Matthew 28:1-10

After the Sabbath, while the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. Suddenly, there was a great earthquake for an angel of the Lord came and rolled back the stone from the entrance to the tomb, and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing, white as snow. For fear of him, the guards shook and became like dead men.

But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid. I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here. He has risen, as he said. Come and see the place where they lay him. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead and, indeed, he is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see him.’ This is my message for you.”

So the women left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and they ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly, Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” They came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. And he said to them, “Do not be afraid. But go and tell my brothers that I am going ahead of them to Galilee. There they will see me.”

I hate to rain on our parade this morning, but please bear with me. I tried hard to find something light and fun and worth a laugh for this Eastertide, but I came up short. And, I decided there is plenty of time for bunnies and chocolates and dresses and bonnets and lilies and laughter and whatnot, over breakfast and Easter dinner. Because the more I spun this Easter Gospel around in my mind, the more I just kept hearing about the fear that seemed to be so much a part of what happened that day.

Everything we just heard took place in relative darkness, after all, “just as day was dawning.” An angel showed up in a flash of lightning. The earth quaked. The guards at the tomb shook with fear. The women must have looked terrified because they’re told two times not to be afraid. (But who could blame them, for crying out loud?) And of course there’s this dead man walking and talking and living and moving and breathing and surprising people on the road – after everything we know that happened to him on Friday.

So, this Gospel is a reminder about how messy and strange and crazy and terrifying, really, the resurrection must have been, that first time around. And, I have to say, it can suck the cute and the cuddly and the warm and fuzzy, right out of your Easter bonnet. And I decided that’s okay, because it reminds me about how much more serious and weighty all of this can be – in a good way – if we’ll let it. So, again, bear with me, please.

Because I have Iran on the brain these days, for all the reasons. Not the least of which was the news a couple of weeks ago about that 19 year old member of their national wrestling team – Saleh Mohammadi – who was publicly executed, by hanging, along with two other young men – Mehdi Ghasemi and Saeed Davoudi – for what many believe to be false allegations at best, and unworthy of such a punishment, regardless.

Anyway, all of this reminded me about a story from years ago, also out of Iran, about an Iranian family who spared the life of their son’s murderer, in the moments just before his public execution.

An 18 year-old boy named Abdollah was killed in a street fight by another young man, named Balal, who was sentenced – like these three young men more recently – to be hanged in public. (And before we gasp self-righteously about that, it’s worth acknowledging that we do our own fair share of state-sanctioned executions in the US and that there are politicians and activists currently lobbying to televise them for all sorts of reasons.)

So, back to Iran. Under Sharia law, a murder victim’s family is allowed to actually participate in a perpetrator’s execution and, in the case of Balal that I’m talking about, the family of his victim would do that by knocking the chair out from under the criminal whose neck hangs in the noose.

However, when the time came for Abdollah’s family to finally get their revenge, to enact their justice … instead of kicking the chair out from under the feet of their son’s killer, Abdollah’s mother approached the gallows, asked for a chair of her own, climbed up onto it, slapped the guilty man across the face, and then declared her forgiveness of him for all to see.

Her husband – the dead boy’s father – then helped his wife remove the noose, and they let the man who killed their son walk away and live.

There are a million lessons for us here – hard, holy lessons about revenge and retribution; forgiveness and mercy; about guilt and grace. (The victim’s family said living with their anger and hatred and inability to forgive their son’s killer was like living in a prison of their own construction; that their un-forgiveness was like poison in their lives. Islam’s Koran – their book of faith – is said to promise that “anyone who saves a life, saves a whole world,” which is something many people choose to ignore or deny about what our Muslim brothers and sisters believe, a lot of the time.) And I think Jesus would have us wish for and work toward that kind of forgiveness for anyone who hears this story, too.

But it’s Easter and, in addition to acknowledging that these are the kind of people being destroyed by the war that rages as we worship safely on this side of the empty tomb today, I think there’s even more for us here, than a command or invitation to live more faithfully; to do better; to be more like Abdollah’s family – or even just to be more like Jesus.

Because, as much as I hear a challenge and invitation to see myself on the chair where that grieving mother stood – with all kinds of power to choose vengeance or grace; to choose worldly justice or holy mercy – I feel as inspired as I feel guilty and convicted or worse, because I’m not certain at all that I’d have the faith or the courage or the kindness or the character to do what they did.

And it’s Easter, so I’m feeling even more challenged and encouraged to imagine myself standing on the other chair, with my neck in a noose … but surprised and overwhelmed with relief as that rope is slowly and surely, kindly and graciously, loosened and lifted by the goodness of God.

See, we may not all be murderers, actually sentenced to a public execution in the town square. But we are all sinners – each of us broken in some way that burdens us and that threatens to keep us from being everything God created us to be.

We are liars. We are cheaters. We are self-righteous. We are selfish. We are greedy. We are judgmental. We gossip. We manipulate. We take advantage of God’s creation. We vote with our wallets instead of with our conscience. We are silent while others suffer. We are filled-up while others starve. We could pile it on for hours, couldn’t we? So much so that we can imagine the chair of our lives starting to tip and totter and tilt beneath our feet; the noose around our necks tightening in ways that threaten to undo us with guilt and shame.

But it’s Easter. And today’s Good News means those sins never have the last word. The sins that lead to emotional, spiritual, even physical death in so many ways for us, don’t have authority over God’s grace in our lives.

Because it’s Easter – and this is the day of our second chance; or third, or fourth, or whatever. It’s Easter – and this is the day of our liberation. It’s Easter – and this is the messy, scary, crazy kind of day when we get slapped in the face by the grace of God and when we realize that our death sentence has been revoked … commuted … undone … and transformed into new life – on this side of Heaven and the next – in the name of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen for the sake of the world.

Amen. Alleluia. Happy Easter.