Easter Sunday; 17 April 2022; Easter Day C (RCL); Isaiah 65:17-25; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; 1 Corinthians 15:19-26; Luke 24:1-12.
Over the past few years, I’ve preached on the passage from John’s Gospel assigned for Year C, with its themes of a new creation (in the garden), and the journey toward God. This year, it seems good instead to preach on the Luke passage.
The Passion reading last Sunday ended with the women resting on the Sabbath day, according to the commandment. This seems to me a reflection, or a mirror image, of God’s rest on the Sabbath after creation. God had seen everything and declared it good; the women have seen the worst humanity can do. And they rested on the Sabbath day.
And again, our reading feels like it stops in mid sentence. The apostles (one of the few times Luke uses that expression) think the women’s report is an idle tale. Peter runs to the tomb, and finds it empty, but went home amazed at what had happened. Not a very Easter-y message. No one yet believes the resurrection has taken place. We are left hanging. The next thing that happens in Luke’s Gospel is the revelation on the road to Emmaus. The two disciples don’t recognize Jesus until he breaks bread, after he has interpreted the Old Testament to them.
In the midst of so much chaos in our world, the resurrection may indeed seem like an idle tale. Or worse, as a sop to help us put up with the chaos by telling us of bliss in a world to come. It starts even with Paul — if for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are most to be pitied. But even Paul saw the resurrection of Jesus as the down-payment or earnest money for what God was already doing.
Of course, it was women who reported the empty tomb, women who had done the work of grief, and then rested on the Sabbath. How often do we fail take women seriously, their vision of hope in the midst of chaos? Jesus resurrection is the earnest money for God bringing every enemy, including death, into subjection. The passage from Isaiah is a pretty good summary of what that new reign of God will look like. And in this world, that can certainly seem like an idle tale.
But the message of the resurrection is that that vision is in fact reality, and this world, with its violence, already stands under judgment. All the violence that humans can do had been done to God the Son, and it has been vanquished. We hope for a new life, and know that the deposit has been made.