Easter Sermon

Easter Day, April 24, 2011 Matthew 28: 8-10
It was probably the greatest understatement of all time. Jesus greeted those women on the road, not with some exalted phrase of overpowering majesty, Hail or Stand back, but with the very common greeting which people used all the time, which means rejoice, but in its usage had more the the flavor of a “hi.” Yet it is just right. Given its setting, it is like a small daub of bright color, in an otherwise dark canvas of great purportions. But with all the dark colors, it doesn’t have to be large or overpowering to stand out, our eye cannot help but see and rejoice in it.

Of course for us to appreciate this greeting, we have to be aware of the immense and forboding darkness which preceded it. We might go back to the last word which had come from the mouth of Jesus. It was essentially, “Why?” “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?’ Jesus spoke those words from the cross in the moments before he died; in those moments when darkness colored everything and the earth trembled at what was happening. Those words echo all the other whys that well up from human history into a mighty roar which seems to shout down any statement of faith. From David who composed the Psalm that Jesus was quoting down through the history of all those who suffer in concentration and refugee camps, courts of law, medical centers and houses that now stand empty. Each of us probably has a darkness which we battle and from which comes that cry of confusion and agony, “Why, God?” Why does my child suffer, why does nobody call or ask about me, why is it so hard to find happiness, to just get by, why does evil flourish and the good suffer? There is no answer in that moment, and he breathes his last.

Then on the third day, at the first hint of light, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary come to the tomb, the earth trembles again, perhaps an aftershock of what happened on Friday, but then an angel, then the stone rolled away, and the angel sits on it. In bright light of majesty and power the soldiers who guarded the dead man become themselves like dead men in fear. Then the angel addresses the women and given what they have just seen they can only hear it in majestic tones. “Now don’t you be afraid, you seek Jesus, the man crucified, he is not here he has risen, just as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Now go quickly, tell his disciples, “he has been raised from the dead and look he is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there. Look I have told you.” They run in fear and joy. That is what we wish the experience of Easter to be. Power, that outshouts the roar of evil and death. The louder the better, the more people the more real.

But then they meet Jesus and the trappings of power are nowhere to be seen; just Jesus as they had known him, just Jesus saying “Hi” or literally “rejoice.” It is the understatement of all time. But it has great power because in the face of all that had gone wrong, in the face of the torture and death, life goes on, Jesus is there, with a friendly greeting. I think of those understated moments from our lives. A coach barks at his players to get into their practice, because they are all huddled around a player who had been seriously injured and is tenderly back among them. After they all scatter to do their workout the coach says, “Good to have you back.” Or a mother takes comfort in that her sick child has begun to eat again without being coaxed. Or two workers at odds with each other begin to go over a spread sheet, when one asks the other if he would mind looking at the numbers. Or a wife simply reaches out and takes her husbands hand. . To people who have experienced the darkness, the understatement holds great power.

When you stop to think about it, God communicate more by understatement than by overstatement. The life of Jesus is the greatest of all understatements, coming as an ordinary man, who can be thrown to the ground, nailed to the cross and die. His simply being alive says all that needs to be said. Similarly our sacraments are understatements with their simplicity yet profound meaning. Sometimes we want to dress them up to make them more “spiritual” but Jesus gave a simple command to baptize and to eat and drink in remembrance of him. There is power there because Jesus is there.

A part of that understatement is the fact that Jesus tells the women, “Go and tell my brothers.” Not “disciples” as the angel said, but brothers. Oh, how that one word, carries a message of forgiveness and grace. I can’t help but think that as those who had betrayed him, fled from him, failed him heard that word, it spoke volumes of grace. Yet it was just one word, an ordinary, every-day word, a word like “Hi” but in that word they were forgiven and began to live again.