"He Is Not Here!" - Matthew 28: 1-10 Easter Sunday
A Sermon by Alex W. Evans, Pastor
Second Presbyterian Church, Richmond, VA
Matthew 28:1-10
Easter – April 12, 2020 – “HE IS NOT HERE!”
My first word on this Easter Sunday is THANK YOU.
If you are joining the Easter service – via the internet – via live-streaming – you are choosing to take a pause from the isolation and the statistics of COVID-19 . . . and you are choosing to venture into the poetry and the passion of God.
If you are deciding to watch this Easter worship – during this horrific virus that is threatening the world – you are choosing to step back from the chaos and uncertainty of our lives and step INTO WONDER, into mystery, into worship that affirms life over death.
If you are choosing to be with us on this sacred day, THANK YOU. You are seeking to engage your heart with the good news of God – with a message of hope in the midst of all the despair and death. You are affirming – or you are at least open to the idea - that God and the God-life are bigger, better than we ever know – and we are always loved and held by God, no matter what.
So THANK YOU. We need this word of faith and life in the midst of disease and death. We need this presence of God – mystery, wonder, hope – in the midst of all that feels so debilitating and paralyzing and fearful.
Here is the story of Easter. And spoiler-alert – this story is NOT about spring-time, and colorful flowers emerging. It is NOT about bunnies and candy. This story introduces us to some women wandering down a road in the darkness of early morning to a cemetery, expecting to find one thing – their crucified and dead friend in a tomb – and finding something else. These words greet the women: “he is NOT here!”
This is a story of Life over of death. I hope you will hear it as if for the first time. From Matthew’s gospel – chapter 28 – listen for every nuance and insight:
After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. 4For fear of him (the angel) the guards shook and became like dead men. 5But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. 6He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. 7Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” 8So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.9Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. 10Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
There is something really important to note here – especially on this Sunday when we lament that we are not together – NO big crowds, NO wonderful choir and brass in the loft (except pre-recorded from last Easter) - and especially when we know this Easter day is NOT the big release from the coronavirus that some had hoped for.
The thing to note today - Christ’s Resurrection did not begin with large gatherings of Christians accompanied by choirs and organ blasts. It began with an “empty tomb” and some fearful women. And it was a tomb emptied of death.
Certainly, this is the Easter to ponder such emptiness, to linger over it, indeed, to REVEL in it. We miss being together. But this is the Easter to let our sanctuaries and chancels, our narthexes and choir lofts, remain utterly empty, not in despair, but in testimony that lives are being saved . . . in this emptiness.
Emptiness, in this case, is life-giving. Social and physical distancing are proving to be . . . life-giving.
By abandoning our sacred gathering places, we are NOT abandoning the gospel. Far from it. We are testifying to what the angel announced at the tomb, “Do not be afraid. . . . He is not here.” (see William Brown, Journal of Preachers, special note, Holy Week, 2020)
The empty tomb is what is life-giving for us and for the world. Big Easter worship – with music and beauty – is wonderful. But it is the empty tomb that is life-giving, just as our current distancing - in the face of this virus - seeks to be life-giving.
We have all been thinking so much about science – so much about flattening the curve and cases counted and death tolls rising. We have been focused on press releases, and masks, and medical updates on a vaccine, and more. We have even been hearing that things are, maybe, slowly, getting better in places like New York. These subjects are important – and they can consume us.
But today we have a story – the Easter story. We have some women going to the tomb – a simple story of sad people dealing with grief. These women went there in the dark! And there are lots of things that happen to convey that something great and powerful and new is emerging in this cemetery. God’s new era is dawning there!
There is an earthquake. Earthquakes in ancient literature always want to convey that something big and significant is happening. Then the angel descends from heaven and rolls back the stone and SITS on it. A big tombstone is no match for an angel. He rolls it back and sits on it. There is also lightning and other drama.
And think about this - the angel rolled away the stone not to let Jesus out . . . but to let the women in. So they could see the truth – “He is not here!” A new era is dawning. . . .
This becomes a story about sadness and fear turning to rejoicing: life out of death. All the aspects of this story want to engage our hearts, link us to God – to wonder, to mystery, to light and hope! How much do we need that?! This story wants to change us! Re-direct us. How much do we need that?!
I have been thinking lots about Victor Frankl in recent weeks.
Viktor Frankl – you may recall – was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who lived in the previous century. Frankl’s life coincided with the horrors of World War II in Europe, and Frankl was Jewish. He was captured and spent time in 4 different concentration camps, - 4! - including Auschwitz. Many in his family, including his wife, died in concentration camps. Viktor Frankl did not die, but became famous for how he survived and helped others to survive.
Viktor Frankl, writing from the madness of the Holocaust, reminded us that we don’t get to choose our difficulties, but we do have the freedom to select our responses. Meaning, he argued, comes from three things: 1) the work we offer in times of crisis, 2) the love we give in times of crisis, and 3) our ability to display courage in the face of suffering. The menace we confront may be subhuman or superhuman, vicious people . . . or a vicious virus, but we all have the option of asserting our own dignity, even to the end. That is always our choice – how we respond to what happens to us. (see David Brooks, NYTimes – 3/26/2020)
So we have a very important opportunity in these days – how do we respond to EASTER?
How do we respond to these unusual times and COVID-19?
This is where we are. This is what we have to answer.
Will we respond with the work we do – with the love we share – with courage in the face of suffering?
Sarah Are is a young Presbyterian minister who serves in Texas. Sarah Are has ties to this church: she is a graduate of VCU – and was part of our UKIRK program, and worship and other things at Second. Sarah is also part of “Sanctified Art,” along with our own Hannah Garrity. “Sanctified Art” is a small group of faithful women that produces artistic and liturgical resources for the larger church, including our church.
Here is a poem – a prayer – an affirmation - Sarah offers:
I used to know the wilderness only as pain;
a land without food, a land without water.
But you rained down manna and even water flows in your desert.
I used to think the wilderness was total isolation –
But the Israelites had each other,
And you had the stars in the sky.
So then I thought the wilderness must be time wasted –
Forty years of circles, forty years of wondering, (Bible images)
But then I realized, each step is a step,
and maybe there’s growth in that.
So then I concluded that the wilderness must be lonely spaces –
The woman and her well, the blind man and his gate,
Martha and her kitchen, Peter and his fire. (more Bible images)
But then you showed up in each of those spaces,
To each of those faces.
So now I wonder –
What if the wilderness is the birthplace of creation?
What if the wilderness is where call begins?
What if the wilderness is where joy is birthed?
What if, between the dirt and the sky, and that wide orange horizon,
The wilderness is where we find you? (Sarah Are, Lent, 2020)
The angel told the women – “He is not here!” The angel said, “he has been raised. . . . He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.”
HE IS NOT HERE – neither are you.
No – we are people who have heard the news – “he is not here!” We are people – who link our lives – not just to the crisis and the chaos of our lives and world. We link our lives to the God who is stronger than death, stronger than the evil of Good Friday, stronger than any heartache, sin, or killing. We link our lives to Jesus – like the women - and we realize that God will never let us go. God will never let us be defeated. God prevails over all things – death and disease, suffering and loss, sadness and isolation – and God brings life and light.
What if the wilderness is where joy is birthed? What if the wilderness is where we find God – the mystery, wonder, love, light, peace, and hope?
This is the message of Easter: “He is not here!”
The women left the tomb that morning when they heard that news – they left quickly with fear and joy – and suddenly, it says, Jesus met them, spoke to them. And they recognized him and worshipped him. Then Jesus sent them on to tell the others: “Do not be afraid! Go to Galilee. Go and tell the others; there they will see me.”
And we – as disciples of Jesus – as Easter people, especially in a time of COVID-19 – we should be out looking and working for the risen Jesus. He is not here! We seek to work, . . . to love, . . . to live with courage – and we do all of it in the promise and certainty of Jesus – “he is not here!”
We strive to trust God always and serve God. He has been raised. That changes everything.
MOVE – to Communion Table -
Across the recent weeks, since we have done video worship, we have been standing at this communion table, in front of these mosaics. Let me tell you about these mosaics.
A few years ago, at our Ash Wednesday service at the start of Lent, we gave everyone a piece of shard – a broken, sharp, shattered piece of pottery. For the service, we held the sharp broken pieces, felt how it could cut into our hands. Those pieces of shard represented the brokenness of our lives – heartaches, worries, loses, failures.
Then, during the service, we each brought those pieces of shard and placed them on the communion table. We gave our losses, heartaches, hurts, failures, “to God.” We left them there for God. We sought to walk away from all that the shards represented . . . and walk into new ways of discipleship – loved and forgiven and held by God. We left those pieces on the communion table – seeking to trust and serve God again in the world.
I invited our wonderful arts people in the church to take, and to make something. Through the season of THAT Lent, our arts people took those pieces of shard – representing the brokenness of our lives – and made these mosaics. They created this – and fit them here.
You know what they represent here? The women coming to the tomb on Easter morning! Look at them – women coming to the tomb on Easter. In all the stories, there are women at the tomb – as many as four women. They go in sadness to the cemetery – with grief – with a desire to tend to the body of Jesus, whom they loved.
And what did they find – the tomb was empty! The angel who says, “he is not here!”
Easter brings the dawning of a new age – evil and death do not win. Hatred and disease do not win. Despair and grief do not hold the day. God wins. Life wins! Hope wins.
This is what we know – we belong to God. God is greater and present and more at work than we can ever imagine. We seek to align our lives with God – loving and serving in the world – for he shall reign forever, and ever. Not mean-ness, not greed, not human power, not COVID. God reigns. And he shall reign forever, and ever!
Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed! Alleluia! AMEN
Prayer of Commitment: We believe, Lord; help our unbelief; and keep shaping us, molding us, using us in the world for good work, with love, with courage, following the Risen Christ, Our Lord. AMEN
Alex W. Evans, Pastor, Second Presbyterian Church, Richmond, VA preached this sermon during Sunday Worship, Easter, April 12, 2020. This is a rough manuscript.