Easter I
Sunday 4 April 2010
St. John’s Church in the Village
New York City
The Rev’d Lloyd Prator


We don’t know what happened that night in the tomb. The stillness, the darkness, the cold, the signs of death were, no doubt all around. But we don’t know. For us, the story begins, as today’s gospel tells us, “at early dawn on the first day of the week.”

They were shocked—first to find that the tomb was opened, second to find it empty. Grave robbing was not unknown in those days, and that may have been their fear—indignity added to injury, the last condition worse than the first.

They were, too, perplexed and puzzled. The explanation comes from the strange looking men in white shining garments, probably angels or messengers from God. And, what they said pricked their memories of Jesus. These women were not scripture scholars, so the angels did not undertake a detailed exegesis of the Old Testament texts that pointed to the rising of the Son of Man. The angels just nudged the women to remember what Jesus himself had said to them. Remember, they said, that Jesus said he would be betrayed, he would suffer, and he would die and on the third day rise again.

I can just imagine the women sort of counting on their fingers, “Friday, Saturday, Sunday—three days. Three days. Oh my God!” And the angels smiling on them as slowly, they got the picture.

And in the coming weeks, we will get the picture. There were a lot of ways in which the body could have disappeared, but in the coming weeks, we will hear the stories from the early church about how Jesus came to be with his people after his resurrection, living with them in a new way, and explaining how it all happened.

For my part, however, I am not so much interested in how it all happened, as I am in why it all happened.

It happened because God wanted us to know, to feel, and to live with the awareness that there is a way out. If you are living with cancer, God’s word is that there is a way out. If you are buried in the darkness of depression, know that there is a way out. Even if your life is not marred b tragedy, but merely scuffed up a little with the ordinary knocks and beatings of life, know that there is a way out. Lost in the seductive snares of materialism, there is a way out. Saddened by the end of love and the delights of passion, there is a way out.

The Christian faith teaches us that life is not a circular, repetitive, monotonous and hopeless circle. There is a way out. By rising from the dead, Jesus has shown us the power of new life from God. By the gift of his Holy Spirit, he promises that even in the midst of the worst life can deal out to you, God is with you, turn, ask, reach out, he is there. Life is not a circular treadmill; it is a sharp trajectory leading toward God. When our lives reach the limitations of humanity, God calls us to a new life in a new body, in a new city, where there are new possibilities. Some you can lay hands on, in this life, the fullness of the gift awaits the life of the world to come.

It is early in the morning on the first day of the week.

Creation began on the first day of the week; renewal of creation likewise begins, early in the morning on the first day of the week.

A blessed Easter to you all.