Sermon: Turning tombs into wombs (Easter 2016)

Easter Sunday

March 27, 2016

Luke 24:1-12

            Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Risen Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

            One of my summer jobs when I was in college was to be a camp counselor at a music camp. The camp was located at Donner Mine, an old gold mine in the Sierra Nevadas. It was a tradition of the counselors that, one night during camp, we would sneak off campus out to one of the mine entrances. Walking along the rails that carts used to schlep debris out, we would go so far into the cave that, once we turned off our flashlights, it was utterly pitch black. The darkness was oppressive, the sort that could almost be felt physically, the sort that feels like it is sucking all the life and hope from you. And then, into that thick darkness, we would begin to raise our voices in beautiful harmony, hearing the notes echo and fill that dark space with beauty.

            I often remember this cave when I read about the cave that Jesus was laid in after his death. We’ve seen a lot of that hopeless darkness this past week – in last Sunday’s passion drama, we heard how when Jesus died the whole land was dark for 3 hours. On Friday, we read the passion story again, snuffing out candles as we went along, until the shadows were greater than the light. And then Jesus was put into a cave, which was sealed off with a large stone. So much darkness, and all so hopeless.

            Did the women still feel that hopelessness as they made their way to the tomb that early dawn? As they stood in the cave, perplexed by the absence of the body, did they feel the crushing hopelessness of death and darkness pressing in on them?

            You know, even though this story happened so very long ago and may seem far removed from our normal lives here in the 21^st century, I think there actually are a lot of entry points for us – and this moment in the darkness of the cave is one of them. It is a moment so many of us have experienced – not necessarily in a literal cave, like at my music camp, but in the various types of metaphorical darkness we endure in the journey of our lives: depression, loneliness, addiction, being faced with difficult decisions, life-changing diagnoses, broken relationships, job losses, bullying… the list goes on. Any of these can feel like a cave, like a tomb, and we are sealed in by a large stone, and it is very dark and seems hopeless.

            The question that has been nagging me about this Easter story, though, is not so much what caves and tombs we may find ourselves in, but rather, what are the stones that are keeping us there? We’ve heard a lot about stones this Lent, haven’t we? Six weeks ago, we handed out stones to carry with us on our Lenten pilgrimage. Last Sunday I invited you to bring those stones and leave them at the foot of the cross, in essence leaving whatever burdens you may be carrying with Jesus, to take with him to the grave. He did: our stones – our sins, our burdens – sealed him into that cave tomb of his. He died for those sins, our sins.

            But they couldn’t keep him there. What a sight, when the women arrived that early dawn, to see that that big ol’ stone of sin rolled away! As if Jesus said, “Yeah, that’s not enough to keep me in this death hole forever. I’m just going to move that aside, roll it over, and walk out into resurrected life.” No mere stone could be more powerful than God’s plan for life!

            A stone could not keep Jesus in the tomb. But what about us? What stones are keeping us in our dark caves, whatever they may be? What needs to be cast aside? What is preventing us from walking out of death and into new and abundant life?

            I think they are some of the very same stones that held back the disciples. The women’s first response to the incredible news of Jesus’ resurrection is a feeling with which we are all familiar: they are terrified. Fear is so powerful in holding us back. Fear makes us blame others. Fear makes us exclude others, and judge others, even hate others. Fear is often used as a defense, which keeps us from having to do the hard work of examining our own hearts to find our own brokenness and seek healing. But one thing fear has never done is helped people to grow toward life. Yes, fear is very often the stone that keeps us trapped in the tomb, keeps us from walking out into new life.

            Another stone we might find at the entrance of the tomb is the stone of unmet expectations. When the women go to tell the disciples what they had learned, the disciples refuse to believe it, calling it an “idle tale.” They had an expectation about how the world works – namely, that the dead stay dead – and could not open their minds and hearts to the possibility that God might do something new and amazing. As a result, they almost missed that new thing entirely. Unmet expectations can be crippling for us, too. We have held out hope before and been burned. We have never seen positive change before, so why would we now? We don’t dare hope that things will get better, because we will probably be disappointed at best, and deeply hurt at worst. Easier just to stay in the darkness of the cave.

            Another stone, which isn’t stated explicitly by Luke but is certainly an undercurrent is that of clinging to our past, and the need for forgiveness. If you recall, the disciples have not been their best selves the last few days. Judas betrayed, Peter denied, the rest deserted. The only ones who hung around were the women. So when those women come to tell the disciples Jesus isn’t dead after all, I wonder if a part of their quickness to dismiss their story as an idle tale is that they are disappointed with themselves, and have not forgiven themselves, or maybe, they have not forgiven each other. This stone we understand all too well: being ruled by past events, either being unwilling to forgive someone who has hurt you, or bearing the burden of knowing that someone you have wronged has not forgiven you. We carry with us so much baggage from the past, baggage that taints our vision of the present and our hope for the future. This one is also tied up with all those unmet expectations we talked about before. And so our past also acts as a stone, sealing us into the tomb where death rules, rather than letting us out into where new life can begin.

            But here is the moment where the Easter story is truly remarkable and meaningful for us today: it was in that darkness, while sealed in by a stone, where Jesus defeated death. Even while it

was still dark, Jesus turned that tomb from a place of death, into a womb, a place where new life prepared to emerge. Then that stone that would have kept Christ sealed in death forever was moved aside, and he emerged, bringing into the world the promise of new life for all of us, too, as he stepped out of that dark cave and into the morning light.

            God will not leave those encapsulating stones in our lives; God will move them aside to deliver on the promise of new life, the great gift of the resurrection. As the stone was moved aside and Christ emerged from the tomb that morning, he showed us that no death or darkness can win the day. He showed us that tombs – those places that are so dark and hopeless – can, by God’s power, be turned into wombs, birthing us into new life. Like harmonious music echoing off the walls of a dark, old gold mine, God fills the darkness of our lives with hope and possibility. God moves aside what would keep us in despair, and beckons us into the morning dawn. God turns all of our deaths into new life.

            Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

Let us pray… Resurrected God, we sometimes find ourselves trapped in the darkness of the tomb. Just as you rolled away the stone to bring about new life, roll away from our caves all that would keep us from growth and life, so that we might step out into the morning dawn and feel the light of new birth. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.