April 12, 2009
Utterly Amazed
Three women go to the tomb of Jesus without a very good plan. You see, there was a huge stone rolled across the entrance to the tomb and they didn’t bring any manpower with them to roll the stone back. (Were the men sleeping in?...too scared to come...?)
In any case, when they arrive, the stone is the least of their troubles. They found that the stone had been rolled away already and that the body of Jesus was gone.
“Of course it was,” we think, for we know the outcome of the events of that first Easter. But there was no “of course” in the women’s minds. The body was.....gone!! Could you imagine your reaction if you stopped in the cemetery to visit a loved one’s grave and found that it had been dug open and the body was gone?
They were “utterly amazed” at the sight of a young man dressed in white. And he calmly tells them not to be amazed but to go back to the apostles and tell them that Jesus wants to have a meeting-- in Galilee. (Remember that Galilee is a three-day walk from where Jesus was buried.) Just imagine what everyone was feeling and thinking on the walk back to Galilee.
This is how Mark describes the first Easter -- not as the joyous meeting of the Risen Christ and his friends. But rather a journey that starts with amazement and continues in anxiety and anticipation. Eventually they meet up with Jesus, but not right away.
Could this be how we can describe our Easter this year? We came to church this Easter Sunday to hear about Christ’s resurrection and we’re not quite satisfied. All we hear about is the empty tomb. It makes us grapple with our long-term relationship with Jesus who tells us he wants to have future meetings with us. You see, Easter is not a day that comes and goes. It is a journey that engages us over the course of several weeks (50 days, actually) and to fully meet the Risen Christ we must travel back to “Galilee” and meet with him. How do we practically do this? For two thousand years the church has had this answer: Come celebrate the Eucharist each Sunday. This is our faith-tradition. It’s the way we love Jesus and Jesus loves us.
See you next week as the story (and relationship) continues.
