Resurrection from Death: Easter!
SCRIPTURE TEXT: John 20:1-18
Rev. Monte Marshall
Easter is a time for telling resurrection stories! Easter is a time for celebrating all the ways in which resurrection is possible in our lives. And Easter is a time for asking hard questions: What holds up back from the joy of life? What binds us, keeping us from the fullness of who God created us to be? What keeps us down?
Throughout the Easter season, we’ll be hearing one story after another from those who have experienced “resurrection” in their lives: Resurrection from Fear, Resurrection from Hate, Resurrection from Grief; Resurrection from Bigotry; Resurrection from Homelessness; Resurrection from Division. And finally, on Pentecost Sunday, we’ll hear stories of Resurrection Spirit. I urge us to be present in worship during this season, for in the Resurrection Stories we share, we just might find ourselves being raised up from death into life in ways that we have never imagined before.
Let’s pray: God of the empty tomb, roll away the stones that prevent us from beholding your glory. Unlock our capacity for resurrection. Accept our intentions to live in your liberating love and empower us with your grace. We open the doors of our lives to your healing, inspiring and sustaining Spirit, as we pray in the name of the One who is our threshold to new life. Amen.1
Every gospel writer tells resurrection stories about Jesus. And every gospel writer’s resurrection story has a similar intent—to move us from despair to hope, from darkness to light, from death to life.
John’s resurrection story, for example, begins with the lingering reality of Good Friday. Jesus has been brutally executed, his body sealed in a tomb. In the early morning darkness on the Sunday following the death of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, a female disciple of Jesus, enters the graveyard and approaches the tomb. Death consumes her attention.
And death in all of its forms claims our attention on this Easter Sunday morning. Think about it. At this very moment, someone somewhere is breathing a final breath. The cause of death may be war, torture, domestic violence, gang violence, terrorist violence, murder, disease, old age, starvation, abuse, neglect, natural disaster, overdose, suicide, or accident; and someone somewhere is aching—weeping—grieving—at the loss of a loved one.
In this very moment, someone somewhere is suffering with a debilitating illness, or a disabling condition, or a terminal disease; someone somewhere is malnourished, or homeless, or struggling to survive a life of grinding toil and poverty; someone somewhere is physically or sexually abusing a child; or selling sex; or pushing narcotics; or shooting heroin, or using meth, or taking one too many drinks; someone somewhere is bullying a gay teenager, or rejecting a trans-gendered family member; someone somewhere is committing adultery, or lying, or cheating, or stealing; someone somewhere is trapped in a marriage that’s falling apart, or living a life that’s falling apart, or dreaming a dream that’s dying, or working a job that’s ending unexpectedly; someone somewhere is emotionally crippled by unresolved hurt, or long-held bitterness, or barely restrained rage, or irrational hatred, or blind bigotry; someone somewhere who has built a life around the seductive allure of money, sex or power is feeling utterly empty inside. In this very moment, someone somewhere is lonely enough, depressed enough, despairing enough to contemplate suicide.
We know something about despair, darkness and death. But we also know the rest of John’s resurrection story. Despite Mary’s panic over a missing body, her tears shed outside the tomb, and the confusion of Simon Peter and the beloved disciple, John proclaims that God is at work in the graveyard. The angels in the story are a sign of divine activity. When the risen Christ speaks Mary’s name, she knows that life has come forth from death.
But for Mary to grasp the full significance of this extraordinary event, she has to let go of the Jesus she has known, the pain and disappointments of her past, and move forward, trusting God with her future. The risen Christ says to her: “Don’t cling to me…Go…and tell…’I am ascending to my Abba and your Abba, my God and your God.’”
So John’s resurrection story that begins in despair, darkness and death, ends with good news: “I saw the Rabbi.” Amazingly, the story has moved us from despair to hope, from darkness to light, from death to life!
And now to even better news! Resurrection stories are still being written because God is still at work in the graveyard. United Methodist Pastor Ed Moore has a resurrection story to tell. In the summer of 2007, Ed and his wife, Mary, had moved to a new home in North Carolina. In the process of unpacking, Ed came across a box of old cards and letters that he had received when he left one church to accept a new appointment.
One handwritten note in a white envelope caught his attention. It was from a young woman in her thirties. The note began like this: “Dear Ed, Of all the things for which I need to thank you, first among them is this: You saved my life.”
The writer reminded Ed of the day she came into his office and told him, with clarity and calmness, of her intention to take her own life. Ed describes the scene: “She had every detail planned: time, place, means of ending it all, letters written to her husband and parents—everything. The perfect script. She wanted to know if I would still do her funeral if she committed suicide. That was the final bit of planning, you see.
“Every competent pastor knows what must be done in a situation like that. We—the church, medical folk, her family and I—performed the intervention that was imperative. She recovered from her deep depression. I still get the monthly newsletter from that church; she has been teaching Disciple Bible [Study] now for several years. And doing well, thanks be to God.
“When she came into my office that day, she brought the valley of the shadow of death along with her, because that is where her soul had already journeyed. As I listened to her describe how she would take her life, I could smell the freshly turned earth from her newly opened grave. She was that far into the valley of shadows. Near the last milepost.
“I was able to go in there and take her by the hand because I had been to that same milepost in the valley a few years earlier. I had made similar plans, come calmly and deliberately to the same decisions.
“And in that dark place, I had been captured by the grace of God—a grace incarnate in the lives of folk who cared for me—and led back out into the light of life. So when that sister came into my office that day, I knew exactly where she was and how to lead her out.
“It was not Ed Moore, as her letter suggested, but the grace of God poured out in my life, abundantly and undeservedly, that caught her and saved her. We left that newly opened grave empty on that grace-filled day.”2
As an African-American woman, Maya Angelou also had a resurrection story to tell, but she did her storytelling in a poem: “Still, I rise.” These are the poem’s final lines:
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise3
So dear friends, hear the good news: Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed! Alleluia! No matter how dead we may feel, God has plans for us—plans for light and life! Can our lives be turned around? Can we find new life when everything feels lifeless? Can light shine in what feels like an empty tomb? The answer is YES, YES, YES! Then our stories—then each story—can be a resurrection story. Thanks be to God! Amen!
*AN AFFIRMATION OF OUR FAITH 
We proclaim today that Christ has risen!
We proclaim today that we are alive in Christ!
We proclaim today that sin has lost its power!
We proclaim today that death has been defeated!
We proclaim today that Jesus is the Lord of our lives!
*SENDING FORTH WITH BLESSING
As Christ burst forth from the tomb,
may new life burst forth from us
and show itself in acts of love and healing in a hurting world.
May God’s brand new day reveal itself in our lives,
making each of our stories a resurrection story,
and each of our lives a testimony to God’s grace.
And may the same Christ,
who dwells among us and is the source of our new life,
keep our hearts rejoicing and grant us peace
this day and always. Amen.