Sunday Eucharist 8:30 a.m. - Spoken Word 10:00 a.m. - Music & Live Stream
Sunday Eucharist 8:30 a.m. - Spoken Word 10:00 a.m. - Music & Live Stream
March 31, 2024
Christ the King-Epiphany Church
The Resurrection of Our Lord
Mark 16:1-8
Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia! (3 times)
Easter is loud! Mark will pull out all the stops on the organ, the choir will raise their voices in triumphant song, the bells will ring, adding their joyful noise, and the people will shout, “alleluia!” Easter is noisy.
And Easter is larger-than-life. It’s a larger-than-life day with a momentous story and an amazing floral display and for many of us, big family dinners and Easter baskets overflowing with goodies. Easter is huge.
Big and loud! When you really think about it, this day is overwhelming with its message that God has overcome hate with love, has overpowered despair by hope, and has conquered death by life.
But what if I told you that one of the most overwhelming things about Easter might just be one of the smallest, quietest, seemingly insignificant details of this story?
Think about the story as you have just heard it from St. Mark’s gospel. It is, I should note, a very different telling of the Easter story than the others which we may be more accustomed to hearing. There are no earthquakes nor angels rolling back the stone nor Roman guards falling to the ground in fear as there are in Matthew. There are no men in dazzling clothes as in Luke’s Easter story. And there’s no personal encounter with “the gardener,” a.k.a. Jesus, like we find in John. In Mark, there’s just a guy in the tomb (who might or might not be an angel) who tells the women to take a message to the disciples and Peter – which, according to what scholars believe is the original ending of Mark’s gospel, the women don’t do. They flee in terror and amazement and say nothing to anybody.
Now, if you don’t find that a particularly satisfying ending to the Easter story, I’m not surprised. It’s not loud enough – it ends with a whimper, not a bang. And it’s not larger-than-life – in fact, the failure of the women to do what they’ve been told to do reminds me too much of my very ordinary, everyday failures.
But listen again to the message spoken by the mysterious man in the tomb: “Go tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee.” Go tell his disciples and Peter. That’s curious. Why mention Peter separately from the others? It could be because Peter was already known as the leader of the disciples. But it also might be because Peter, specifically, was the one who most needed to hear that Jesus was alive. Imagine being Peter for a moment. Imagine what he had done just three days earlier. He had resorted to violence, cutting off a guard’s ear – which Jesus scolded him for. He had denied knowing Jesus or having anything to do with him to save his own skin. He had completely blown his chance to stand up for Jesus and be the leader he wanted to be. And there was nothing he could do about it. Jesus was dead and buried. Peter couldn’t apologize. He couldn’t look into his master’s eyes and seek forgiveness. All he could do was wallow in his guilt and pain. And maybe that’s why the message was to be given by the women specifically to Peter – because the resurrection isn’t just a big, cosmic event – it’s also intensely personal. Peter really needed to know that the things that he hated about himself – like his unfaithfulness – had been covered over by God’s love. Peter really needed to feel hope because his despair must have been pretty deep. Peter really needed to understand that the God of life had overcome death. Go tell the disciples – and Peter – especially Peter – because this message is for him.
What I want you to hear today is that the message of Jesus’ resurrection is for you, personally, for you, right now – for whatever reason you most need to hear it. If you feel hate or anger in your heart (toward yourself or toward another), then this message is for you: LOVE WINS. Or, on the other hand, if you feel like someone else has it out for you, or maybe you even feel like the whole world has it out for you, then you need to hear this message: LOVE WINS. Say that with me: LOVE WINS! But wait: there’s more. If you, like Peter, feel like you’re caught in a dark pit of despair; if you just can’t see how the situation you’re in is going to turn out okay; if you’re having trouble seeing the point of keeping going from day to day, then you need to hear this part of the Easter message: HOPE ENDURES. Say that with me: HOPE ENDURES! But wait: there’s more. If you are grieving; or if you are afraid of losing someone you love; or if you, yourself, are facing your own mortality, then maybe what you need to hear most from the Easter story is this: LIFE IS FOREVER. Say that with me: LIFE IS FOREVER!
Love wins. Hope endures. And life is forever. It is a larger-than-life message. And we shout it loudly on Easter morning. But it doesn’t always have to be loud. After all, in this noisy world, a whisper sometimes gets our attention better than a shout. So hear me when I say this to you – directly, personally, and with quiet joy: (whispered) Christ is risen. For you.
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