Easter
2015 (Year B)
Father Adam Trambley
April 5, 2015 St.John’s Sharon
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
The Lord is Risen, Indeed! Alleluia!
When Mary Magdalene encounters the risen Lord Jesus outside
of the tomb, she wants to worship him.
She wants to hold onto him, right there, in that very spot where the
Easter miracle occurred, and just praise him for his amazing return to
her. She wants to stop everything and to
take a moment to be overwhelmed with wonder, awe and gratitude with her risen
Lord. Jesus, who we would think now has
all the time in the world – having conquered death and all – says, “Do not hold
on to me…but go to my brothers and say to them ‘I am ascending to my Father and
your Father, to my God and your God.’”
The good news must go out to the whole world, and that proclamation
starts immediately with Mary Magdalene going to tell Jesus’ disciples, “I have seen
the Lord.”
Of course, Jesus’ appearances don’t stop with Mary
Magdalene, but they have the same purpose.
Peter says that Jesus appeared, “not to all people, but to us who were
chosen by God as witnesses,” Paul summarizes those people Jesus appears to,
noting the gospel he received through Jesus’ appearance and then passed on to
others.
So, too, we who are here today are not meant to come just to
worship. We come to encounter the Risen
Lord in word and sacrament so that we can go out to witness to the gospel, to
tell our brothers and sisters, to proclaim the good news so that others may
come to believe.
But maybe somebody here this morning isn’t clear on precisely
what that good news is. Maybe somebody
here this morning showed up because they were seeking something and God led them
to this place. Maybe somebody here
remembered the love and joy of Easter mornings long past and is trying to
reconnect that childhood experience with their adult understanding. Maybe somebody just wandered in, desperately
trying to figure out what chocolate bunnies have to do with Jesus.
Well, I’m not sure about the last one, but I’m willing to
keep eating them until I figure it out.
But the great good news is this:
Jesus Christ, the Son of God come into the world
two-thousand-some years ago in Palestine, went about doing good and healing all
who were oppressed by the devil. He went
to Jerusalem on the Jewish feast of the Passover, when God’s people celebrated
their liberation by the mighty hand of God from bondage to the earthly power of
Pharaoh. While he was there, Jesus was
betrayed by one of his followers and the religious and political leaders had
him put to death on a cross. On that
cross, Jesus died for our sins according to what was written in the
Scriptures. When he had died, a
prominent person asked the Roman governor for his body, and he laid him in a
nearby cave that no one had been buried in previously, and a large stone was
rolled across the opening to that tomb.
Having died, Jesus made his descent into hell, not the fiery
furnace of punishment we so often hear about, but the place of darkness and
gloom where the devil held all humanity after death since the first sin of our
parents in the Garden of Eden. Into this
diabolical prison, Jesus came, a human being who had died, but also the eternal
Lord of Life, sinless and innocent, the unblemished Lamb of God. Unworthy of his presence and unable to hold
him, hell was no match for Jesus. He
shook its very foundations, defeated the devil, and threw down the gates of
death. Taking the hands of our parents
Adam and Eve, the first creatures made in the image and likeness of God and the
first to sin, Jesus led them and the generations of their descendants out of
their tombs and back to God.
Then, with hell no longer having dominion over him or able
to hold anyone ever again, and with the stone of his own tomb rolled aside as
he broke everyone out of death’s prison, Jesus rose from the grave and appeared
to his disciples. After appearing to
them, he ascended to his Father and our Father, his God and our God. Now everyone who calls upon the name of Jesus
will be saved and everyone who follows him and dies is also able to follow him
through the now-eternally-open gates of death to be with him in paradise. At the end of what we know as this world, he
will return to bring the fullness of resurrection to all.
This is our great good news.
In Jesus Christ we are able to be forgiven, because there is no power in
hell that can hold our sins, our faults or our shame over us. Whatever we have done, whatever we have
experienced, whatever our disappointments or failings, Jesus’ death and
resurrection allows us to live forgiven and freed in this life because we know
that hell cannot hold onto us in the next life.
At the same time, we need not fear any illness, any weakness, any
difficulties, because when this life ends we follow our Lord Jesus Christ into
the abode of death only to come quickly out the other side. Even in death, we follow the path that Jesus
trod, and we his sheep follow his voice into the eternal paradise of God.
So this morning, while we may tarry an hour in worshipping
our Blessed Savior who lived and died and rose for us, Jesus’ Easter
instruction is to go and tell somebody, to be his witnesses with our words,
with our deeds, or even our very lives. The
world desperately needs to hear this good news.
So witness with words.
A colleague told me she was buying an assortment of Easter items this
week, some more churchy and some more tasty, and the store clerk said, “Oh, you
celebrate both stories?” Easter does not
have two stories. Easter has one story
of the resurrection to new life of Jesus Christ, and eggs and spring flowers
and beautiful colors all symbolize new life after dark, drab death. We may be called to share the good news of
Easter with words, so that everyone remembers what our culture’s seasonal
symbols mean.
Or witness with deeds.
When we truly believe that death cannot hold us, we are free to live
extravagant lives of love. We can care
for the sick, unafraid of death and disease.
The earliest Christians helped convert the Roman Empire by caring for
plague victims when the smart people were running to the hills surrounding the
cities. We can serve each other, knowing
that our time is not limited to this life. And we can forgive one another,
regardless of what brokenness has seeped into our relationships, because
nothing anyone can do to us can keep us from walking through death into eternal
life with Jesus. We may be called to
share the good news of Easter with deeds, so that everyone can experience the
freedom and love of the resurrection.
Or even witness with lives.
On Thursday, gunmen entered a college in Garrissa, Kenya. In at least some cases, they entered students’
dorm rooms and asked if they were Christian.
Those who said they were Christian were killed. In all, 147 people died for their belief in
Christ. On the surface, this may seem a
tragic tale to talk about on such a glorious, festive morning. Certainly, such
murders are cause for sadness, wailing and lamentation. But we have heard the good news, and we know
that story does not end with murders, or funerals, or revamped campus security and
revised foreign policy. The story ends
with almost 150 new martyrs making the very short trip through the land of the
dead before dancing over every lock, chain, and door devised by the devil, skipping
through hell’s open entryway, and taking their place at the endless banquet
tables in heaven among the countless saints from ages past, listening to the
harmonies of choirs of angels with the four-living creatures laying down a
booming bass-line and watching the shimmering colors as the light of the
flaming seraphim bounces off the jewel-lined, crystal walls. Christians throughout history have been
called to that very same witness and now enjoy that same glorious life. Jesus says those who lose their lives for his
sake and the sake of the gospel save them.
Some here may be called to share the good news of Easter with our lives,
and such sacrificial witness does not go unrewarded by God.
Listen this morning to Jesus’ Easter instruction. Do not just hold onto him yourselves. Go tell our brothers and sisters the good
news: Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
The Lord is Risen,
Indeed! Alleluia!
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