Father send your Holy Spirit, that these spoken words may be faithful to the written word and lead us to the Living word your Son Jesus Christ. Amen.
‘’The women took the spices .. went to the tomb… the found the stone rolled away .. they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.’’
Alleluia! Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Easter is about the Good News about Jesus
Where does God stand?
The crowds, and the religious leaders said – he is a criminal – hence the cross upon which a cursed person would be hung; Jesus said he was the Son of Man. Who is right?
He is raised. God is speaking.
God has vindicated his Son – he was in the right and all he said was true and he will sit at the right hand of the Father.
It shows God has spoken to us in his son, Jesus.
Opportunity is available to experience eternal life and a real life in this life, which is tied to the good news about Jesus – a crucified risen Lord.
And as Jesus will command, this message of the cross and the empty tomb is to be shared with everyone, so that he extends the a hand of invitation to everyone to join him in the presence of God experiencing eternal life.
The way for salvation is now opened through the life that comes in the resurrection.
Paul says in 1 Cor 15: ‘’If Christ has not been raised your faith is futile, you are still in your sins… but Christ has indeed been raised from the dead.’’ Because he is risen, the power of sin has been broken – before Christ we were under its power, a slave to it, yet an empty tomb means Christ came to set us free from sin;
before Christ we suffered the pollution of sin, like cities where the air quality gets so bad everything is affected, we were polluted by sins effects, and yet the empty tomb means Christ has made us righteous in God’s sight;
before Christ, we faced the penalty of sin – for all of us as Paul says has fallen short of God’s glorious standard. And we were to face judgement from God after death. Yet Christ took the punishment and judgement we should have taken. The empty tomb means we need not fear meeting God but can look forward to it.
And before Christ, our sins created a wall, a partition between us and God – and the empty tomb means it is open for us to come to God. Heaven gates are opened wide. The hand of welcome is offered. That it is Good news!
Easter is about the Unexpected Happening
You’d think such good news would be really well received. Yet at the end of the gospel – mid morning, we have a group of confused, joyful and probably frustrated women (at the men’s response); a bunch of grumpy argumentative and unbelieving male disciples, and a perplexed Peter!
What happened on that first Easter was something nobody expected!
So the second thing we take away. This event challenges us to holding our mind and our whole life open to God who does unexpected things, even in the midst of mess, confusion, darkness, silence, when prayers seem unanswered. God does life transforming things that you’d have never imagined in your wildest dreams!
Paul years later in Ephesians would write, how God ‘’is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to that power that is at work within us.’’ And what is that power – he wrote earlier ‘’that power is like the working of his mighty strength which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead.’’ Easter, reminds us what God can be doing in and round our situations, in the pain, struggles can be more than we can imagine, for the God the Spirit who did the unexpected on Easter lives in us and is at work…
Easter is about Questions
Easter is a day of questions. We don’t hear it in Luke, but in Mark we hear: ‘Who will roll away the stone from the entrance of the tomb?’’ Were there other questions among these loyal women – between them or within their hearts as they walked the tomb with their spices?
Questions like– how will they live with their sorrow, sorrow that may linger or shape them for years? Why have their hopes, even their prayers, the hopes they shared with others in the nation, hopes that seemed to be biblically based, why have they come to nothing. These questions are expressed later by the disciples on the Emmaus Road but we can imagine they all had similar ones.
Questions about where is God, when Jesus is in the grave, why has God not acted or spoke, why has he been silent?
Easter is a day of painful questions.
And maybe today, some of us, we can relate to that, personally. The times when we know God said no – as God said no to his son’s request to remove the cup – on Maundy Thursday. Times when, like Jesus on the cross, we have really been asking, where has God been? Or when God is just painfully silent, like that Holy Saturday – when there was no cloud like the Transfiguration, no dove or voice from heaven like the baptism, or even no angel as there were two on this morning.
However. To quote Pete Greig: ‘’Jesus loves you too much to leave you for long in pain, confusion, doubt or a state of unbelief. He wants to help you deal with your pain, your confusion, your doubt and your sin.’’
And how does he do this?
Jesus Seeks the Lost and struggling.
It is striking to think – people are trying to find Jesus after the empty tomb. But he is the one who finding people. On Easter Jesus finds people, he is, you could say, like the good shepherd, seeking the lost sheep.
He is raised, he goes to Mary;
he goes to Peter (later in the chapter, v34 we learn Jesus met Peter);
he appears on the Emmaus Road, to two disciples leaving the main group;
he visits the upper room on the first Easter evening;
returns a week later when Thomas is present;
and in Galilee he reaches out again to Peter.
He does not invalidate their pain, confusion, but he does not want to leave them there. They had had times of orientation – things going well, the kingdom breaking in, God at work, Palm Sunday praises. Disorientation then broke in – things were not as expected, opposition, betrayal, trial, death, darkness, silence. And now Jesus seeks, individually, to bring reorientation / new orientation.
And the risen Lord Jesus continues to seek to do that within us.
And at Easter, the way he does this, is he asks questions…
Jesus asks questions.
After Jesus is raised, many times he asks questions.
This is how he responds to the mess, pain, confusion and failure within them, caused by the past days. He then speaks but after the questions and therefore the listening to the responses…
Jesus asks Mary: why are you weeping? He ministered to her pain of her loss.
The two disciples on the Emmaus Road – What are you discussing together … don’t you understand?’ He ministered to their confusion.
When he appeared among the disciples in Jerusalem, ‘why are you troubled, why do doubts arise in your minds?’ He ministered into their struggles or even crisis of faith.
By the Sea of Galilee, Jesus asked Peter ‘Do you love me more than these?’ – Jesus ministered into his guilt.
After his resurrection, Jesus is again living out Isaiah 42 as he had in his earthly ministry
‘’A bruised reed he will not break, a smouldering wick he will not snuff out.’’ (Isaiah 42:3).
Looking more closely.
Jesus addresses pain.
It has been said, if your pain is not transformed, it will be transmitted to others.
If your following of Jesus has left you with pain, hurting, weeping, like Mary, Jesus asks you the question, he asked her on Easter. Why are you weeping? And, John 20, tells us, thinking he was the gardener, she tells him.
The one we speak to is the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. But tell him, lament.
But when you are finished, listen, for what he may say in return – all it took was one word on that first Easter – Mary.
We listen to the Lord, after we have told him…
Jesus addresses confusion.
Maybe our disappointments about following Jesus have left us confused like the disciples on the Emmaus Road.
What are you discussing?
And so they brought their questions and confusion to Jesus ‘we had hoped he was the one.’’
Do not run away from your questions. Bring them to the Lord. Be open to Jesus explaining the scriptures to you – his illumination, revelation, or reminding you of what you have known.
He wants to help you make sense of things. So continue to study, to think, to talk about these with other believers. And you may find that you heart becomes slowly warmed or burning’ as you begin to see an answer…
Jesus addresses doubt.
Maybe an event or prayers that seem unanswered, has created an crisis or significant doubts in your faith – a shadow over everything or certain things, so that you can no longer can pray or do.
The disciples could not believe it when the women told them that Jesus was raised, it seemed like nonsense to them.
And at the end of the, day, ‘when Jesus appeared, why are you so troubled, why do doubts arise in your minds?’ Has your old confidence in God been eroded, you may be older, but are you better?
Imagine Jesus stepping into your room – through your closed door – and he asks ‘why are your troubled? Why do doubts arise?’ Tell him. Again, share with others. Thomas, does not contain his doubts, he expressed them to those close to him. The first step may be like the father who said to Jesus ‘I do believe, help me in my unbelief’ which is not a weak prayer, but an honest one, from a heart that desires to move ahead again…
Jesus addresses sin.
Or maybe in your struggles with disappointment, you have fallen into sin, or it has led you into sin. Like the Apostle Peter, you lied, or denied you were a Christian.
Peter ran to that tomb. Yet sometime on that day, Jesus and him had a private unrecorded meeting. The Lord sought him out.
Like the Lord did for Mary. Jesus pursued them both.
Jesus pursued Peter to begin to deal with his guilt and shame. Like the shepherd seeking the lost sheep.
Jesus meets again with Peter and asks more questions in John 21. Sometimes healing can be a process and sometimes we hold onto guilt, when the Lord has forgiven. Maybe also, for the other disciples, they needed to know of a public reconciliation with Jesus.
Jesus wants to dismantle your shame and guilt and restore your relationship, and renew your calling to serve him.
While on Easter we can praise and rejoice about he is risen, he is risen indeed and so there is life after death and so we can experience eternal life. This is all true and important. But on Easter we see Jesus, not taking it easy as you might expect after such a traumatic week – sitting by a lake in Galilee, waiting for them to find him. On this day of days, he is seeking to heal and restore, to bind up the bruised reeds, to fan into flame smouldering wicks.
And so the Easter message also says – as he did on that day, he still seeks to do with us. Those disciples needed and received his help, we need his help and we can receive it too…
Let us finish.
Easter – He is risen!
Vindication of who he is and all he said. He is good news.
The unexpected happened through the Spirit of God.
Jesus caring ministry on that day – seeking, asking questions.
True then, true now… Shall we pray…
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 6 … may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip us with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.