Resurrection Joy

(Scriptures: Acts 10:34-43, Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24,
1 Corinthians 15:19-26, Luke 24:1-12

Of course, it was the women who were faithful to the end. It’s especially notable in Luke’s Gospel that, in a patriarchal society where women were to be seldom seen and never heard, women pop up everywhere in the Passion narrative, very visible, and very vocal in their distress. We’re told that, as Jesus carried his cross, among those who followed were women who beat their breasts and wailed for Jesus. They stood at a distance watching the gruesome spectacle of the crucifixion. Powerless to stop the events of Good Friday, no power on earth could stop them from being witnesses. After the body of our Lord was taken down the cross, the women followed Joseph of Arimathea as he lovingly laid the body in a rock-hewn tomb where no one had ever been laid. The women returned home and began to prepare spices and ointments for preserving the body. And then, in what seems like an anti-climactic ending to the horrors of Good Friday, Luke tells us that “on the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.” Even with their world coming apart around them, they were faithful followers of Torah.

And it was the women who were up at early dawn to anoint the body with the spices they had so lovingly prepared. They arrive at the tomb, where just two days before they with their own eyes had watched as the body was laid out. But now the stone was rolled away, and the body was gone. Luke tells us that, at the sight of the empty tomb, the women were perplexed – at a loss – this does not compute – and suddenly two men in dazzling clothes, angels we are to understand, appear beside them. They go from confusion to terror, but the men calm them by connecting what they’re seeing now to what Jesus had told them before: “Why do you look for the living among the dead. He is not here, for he has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” Luke goes on to tell us, “Then they – the women – remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and all the rest.”

“Remember” – an important word in Luke’s Gospel. A recurring theme in Luke’s account of the resurrection is that the followers of Jesus are reminded to remember, to remember what Jesus had taught them, to remember all they had experienced while Jesus walked among them, to remember the Hebrew Scriptures – Moses, the prophets, the Psalms - which were their Bible. Later, in the account of the two disciples meeting Jesus on the Emmaus road, as they walk Jesus interprets the words of Moses and all the prophets to them, and they remember all that was written there that pointed to Jesus. Later Jesus appeared to the eleven and reminded him, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” And when we are perplexed and overwhelmed, staggering under life’s burdens, we too can remember – remember that we worship a God who brings joy out of sorrow, hope out of despair, a way out of no way, life out of death.

Having been instructed by the angels at the tomb, the women, their confusion and terror now turned to joy, return to the disciples and tell all that they had witnessed to the apostles. We’re given some of their names – Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James. But the apostles brushed off their words as an idle tale – after all, aren’t women always having vapors and fainting and going into hysterics? Only Peter gave their words enough credibility to go and check things out for themselves. Peter saw the empty tomb and the linen cloths rolled up in a tidy bundle, and went home, amazed. So it was the women – Joanna and the Marys - who in effect were the apostles to the apostles. Having moved from fear to resurrection joy, they couldn’t stop themselves from telling the good news of the resurrection. And in our reading from Acts, we listen to Peter, speaking from his resurrection joy, telling Cornelius, the gentile Roman centurion – “We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses. He commanded us to preach to the people.…” and so Peter brought the message that, because of the crucified and risen Jesus, life, not death, has the last word.

“Why seek ye the living among the dead” – perhaps a dangerous text to preach in a church surrounded on two sides by a cemetery! And yet, like Peter and the other apostles, we have been chosen by God to share our resurrection joy, to share the good news that our sin no longer separates us from God, but has been crucified with Christ, that we, along with those whose names are memorialized in our cemetery, are called to eternal life. When this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that has been written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

“Why seek the living among the dead.” Let us not focus our lives – our time, our energy, our devotion – on worldly wealth and power that passes. We are called to remember – to remember who God is and what God has done for us through Christ, to remember who we are, beloved children of a loving heavenly father. As we share the good news with those around us, Emanuel Church will continue to be a place filled with resurrection joy, a place overflowing with life and renewal for our beloved community of Bridesburg. Amen.