.
Peace is not
found there.
Justice is
not found there.
Liberation
is not found there.
Jesus is no
longer among the dead, and neither are we.
Today, dear
friends, is the festival of our freedom!
Today is the
feast of our liberation from sin and death!
Today is the
first day of the week, and it is the
first day of our Risen Life!
In an Easter
sermon sometime in the 4th century, Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria
preached:
“Christ, risen from the dead,
Makes the whole of human life
A festival without end.”
Dear sisters
and brothers, today is our Great Feast. Today we gather to celebrate the Resurrection
of Our Lord. But hear me when I say: this Good News is not only for Easter
morning. It’s not only for Sunday morning. The feast of our freedom, the joy of
our liberation, the certainty of our hope, is a festival without end.
Every single
day when God wakes us up to a new day is Easter morning! Amen!
And watch
out, world, for when the Children of Light and the People of the Resurrection
start celebrating their freedom every day of the week.
For as theologian
Jürgen Moltmann recently wrote: “When freedom is near, the chains begin to
chafe.” (Jürgen Moltmann: The Living God and the Fullness of Life)
Yes, Lord –
when freedom is near,
when we our Easter
liberation is carried close to our hearts,
when the cries
of “Alleluia” stay on our lips all day long,
when our
baptismal garments become everyday clothes instead of our Sunday best,
then every
prison,
every separation
wall,
every system
of injustice,
every racial
or gender inequity,
every
addiction,
every
pattern of abuse,
every dark
place in our lives—and in the world—becomes more than we can tolerate.
Then a renovation
of the tomb just won’t be enough.
And then –
oh then! – just watch as the Risen Lord, on the move through the Holy Spirit,
raises up all the People of the Resurrection to share the Good News.
People won’t
believe it.
People will
say it’s an idle tale.
People will
say “Pay no attention. It’s only a couple of women. It’s only a couple of Jesus
freaks. It’s only a couple of human rights activists, radicals, peaceniks, politicians,
mothers, fathers, academics, teenagers, evangelicals…
It’s just a
couple Lutherans saying that stuff.”
And still we
will proclaim it. Still we will live it. Still we will rejoice in our Easter
freedom, our liberation from the tomb, our new lives on this side of the stone
of hatred, fear, violence, and death.
Together,
along with Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary mother of James, from Jerusalem to
the ends of the earth, our testimony to the world is this:
Alleluia,
Christ is risen!
Christ is
risen indeed Alleluia!
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