Easter Day Sermon at St. John’s Lutheran, Phoenixville
April 16, 2017
Matthew 28: 1-10
And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back and sat on it. Matthew 28: 2
Christ is Risen! Risen, indeed, ALLELUIA! Oh, it is so good to be here today – to be rejoicing in the resurrection of Jesus, to be shouting Alleluia and praising God for new life, new hope. It is Easter Day, the Queen of feasts when all of creation laughs and leaps with joy and we have gathered to join in the celebration.
Our Gospel is filled with wonder and delight as the two Marys are met by a stunningly brilliant angel. This is not a meek little cherub, but a super-hero power-ranger variety of angel whose coming shakes the earth. He arrives in a bolt of lighting, wearing shimmering snow-white clothes, and tells them, “Do not be afraid!” The women keep it together, while the guard of Roman soldiers are scared to death, so frightened they cannot move.
I feel for them. This was supposed to be easy duty – guarding a tomb to make sure a dead man stays dead. The worst that could happen would be some of his followers trying to steal the corpse and then go around saying, “He’s risen from the dead!” But those were the same ones of ran off in fear in the Garden of Gethsemane when he was arrested. They’re not likely to be a threat now that’s he’s dead. Its easy duty, except they’ve been threatened with resurrection and that’s another matter entirely. Because if the crucified don’t stay dead and buried, then anything is possible, anything at all. And no matter what the Roman Empire, or any empire for that matter, does to keep the dead dead, it will never be enough.
Just because Mary Magdalene and the other Mary stay on their feet, it doesn’t mean that they’re not frightened. The angel speaks directly to them telling them what angels always say first, “Do not be afraid.” And by this he means more than his astonishing and glowing presence, but something deeper, too. Because of the resurrection, they genuinely and profoundly do not need to be afraid of anything – not of death and not of life. Oh, this is so important because in the face of the death of someone we dearly love, living can feel more frightening than dying. Threaten with resurrection we are spurred into life even when sorrow tries to drown us. Resurrection declares there’s more going on than we now know, more than we imagine. Resurrection, even just the threat of it, provides a reason to take the next breath, the next step, to live another day.
“Do not be afraid,” the angel says, and invites the two women to see the empty to tomb, to become eyewitnesses of the great truth that “the prison room of death is empty.” Then he quickly sends them on their way with a mission and a message, “Tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’” They become the human link between the great event of God and the community of faith. They are the first ones sent by God with the news, “He is risen!” Mary Magdalene and the other Mary are the first apostles of the risen Christ. (Thomas Long, Matthew, Louisville: Westminister John Knox Press, 1997, 323)
Then they leave the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and run to tell the disciples. Note they feel both fear and joy – together. They are not opposites. Anyone who has waited for their beloved on their wedding day, know how fear and joy can be experienced at the same time – for as much as you love, you don’t know what’s ahead. Like doubt and faith, fear and joy go together, and indeed might be inseparable. The women know joy in the wonderful news that Jesus is alive, but also feel fear as they move from the tomb towards a dangerous and skeptical world. Resurrection is threatening for it means nothing is nailed down anymore. Preacher Tom Long talks about it this way, “The way the world used to be, if something troubling to in the way, like a call for racial justice or a worker for peace or an advocate for mercy, the world could just kill it and it would be done with. But Jesus is alive, and righteousness, mercy and peace cannot be dismissed with a cross and a sword. We have to decide where we stand and what we will do in this new and frightening resurrection world.”
With fear and joy the “Marys” run to tell the disciples what’s happened, that Jesus is alive, and they literally run smack into him. They fall at his feet and worship him, while he repeats what the Angel said, “Do not be afraid” adding, “Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, there they will see me.” Did you notice he said, “Go tell my brothers” and not “Go and tell those good for nothing, wanna be disciples who denied and abandoned me?” Imagine the disciples joy, when the women tell them Jesus called them brothers! Threatened with resurrection they are restored and reclaimed.
And so are we. That phrase, “threatened with resurrection” is from a poem by Julia Esquivel who is a Guatemalan poet and theologian. At 86 she is a great-grandmother of the Guatemalan’s who have immigrated to Phoenixville, where they are part of the resurrection of our town, just as waves of immigrants have been for almost 300 years. We get to witness their resurrection, watching as they make lives, work hard, raise children, graduate from high school, all of it. Julia’s writing was born in nearly 30 years of catastrophic political violence under the rule of a series of dictators. She watched as thousands of people were savagely murdered and hundreds of villages were literally wiped off the face of the earth while the entire nation experienced a type of profound communal trauma in the face of massive and often arbitrary brutality. Where others gave up hope, or took up arms in resistance, she used words to create another path toward peace. She wrote, “Join us in this vigil and you will know what it is to dream! Then you will know how marvelous it is to live threatened with Resurrection! To dream awake, to keep watch asleep. To live while dying, and to know ourselves already resurrected! (www.veteransofhope.org/veterans/julia-esquivel)
To live while dying, and to know ourselves already resurrected, that is the life of faith. Phyllis, a member of St. John’s for all of her 86 years, died on Thursday morning after a brief illness. Born with cerebral palsy, Phyllis was often rejected and teased by other children and then spent the later years of her life in a wheel chair. I remember visiting one of our members in Phoenixville Manor. After the visit, I noticed Phyllis was in the activity room across the hall. I was surprised and stopped by to say hello. “What are you doing here?” I asked. She replied, “I come two or three times a week to do activities with the residents.” I was surprised – volunteers at the Manor were few and far between then as well as now, but there she was – threatened with Resurrection, she was threatening others too. They couldn’t help but smile. The room was full of activity, buzzing with joy, love abounding. It was glory to behold.
Two Roman guards, the Marys and Jesus’ restored brothers, Julia, Phyllis and now us, we’ve all been threatened with resurrection. It is the power that give us hope in the face of hopelessness, courage to change when change is needed and strength to forgive and forget hurts and failures. It stirs up in us the desire to care for our neighbors and the grace to allow neighbors to care for us. Threatened with resurrection may we dream awake, keep watch asleep, live while dying and know ourselves and all of creation already resurrected!
Let’s say it one more time: Christ is Risen! Risen, indeed, Alleluia! Amen.
Pastor Cynthia Krommes