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| Easter morning, by Grace Rehbaum, age 6 |
Easter Sunday (2022)
April 17, 2022
Luke 24:1-12
Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Grace to you and peace from our risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!
Like many of you, I’m sure, I have been working on paring down the stuff in my house. My latest effort has been clothing. I’m realizing just how few clothing items I have that I really like or wear or need, so I have been purging.
But there is one pair of jeans that I’m just really struggling to part with. I’ve had them for years, and they are so comfy. But, I have loved them so well that they are threadbare, and in particular there is a hole in one of the knees. And, if I’m honest, they don’t really fit all that well. They do right after the wash – they get their shape back and I put them on and feel like, “Yeah! I love these jeans!” but then by a few hours into the day they have begun to stretch out and sag once again. Yet I cannot get rid of them. Even though I am able to fool myself between washes, convincing myself, “These jeans are fine, I’m sure I’m just misremembering!” when I put them on, I am once again discouraged when my toe catches in the hole and rips the hole bigger, and by 11 o’clock I’m having to add a belt to keep the pants from sliding down any further. But still: I will not get rid of the jeans! They are just so comfortable!
I thought of these jeans this week as I read once again Luke’s telling of the resurrection story. Each time I read it, I am caught by the angel’s question to the women, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” I feel convicted by this question! I feel convicted because I know that I do exactly the same thing, always clinging to what is old and familiar – whether an old pair of jeans or an old pattern that has proven repeatedly not to bring about the results I want – hoping that this time I might find there the life that I crave. I want life – don’t you?? Don’t we all want to live in such a way that brings about joy and love and a sense of lightness to us and to those around us? A way that leaves us at the end of the day feeling satisfied, rather than searching for something, we’re not sure quite what, that seems to be missing? We want life, we want new life, and yet we are forever searching for it among the things that were – the old, comfy pair of jeans – instead of recognizing that some things need to die (or perhaps already have) and we will not find there the life that we seek.
As children’s author Mo Willems articulates in the book, Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs, “If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave.” In other words, if the story you are living is not bringing about life, then leave that story and find a new one. Maybe that story is the one in which your jeans fit perfectly and have no holes, or the one in which holding that grudge is actually doing some good, or the story in which you tell yourself you are anything other than deeply beloved by God. Or even that broken story in which endings do not bring about beginnings. Whatever the story is that you are living, if it is not bringing you life, then leave that story! Maybe you can’t leave the circumstances – but you can leave the story you are telling yourself about the circumstances.
But it is so much easier said than done! The women showed up that morning with the very reasonable expectation that the man they had seen die would still be dead. They believed that death was the end, that evil had won, that their faith had been in vain. Why should they place their hope in anything otherwise? This had always been their experience. It was their comfy pair of jeans, which didn’t fit quite right, and were running ragged, but at least they were close at hand. An old story is like that – it may not be offering you life, but it is comfortable and predictable.
But upon arrival, the women are faced with a perplexing new story, which begins with a question – “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” Why have you once again returned to your old, broken story, the torn, saggy jeans, to the belief that death is the end? Why do you cling to that which does not bring life? “He is not dead,” says the angel, “but is risen!” Everything you thought you knew, that you thought was keeping you safe, has changed! He is risen – so just imagine what new life is possible!
I think the most miraculous part of this story (aside from, you know, the resurrection part) is that the women believed the angel! I have sat in plenty of counseling sessions where my counselor points out those old, broken stories I’m trying to live, and directs my attention to the possibility of a new, more life-giving story, and I can feel my face scrunch up with resistance. I have even been known to exclaim, “I don’t wanna. Isn’t there any way to have that outcome without having to make this change?” I’d rather keep telling myself that there isn’t a gaping hole in the leg of my favorite jeans, and I can keep on living in the way I have grown accustomed, and expect that eventually, there will be a different outcome. Eh? But the women here actually accept that their whole world view has just shifted, and that because of that shift, new life is possible!
Of course we can’t say the same for the men they run to tell. The disciples are quick to dismiss the good news as an “idle tale,” which is just a nice way of saying they think it is a load of… ahem, garbage. And this, this I get. Wouldn’t we rather dismiss anything that challenges us to shed our old ways of thinking and acting? Here they call it an “idle tale,” but the words I hear from people and from whole congregations or organizations are more likely, “That’s too hard… that’ll never work… we don’t have the resources… that’s not how we’ve done it before…”
Only Peter, God bless him, actually gets over his initial inclination to dismiss the possibility, and goes to check it out himself. And, Luke tells us, he is amazed. I wonder what it was exactly that amazed him? Was it that the women were, in fact, telling the truth? Was it that something Jesus had said multiple times would happen, did actually happen, and that now, everything was different? Was it that he found he could, finally, believe that God could do and was doing a new thing, even in his life, even after his mistakes?
Luke doesn’t tell us, and you know, I guess that is okay. Because what amazed him isn’t the point so much as the fact that he was amazed. That’s where Luke leaves it, and I’m perfectly happy to leave it there, too, for this morning. There will be time to follow in the women’s footsteps, to run and tell the good news. But there is also time simply to be amazed. Because it is amazing that God would go to such length to show us that nothing, not even death itself, is more powerful than God’s power and love. It is amazing that God can take our old stories, pull them down into the grave, and raise up something new in our lives. It is amazing that God promises continually not to do the same old thing, but to do a new thing – and, God makes good on that promise, for us as individuals and for the Church. It is amazing that God, in God’s infinitely poor judgment, loves even me, and each of you.
And it is because of that love that we no longer have to seek the living among the dead. We can be bold enough not to dismiss a new thing, but rather, to look for Jesus in the possibilities with which we are presented. And when we fail (which we sometimes will!), we can trust that no failure, no death, no ending, is more powerful than God’s ability to bring new life out of it.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia! In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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