Greetings!
NL Year 1 • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Alleluia Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. We have all come to worship today because we believe that statement to be true and essential to our faith. The disappointment of Thursday and the pain and suffering of Friday are now over and we rejoice in Jesus Christ’s victory over sin and death. It is his promise fulfilled and not just his promise but the fulfilled but the fulfillment of scripture. The promise lies in his rising from the dead and the absolute incredible way that he showed the world and the devil that they have no power or control over God and God’s unfathomable love for each and every one of us.
What better way to show that incredible moment than for an earthquake to grab our attention. Not only does it get our attention, and growing up in California, I can tell you that earthquakes were definitely attention grabbers, it also heralds the coming of the angel. An angel is already an incredible encounter in and of itself; think of the birth narratives and the angels visiting Abraham and how in every one of those encounters including this one we hear the angel tell the people, ‘do not be afraid’.
This time that we encounter an angel we can already assume that people are going to be afraid, but Matthew adds to the intensity or grandeur of the situation by adding that not only does an angel come and roll the stone away and sit on it, but the angel’s face was like lightning and his clothes were as white as snow. I am actually glad I didn’t find a picture that was even close to what Matthew describes, because every time I try to imagine what this angel would look like, my brain literally shuts down. For me it makes perfect sense that the Roman soldiers freeze like dead men because of what just happened and how Matthew describes it for us.
Like I said this explanation of how Easter morning happened is just so incredible and displays the power and majesty of God so well it’s hard not to be excited and celebrate with joyful song and worship today. After all it is God’s sacrifice for us that has happened and we neither had to do anything about it nor do we deserve it. This is all about God’s love and grace for us. Wow.
And it is good and probably right to be like the Mary’s that came to the tomb and have both fear and excitement in us today. And I know that I have set you all up to probably expect me to keep telling you even more wondrous and grandiose things about Easter morning to continue to put us in a state of awe and wonder. But I’m not. That’s not to say that there’s not more that we can say about it, because I’m sure I could sit here all morning and talk about what it means for us for Christ to have been on the cross and to die for our sake, and then to describe in high and lofty theological terms what the resurrection means for us and this world, but I’m not going to do that.
I want to talk to you about the Jesus that the Mary’s encounter. This lightning faced angel that still boggles my mind, tells them to hurry and tell the disciples and as they are hurrying along Jesus meets them. Jesus met them. I know the word ‘met’ seems insignificant, but that’s my point. This word ‘met’ is the regular and ordinary everyday word. It’s no different that me asking if you and I wanted to meet and grab a cup of coffee or a bite to eat. They didn’t encounter Jesus on the road; Jesus didn’t appear to them like the angel appeared to them. He simply met them. It was as if he had never been gone and had just been with the Mary’s just the other day. Guess what else? When Jesus says ‘Greetings’ to them…it would be just like you or I saying ‘hi’, ‘hello’ or ‘how’s it going’ when we saw each other this morning at breakfast or as you were coming in for worship. It was the most common, basic and ordinary way that people greeted each other in the culture of the day. Jesus doesn’t have this huge profound theological statement to make. He doesn’t chastise them for maybe doubting. He simply meets them on the road and talks to them as he always had.
Yes the women went down on the ground and worshipped Jesus, but something else I think we gloss over is that Matthew tells us that the women grabbed his feet. Jesus is just as tangible as he had always been. He was there and fully present for the women to see and touch and engage. Jesus was exactly who they remembered him to be and was there for them to see and touch and talk to. Everything has changed and yet at the same time everything is the same and familiar. It’s like meeting up with an old grade school buddy decades later and the two of you start talking as if you had just seen each other a few days earlier.
As they hurried away from the tomb in their fear and excitement and probably still some feeling of sadness, Jesus met them. Again, just as he had met them before he rose from the dead. Just as amazing and profound is the miracle of the resurrection, I believe equally as amazing and profound is that Jesus still came to the women as he had in this life. Which says to me that in the midst of our fear, sadness, joy, excitement and the hurriedness of life Jesus meets us and stops us and engages with us both as risen savior and friend. As our teacher and our way. As our Lord and as the presence we experience in unexplainable moments.
Another way of putting it is using the words of the Apostle Paul from Hebrews 13:8 “8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever!” The Jesus the Mary’s knew when Jesus walked this earth and the risen Jesus they encountered on the road to Jerusalem is the same Jesus that we encounter and experience in our own lives.
So on this Easter morning where we come to celebrate the grandeur of the resurrection, and don’t get me wrong this is the most incredible moment in all of history. No where else can we say that God sent his son to die for our sake to forgive our sins and to rise again to bring us to everlasting life. Yet even in the busyness and excitement of Easter we need to remember how Jesus chose to appear to the women. Not like the angel, not like he did at his transfiguration, but you could say in the same way he entered this world. The son of man came into this world to serve not to be served. And that’s exactly what he did. So yes, as we shout Christ is Risen, he is risen indeed, also remember the Jesus who meets you on your roads of life to greet you and talk with you so that you can know that in the midst of everything going on, he is still here for you just as he always promised to be. Amen.