He is Risen Indeed, Alleluia

Easter Homily 2011

Jesus Lives!

That is the Good News we proclaim on Easter Day. We continue to experience our Risen Lord to this day, in a way not confined to flesh and blood, time and space.

It may have been two thousand years since that dawn on the first day of the week when Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb where Jesus was laid.

But the theme of Easter—that Jesus lives and will be with his followers for all time—remains the same.

The Resurrection, an event of great power and mystery, is one which leaves us grasping for words to express its life-changing force.

Easter completes the story of Jesus in one way. It moves us from death to Resurrection and new life. It also moves us from Crucifixion, a humiliating death, to vindication, God’s victory over the forces of evil and darkness.

Easter speaks of God’s unending love for the world, despite our human failings in all ages. God is with us in Jesus, his son.

The followers of Jesus huddled away in the upper room, afraid of discovery by the Jewish and Roman authorities after Jesus died on the cross. The Gospel accounts don’t reflect well on his disciples. Despite what Jesus taught them, melt away the the going gets tough and Jesus goes on trial, and is condemned to death.

Indeed in Matthew’s Gospel it is reported, as in other Gospel’s that the women who followed Jesus, not the eleven, are the ones who came first to the tomb.

Matthew’s brief account of that first Easter morning underlines the cosmic significance of the events of that day.
There was an earthquake. And an angel of the Lord rolls away the stone.

The supernatural appearance of the angel---similar to the transfigured Jesus on the mountain which his disciples have witnessed---tells the women not to be afraid. Jesus is not here. He has been raised from the dead.

The angel tells them they must go tell the other disciples what they have seen, and that they too will see him.

Then they meet Jesus, and he repeats the command, after they worship him.

This is a fascinating and tantalizingly brief description. It leaves us wanting more.

The scientific revolution which has characterized the last three hundred years, and particularly the last hundred years, has caused some people to doubt the truth of the Resurrection, as well as other miracles, healings and supernatural events described in the Gospels.

But while we can’t explain this event scientifically, we believe as Christians that God, the creator of the universe, is surely capable of doing what the Gospels testify to.

There are many events in history we can’t explain or prove through scientific evidence. And many scientists are Christians. Some are ordained clergy.

What remains for us is the fundamental truth of Easter: that a dispirited band of the followers of Jesus, who could have fled the scene and gone back to fishing, tax collecting and other pursuits, became transformed into evangelists. They took on the task of the great commission, to spread the Good news to others—the news of Jesus the son of God, crucified and risen again---and the message of salvation he taught.

The post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus, which begin with this text, play an important role in enabling the disciples and other followers of Jesus to testify to the Resurrection.

Jesus is no longer a martyr, unjustly executed. He lives in a transformed body, at least temporarily, so that his followers might know that He has conquered death.


This is no ghost, because he eats and drinks with his friends. But on the other hand it is not a resuscitated body—as with Lazarus, because there is no suggestion in any text that his ministry continues—only that he appears to many, then ascends---leaving the Holy Spirit with his followers to guide them and comfort them.

The Resurrection should not be taken as a signal that we as followers of Jesus, can sit back and bask in the glow of the certainty that through Jesus we have found the key to eternal life.

That leads to an innocuous Jesus, cheap grace, and inaction. Instead our New Testament, our new covenant with God, calls us to action.

We are not only to preach the Good News, we are to put the good news in action by working for a better world, a world of life, love and hope, not despair, hatred and death.

Our world is full of despair. The Easter message of the Gospel can bring hope—not just an individual basis but for communities, and nations.

Author Nancy Sehested writes:

“Resurrection happened not with trumpet sounds, and Easter lilies and budding trees and a great burst of sunlight, but in the early morning mist, while it was too dark to see clearly. It came through weeping and weariness, through fear and confusion, through the disorientation of grief, through arms reaching out to feel the way in the darkness. . . It came because God is a God who breathes life into dead bones.”

Easter is a new beginning. Nothing has changed, and yet everything has changed, now that Jesus has risen. With the new energy they have found the disciples begin the long and risky task of proclaiming the Gospel.

The Jewish authorities and the Roman authorities are still there. But they are soon to learn that by crucifying Jesus, they didn’t erase his memory, his ministry, his followers, or his power.

The same Peter who denied Jesus three times would become one of the early leaders on “The Way,” the name for the followers of Jesus—still a Jewish Christian sect at that time.

Peter, like many of the other disciples would meet his death at the hands of the Romans. . .but not before doing the groundwork for the building of the early Christian church.

Easter is something we still wonder at, as we mark this great festival each year. It is almost too much to comprehend.

Theologian Walter Bruggemann writes:

“Easter is not for arguing or explaining or disputing in order to domesticate it to our categories of reasonableness. It is for storytelling that leaves us in awe, and for preaching that asserts what the church knows deeply and trusts completely.”