March 28, 2024

“So, they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." (Mark 16:8 NRSVUE)

Today is Holy Thursday, the beginning of the culmination of the events of Holy Week. Tomorrow we will commemorate all Jesus did on Calvary that made that particular Friday a good one. Saturday, we will, in our own way, symbolically and spiritually keep vigil at the tomb. Those who were with Jesus had heard that he would be raised again in three days, but I suspect the finality and brutality of Jesus’ death cast a pall on their belief that he indeed would.

But we know that Jesus would indeed rise from the dead. We will celebrate that triumphant rising on Sunday, Easter. Some of you ministers may be preaching from Mark’s account of the resurrection chronicled in Mark 16, verses 1-8. Not surprisingly, that is the shortest account of the resurrection, and it is arguably the most bewildering one of the gospels. Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome arrived at the tomb early Sunday morning, only to find that someone had rolled away large stone at its entrance. Upon entering the tomb, they have a startling confrontation with an angel who proclaims that Jesus is not here because he had been raised. Then he gives them explicit instructions to tell Jesus’ disciples and Peter (with an important naming of Peter here given his particular desertion and denial of Jesus) to meet him in Galilee.

But what’s intriguing and perhaps baffling here in retrospect, is that the women did not follow the angel’s instructions. Mark writes that they went out and fled from the tomb, both in terror and amazement. Despite the angel’s clear command, they told no one because they were afraid. Why were they afraid? Were they afraid because of the understandable shock of the large stone rolled away coupled with the angel’s appearance and words? Were they afraid because sharing this terrifying and amazing news would make them targets of the same Roman government and the religious authorities who had crucified Jesus? Were they afraid because they were fearful that the male disciples in a patriarchal society would dismiss the words of the angel as the hysterical ravings of women? Were they afraid because maybe…. just maybe, the angel’s words were true? The resurrection of one so brutally slain could produce simultaneous feelings of terror and amazement. The three women at the tomb could have been afraid for these reasons and many more. And I suspect we know from our own life experiences that fear has a way of closing us down and shutting us in, not sharing anything that needs to be heard, even God’s possibility.

Nevertheless, the angel’s words to the women at the tomb can resonate for us as we approach this Resurrection Sunday. The angel, echoing words spoken in scripture at such appearances, says to the women “Do not be alarmed.” We can be alarmed about many things happening not only in our lives but in the world, thousands of innocent people killed in Gaza, the encroachment of climate change disasters recently affecting the Shenandoah valley, the prospect of another tumultuous Presidential election tainted by allegations of fraud and deliberate attempts to silence the voices and rights of our citizens through voter suppression, physical and legislative attacks our LGBTQ+ communities, particularly our transgendered siblings, the possibility of one of us or one a loved one being one of 110 ten lives lost daily in this country due to gun violence, and the individually and institutionally entrenched evil of racism. Such a world can render us so fearful that we can become afraid even of the possibility of God’s resurrection power that can revive, renew, and redeem the world.

Yet as we proclaim to one another “Christ is Risen!” and “Christ is Risen Indeed!” this Sunday, it is important that we make that proclamation victoriously, and also courageously. People need to be told that despite all that is in the world, God in Jesus Christ is risen, alive and well, and is working in our midst still for the salvation of humankind and creation. Not only will the visitors need our telling in their once or twice visitations to our churches (the other being Christmas Eve), but they will also need our proclamation of the Risen Christ in on the streets, on state legislators, in school board meetings, on Capitol Hill, and in corporate boardrooms, and war rooms, to name a few. God ‘s movement in the world can be so amazing that it can be scary. Yet we cannot allow fear to keep us from both proclaiming and living resurrection in a world that desperately needs it.

May this Resurrection Sunday be a day where we boldly, courageously, and fearlessly proclaim that Jesus is alive. And may that power help us, where we can, be a people of resurrection for the world through the Risen One.

May this Holy Week for you culminate in a joyful and glorious Easter Day.

Sincerely,