Easter Sermon - 2020

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“Early Morning Run” (John 20:1-10)

Rob Tennant, Hillside Church, Chapel Hill, NC

Easter Sunday, April 12, 2020

*This message will be broadcast by Facebook and Instagram Live and posted to Youtube, but will not be preached to a live audience.  We – America, the world – are in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis which is causing people all over the world to avoid gathering in groups of larger than 10, and diligently maintain “social distance.”  It’s an effort to curb the rapid, worldwide spread of the Corona virus which can be deadly.

            John chapter 20 begins, “Early on the first day of the week.” What do you early in the morning?  Hit the snooze button and roll over for 9 more minutes?  Take a shower to wash the sleep out of your eyes? How about going for a run to start the day?  That’s what Mary did, an early morning run; but it’s not what she had planned.

Other gospel writers report several of Jesus’ female disciples came to the tomb.  John zooms in on Mary Magdalene.  She was up early because she probably didn’t sleep.  She probably spent the entire Sabbath recoiling from the shock and grief of Jesus’ death on the cross.  It happened so fast, arrested Thursday; killed Friday; and now the movement was over. 

Mary was not thinking about a movement.  She loved him.  She couldn’t accept it.  She went to his tomb.  We need that.  God did not design us for death.  Death runs contrary to how we are made.  When a loved one dies, we need rituals; the funeral, the graveside service, and burial.  Only with these practices can we have closure, but Mary did not find any closure.  She found the stone rolled away from the entrance.

That’s when she started running, all the way back to where Simon and the beloved disciple were staying.  How often in ancient Israel did adult women run in public?  I imagine it was uncommon.

Today we run for any number of reasons.  People love running for fitness; a mile; five miles; and the real runners even do marathons.  We mix in all kinds of obstacles; there are mud runs and color runs and gladiator runs.  It’s all to get in shape.    

People also run in competition.  The fastest runners run not just to complete the race, but to win it.  The batter hits a ground ball the shortstop has to go deep in the hole to field.  That batter sprints down the line to beat the shortstop’s throw.  The running backs takes the ball and runs hard, plowing over tacklers.  Once he’s past them, then he turns on the speed so as to not get caught. 

We run to stay fit.  We run to win.  Some run to stay alive.  If you are being pursued by a tiger or an attacker, you run.  Some run for excitement.  Kids coming from home school on a Friday will sprint out of the school building, happy to be “free.”  Sometimes running is tied to a goal.  Candidates “run” for office, intending to be elected. 

Mary came to a tomb to grieve the death of her beloved teacher much as you or I might visit the cemetery to remember and say farewell to someone we love who has died.  Why did a stone rolled to the side revealing the entrance to Jesus’ tomb send Mary running?  What would you think if you went to the cemetery and found your mom’s headstone, but the ground was dug, no coffin?  His corpse was supposed to be in there.  But the stone sealing the tomb was moved.  Now she was traumatized by this: a dead body wasn’t where it was supposed to be.  With this new shock she ran for help. 

Peter and the beloved disciple set out immediately, back down the same road from which she had just come.  Like her, they are running.  Commentators remark, in Jesus’ story of the Prodigal son, that it was undignified for a landowner of high class to run in public.  But in Jesus’ tale the father didn’t care about improprieties.  Overcome with joy at getting his son back, he ran to embrace him.  A little like the impulse in school children on Friday afternoons, this father, propelled by excited happiness ignored social conventions of his day and ran to his son. 

That’s not what Peter was doing.  He did not know what had happened.  He and his companion only knew that grief and shame had coldcocked them both and now Mary’s report of a violated tomb raised the level of strangeness and threat.  They could be running into some real trouble, but they were beyond reason.  They had to know what happened, so they ran. 

The beloved disciple outpaced the fisherman, but stopped at the tomb’s entrance.  He looked in where he saw linen grave clothes but no body wrapped in them.  Huffing and puffing, Peter caught up, and barreled past him into the tomb.  They could see clearly; the body was gone.  They did not know what it meant.  They turned to walk, slowly, I bet, back to the house.

Mary then had her encounter with the risen Jesus.  She thought he was a gardener until He called her name.  When she heard her name, she was the first to understand.  No one, not the temple leaders, not the centurions, no one stole his dead body.  His body wasn’t dead.  She talked to him as he stood there alive.  She watched his lifeless body taken down after being ravaged and dying on the cross.  She saw him laid in the tomb.  Now, here he was, upright, alive, talking to her.   She knew it was real because she took hold of him.  The gospel doesn’t say she ran as she went back to tell the disciples what happened, but I bet she at least had a new spring in her step! 

Jesus was alive.  He had been dead, done and dusted.  Now, he was alive.  This is where our story leads.  Our own individual mistakes, and a world degrading and devolving inevitably leads to death, the very opposite of God’s intent for human beings.  From Adam and Eve to Cain and Able to the flood to the tower of Babel to a long, sad history of the chosen people rebelling against God to exile to the decadence of both Herod and Rome to the crucifixion to our day or wars, pornography, greed, sex-slavery, substance abuse, and self-centeredness, the world is unalterably destined for destruction. 

Yet, when we turn from death and our own fallen state, repent, and turn in faith to Jesus, something changes. He is alive.  On the cross, he took on himself our destruction.  Death seemed so inevitable, yet he defeated it.  The resurrection means, when we are in Christ, things are different because we are bound for life.  People need to know about this!

Why are 26-mile long races called ‘Marathons?’ In 490BC, after a long battle with the invading Persians, the Greeks won a desperately needed victory at Marathon.  The residents of Athens, 26 miles away, needed to know what happened.  So, a runner was dispatched and he made the long run for one reason: to tell the good news!  What he had to say was so important, so needed, so urgent, he ran to tell it.  Legend has it that upon reporting his news, he collapsed and died.

We possess news much happier and more important than “Greece defeated Persia.”  That message was only happy for the Greeks.  The Persians had to slog all the way home as losers.  Our news, “Jesus is alive,” is happy for everyone.  He has risen!  He has risen indeed!

People need to know it and we, his church, need to be running out of the worship gathering on Easter Sunday and every day to tell.  The Apostle Paul saw it this way.  In the decades after Easter and Jesus’ resurrection, Paul devoted his life to sharing the salvation we have in Christ and planting churches.  He is near his end when he writes 2 Timothy.  In 4:7 he says, looking back at his life of telling about Jesus, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”  Jesus is alive.  Paul sensed the urgency.  This was good news people needed to hear.

It still is and we, today’s Christians, are the messengers.  We are driven to run as Paul did. Another New Testament book, Hebrews, written anonymously probably in the 60’s urges that we “run with perseverance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1c).

Why so urgent?  Because people you and I know and love are dying in sin; the world is bound for destruction.  Why so urgent?  Because every single person’s course can be reversed and they can join in life, resurrected life, if they turn to Jesus.  Why do urgent?  Because it’s true.  Can you imagine the media firestorm that would hit if it could be shown that someone has truly risen from death, never to die again?  We know that has happened! 

Tradition teaches that the disciples spread out from Jerusalem all over the world, going out simply to tell people Jesus was alive.  Nearly all of them kept at it until they were killed for their testimony because the news is so big and so good, and it is exactly what the world needs to hear.  All those disciples who failed miserably in the hours leading up to the crucifixion became witnesses emboldened to bear their testimony about Jesus even to the death. Like Paul, they ran the race.

Now, it’s our time.  We don’t run for fear.  In Christ, there is no fear.  We don’t run to win.  That’s fine if you’re playing softball or in a footrace, but this is bigger.  We don’t run to stay fit.  You might work out to be good shape for the mission, but this mission can be carried out by people no matter what their physical condition is.  With my ankle surgery, I’m not running at all right now. 

But I am running out of here, and I hope we all here.  Christ has risen and in Him there is life.  Everyone needs to know.  We are the witnesses.  God is sending us to tell the news.  Jesus is alive! 

AMEN

Easter 2019

            I was looking over Easter sermons this week, some from other pastors, some I have preached in the past.  Sometimes, pastors have difficulty preaching on Easter Sunday.  It’s hard to say why.  As my friend Will Allen has said, it’s a pastor’s a super bowl.  Is that it?  Does the pressure settle in and get to us? 

Some people advise me to “just tell the story.”  They’re not wrong.  I remember being a college student and visiting a seminary.  We seniors who wanted to go into ministry did a tour of divinity schools in Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia.  We got to hear what an actual professor told her students.  This is what she said.  “If you’re preaching on Easter, talk about Jesus’ resurrection.  Don’t get cute or creative.  Talk about the empty tomb.”  Profound.

Resurrection is the background of every sermon a pastor preaches.  Even on Ash Wednesday, when the mood is repentance, and Maundy Thursday when we talk about Judas betraying Jesus, and Good Friday when we focus on the cross; even those times are colored by the resurrection.  On Easter Sunday, resurrection is the story.  Jesus is alive.  We are Easter people!

            In 2009, National Geographic released a book entitled The Letter and the Scroll: What Archaeology Tells us about the Bible.  Here’s an excerpt from the entry in that volume that addresses on Jesus’ tomb. 

[Several] sites in present-day Jerusalem have been suggested for the tomb of Jesus.  For believers, the power of the Gospel message lies not in the location of the tomb, but in the words the women heard that first Easter Sunday morning.   He has risen; he is not here” (p.285).

            How ironic!  Bible scholars writing commentaries to help pastors prepare to preach say this about Easter Sunday: “Good luck, pastor.  Preaching resurrection is really tough.”  But, a secular production from National Geographic with no reason to promote Jesus gets it.  We don’t need to make pilgrimages to Jerusalem to see the tomb.  The tomb is empty.  He has risen from death.  Jesus is alive.

            This is our story, handed down from the very first disciples.  In following Luke’s lead, we realize that it was in fact disciples who first knew of the resurrection and their initial reaction to the greatest news in history was to report it.  Disciples were the first to know Jesus had been resurrected; not the 12; not Matthew or Thomas, Peter or Andrew, James or John, but other disciples.  As we mentioned last week, Luke stresses that there was a community around Jesus and many of those followers were women.  Luke mentions them by name.

            There was Joanna, a woman of affluence.  Her husband Chuza was King Herod’s household manager.  When Pilate, the Roman governor examined Jesus, he sent Jesus off to Herod.  Herod was the Jewish king, controlled by Rome.  He was renowned for his decadence gorging on food, sex, and thrills.  He wanted a miracle from Jesus and when Jesus refused to impress him, he sent Jesus back to merciless judgment of Pilate.  In the entire story, no one seems farther from the truth than the self-indulgent Herod.  Yet in Herod’s own household was a man married to a woman, Joanna, who was one of Jesus most faithful disciples.  She was at the tomb.

            With her was Mary Magdalene.  Luke writes that she had been possessed by seven demons.  Jesus exorcised them and she became a follower (8:2).  Mark 16:9 corroborates Luke’s report of the seven demons.  Extra biblical sources have tried to amplify Mary’s relationship with Jesus.  The Bible simply says she was one of his closest disciples.  John’s gospel reports on her encounter with the risen Lord.  He received her worship, but told her not to hold him, but rather to go to the eleven, the male disciples, and tell what had happened and that the resurrected Jesus would be ascending to the Father. 

            Some of the other women and their relationships and exact identities are harder to piece together.  Another woman called Mary, the wife of Cleophas, is mentioned in John 19:25.  We also know from John that Jesus’ mother was at least at the cross.

            Luke speaks of Susannah (chapter 8) and of Mary the mother of James the younger and Joses.  This Mary is also mentioned by Mark in his gospel.  Some Bible interpreters think she might have been Jesus’ aunt.  There was a woman named Salome whom the Catholic Encyclopedia concludes was the mother of two of Jesus’ 12 disciples, James and John. There were many women disciples and very little has been said about them.  Many were not named.  But Luke points out that they provided the financial support for Jesus and the 12 needed (Luke 8:1-3).  They were crucial to Jesus’ mission.

            On Sunday morning, these women believed Jesus was dead.  They went early to be prepared at first light to anoint his corpse.  The angels they met at the tomb told them Jesus had been raised.  They ran to tell the male disciples who thought it was a foolish tale reported by wishful-thinking women. 

            Is our claim that Jesus rose from the grave just that, wishful thinking?  First Corinthians 1:21 says, “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.”  Disillusioned, the male disciples couldn’t believe it when the female disciples rushed in and disturbed their solemn, defeated brooding.

            But Luke tells us that though they thought it was an idle tale, Peter ran to the tomb to verify for himself.  In spite of his tears and disbelief, he still checked out their story.  We know what he found.  Peter was amazed.  The word got out, the resurrected Christ himself over 40 days visited over 500 of his followers, and the church was born.

            Today millions in nearly every country on earth believe the truth – Jesus rose from the grave.  However, many millions more do not.  They do not believe the story of Easter because a human being can’t rise from death.  They can’t bring themselves to believe in the power of God.  Or, they could believe if they heard, but they have never heard.  Or, they have heard the good news preached by oppressive, hateful people in overbearing churches that do not reflect God’s love.  For numerous reasons, people don’t understand the reality and significance of the resurrection.

            Do we?  Jesus is alive!  He has been raised from death, has ascended to be at the right hand of the Father until the final judgment.  He is present among us in the form of the Holy Spirit.  Do we believe? 

            In the past, right here at HillSong Church, the female witnesses were present.  I don’t mean Susannah, Joanna, Salome, the different Mary’s and the rest.  I mean in 2007, we baptized four women on Easter Sunday.  In 2010, we baptized another young lady on Easter Sunday.  And this year, 2019, we baptized two young ladies on Palm Sunday.  By going to the waters of Baptism, these faithful girls and women repeated the testimony of those women who went to Jesus’ tomb on the first Easter Sunday.  In going under the water, they testified that they knew they were dead in sin.  But, because they know that Jesus rose, in Him, they have resurrection, life eternal.  From the testimony of Biblical women, we hear that Jesus is alive.  Do we believe?

            From the testimony of baptized HillSong women, we hear the story of new life, eternal life that is had when one believes in Jesus, trusts in Jesus, serves in Jesus’ name, and follows Jesus’ lead in life.  From the testimony shared by our sisters here, will we believe?

            Rejoice in the story of resurrection.  When you put your faith in Jesus, resurrection is not just his story, told Easter Sunday.  It is your story.  The angels sing songs of joy and laugh until they cry because they are so happy that you have trusted in Jesus.

                        From Psalm 8

                         ¹ O LORD, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth,

Who have set Your glory above the heavens!

² Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants

         You have ordained strength,

         Because of Your enemies,

         That You may silence the enemy and the avenger.

            Death is the silenced enemy.  Easter is our testimony.  Those women met two angels, learned of the resurrection, and went and told all that they had heard.  Easter becomes Easter when you and I go out and do the same.  We add our testimony to the story.  Jesus is alive.  We say it when we live with a cheerful disposition, even on bad days.  Jesus is alive.  We say it when we love people around us, even nonbelievers, even the mean ones.  Jesus is alive. We confirm it when we forgive without condition, and we welcome people into our lives, even people we aren’t sure about.  We welcome them because He welcomes them.  Jesus is alive.  We know it is true when we surrender to the Spirit of Resurrection, and the Holy Spirit takes hold of us. 

            This is a day of rejoicing and a day of telling.  We say is with our attitude and with our words.  So, join the women of the first Easter, go from here and tell all.  Join the baptized.  Say it loudly.  Say it with unbridled joy.  Jesus is alive. 

AMEN

The Easter Sunrise Sermon - 2019

            "I shook up the world," Cassius Clay proclaimed after he beat Sonny Liston to become boxing's heavyweight champion.  Clay later became a Muslim, changed his name to Muhammad Ali, one of the most flamboyant and well known athletes of the 20th century.  He was once on a plane and the flight attendant instructed him to fasten his seat belt.  He said, "Honey, Superman don't need a seatbelt."  She responded, "Champ, Superman doesn't need a plane."  He buckled up, but he never lost the sparkle in his eye or the unwavering belief that he could accomplish whatever he set his mind to.  Muhammad Ali was a great boxer - maybe the greatest ever.  But, while his victory Liston was surprising, he did not "shake up the world."  Champions come and champions go.     

Historical events leave a lasting mark.  The Holocaust, the end of WW II, the landing on the moon, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the terrorist attacks of 9-11-01; these are events we don't forget. These things matter. But even moments in history and stories that have a lasting impact can be located at in time and to left at that point in time Hitler, Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr., Barak Obama, Donald Trump - they all matter for good or bad reasons; but they all pass away. Time marches on.

            One man truly shook up the world.  Jesus of Nazareth came from a small village in Northern Israel; he was the son of Joseph, a carpenter, and he lived in the first century AD and as far as we know, spent a few childhood years in Egypt but otherwise never traveled outside of Israel.  His life changed the world like no one else has.      

            Jesus was God in human flesh – 100% divine and 100% human.  He lived a perfect life, never sinning a single time.  His countrymen accused him of blasphemy and turned him in to the Roman authorities; though Jesus was not found guilty of any crime, to appease the crowd, the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, agreed to take Jesus’ life.  He was flogged, and they pounded a crown of thorns into his head.  The soldiers mocked him and forced Him to carry the wooden beam he would hang on from the city to the hill called Golgotha.  And there, he was killed. 

            Who killed him?  The authorities who accused him?  The soldiers who flogged him?  The governor who passed the sentence?  God, who allowed it to happen?  Or, you and I?  We sin as all humans do.  Jesus died on the cross to take on himself the penalty for our sins.  We desperately need God's forgiveness, and we receive that forgiveness when put our faith in Jesus. 

            The story doesn’t end with Jesus’ lifeless body hanging on the cross or laid in a tomb.  On Sunday morning, the women who followed him, brought spices to the tomb to anoint His body, a last act of love for their lord.  When they got to the tomb, the earth beneath their feet rattled and shook. 

They watched as an angel descended from heaven and rolled away the boulder sealing the opening.  The angel announced that Jesus was not there.  Living people don't lay in graves.  They had seen him die.  He was really dead.  But on Sunday morning, he shed those burial clothes and walked out of that tomb alive and well.    Because he conquered death, all who trust in Jesus have eternal life.  Everyone who confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord will be saved from eternal separation from God.  The only ones who face an eternity apart from God are those who reject Jesus and choose not to follow Him. 

If you choose to open your heart to Christ and ask Him in, He'll come.  You'll know Him, you'll be adopted as a child of God, and you'll be a subject in the Kingdom of Heaven.  Only Jesus "shook up the world." 

Matthew, the Gospel writer, uses the word quake three times.

            In chapter 27, Jesus hanging on the cross, cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me."  When he died, the curtain in the temple that cordoned off the section called the Holy of Holies ripped in two. 

The people believed that God literally lived in there.  Once a year, the high priest would go in there and offer a sacrifice for the sins of the people that year.  They tied a rope around the priest so that if he died in God's presence they could drag him out.  The only time any ancient person even uttered God's name was on that day.  The priest would go in, make the sacrifice, pray God's name, and he was done. 

When Jesus died, his sacrifice was acceptable for all sins of all people of all time.  God tore the temple curtain to show that he doesn't live in a little room.  God is present in all places.  In Christ all people can go to Him.  At the moment the temple curtain ripped, Matthew reports there was a powerful earthquake.  Rocks were split in two.  Creation itself cried out when God's son died.  One of the Roman soldiers declared "Truly this man was the Son of God."  This mighty Roman warrior, was awestruck.  He knew that he was witnessing an act of God. 

The second time Matthew used the word ‘quake’ comes from what was read earlier - 28:2.  Mary Magdalene and another woman named Mary went to anoint Jesus' body when the ground beneath their feet began to tremble.  But this earthquake wasn't intended to terrify or kill anyone.  Just as the earth cried out in anguish, now, Sunday, the earth rumbled praise.  Jesus conquered death and just as he predicted they would, the rocks cried out!  

On Easter Sunday morning, we see Heaven's power unleashed.  When one angel - not an army - but 1, descended, the earth shook.  Several strong men working extremely hard were need to move the stone that sealed the tomb.  The angel rolled it away effortlessly.  He moved the boulder so the women could see that the grave was empty.  Jesus was already gone.  He didn't need the angel's assistance.  His resurrected body cannot be constrained by physical limitations like stones, doors, locks, or walls.  This second quake was a testimony that Jesus was and is alive.

            The angel's action leads to the third time Matthew used the same word - quake - to tell the story.  Before Jesus was buried, Pilate dispatched a small unit of soldiers to guard tomb because the chief priests feared that the disciples would try to stage a resurrection by stealing the body of Jesus.  When the angle descended, those guards fell to the ground, stricken with fear.  Just as the earth quaked at Jesus’s death and again at his resurrection, Matthew writes that the guards quaked.  For fear of the angel, the guards shook and became like dead men.  Imagine a battalion of Romans marching into town, the ground rumbling with each step. Now, imagine these mighty soldiers lying in the fetal position and begging for life because one angel showed them the might of the Lord.

            The angel told the women, "Do not be afraid.  Go quickly and tell His disciples He has been raised."  They started down the road to carry out their assignment, but they encountered someone along the way.  The risen Christ himself met them to say "Good Morning!" 

The women fell at his feet, overcome with joy, relief, and awe.  "Do not be afraid,” he said, “Go and tell my disciples to meet me in Galilee."  When he met the disciples, he told them, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded."  

            The Easter story is easy to remember and retell.  Jesus Christ has risen.  He is alive.  Go and tell people they can have life in Christ if they come to Him in faith.  The women who were brave enough to come to the tomb were the first messenger, the first witnesses to testify.  Next, the 11 male disciples, excluding Judas, met Jesus, believed, and became the leaders of the first churches.  They told and retold the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus.  The church was born.  The world was changed

            Today there are churches all over the world.  In every almost language on earth, people can read the story and make their own decision to follow Christ.  There are churches of all shapes and colors, and in God's church all people are brothers and sisters.  Prejudice has no place here.  In His name, we are united.  We have peace.  We share love.  We live life together.  Kings and beggars alike find salvation in the cross and eternal life in the empty tomb.

            Jesus shook up the world, but you only feel the tremors when you submit your life to His will.  You only experience the glory when you ask Him into your heart.  Do you want to become involved in the story of Easter by giving your life to Christ?  Or, would you prefer to live as if it didn't matter?  His invitation is open.  You can come to Him, invite Him in, He'll take residence in your heart, and your life will be changed forever.  He's done His part.  He went to the cross and now the tomb is empty. 

The next step is yours.  The final line of an old worship song goes like there.  “Were you there when he rose up the grave?  Were you there when he rose up from the grave?  O-o-o, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.  Where you there when he rose up from the grave?" Let your hear tremble.  Ask Jesus to shake up your world.  Receive Him as Savior.  Worship Him as Lord.  Tell of what he’s done as the good new; world-changing news. 

AMEN

Easter Sunday 2018

“Come, Step into Easter” (John 20:1-18)

Rob Tennant, HillSong Church, Chapel Hill, NC

Easter Sunday, April 1, 2018

            The disciple Jesus loved; he was with Simon Peter, huddled, hiding, scared, defeated.  Jesus had died on Friday in the worst way possible, broken and bleeding on a Roman cross.  He, the beloved disciple, was there.  He wept alongside the women who followed Jesus, Mary Magdalene, the other Mary (the one married to Clopas), and, Mary, the mother of Jesus.  None of the male disciples other than him were there.  They had fled.  He stayed.  He looked into Jesus’ dying eyes. 

            That’s when the Lord entrusted care of Mary into his hands.  That’s when the lump in his throat became unbearable.  Then, they thrust a spear into Jesus’ side.  He was gone.  This disciple and the women returned home to find Simon Peter drowning in shame. 

            The longest Saturday in the history of Sabbath days passed.  At sunrise on Sunday, the women woke and headed out, arms loaded with spices.  They were going to anoint Jesus’ body.

            “The tomb will be guarded,” Simon Peter croaked.  Ignoring him, they stepped into the morning shadows, grief-stricken but resolute.  He dismissively waved them off and sank back down into debilitating sorrow.  The Beloved Disciple stared after them. 

            An hour later his heart stopped as Magdalene burst through the door.  “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him” (20:2).  Simon Peter staggered to his feet and was out the door.  The Beloved Disciple, for a moment, stood paralyzed, and then dashed after Peter.  Briefly, they ran side by side before the younger man sprinted past the husky fisherman.

            Arriving at the tomb, seeing the rock rolled aside, he paused.  He looked in.  The linen wrappings were there, but no body.  The head cloth had been intentionally, neatly rolled up and set aside. 

            As he stood pondering this, a wheezing Simon Peter barreled past him.  He followed Peter into the tomb.  And he remember Jesus’ words.  “When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in the father, and you are in me, and I am in you” (John 14:20).  Raised to life again?  Was this …?  He looked at Peter.  Peter moved out of the tomb.  He followed.  Slowly, they walked back to the house.

            “They asked him, ‘You are not one of his disciples, are you?’  He denied it and said, ‘I am not’” (John 18:25).  If he ran for 1000 lifetimes, Simon Peter could not escape the moment he uttered those words.  As he fled into the bleak night, into the infamy of history, the weight of his denial settled upon him. 

            His self-pity grew more pathetic when, after he had made his way back to the house and sat brooding for hours, his reverie of shame was interrupted when the Beloved Disciple and the Marys’ returned.  How could he look at them?  How could he speak to them?  As briefly as possible, they described the crucifixion that he in his cowardice had skipped. 

            He stared vacantly into the eternal void.  Somehow Saturday passed.  He ate nothing.  He said nothing.  He just felt.  Again, the activity of those around him roused him, just a bit.  The women were headed to the tomb to perform burial rituals.  He barely noticed their departure. 

            A while later though, he was snapped out of his stupor when Mary burst in the door.  .  “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him” (20:2).  Simon Peter jumped to his feet, lumbered out the door, and moved as fast as his thick legs would carry him.  They have taken the Lord?  As he chugged up the bath, the lithe body of the younger man, the one dubbed the Beloved Disciple, zoomed past him.  He had only been vaguely aware of the quiet youth’s presence the last couple of days. 

            Now, he looked ahead to see him timidly peeking into the tomb.  Simon Peter pushed past him.  He saw what Mary had described.  The burial cloths were there, but no body.  Where was Jesus?  Oblivious to his younger friend, completely confused, he turned and headed back to the house.  Halfway there, he was aware that his young friend was beside him.  They shuffled along in silence.  He could see that the younger man had a strange gleam in his eyes.  He didn’t know what it was.

            The two men didn’t even notice Mary Magdalene as they headed back to the house.  Nor did she see them as she walked back to the tomb, her vision still clouded by sadness, blurred by a flood of tears.  Alone at the tomb, she looked in and saw two young men in white, radiant with purity.  She had never seen anyone like this.  She knew it, but it didn’t register.

            “Woman, why are you weeping?”  The voice was tender and fierce, if a voice can be both of those things.

            Trembling she said, “They have taken away my Lord and I do not know where that have laid him” (20:13).

            This was too much.  She couldn’t talk to these men.  As she turned from them, there was another.  There was something about this man too.  It was all too much.

            Though she thought it not possible, His voice ripped through her soul even more than theirs. “Woman, why are you weeping?  Whom are you looking for?” 

            Why do people keep asking me why I am weeping?  Her voice was not much more than a whisper.  “Sir, if you have taken him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away” (20:17).

            “Mary.”

            “Rabbouni!”  She flung herself at his feet.  She held him, a second time washing his feet with her tears.  His hand was so strong, so gentle on the back of her head.  Taking her by the shoulders, he raised her to her feet.

            “Go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (20:17).

            When she got back to the house she told them, “I have seen the Lord.”

            The first Germanic tribes in the ancient, tribal days of Northern Europe worshipped a fertility goddess called ‘Austron,’ the goddess of sunrise; the goddess of spring.  The frozen winter was over, melting snows receded, and flowers bloomed.  The worship of this goddess spread across the north as language evolved and ‘Austron’ became ‘Eostre,’ and then ‘Easter.’[i] [ii]

            Then St. Patrick and other early evangelistic missionaries came telling a story – the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Bit by bit, tribe by tribe, Anglos and Saxons came to believe that Jesus was the Savior and that their sins were forgiven.  They were baptized as the Kingdom of God took hold at the beginning of the period known as Medieval Europe.  As these ancient Anglos and Saxons came to understand that the only true God is the God they knew in Jesus, they were left with a problem.  What were they to do with the stories told by their grandfathers and their grandfathers before them, stories of the Goddess of Spring and sunrise, the story of Easter?

            The story made sense but not as they had understood it.  They realized the resurrection of Christ was the eternal spring, the final sunrise, the flowering of forever.  Easter wasn’t the story they thought it was.  Easter was the story they had come to know, the story of new life in the risen Christ.  These Northern European Christ-worshipers preached the same simple sermon Mary Magdalene preached to Jesus’ male disciples.  They said, “We have seen the Lord.” 

            They stepped into Easter from the darkness of Pagan fertility cults.  Once they took that step, nothing ever looked the same again.

            Mary Magdalene and later Simon Peter and the Beloved Disciple and the rest of the disciples stepped into Easter from the midnight certainty of the permanence of death.  Read the accounts of Peter before the resurrection.  Read about Peter in the books of Acts, chapters 2-5 and 10-11.  He’s a different person.  But that is what happens when we step into Easter where we meet the resurrected Christ.  Everything we thought we knew goes up in flames. 

I see TV commercials about the mind-blowing technology of virtual reality and interactive TV and other new developments.  On one AD, the announcer is a motivational speaker who sparks our engines with the triumphant claim, “We are living the future we dreamed about.”  Humph!  Technology’s got nothing!  Resurrection is truly mind blowing.  Stepping into Easter is stepping beyond anything we ever could have dreamed, more than we could have “asked or imagined” (Eph. 3:21). 

Of course “stepping into Easter” does not mean colorful eggs full of chocolate; it does not mean going to church on that one day of the year, just to make mom happy; it does not mean fancy new dresses or hats to wear to church.  It does not mean the preacher dresses up extra nice.  Oh, those are fine things.  Those might be things we do around Easter time.  But stepping into Easter is something different altogether. 

            The song the ensemble sang invites us …

                        Come those whose joy is morning sun and those weeping through the night.

                        Come those who tell of battles won and those struggling in the fight.

                        Come young and old from every land, men and women of the faith.

                        Come those with full or empty hands, find the riches of his grace.

             Which are you?  Have you wept through the night?  Are you glowing with joy?  Are you right in the middle of a mighty struggle?  In the winter of life, can you tell of battles you’ve survived?

            We step into Easter when we come from where we are.  We don’t pretend to be something else.  We don’t “put on our Sunday best.”  We are honest about our own lives, our mistakes, messes we’ve made, failures.  We come to God as our messiest selves.  Simon Peter lumbered to that tomb with nothing to carry by his embarrassment and sorrow.   The Beloved Disciple came timidly, peeking in, waiting for others to lead, moving when prompted; but still moving toward Jesus.  Mary came under the shroud of death.  She was looking for a corpse.

When we see ourselves, our sins for what they are, we come in the same condition.  Blindly like Mary Magdalene, timidly like the Beloved Disciple, or shamefully like Peter, we come in our sin.  Receiving us in love, Jesus calls us by name and asks, “Why are you weeping?” 

            In that moment, our eyes are opened.  Mary’s sermon becomes our own.  Your own testimony is “I have seen the Lord.”  From personal experience I can say, “I have seen the Lord.”  Because the Holy Spirit has touched your heart, shown you that this story is true and real, you can say, “I have seen the Lord and he is good.  I know I am forgiven, saved.”

            We come from where we are.  We come to Jesus.  Yes to church, but church gets confused for a building or an institution; Easter is mistaken for a spring-time holiday.  From our deepest pain, we come to Jesus, and thus to a new way of seeing.  Death, shame, sorrow, failure – it is all behind us.  In the light cast from the empty tomb, reality changes.  The world is new and we become new creations.  Like Peter, we are no longer who we were before.  We have been made new.

            All that’s left is to go and tell; tell the world that in Jesus Christ, the Kingdom of God has come near.  In the risen Jesus, salvation has come for all who repent of sin and approach him in faith.  If you already know this salvation, go forth on Easter Sunday radiant in resurrection and find a way to share the Good News.

            If you have never entrusted your heart, your life to him, you can right now.  If you have never announced to the church and to the world that not only is Jesus Lord, He is your Lord, you can do that today.  Come.  Come and pray with me or with Heather.  Pray to receive forgiveness of sins, to receive Jesus into your heart, and to receive new life right now.  This is your invitation to step in Easter.  As we sing, come, enter the Kingdom of God as a born again child of God.

AMEN

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[i] http://www.religioustolerance.org/easter1.htm

[ii] https://www.etymonline.com/word/easter