Matthew 28:1-10
Beloved, on this Easter morning, surrounded by this dazzling array of colorful flowers… but even more so that green and verdant foothills beyond, it feels like Easter.
I have been told of course that southern California is usually not this green.
For the past several years, SoCal has been in a historic drought. Water is on the mind of many of us – how to preserve it, how to care for it, how to use it wisely. I wish I could take the credit for bringing some water from the east coast to the west coast that we have experienced, but while I may be a decent pastor, I’m not that good of a pastor.
But it struck me this week how special it was to have an Easter with life blooming rapidly all around us, from the micro blooms on the hillsides to the flowers and shoots of beauty exploding out of once withered stalks.
In my preparation for moving out here, one of the books I picked up was called Water to the Angels, a nonfiction historical account of a man named William Mulholland who came to this country as an Irish immigrant, worked his way up in LA as a ditch digger to ultimately hatch one of the great engineering feats of his day – building pipelines, ditches, and tunnels hundreds of miles from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles to bring a water source to this growing city.
He famously knew that water was a problem if LA was going to grow. Water is still a problem for us, isn’t it? He said, “If you don’t get enough, you won’t need it.”
The question is what would you do to bring water? What would you move? Would you move even heaven and earth?
Well, Mullholland famously did, under budget and ahead of schedule, which is a miracle to me. Mulholland carved hundreds of miles of pipeline, trenches, and holes through the desert, using a combination of mule teams, prototype technology, dynamite, water blasting, and good old fashioned elbow grease. At various points in the project, Mulholland and his engineers had to figure out how to blast their way through dense granite, hundreds of feet thick to create a path for the water to flow. They literally had to break up the rock into smaller pieces and roll it out of the tunnels to make way for the water.
But once done, what did the water mean for Los Angeles? It meant a landscape that was essentially desert could bloom with green and teem with life. Would we have the special effects of Hollywood? Would LA be the second largest metroplex in the US without it? Probably not.
That story resonated with me as I thought about the good news of resurrection this morning.
That morning two thousand years ago, Mary and the other Mary we heard come to the tomb of Jesus. And we get this grand Hollywood scene. There is an earthquake. An angel appears, a messenger from God. The massive stone sealing Jesus’ tomb shudders and moves aside, without construction equipment, water blasters, and dynamite, revealing an empty tomb beyond. The soldiers left to guard the tomb faint – you might say they were stoned!
The angel, the Gospel of Matthew says, sits down on top of the stone, arms crossed, kicking back, like yeah, we’re powerful otherworldly beings with supernatural skills. What of it?
Unfortunately, we don’t have much historical information about the stone over the tomb. Was it large enough to need a team of mules to pull it? Was it enough for a couple of strong bodybuilders to lift? Regardless, stones are heavy, requiring lots of elbow grease and perseverance to shift.
I have always the imagined the stone metaphorically – like a “punctuation point” at the end of Jesus’ story. When the Romans arrested Jesus, charged him with blasphemy and treason, when he was condemned by the crowds who once cheered him on, abandoned by his disciples, tortured, and executed in a public and cruel manner as a sign to any who would dare threaten Rome’s power, the stone over the tomb where he lay was like a punctuation point that said – this man’s story is over. Pilate and some Jewish leaders wanted his tomb sealed so they would never have to hear about this rabble-rouser again. There is nothing more to be said about him. This happens when you mess with those in power and the systems of violence and oppression in our world. Your story gets finished.
Kind of like two of the three Tennessee State reps who were expelled for leading protests to save the lives of young people who are tired of wondering if they will be the next victims of gun violence in their schools. One of those reps, Justin Pearson, was in our youth Sunday School class at the church I was a member of in Washington DC years ago. By expelling him, his colleagues hope to put a punctuation point on his political career, but I imagine the best is yet to come for that young man.
And the best was yet to come for Mary Magdalene and the other Mary.
The angel proclaims good news to the women, Do not be afraid! Jesus has risen! Go and tell others, the angel charges the women. And thus women become the very first evangelists in the Bible – take that all of those who think women can’t preach.
The Marys run quickly in excitement but also fear. They rocke and rolled out? Their hearts beating with adrenaline. Their heads dazed from this upside down revelation. Their feet running and stumbling forward. Jesus is suddenly there in their midst.
What is unclear is if the women made it the disciples first – or if Jesus appeared to them as they were furiously sending out text messages, posting on Instagram, or whatever the first century equivalent was.
But Jesus is there, present in this moment. His story isn’t over. The stone has been cut through, not with water blasters and dynamite and pick axes, but by the power of God. Death is overcome. Life in what was once thought to be a desert blooms.
But as good as an empty tomb is, Jesus’ presence in that moment signals that he is not done. Mary and Mary reach out and touch him. He isn’t a ghost. He isn’t a Hollywood illusion. He is the real thing – the name he is given earlier in the Gospel of Matthew, “Emmanuel”, God With Us. And he is with them in this moment of grief, excitement, and fright.
Dr. Ruthanne Hooke writes, “The resurrection of Jesus not only signals the radical transformation of the world that the inbreaking reign of God brings, but also promises that the risen Christ can be with us in the everydayness of our ordinary lives.”
Jesus can be touched. And truly, the only good kind of resurrection is the kind that can be touched and experienced in our ordinary lives. He blesses these two women and promises to meet them again, in the uncertainty of their lives and their world, as they live out this wondrous news that life is possible, another reality is possible, that death will never have the final word.
Resurrection means there is a force of love in this world powerful enough to roll away the stone not just from Jesus’ tomb but from all of the tombs of our world.
What stone do you want God to roll away in your life? What path would you ask the Spirit of God to through the hundreds of feet of granite crowding out healing and justice in your life?
There may be places in your life that you feel are completely dead. Sealed up. The story has ended. Maybe it’s a relationship with someone who seems way past transformation or possibility. Maybe it’s your faith in God. Maybe it’s an aspect of your life that no matter how much you try to change, it feels like banging your head against a stone wall. Maybe it’s an injustice in this world that makes you so angry and so bitter – that you walk around angry? Maybe it’s an injustice where you have been told, new laws won’t make a difference? The stone is simply too big! The granite is too thick!
Resurrection argues against that, because with God, all things are possible.
Like that angel on that first Easter morning, God is ready to drive a path as long as it takes to welcome us into a way of being and a way of life that grounds us in love.
On this Easter morning and every Easter, then, we are challenged to wrestle with this radical and ancient and relevant idea of resurrection. Resurrection points to other realities that exist sometimes beyond our imagination, sometimes right in front of us… especially for those cling stubbornly to their hope, who haven’t stopped shouting their protests, for those who weep and wail from the depths of their hearts. Resurrection says healing is possible. Life is possible. Wonder is possible. Stones can be moved. A way out of no way can be forged.
There are two things we should take with us:
Just as Mary and Mary returned to that tomb on Easter morning to honor and remember their beloved friend Jesus, in order for us to participate in resurrection, we often have to be ready to face those stones that block the way. There may not be a way around it – there may not be a way around the hard work to have a society where no one is unhoused, where no one is hungry, where guns are not used to terrorize our neighbors and our children, where trans folk do not have to live in fear, where peace and justice and wholeness abound. Sometimes, we talk about them – but sometimes, it is hard to face them. It is hard to go back to those painful realities. And heck, we get used to them. This is just the way it is. Easter gives us a chance to ask, does it really have to be that way? What stone do we need God to move in our world? How can we face it together?
And just as Mary and Mary do, we need to tell others about this good news. We need to find new ways to participate in this good news. Resurrection doesn’t happen by a government decree. It doesn’t happen while we sit back and watch. The Risen One invites us to be a part of the movement, to go tell the others that something exciting is about to happen. We may not always understand it. I have no doubt Mary and Mary wondered to themselves if they had drunk some bad wine the night before. But in their sharing with the disciples and in the collective witness and creativity and risk-taking of what came to be known as the church, the world started to turn upside down – for widows and orphans, for a radical sharing of community and life, for forgiveness and welcome. What happens if we share that another way is possible?
Beloved, resurrection work is already happen here in the Foothills. I’ve seen it in just a few weeks of being your pastor, as we do more than just serve but seek to enact the kind of world we want to see. Whether that is sharing with refugees, facing the stones of oppression and injustice, or even just creating safe space in this world for our young people to know they are loved. And it’s happening all around us in the world too.
May God roll away the stones between us. May God’s Spirit of Love flow and nourish us. And may we share the good news – Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ is on the way.