Reading – Mark 16:1-8

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint Jesus’ body.

And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’ When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.

As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.’

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.

Sermon

They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

These women. Who had become followers of Jesus, listened to his teachings, probably traveled with him, helped feed the multitudes, witnessed miracles, and certainly were present at the last supper. Even if they have been erased from most of the story, these women are central to the biggest moment in the Easter story.

They did all the things you do when someone you love has died – they prepared his body for burial, the put the body in the burial tomb, and – to use the Yiddish word, they sat shiva. On the morning of the third day, they were back, to do the final things you do when someone you love has died – finishing the prayers and preparations. So when the tomb is opened and the body is not there…

Well, you can imagine how frightening that would be. I don’t know what I would do… and it isn’t just any body that is missing, it is the body of this incredibly important person, whose ministry was not just moving, but remarkable for its time – and any time, really.

Now if you read the whole of the Christian scriptures straight through – and deal with all that the apostle Paul does with the Easter story, you have a pretty firm idea of what happened next. Including how the women were chastised and discounted for their telling of the story – and only after the men met the risen Jesus on the road – and poked into his wounds – did they believe.

And here is where I begin to wrestle.

Did that next part actually happen? Could it have happened? Why is it so important that it did happen? And why does it matter to us, today, in this Unitarian Universalist congregation in the 21st century?
After all, in these two millennia so much has happened in the world. Wars happened. Empires rising and falling happened. Science happened. Shakespeare happened. Computers happened. And now, recently, we face incredible upheaval, destruction, and pain.

A few days ago, a colleague came to our minister’s group on Facebook and confessed that after 20 years of preaching joyfully on Easter, she could not muster one iota of hope for the season. She wrote

“Not only can I not reach the celebration and hallelujahs of Easter, I can’t even access the despair of Good Friday. Instead, I find myself cynical…because we are tired, tired, tired of terrorist attacks and mass shootings and discriminatory laws against LGBTQ people and rampant racism …and they don’t even seem to merit emotional energy anymore. I am cynical because the election makes a mockery of democratic process, transforming it into reality show entertainment, as if it has no real consequences. I keep wondering ‘what’s the point?’”

What is the point? How is it possible to hang hope on something that happened two thousand years ago, in such a different time and place and circumstance?

Or was it so different?

Let’s go back to the first century of what the Common Era – in a fertile region on the east coast of the Mediterranean, a region really no bigger than the Hudson Valley of New York State – here’s what’s going on:

Israelites and Judeans had experienced over a millennia of oppression – from Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians – and they had “empire fatigue.” In this period, they experienced only about 100 years of self rule, thanks to the Maccabees (of Hanukkah fame). And then here come the Romans, in 63 BCE. By the first century, Herod is named King.

Now despite that ugly baby killing episode reported in the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, Herod was pretty great. He built up the city of Jerusalem, installing roads, aqueducts, schools, waste management – essentially the answers to Monty Python’s question (in Life of Brian) “what have the Romans ever done for us?” Not only was there good infrastructure, Herod ensured some concessions for the Judeans – honoring the Sabbath, no graven images of people on their coins, etc.

But after Herod died, Rome experienced a power vacuum and there was great political unrest. And caught up in that were the Judeans, who saw their rights eliminated and who became targets – in what might be thought of as a kind of Jim Crow atmosphere.

Now the Judeans reacted in a variety of ways. The Sadducees supported Rome. The Pharisees had a “don’t bother us, we won’t bother you” attitude. But everyone else wanted to liberate the Chosen People form the temple and from centuries of oppression. You had intellectuals and philosophers – the pundits and satirists. You had activists – sometimes violent. You had some prophets and street preachers. And you had some self-styled cult leaders – messiahs, if you will, demanding blind trust.

Sound familiar? It should… because they too were dealing with racism, oppression, political disarray, megalomaniacs, poverty, terrorism.

So who was Jesus in all of this?

Was he a philosopher? Well, he was likely not well educated outside of Torah and writings, but he certainly was talking about non-violence, and he certainly was a teacher.

Was he an activist? Definitely. A terrorist? Well, no, although he was probably classified as one, much as Black Lives Matter activists are classified so negatively by some.

Was he a prophet? He certainly knew the historical prophets and spoke of a Kingdom to come.

Was he the messiah? As noted in the Gospel of Matthew, when asked he is the messiah, he responds, “That’s what you say.”

In other words, we don’t know exactly who he was. And we can only speculate on why Jesus was crucified. Perhaps he was becoming a little too popular with those who sought liberation for Rome’s liking. And in this time, crucifixion a common form of capital punishment for resistance types.

Did he know he would be crucified? Maybe. Maybe he was knowingly fulfilling the prophesy of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah – chapter 53 for those keeping score. Maybe he knew that this was a possibility when taking up the cause of liberation – and he decided to walk into the fire instead of running away. And maybe only those writing about him knew, in retrospect.

There is a lot we don’t know about Jesus….

But what we do know is that those who heard him heard his message of hope, love, and liberation. They heard their own stories in his, their own suffering, their own struggles. They heard a new message that transcended any others of the time.

And we know that to the people who followed him and knew him, his death was devastating – Jesus was their leader, inspiration, prophet, teacher, messiah – how could they continue?

Imagine the cynicism of the disciples knowing the one they believed in had been killed by the state they had been resisting for three years. Yet in that cynicism and loss, the women react not with tears, but with great emptiness. And despite the emptiness, they go through the motions, doing what needs to be done.

I always imagine the male disciples holed up in some hovel somewhere grieving their movement, while the women saw to it that the proper rituals were performed, even if there didn’t seem to be any point to it all. And it was through that act of going through the motions, despite the emptiness and pointlessness, that they found the beginnings of resurrection.

The resurrection story grows because his followers needed hope – the hope Jesus preached – in the face of continued oppression.

Jesus’s story remains – because if we have ears to listen, we still hear our own stories in the stories he told.
Jesus’s story remains – because it is personal.

He didn’t tell his followers to save the whole world. We can only be as good as we can be to those around us. As Marcus Borg says, “If you think you’re the Messiah, you are not.” Despite all the bad news, our planet is a life-giving place. The universe gave us life – that’s a great gift! Most people, most of the time, are dedicated to sustaining that great gift. Jesus’s story remains, because it reminds us of the gift of life.

Jesus’s story – the Easter story – remains, because we need hope to be eternal. Whether it is gospel truth, or a story pointing to something larger, the hope and possibility of Easter remains.

Jesus’s story remains, because it calls us back:
called back to love our neighbor as ourselves,
called back to see the inherent worth of every person,
called back to fight for justice,
called back to hope for a better life.

O Day of light and gladness! The tomb is empty. Hope lives.

Topics: Holiday Celebration, Hope