04172022 – Easter 10 A.M.
I am no fool. Well, sometimes, I am. Sometimes, I do dumb things, say dumb things, and think dumb things…that’s just me…
But when it comes to “this morning”… I am WAY SERIOUS. I only want “the best.” Nothing else will do. I get it.
I know my “gifted tongue” isn’t the best…
And I totally and completely realize and understand that there are many, many who have come before me. I do stand on the shoulders of “religious Goliaths”.
“Words of wisdom,” “words from the heart” have been spoken by a great many…and I am humbled to hear them and to repeat and to share them with you.
Nearly two thousand years ago, a kind, loving rabbi named Jesus died.
My heart hurts just thinking of it.
My heart aches and pains for ALL that have died…a sense of loss is never fun. Loss hurts.
Loss takes its toll.
This rabbi, this teacher, this Jesus of Nazareth, bowed his head, “gave up the ghost” (as they used to say,) and his body went limp, and his soul descended into “the darkness of death.”
It was horrendous, awful. Distasteful. And yet, it happened. It occurred.
His followers wept real tears and tore their clothing. They were “beyond saddened and beyond scared.” All of their “known world” came crashing down around them. They seriously thought they would be next.
But as we know that is not the end of the story, but merely another opportunity for a new beginning…
A “new genesis,” as it were…
What seemed to be the same “tragic destruction,” the same horrific “rending of body from soul,” that millions of humans had suffered before him, on that day, on that FIRST EASTER SUNDAY “something astonishingly new,” something “completely different” and “unparalleled and unprecedented” also happened and occurred.
Mary Magdalene and a group of other women, came to the tomb early that morning, not to rejoice, but to weep and mourn, and to do for him, what they felt was necessary.
The man whom they believed to be the Messiah, the Eternal King, the Son of the most high God, the “anointed one,” had been arrested, beaten, humiliated, stripped, and killed like the basest of criminal.
Thank God he did not suffer long…
So very early on that FIRST EASTER MORNING there were no Alleluias, stated or sung! There was not a liturgical response like: Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed. Alleluia.
There was only darkness and fumbling in the dark, with tears of anguish.
Luke tells us, there was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women. So, there was quite a sizeable group!
For death, famously says, it “took a body,” on that Good Friday, but behold, it received God.
Death took earth, and it encountered and tasted heaven.
It took that which “was seen,” and fell upon “the unseen.”
At that moment, the darkness of death received not only another dead lifeless body but also received the fullness of God.
The darkness of death was suddenly “illuminated by the blinding light of Jesus’ divinity,” the coldness of death was “set aflame by the heat of God’s love,” the emptiness of death was filled by him “who is the source of all that is,” and death simply could not “take hold” of this Jesus of Nazareth.
It could not contain him. It could not hold him. It could not enclose, encompass, harbor, or possess him.
This was not a victory for Jesus alone, for, at that moment, “death itself” was blown apart, reduced to ruin, and utterly vanquished. It knew not what to do. Where to go, how to respond.
“That moment began” what St. Paul in today’s second lesson refers to as “the defeat of the last enemy of God – the destruction of death itself.”
There are ancient icons of the Resurrection which show Jesus “bursting forth from the tomb” with the “gates of death shattered at his feet.”
In these images, Jesus is not alone; He holds the wrist of a withered old man in one hand and the wrist of an ancient woman in the other: it is Adam and Eve — symbolic of the whole human race — whom He pulls from their tombs.
In the resurrection of Jesus, ALL human nature is redeemed, is freed, from the power of death.
And so, hell and death you are overthrown.
Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen.
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice.
Christ is risen, and life reigns anew.
Christ is risen, and the gates of glory open wide.
For Christ, being raised from the dead, is become “the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.”
To him be glory and dominion forever and ever.
Amen.