He Is Not Here, He Is Risen
Easter, 2025
Have you ever wished that you could have been at the tomb on Easter morning? Spoken to Jesus, the risen Lord, and have him call you by name (Jn.20:16)? Joined the women as they show one last act of loving devotion preparing Jesus’ body? Being at the tomb would mean you had a firsthand experience of the resurrection of Easter. Your joy of Easter would be certain. God’s victory over death would be unquestioned. Imagine walking with the women at early dawn, only to be surprised with finding an empty tomb. The women are perplexed. Not fearful, not angry, not confused, perplexed because what should be true, the body of Jesus wrapped in the tomb awaiting their spices and care, is not what they find. To be honest I have never wanted to be in the uncertainty of the resurrection, like what we will read today. Instead, I want the living, breathing, talking Jesus that John tells us when Mary Magdaline sees the Lord. Somehow Luke’s telling leaves us hanging. Even the disciples, Jesus’ most trusted followers, think that the empty tomb is “an idle tale.” Listen to the Good News, the Gospel of God as we hear Luke’s account of our risen Lord. Luke 24:1-12
“There’s a story of a five-year-old named Brian who had a pivotal verse to recite in an Easter program. The verse was Luke 24:6, ‘He is not here, he is risen.’
Unfortunately, he could not remember what to say, and the director had to quietly remind Brian of his line. But something happened in the translation. Brian confidently grabbed the microphone and triumphantly shouted, ‘He’s not here; he’s in prison!’
Being in prison was the last thing that Christ was on that first Easter Sunday. He was set free on that day in a way that no one in history has been set free before. He was set free from the power of death” (Sermons.com). “The Lord will destroy the shroud over all people,” Isaiah declared, and “the Lord will swallow up death forever.” Death is the shroud that hangs over all of us, but because Jesus lives, we live as well. We have life in Christ, because of the faith we have in Jesus.
But faith in Jesus is on the decline. Just think about Easter Sunday when you were growing up, and Easter Sunday now. Yet I think that the disciple’s disbelief and calling the story an idle tale, might actually be good for people to hear. Many people today think the resurrection of Jesus, even Christianity, is an idle tale. Maybe they can see themselves in the disciples’ skepticism. Seeing ourselves in the people and stories of scripture is how we come to know faith. Having our grandmother or close friends share their faith is how belief in our risen Lord develops. But that desire to see the risen Lord, where we started this morning, is a function of our culture and independence. Faith has become individual, and people want to be shown. Yet the women at the empty tomb did not see the risen Jesus, they were told about it. “He is not here, he is risen.”
Philosopher and theologian “Thomas Aquinas argued that the church was not just the living witness to the “risen Christ.” The church, Aquinas insisted, was also the loving witness to the “rising Christ.” Confessing and celebrating the resurrection means confessing and celebrating a continually rising Christ — a Christ who is always revealing God’s saving, freeing activity in this world…If Jesus had only defeated death’s power in a cave-tomb in first century Jerusalem, how could that possibly empower us in the 21st century? Jesus defeats death daily. His resurrection is a continual re-run, a miracle replayed and rewound for every generation, for every situation, for everyone who reaches out in the darkness in search of the light” (Sermons.com, Leonard Sweet).
“Frederick Buechner understood this dilemma (and) he was still certain of the resurrection. He says, ‘I can tell you this: that what I believe happened and what in faith and with great joy I proclaim to you here is that (Jesus) somehow got up, with life in him again, and the glory upon him. And I speak very plainly here, even though I do not understand well my own language. I was not there to see it any more than I was awake to see the sun rise this morning, but I affirm it as surely as I do that by God’s grace the sun did rise this morning because that is why the world is flooded with light’” (Sermons.com Brett Blair).
On that first dark Easter morn, how did the women come to believe? How did they see the light? They remembered. The angels asked them to remember Jesus’ words, foreshadowing his death and resurrection. The Son of man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again (v.7). In remembering their faith came alive, and they rushed to tell the disciples. Standing at the empty tomb, they remembered. But “the last thing the tomb is is empty. No, the tomb is filled with the promise and possibilities of new life, of new faith. The tomb is really a womb. And in every tomb of destruction, disease and death, God wants to birth a new, vital, living faith that can ‘overcome’ the powers of the world” (Sermons.com, Leonard Sweet).
The women’s testimony of the empty tomb was not believed, save for Peter who ran to see the tomb for himself. Tombs “are sites of memory (literally “a sign of remembrance”), a way of keeping those who have died physically present in time and space and place. They are also sites of remembering” (Working Preacher, Holly Hearon). Yet it is in the remembering, in the telling of Jesus’ resurrection, that the women are named. At least five women, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and the other women, are seen, named and given place in their telling and remembering. So, we are not just to know the risen Jesus, we are to remember and tell of Christ’s resurrection.
“The first work of resurrection faith is to remember. Remember Christ’s words. Remember Christ’s stories. Remember Christ’s signs. Remember Christ’s promises. It is this remembering that will re-member each new generation to the empty tomb and the miracle of resurrection. It is this remembering that will re-member the gospel within the heart of every disciple.
(So I ask you to remember when you discovered the joy of Easter. When the resurrection of Jesus became real to you and ask that you practice resurrection and retell that story. When you do, you will be practicing resurrection and telling of the rising Christ!)
When the very earliest fishermen found a thriving population of starfish munching big holes in the mussel, clam, and oyster beds they were harvesting, they simply hacked up the greedy little starfish into bits and tossed them back into the sea. Big mistake. The next thing these early fishers knew, they were up to their hips in these slow-moving little suckers. One of the very first lessons learned in early aquaculture was “Don’t cut up the starfish!”
Whack one starfish in two and what do you get . . . two starfish. Hack one starfish into five chunks and what do you get . . . five starfish. With no “brain” and radial, or circular symmetry, all a starfish needs to regenerate a whole new creature is one arm and a smidgen of the central disk of its body. A starfish can re-member itself. It can form a completely new, whole starfish out of a small start.
Resurrection Christians are starfish. As long as we take with us the defining miracle of an empty tomb, we can re-member the body of Christ anywhere, anytime, in every age. Remembering is a life-time endeavor. The new incarnations of Christ’s body might not have perfect symmetry. They might need to work on coordinating all its new parts. But as long as the remembering of the dismembered continues, the body will keep growing. We serve a risen, and rising, Savior” (Sermons.com, Leonard Sweet). He is risen! He is risen indeed. Jesus is rising every day and bringing us new life. Amen.
