Christ is Risen. This changes everything

Easter Sunday

The day has finally arrived. The Lenten journey has once again been completed. On this Easter Sunday we join with the chorus of voices throughout history that say, “Alleluia” (meaning ‘God be praised.’). It is the day of new beginnings and the celebration of a ‘force more powerful’ than death.

Long before Christianity existed, however, earth-based peoples celebrated the natural cycles of death and resurrection which correspond to the seasons and skies. There was a deep experiential knowing among ancient people that endings were not a final word and that rebirth prevailed. Christians also likely “borrowed” many themes and stories from more ancient cultures (including Judaism) and that our celebrations of Easter absorbed much from other traditions (some of which even have similar stories to figures like Jesus).

Of course no one knows exactly what happened that Easter morning or what the sequence of events was. We know that Jesus died and then in the early morning “on the third day” after he was buried, the tombstone was rolled back. His garments were there but his body was not. 

There are stories from later traditions where the disciples experience Jesus in resurrected form, but in the earliest gospel manuscripts from Mark, the original ending only has an angel telling the women that “He is not here…He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” The women flee from the place in fear. End of story.

Let’s pause right there, because these early manuscripts hold up two things for us to consider.

First, in today’s gospel from John and in the earliest gospel of Mark, it is the women who were the first witnesses. Period. They were the ones who risked their own safety to go to the tomb to anoint the body and perform the burial rituals. 

In fact, they were the ones who risked safety to even know where the tomb was (remember, they followed from a distance to see where Jesus was laid and it was likely that he was laid in an unmarked tomb reserved for criminals and those who died a ‘shameful’ death). So it was the women who even knew where to look in the first place because they had walked with Jesus on the entire journey. None of the apostles could make that claim. So we must acknowledge on this Easter Sunday (and every Easter Sunday) that we would do well to imitate the women in the gospels who always seem to act with greater courage and boldness than their male counterparts. They really are true models for faithful witness and resistance and embody what our world so desperately needs.

We should also note that the “empty tomb” is meant to convey that Jesus (and the story of Jesus) is not dead but lives on. And the implication of the empty tomb story is that this very story now lives on in us (the community of believers). Jesus is “going ahead of us to Galilee” is a reference from Mark to go back to the beginning of the story of Jesus and now take up his role in the world. Scripture scholar Ched Myers, says that the empty tomb account is meant to tell us that “we are characters in the very story we thought we were reading.” 

We are characters in the very story we thought we were reading.

So while Easter Sunday is about what God did for Jesus, it is equally about what God is doing in our lives right now as well as the “resurrections” that we are called to be part of in the lives of others. Just as the crucifixion of Jesus was an event that keeps being replayed in our world, so too does the Easter moment keep getting played out (if we have the attunement to witness it).

I can imagine that Jesus – before he breathed his last – found it incredibly difficult to hold on to his faith and the hope that God would hear him let alone raise him. While he may have believed that, I’m guessing that his faith and hope were nearly shattered by the darkness of the tomb. 

Many of us can probably relate. God seems to have abandoned us.

Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, in his Easter message from Bethlehem, says that Jesus’ faith was his “last resort.” He goes on to say that the hope of Jesus was not a denial of reality, it just “refuses to let reality to be the final word.” The words, “‘Christ is risen’, change everything,” he says because on this day “the last word is not that of death but life.”

On this Easter Sunday, we take the symbol of the cross – once the symbol of fear and power over used by the imperial forces – and now claim it as a symbol of hope.

Whatever tomb you may find yourself in these days and whatever tombs we find ourselves in collectively, the Easter message is meant for everyone. It is not a reassurance that “everything will be as you hope it will be” but that negativity, harm, separation, injustice, oppression, suffering, disappointment, loss and fracture will not be the last word. This is the day of God’s wild card when God says, “What you think is the ending is not the ending…there is more that you cannot yet see.”

I have always loved the words of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador (who himself was gunned down while saying mass on March 24, 1980) when he said that, “It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view. [God’s kin-dom] is not only beyond our efforts; it is even beyond our vision.”

As Easter people, we cling to a faith that is beyond our vision and efforts, but one that is active and involved. We trust that God will roll some stones away in our lives as well as use us to roll away stones in this world.

Reflecting on the current situation in Gaza, Palestinian pastor Rev. Mitri Raheb says that, “We are waiting not for angels to roll away the stone, but rather people who hear the call for justice, for liberation, for peace..[An Easter people with the] power to leave behind our fears and complicity to become agents of transformation.” So that Easter Sunday becomes both a “day of celebration and a day of mobilization.”

Whatever binds you these days. Whatever causes you pain. Whatever holds you captive. Whatever discourages you. It is not the end of the story. That is God’s promise on Easter. This is worth celebrating!

And what we are then called on to do as Easter people is not just celebration but mobilization. Easter people catalyze resurrection. Easter people facilitate rebirth.

Happy Easter, everyone! Christ is Risen. This changes everything!

PS – As I often do, I include a link to Wendell Berry’s exquisite poem Manifesto : The Mad Farmer Liberation Front which is one of my favorites when it comes to thinking about resurrection. I always read it on Easter Sunday.