Resurrection Matters

Matthew 28:1-10

Easter, March 23, 2008

Rochelle A. Stackhouse

Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!

It feels so good to say Alleluia again, doesn’t it? Doesn’t that word have a sound that almost makes you smile when you say it? Wait until the end of the service when you sing the Hallelujah Chorus and then glance around and see the looks on people’s faces. There will be smiles on all your faces, just from the sheer exuberance of singing and hearing that amazing piece of music. (Don’t tell Maggie I said this but I’d rather have you hit a few wrong notes today and smile and enjoy singing than feel like it’s a struggle to get through the piece – just for today!)

Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

The Psalmist writes, “This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” And I am glad today; my alleluias are one way of expressing that gladness. I hope that even if you are here today because someone made you come, you can feel some of that gladness, too. You are all dressed up and looking so good, the flowers are exquisite, especially this year when everything outside is still brown and gray, the music is festive, the sanctuary is full of flying “alleluias.” You may be going home to a celebratory dinner to gather with family or friends.

Just being in the midst of all this makes me glad.

But even if I were, as some people are today, in the midst of a cold and lonely place, without all of you or people like you, where no organ or harp or drums led me to song, and with no joyous gathering awaiting me at home, Easter would still make me glad. And that’s what I hope you can grab onto this morning almost in spite of all these outward trappings of gladness we have here at Redeemer.

We were not saying “Alleluia” or singing joyful songs here on Good Friday. There were no flowers, no colors, no origami cranes. On Friday we remembered the death of Jesus. We remembered how he was tortured and killed, though an innocent man. We made a big deal about that because Jesus was God come to earth, although thousands of people suffer such things in many parts of the world, including here, every day, and somehow our lives do not come to a stop because of it. The banks do not close; no one gets out of school when the innocent are killed today. From the beginning of human life, it seems, people have been hurting each other, and they still do, in vast numbers, on intimate scales and on the larger scale of wars and genocides. We are well acquainted with suffering, and so is God. Our response to hearing about suffering is often to weep or to despair, to be angry or seek vengeance, or perhaps to try to heal or be peacemakers, but, sadly, our response is rarely surprise. Somehow we learn as we grow to expect to be disappointed by each other. There’s an old Paul Simon song with this line, “When something goes wrong, I’m the first to admit it, the first to admit it and the last to know. When something goes right, it’s likely to lose me, it’s apt to confuse me ‘cause it’s such an unusual sight.”

That, my friends, is why Easter is such a glad surprise, it is something so right that we can’t believe it!

Why is it such a surprise? Well, what do you think God’s response to Good Friday would have been if God were like us?

We were talking at Bible Study on Wednesday about why the disciples were hiding; why had they not gone to the tomb to mourn with the women? Well, it could be that they were afraid of being arrested if they were identified as having been Jesus’ close associates, a reasonable fear since there were soldiers guarding the tomb.

But I wonder if it might also have been something else they were afraid of. They had heard Jesus say to them more than once that he would be killed and then would rise again on the third day! If they remembered and believed this, wouldn’t you think they would have been there waiting for it to happen?

Think about it, one of these men, Peter, had denied even knowing Jesus when questioned. The rest had all run away in fear when he was arrested. After that kind of betrayal, do you think they really wanted to see a risen Jesus? They may have imagined him coming as a powerful, avenging Messiah who would sweep them up along with the rest of the sinners for punishment, because that’s how human beings would respond!

But that’s not how God responded. And that is why Christ’s Resurrection matters so much. God’s response to Friday is a glad surprise, because it was not punishment, rage or hopelessness. God’s response was, as it always is in the Bible, “Don’t be afraid!” And the word Jesus uses in greeting the women at the tomb carries the meaning “Rejoice!” God’s response to the human hate and hurt and destruction and greed and corruption and violence is “Fear not! Rejoice!”

It’s apt to confuse, isn’t it? God’s response to all the pain and death we can deal with such creativity and energy is gladness and life and the promise of mercy and love.

It seems so foolish, so counter-intuitive, because bringing Jesus back to life did not undo all the bad that human beings had done before, and it has not brought an end to bad since. Does that make us worthy of ridicule that we believe this? Does that make this story seem, well, not true? Will singing Alleluias and remembering God’s response of exuberant life after tortured death make all the sad in our world go away? No, and Yes.

If it is true that Christ is risen, and if it is true that God’s response to human sin was mercy and love, and if it is true that good is ultimately more powerful than evil, and if it is true that in Christ you and I can claim that power of good and respond to the sad things in our world with love and mercy, forgiveness and hope, with that healing power for good we have not even begun to imagine or use, if this is all true (and I can’t prove it, but I so believe it), then what other response can we make today but Alleluia?

Well, there is one more thing. Go and tell, the angel said. Go and be what you will eat today, the body of Christ, having known pain and being raised by the power of love to live the power of love. All morning we have NOT being saying, Christ has risen, but Christ is risen. The difference is that, in Christ, the past does not stay in the past, but becomes present in you and in me. That is ultimately what makes me glad and hopeful in this day which God has made. Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed! Alleluia!