Mark 16:1-8

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

This morning I’m inviting you to consider the main reason why we are gathered for Easter in the first place. That is, to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection from death to life; and, to recognize that very promise is held out for us, also.

This might sound like a no-brainer to you. Of course we are gathered to celebrate Jesus’s resurrection and the promise of our own resurrection. But have you really grasped that idea? Do you really believe that?

It’s not a given, and it’s certainly not an expectation here at Cross of Grace, that one would understand the Bible stories and faith tenants as being literally true. I constantly wrestle with how much of scripture is literally true and how much is true in a different, less scientific, more symbolic way. After all, what we understand today as capital “T” Truth (i.e., evidenced-based facts) wasn’t really a way people looked at the world until the Age of Enlightenment a couple of hundred years ago. Up to that point, a story that never actually took place in the exact way in which it was described would still be widely understood as “true” so long as that story provided meaning and value.

From the Enlightenment onwards, theologians, as well as the average Christian, have wondered and debated whether the events of Jesus’ life as told in scripture actually happened. For example, the virgin birth, Jesus turning water to wine, Jesus restoring the sight of the blind man, Jesus being raised from the dead, etc. At this point in my life and education, I have come to understand that things can be true even if they didn’t happen in a way that could have been documented or recorded. Meaning can exist beyond literal fact. But today, with you all, being honest and speaking from my heart…today I can do nothing other than proclaim what I believe to be literally true: Jesus rose from the dead and you will too.

I don’t have any sermon illustrations to share. No stories, no jokes, no funny pictures nor clips from a TV show. I’m not offering a nuanced “hot take” where I talk about the value of a figurative or metaphorical resurrection from the dead. Though it certainly is true that God can create new life out of any metaphorical deaths in our lives, be they ego, relationships, hopes, opportunities, and so on.

If literal resurrection from death doesn’t quite fit into your faith today, I respect that and have no desire nor any way to change your mind. In fact, I’m especially grateful for your presence and your worship this morning. And hopefully, you can still glean some degree of hope and inspiration from my message this morning.

But today, on this Easter Day, or what in the church we call “The Resurrection of Our Lord,” my call and conviction is to proclaim that Jesus––the human being who was God’s Son––was dead and buried in the tomb…until he wasn’t.

Days after Jesus breathed his last breath, his heart started beating, the neurons in his brain started firing, his lungs took in their first tentative sip of rotten-smelling tomb air, followed by a huge gasp in and a mighty exhale. As the oxygen rushed through his bloodstream, every nerve started tingling as your foot does after you move it after it has fallen asleep.

I believe that all this actually happened and that it is the same fate that awaits all who have received God’s promise of the resurrection of the dead and eternal life in God’s Kingdom when it comes here on Earth––this physical earth that God created, redeems, and will always love.

Here’s the truth, and be warned, it might make you uncomfortable: There are people worshipping with us right now who will not be alive by the time Easter rolls around next year. I don’t know who, and I’m not venturing any guesses. It’s simply a fact that at some point every year we gather to say goodbye to a Partner in Mission who has died. As your pastor, what else can I possibly tell you and your loved ones today, other than that one day you, too, will be resurrected in the same physical and literal way that Jesus was resurrected.

There is nothing else for me to tell you today other than “Where, O death, is thy victory? Where, O death, is thy sting?...[T]hanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:55, 57).

That is why we gather, why we worship, why we laugh and cry and shout “Alleluia!” We do all of that because of Jesus, literally raised from a literal death. We do all of that for our friends and family whose deaths we have mourned and whose deaths we will soon experience. We do all of that because in this world that is so confused, angry, anxious, and lost, we believe God is taking us somewhere good. We do all of that because God promises to create new life out of all the metaphorical deaths we experience, as well as the actual death that awaits us all.

Amen. Alleluia. Thanks be to God.

Mark 16:1-8

I read an article, just last week, about the fact that Ralph Waldo Emerson visited his wife’s tomb back in March, of 1832. His wife’s name was Ellen Tucker and she’d been dead for over a year and half by then. She was 18 and Emerson was 24 when they met in 1827. They were married in 1829. And she died less than two years after that, of tuberculosis. So she was only 20.

Of course, there’s nothing note-worthy about a still-grieving husband visiting his deceased wife’s tomb a year and a half after she’d died. What is noteworthy about Emerson’s visit – is that he opened the coffin to see her. And he wrote a note about it in his journal. Just a note, too. Nothing more. All he wrote was, “I visited Ellen’s tomb and opened the coffin.”

So, scholars are left to wonder what he saw… how he felt… why he did it in the first place… and what effect it had on him. He was still journaling to his dead wife as though she were alive at this point, so some say he remained in such grief that he just had to see her body again, for himself. Others believe, because of that grief, he had a desperate desire, still, to be with her. Someone even suggested Emerson thought his wife might be a vampire.

Even more curious, is that Emerson did it again. Not with his deceased wife, Ellen this time, but with the son of his second wife, Waldo, who died at the age of 5, in 1842. His son’s coffin was being moved from one cemetery to another, 15 years later, and his father opened it to look inside and see his son. Like before, with his wife, he never said more than that he had done it, according to his daughter.

The gist of the article – the details of which I’ll spare you – is that Emerson’s coffin-opening expeditions, as private and curious as they were and are, changed him. He did his most prolific writing during the span of time between the opening of Ellen’s coffin and his son’s. And in that work, there is apparently a discernable transformation of his faith and philosophy, his move toward Transcendentalism, and more.

Of course, all of this made me wonder about the women at the tomb that first Easter.

Their reasons and expectations for being there were clear: They had a job to do. They had come to anoint the body of Jesus. It had only been a few days, not years, since he had died and was buried so they were much more certain about what they would find, I imagine. Or so they would have believed.

And, obviously, what they found – or didn’t find, as it were – changed them, too. He wasn’t there. There was no body to see or corpse to smell. There was just some messenger with instructions: “Don’t be alarmed. You’re looking for Jesus. He’s on his way back to Galilee, like he told you. Go and find him there.”

Like Ralph Waldo Emerson – at least, initially, and according to Mark’s Gospel – they didn’t say much about it. With the women at Jesus’ tomb we know that “…terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” I can only imagine there might have been some measure of terror, amazement, and maybe even fear for Emerson, too, though for very different reasons.

Of course, none of this is really about Ralph Waldo Emerson or Mary Magdalene, or Mary, the mother of James, or Salome, either. I wonder what brings us here so early this morning. Who are these weirdos – you and I – who get up at the break of day on Easter morning – many of us year after year – to be the first to peek inside the tomb?

Some of us are grieving, maybe. Or expecting to, sometime soon. We might be afraid of something, ourselves, perhaps. Or curious about what things will look like in the strange, new, post-Covid world of the days to come. Some of us long for the familiar words of hope we know we’ll hear. Maybe we want or need to be reminded or convinced that that grave really was empty. Maybe some of us are simply looking forward to a promise or a song or a light in the darkness we don’t feel compelled to explain

Whatever the case, I hope what we see and hear at this empty tomb changes us.

I hope this Good News of new life and resurrection and forgiveness and joy moves us this time around – for the first time, maybe… or again… or in a new way, perhaps, yet to be determined.

I hope maybe being here again, for another Easter, reminds or inspires us to not be so afraid of looking death in the eye – our own, or that of someone we love.

I hope Easter’s Good News moves us to find some measure of hope at the graveside in spite of the grief and sadness that naturally come with it.

And I hope this moves us, compels us to find, to meet, and to introduce the living Jesus of God’s love and grace and mercy to the world around us because of it all.

Amen. Alleluia. Happy Easter.

(You can read the article I referenced here.)

Literal Resurrection

Open Coffins and Empty Tombs