Easter Sunday

 Easter Sunday: Luke 24: 1-12

 

I wonder how you feel about the response with which we began our worship: “Christ is risen”, "he is risen indeed, alleluia" ?

 

There’s a young mum I know who says to her children, when she doesn't quite believe what they're saying 'really?'.

It can be “we’re going on a school trip to the moon!” (“Really?”) or something as simple as “I’ve finished tidying my bedroom”. “Really?”.

Sometimes I feel like making that my response to the statement ‘Christ is risen”… “Really?”.

 

If you're not quite sure about the whole resurrection thing this morning you're in good company.

 

The women went to the disciples with the story of everything they had seen and heard... the stone had been rolled away, they’d seen the empty tomb,

 

then there were two men in dazzling clothes, who reminded them of what Jesus had said  - that he would rise again – and these two angelic creatures had said 'why look for the living among dead ? he is not here, he has risen'.

 

The women arrived in the middle of the disciples, on what we would call Easter Sunday morning, and told the disciples their breathless and amazing and wonderful story.

And the disciples’ reaction?      "pfft".

 

They thought it was idle tales. In fact the Greek word used there in the gospel, 'leros' gives us our word delirious. They thought the women were delirious. That they were talking rubbish, babble, nonsense.

 

Maybe it’s an ordinary human reaction to this extraordinary Easter story. Christ is risen. Really?

 

But the evidence mounts; others see the empty tomb, and even meet an angel. Mary sees Jesus in the garden; the disciples meet him in the upper room; Thomas sees and believes; they all see Jesus on the beach and he cooks them breakfast, talks to them and forgives Peter.

Christ is risen.

 

And so 2000 years on when we start our worship with the words "Christ is risen" we manage to say, not “really?”, but ' he is risen indeed, alleluia'

 

But this gradual dawning of reality into the hearts and minds of Jesus’ disciples means 3 things;

 

Firstly, if we find it hard to believe.. It's ok. We’re not expected to get it all in one go. We’re only human, we may need to hear this extraordinary story many times and in different ways before the truth starts to dawn on us.

We may need our own proof, a realisation of where the risen Jesus can be seen and heard in our own lives.

It may take time for us to move from ‘Really?’ to ‘he is risen indeed.’

 

And secondly, this story tells us that if we believe Jesus is risen and tell others but no-one believes us, that’s ok too.

The very first eye-witnesses to the resurrection, their hearts still pounding with the excitement of it, failed to ignite immediately the interest of the remainder of Jesus’ friends.

Babble, nonsense – leros – was their first reaction.

 

This truth of resurrection is hard to grasp. It isn’t obviously true on first hearing. It’s not our fault if it sounds a bit too good to be true because that’s just what it is – amazingly, eye-poppingly, strange – but true. Christ is risen.

 

And thirdly, if this whole story doesn't disturb us a bit , maybe we've become too used to the story and we're not listening.

There is something rather disturbing about this story of an empty tomb and a man raised from death.

 

I will admit right now that I cannot watch zombie movies. I just don’t like the whole idea of dead people walking around attacking other people. In real life, the dead stay dead and I can’t cope with a story-line of a film where the natural order of things is messed about with.

 

The Easter story has an element of that level of disturbance. Jesus, who was dead, has risen. That seems at first like it cannot be true. The dead stay dead.  But the women’s story – eventually accepted and experienced by all Jesus’ disciples – tells us that death is no longer the end.

In God's new kingdom all the rules have changed and the Good news is that now it is death itself that is dead.

 

In God’s new kingdom we learn that we need to treat death in a new way – death itself is dead - but we also need to treat life in a new way, too.

The witness of the women - what seemed like ‘idle tales’, babble, delirium, is actually profound truth.

If we are to look for God’s action in the world around us, bringing life from death;

if we are to meet the risen Jesus this Easter;

if the Spirit is to move among us

– we might need to look in unexpected places and learn to listen to those whose witness we have previously dismissed.

 

Jesus is alive, bringing the promise of new life to all people.  Really.   Alleluia.    Amen.