Last Sunday, Easter Sunday, the daffodils in the back yard bloomed for the first time this spring almost as if on cue.

Easter/Resurrection of the Lord

After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. 4 For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. 7 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." 8 So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them and said, "Greetings!" And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me." (Matthew 28:1-10, NRSV)


“BEHIND THE STONE”

People are afraid of various things in life. Pain is one of the things we fear, and so is loss. But I think we have a special level of fear for the unknown. There are fearful things we have experienced and things we have seen from the lives of others. We know those things. Those might be very unpleasant, but what is known is somehow more manageable than what is not known. We fear what we cannot see.
The Gospel reading for this Easter Sunday is familiar. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. They are incredibly surprised on the way. We have no idea how they planned on rolling away the stone, for tombs were caves sealed with large rocks so that wild animals and robbers could not disturb the bodies inside. While it was sealed, no one could look inside. They probably only wanted to be there at the place where they thought the body of the Lord, whom they loved and followed, was. They saw his death and knew that he was quickly placed in the tomb because of the approaching Sabbath. What they would have expected, if they could have seen behind the stone, was to see Jesus, who died on the cross as they saw.
On their way, the earth shook and an angel rolled the stone away. The guards fainted with fear, but to the women the angel said, “Do not be afraid.” And the stone was removed and they could see behind it and what they saw was beyond all imagining. Jesus was not there and the angel told them what had happened. He was not there because he had risen from the dead. They were invited to look at the place where he had been and were told to tell the disciples to go to Galilee where they would soon see Jesus. They left with fear and great joy. Fear at this completely unexpected event and joy that their beloved Jesus was no longer dead. And on their way, they saw him. And his words, too, were, “Do not be afraid.”
The angel removed the stone from the tomb, but in another sense Christ does that for us. If death is the greatest unknown, our greatest fear, we have been given this great gift by Christ’s rising from the dead. We know what is beyond this life and it is life. The words of the angel tell us that this was part of God’s plan. He has been raised as he said he would be. His death and resurrection was to give us something we needed, something that we could not have by ourselves. It is the assurance of life after death and that we can have a way back to God and into eternity by what he did. We can look beyond the stone, the seal on the tomb, the mystery, the thing that keeps us from seeing past this life and traps us in our fears by what Christ did on that first Easter morning. And his words to us are also: Do not fear. What Christ did makes it possible not to fear. When we stop being afraid, we find freedom.

Christ goes before us into death and into life. It is more than an example; it is someone beside us, walking with us to show us that we need not fear. It is like the older sister or brother who goes with us into new territory not only to let us know that it is possible, but to welcome us there. Brenda Wilbee tells the story of a thunderstorm she experienced as a young child, when her grandfather had to coax her out from under a bed. He sat with her, all bundled up on the porch and saw that he was not afraid of the storms. She recalled, “Soon I, too, caught his excitement and lost my fear.” We gain and learn courage when we know that Christ is with us and for us.

What is behind the stone is life, not death. The darkness of the cave is only temporary. Once we know that by faith, we are freed to have hope. We are freed from sadness to have inexpressible joy. That joy is possible because we know about the future. It is like the discovery Rick Hamlin made when informed of the death of a friend, Charley. He knew that he would miss the way he could drop in on him during his long illness and know that he would always be there with a friendly greeting. He found it hard to believe that it was over. At the service there were tears, but also hugs and the fellowship of those who had supported Charley and his family over the years. His impression was that it was more like Easter than Good Friday. The service used the hymns and readings that Charley had picked and some of those attending formed a little choir. He thought that death had not triumphed. “At the last minute, a group of us gathered in a corner and sang one more tune for Charley: ‘Out in Arizona where the bad men are, nothing there to guide you but the evening star.…’” He drove home beneath a sky filled with stars.

We are freed from our fears so that we can seek the things that are above as the writer of the letter to the Colossians talks about. The Resurrection is not only about how we will live some day; it is about how hope changes our lives now. We are no longer limited to living from our fears; instead, we can seek something higher, greater, more lasting. Once fear is gone we can live this life fully. Once we are freed from the greatest uncertainty in our lives we can live with purpose. Christ is our guide both in life and in death.

The Resurrection shows us what is beyond this life, just as those first disciples got the chance to see what was beyond that great stone. It is the answer to our hopes both now and for the end of our lives. It is light in our darkness. It is life, that where Christ is, we will be also. The disciples saw that death could not hold him and the women found that he walked among them. He is alive and holds life in his hands. We shall not die, but we shall live. That is our hope, that where he is, we would be also. Christ is alive. Allelujah!