Resurrection of the Lord

Because He Lives

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Because He Lives” Luke 20:27-38

A very zealous, soul-winning, young preacher came upon a farmer working in his field. Being concerned about the farmer’s soul, the preacher asked, “Are you laboring in the vineyard of the Lord, my good man?”

Continuing his work, not even looking at the preacher, the farmer replied, “Naw, these are soybeans.”

“No, no, no. You don’t understand,” said the young man. “I’m asking are you a Christian?”

With the same amount of interest as his previous answer the farmer said, “Nope my name is Jones. You must be lookin’ for Jim Christian. He lives a mile south of here.”

The determined young preacher tried again, asking the farmer, “Are you lost?”

“Naw! I’ve lived here all my life,” answered the farmer.

Finally, the frustrated preacher threw up his hands, “Are you prepared for the resurrection?”

Now this caught the farmer’s attention, and he asked, “When’s it gonna’ be?”

Thinking he was finally making some headway, the young preacher replied, “It could be today, tomorrow, or the next day.”

The farmer stopped. He took a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his brow. “Well, don’t mention it to my wife. She don’t get out much, and she’ll wanna’ go all three days.”

The resurrection is a strange subject for a joke, but that’s exactly what the Sadducees were up to. As they challenged Jesus, he was teaching in the courts of the Temple. Earlier that week, Jesus made a triumphal entry to the city, surrounded by jubilant crowds who were captivated by his dynamic teaching. Jesus cleansed the Temple, turning the tables on money changers and driving out the animal vendors. Then, Jesus settled into a residency on the teaching steps, where his opponents tried their best to discredit him.

The Sadducees were the ruling elite of the temple, having controlled the religious practice of Israel for hundreds of years. The first century Jewish historian Josephus wrote that the Sadducees were filthy rich. They were little-loved by the people, but they preserved their power through wealth and collaboration with the Roman Empire. The Sadducees didn’t like Jesus. They questioned his lowly origins, they feared his appeal to the crowds, and they really didn’t like his disruption of the money changing and animal sales that enriched the Temple’s coffers. They needed to discredit Jesus quickly and embarrass him in front of his adoring crowds.

The question that the Sadducees posed for Rabbi Jesus sounds puzzling and archaic. Unlike Jesus, the Sadducees didn’t believe in the resurrection. They said it wasn’t mentioned in the Torah, thus it couldn’t be part of God’s plan for humanity.  So, the Sadducees turned to the traditional practice of levirate marriage to make a mockery of the very notion of the resurrection. In levirate marriage, a childless widow would be married to her late husband’s brother. The children, who were born of the levirate marriage, were considered the offspring of the late husband. This preserved the husband’s name and the right of inheritance for a future generation. Levirate marriage was also a protection for widows. It stopped the practice of discarding a childless widow, returning her to her father’s house or turning her out into the streets to fend for herself. According to the levirate tradition, the husband’s family must provide for childless widows, ensuring their safety and well-being. The Sadducees’ question imagines a woman who is widowed, time and time again, passed from brother to brother to brother to brother to brother to brother to brother. If there is, indeed a life eternal, the Sadducees ask, whose wife will she be? It’s a bawdy, lewd joke that imagines an infinitely grieving woman passed from brother to brother for all eternity.

Rabbi Jesus dismantled their rude joke in two simple moves. First, he pointed to the practice of levirate marriage. According to Jesus, in the resurrection (in the Kingdom to come), the entire patriarchal structure, which makes the possessing of women as property possible, would be set aside. Girl children won’t be the property of fathers to be traded away in an economic transaction. Women won’t be the sexual property of husbands. Childless widows won’t be at risk for homelessness and exploitation. In God’s Kingdom, our kinship, worth, and life is found in God. We are all God’s children, children of the resurrection, children of a Kingdom where there will no longer be the power of patriarchy. Then, to close his argument, Jesus referenced one of the most foundational stories of the Torah, Moses’ encounter with God at the burning bush. Quoting Exodus 3:6, Jesus noted that God Almighty “is” the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God’s relationship with those patriarchs is living and eternal. Indeed, although we are mortal, we find eternal life in our infinite God. It was a microphone-drop-moment. The Sadducees left, bested on their home field. The questions stopped, but the plot to end Jesus’ life found new urgency.

The clash with the Sadducees might have gone undocumented if God hadn’t added a big exclamation point to Jesus’ argument. On Friday of that week, Jesus was arrested by the Temple guards—those minions of the Sadducees. The Chief Priests Annas and Caiaphas, both Sadducees, argued before the Sanhedrin that Jesus was a heretic, and it would be better for one man to die—putting an end to the Messianic rising that followed him—than for the nation to endure the wrath of Rome that was surely coming. We all know what happened next: torture, humiliation, the agony of the cross, and death. On Friday, it felt like the Sadducees had won the argument, after all. But on Sunday, there was a second microphone-drop-moment. God had the last word. God’s resurrection overcame the sin and death of this world. Jesus rose. Because he lives, we trust that we, too, shall live. Thanks be to God.

In light of that Easter morning resurrection miracle, today’s arcane reading from scripture finds deep meaning and powerful relevance for today’s world. It begins with the hope that we find in the resurrection. We choose to love and live in God. And there is nothing in this world that can separate us from the love of God that was made known to us in Jesus. Because God chose to send a son into the world to live and die and rise, we can trust that we are children of the resurrection. Because Jesus lives, we also shall live in that resurrection realm, the Kingdom to come.

Jesus also helps us to see that the Kingdom to come is good news for anyone who has ever been left out, made to feel “less than,” or suffered because of who they are. The sinful practices and oppressive traditions of this world will come to an end and have no place in God’s plans for our future. In the resurrection, there is no place for patriarchy. In the resurrection, there is no place for gender oppression. In the resurrection, there is no place for racial hate. In the resurrection, there is no fear of the foreigner. In the resurrection, there is no poverty or injustice. In the resurrection world to come, we will all be precious, beloved, children of the resurrection. And we will rejoice!

If we accept the promise of the resurrection and the vision that Jesus cast for the Kingdom to come, then today’s reading becomes a call to action. It’s a call to stand against the forces of this world that control, mock, and delight in the suffering of others. It’s a call to live in ways that begin to shape communities that feel like an anticipation of that coming Kingdom. We have hope. We love without limits. We seek justice. We serve our at-risk neighbors.  We follow in the footsteps of the risen Lord.

In 1971, Gloria and Bill Gaither wrote one of the most treasured gospel hymns, “Because He Lives.” The Gaithers were going through tough times. They had left their jobs as public school teachers to become music ministers. But Bill had been sick and depressed. Gloria was expecting their third child. The Vietnam War was underway. Assassination had taken the lives of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy. Drug abuse was on the rise. Racial injustice persisted. Riots had devastated vulnerable inner-city communities. The world felt chaotic. Gloria Gaither says that she struggled with bringing a third child into a world that felt far from God’s Kingdom. On New Years Eve in the darkness and quiet of their living room, Gloria suddenly felt released from it all as she sensed the reassuring presence of the risen Lord. Fear left. Joy returned. Gloria knew she could have that baby and face the future with trust because Jesus lives, and God can conquer the chaos that touches our days. In response, Gloria wrote the words of what would become the Gospel Song of the Year for 1974.

“Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,

Because He lives, all fear is gone;

Because I know, He holds the future.

And life is worth the living just

Because He lives.”

Gloria’s words and the promise of the resurrection still minister to people everywhere. Live in hope, my friends. Because he lives, we too shall live.

Resources:

David Lose. “Commentary on Luke 20:27-38” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 7, 2010. Accessed online at Commentary on Luke 20:27-38 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Kendra A. Mohn. “Commentary on Luke 20:27-38” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 9, 2025. Accessed online at Commentary on Luke 20:27-38 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Richard Swanson. “Commentary on Luke 20:27-38” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 10, 2013. Accessed online at Commentary on Luke 20:27-38 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Nancy Lynne Westfield. “Pastoral Perspective on Luke 20:27-38” in Feasting on the Word, Year C, vol. 4. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2020.

Patrick J. Wilson. “Homiletical Perspective on Luke 20:27-38” in Feasting on the Word, Year C, vol. 4. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2020.

C. Michael Hawn. “History of Hymns: ‘Because He Lives.’” Discipleship Ministries, The United Methodist Church, June 20, 2013. Accessed online at Discipleship Ministries | History of Hymns: “Because He Lives”

Bill and Gloria Gaither. “Because He Lives.” Bing Videos

The opening joke about the resurrection is from Upjoke: Jokes for Every Topic. ↑UPJOKE↑ – Jokes For Every Topic

Luke 20:27-38

27 Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him 28 and asked him a question: “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman and died childless; 30 then the second 31 and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. 32 Finally the woman also died. 33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.”

34 Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage, 35 but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. 36 Indeed, they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. 37 And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 38 Now he is God not of the dead but of the living, for to him all of them are alive.”

Image source: https://medium.com/@kipakcho/jesus-examined-29691938b718

Meeting the Gardener

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Meeting the Gardener” John 20:1-18

The world is filled with weeping places this morning. In northern Nigeria, vulnerable people are hungry. They live with lingering violence of the terrorist organization Boko Haram, which has made international headlines for abductions, murders, and other criminal activity. They’ve been hit by natural and manmade disasters, too. Flooding has caused crops to fail. Corruption and poor governance exploit the poor, serve the rich, and sell justice to the highest bidder. According to Nigerian Peacemaker Peter Egwudah, life in northern Nigeria is a long-running struggle with food insecurity. Hardest hit are women, children, the elderly, and those with disabilities.

The world is filled with weeping places this morning. The family of Kilmar Abrego Garcia is weeping. Kilmar came to the United States illegally from El Salvador in 2011, sent north by his family to escape gang violence there. Here, he has worked construction, married Jennifer Vasquez Sura­—a US citizen, and supported his family. His five-year-old child has autism, is deaf in one ear, and cannot communicate verbally. Kilmar was mistakenly accused of being an MS-13 gang member by a paid informant, who had never met him or even been in the same state. Last month, he was deported to the Terrorism Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador. Although the courts have called for his release and return, the Abrego Garcia family waits and weeps, unsure if they will ever see their husband and father again.

The world is filled with weeping places this morning. We know those who weep: the neighbor who struggles with a bleak diagnosis, the friend who has lost a job, the parent who laments the untimely death of a child, the family member who wrestles with addiction, the person on a fixed income whose retirement savings have been hard hit by volatile markets. We know those who weep; sometimes we are the ones who weep.

It is hard to see the Lord when we are in our weeping places. Just ask Mary Magdalene. Mary walked to the tomb in the pre-dawn darkness. Her footsteps echoed through the streets of the sleeping city. Her heart was heavy with memories of recent days. A week ago, Jesus had made a triumphal entry to Jerusalem, but things had gone terribly and unthinkably wrong. Powerful opponents had conspired to bring about his arrest through the betrayal of a trusted friend. Injustice had been served by both the Temple court and Pontius Pilate. On Friday, Mary’s world had descended into violence and chaos as her teacher was brutally beaten and scourged, taunted with insults and mockery, reviled in hate, and crucified. Mary wept at the tomb, thinking that the world’s evil had outmatched God’s goodness, and now her Lord was nowhere to be found. Mary wept.

It is hard to see the Lord when we are in our weeping places. When the doctor breaks the bad news or the boss hands us the pink slip, we wonder “Why me, God?” When we are bowed down with grief and cannot see tomorrow, we ask, “Why this, Lord?” When addiction controls our lives and wreaks havoc within our families we ask, “Where are you, God?” When we are gripped by fear and worried about the future, we lament “Lord, why would you let this happen?” In our weeping places, we feel powerless and overwhelmed. In our weeping places, we fear that God is distant and we are alone.

As she raised her voice in lamentation outside the empty tomb, Mary learned that Christ was with her in her weeping place. Eyes blurred by tears and ears closed with grief, Mary first mistook Jesus for the gardener, come to clean up any mess left behind by Friday’s hasty burial. But then her tears came to an end as she heard her name, “Mary,” spoken by that most beloved of voices.

On Easter morning, we remember Mary’s tears, and we proclaim again the beautiful, terrible truth of the incarnation and the cross. God loved us so much that God would become flesh and live among us with mercy, healing, and infinite compassion. God’s love would stop at nothing to be reconciled to us and to reconcile us to one another—willing even suffering death upon a cross. But God’s love wins the victory over sin and death. God shows up in our weeping places with our name upon God’s lips and a purpose for our lives.

On Easter morning, we can face our tears head on, because we see that we are not alone. When the test results arrive and the doctor shakes her head, the risen Lord is with us. When the pink slip is in and the job possibilities are out, the risen Christ is with us. When untimely loss sends us into the valley of the shadow of death, we are not alone for God is with us. When we feel brought low by addiction or hardship, economic chaos or uncertain times, we trust that Jesus is in our midst with a love that is stronger than all the tears our world can serve up.

Bible scholars like to call our attention to the placement of Jesus’ tomb within a garden. They say it recalls God’s amazing work of creation, described in the first chapters of Genesis. They say that in breaking the power of sin and death upon the cross, God made a new creation. The separation between humanity and God came to an end, our alienation from one another is over. As new creations, we can go forth in holy, healed, and unexpected ways. It was true for Mary Magdalene. There in the garden, outside the empty tomb, Jesus the gardener gave Mary a new vocation. She became an evangelist. He sent her forth to a weeping world with a message of resurrection hope, “I have seen the Lord.”

On this Easter Sunday, may we, too, know that we are a new creation. May we, like Mary, see that we have a new vocation. We are sent into the world with the hopeful message that we have seen the Lord. Yes, the world abounds with weeping places, and yet God’s love is stronger than our tears, stronger than the hurt and harm that cause our eyes to fill and our hearts to tremble. As we go forth into the world’s weeping places, we point to the presence of Jesus, who continues to walk among the hurting and broken people of our world who fear they are alone.

Today, we will share the good news of Christ’s presence with the vulnerable people of northern Nigeria through One Great Hour of Sharing. Since 2017, our contributions have supported the work of the Civil Society Coalition for Poverty Eradication (CISCOPE). CISCOPE is at work in northern Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen, places where 20% families experience a severe lack of food. Beyond meeting emergency needs, CISCOPE helps families to find long-range food sufficiency through vegetable seed, agricultural machinery, teaching farming practices, and training for disaster preparedness. 70% of those helped by CISCOPE are women, children, and vulnerable people who have traditionally been ignored.

How do we bear witness to Jesus for families like that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia? It’s challenging in this highly-politicized partisan climate, where one faction characterizes Kilmar as a violent criminal while the other side champions him as a local hero. We can begin by remembering that there are families at the heart of the immigration crisis. Kilmar is the public face of an international tragedy in a world where violence, disaster, and extreme poverty have forced people from homes in places like Central America, Africa, Syria, Afghanistan, and Haiti. They flee in search of safety and opportunity. They come to lands that welcome their undocumented, underpaid labor but prefer that they remain strangers to us, subsisting in the shadows on the scraps of the land of plenty. For Kilmar and those like him around the world, we remember that Jesus, too, was a migrant. We point to the infant messiah, whose parents were forced by threat of political violence to flee their homeland and sojourn in the land of Egypt. What might our policies and actions look like, if we envisioned the infant Jesus caught in the crossfire?

What does pointing to the presence of Jesus look like for the hurting people whom we know, those who fear and mourn, despair and weep? We can begin by going to the tomb, showing up and being present for folks who weep with shared tears and abounding compassion. When the time is right, we can try, like Mary, to share how we have “seen the Lord” in our own times of hardship, loss, and pain. We can bear witness to our hurting friends and neighbors with more than words: with hot meals, honey-dos, and practical support; with abounding prayer, phone calls, and cards; with generous encouragement and lots of listening.

On Easter morning, the world is filled with weeping places, my friends, but it is also filled with the presence of Christ. The Lord has risen; he has risen indeed. We have seen the Lord. Let us go forth to those who weep with the good news of God’s amazing love.

Resources

Ben Finley. “Who is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man ICE mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison?” in The Associated Press, April 18, 2025.

Rich Copley. “How your One Great Hour of Sharing gifts are used” in Presbyterian News Service, April 6, 2022. Accessed online at https://pcusa.org/news-storytelling/news/2022/4/6/how-your-one-great-hour-sharing-gifts-are-used

Joy J. Moore. “Commentary on John 20:1-18” in Preaching This Week, April 21, 2019. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/resurrection-of-our-lord-3/commentary-on-john-201-18-10

Alicia D. Myers. “Commentary on John 20:1-18” in Preaching This Week, April 12, 2020. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/resurrection-of-our-lord/commentary-on-john-201-18-11

Jason Ripley. “Commentary on John 20:1-18” in Preaching This Week, April 20, 2025. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/resurrection-of-our-lord-3/commentary-on-john-201-18-19

Rolf Jacobson. “For Such a Time as This” in Dear Working Preacher, April 5, 2020. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/for-a-time-such-as-this

Paul Simpson Duke. “Homiletical Perspective on John 20:11-18” in Feasting on the Gospels, John, vol. 2. Westminster John Knox Press, 2015.

John 20:1-18

20 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’s head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed, 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples returned to their homes. 11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look[a] into the tomb, 12 and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir,[b] if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew,[c] “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not touch me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and she told them that he had said these things to her.

Rise Up!

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Rise Up!” Mark 16:1-8

In three weeks, when we traditionally celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday, our cousins in the Orthodox tradition will commemorate the Sunday of Myrrh-bearing Women. They have been doing so since the fifth century when John Chrysostom, the Bishop of Constantinople, first honored those women who went to the tomb, armed with burial spices and anointing oil. In Orthodox churches on the Sunday of Myrrh-bearing Women, censers will be filled with smoking incense, and the priest will swing them with a practiced arm, venerating all four sides of the altar, the congregation, the bread and wine of communion, and the church itself. Prayers will remember the faithful witness of the women. The sermon may even make the connection between the myrrh-bearers and the long history of women who have served the church. The hymn of the day will be introduced with the words, “The women disciples bring myrrh unto Christ. And I bring a hymn as [if] it were myrrh unto them.”

Our Orthodox cousins also remember the myrrh-bearing women with a long tradition of iconography, sacred art that is used as an invitation to prayer and reflection. Perhaps you have seen the icons. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome are depicted at the tomb. The holy messenger in dazzling white points to the empty graveclothes, proclaiming that Jesus has risen. The women, with heads covered and flowing robes, carry ceramic flasks of oil. Their faces are wide-eyed with fear and lined with tears. One of the women is often painted with her back to the angel, as if poised to run. She looks back over her shoulder, torn between learning what has happened to Jesus and succumbing to holy terror.

After the sabbath, when the myrrh-bearers rose early, purchased spices, and walked to the tomb, they were well-acquainted with death. In first-century Israel, tending the dead was women’s work. It fell to women to prepare bodies for the grave: washing, anointing with oil, and wrapping in a simple linen shroud. For three days, women accompanied the body, walking to the tomb each morning, singing psalms, and sharing tears and cries of mourning. The myrrh-bearers had buried many people and tended many bodies: elderly parents, aged husbands, dear friends, solitary neighbors, and in a world where only one in five children lived to adulthood, they had buried children, many children.

Jesus warned the disciples that death waited in the Holy City. But the week before the women had rejoiced and danced into Jerusalem. Filled with hope, they sang and played their drums, waved palm branches and rejoiced to be in the company of the Messiah. That week the city turned hostile, even murderous.  On the night of the Passover, the women saw Jesus betrayed, abandoned, and led off like a lamb to the slaughter. On Friday, the women followed their bloody, broken Lord as he stumbled beneath the terrible burden of the cross. From a distance, they watched while soldiers gambled and the mob taunted and mocked. As the sun failed and darkness covered the land, they saw Jesus surrender his spirit. As the day grew late and the sabbath neared, two of the women followed Joseph of Arimathea.  They watched him claim the body, wrap it in linen, and hastily stow it in a rock-hewn tomb. All through the Sabbath, the women sat with their grief and loss. They weren’t sure who they were anymore, what their purpose was, or how they could go on. But as the rosy promise of a new week crept above the eastern horizon, they found the courage to do what women always did when a beloved one died. They purchased their burial spices and anointing oil and walked to the tomb.

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We are not myrrh-bearers in the traditional sense of the word. We leave it to the mortuary or the crematorium to tend to the bodies of our dead. Yet we are not strangers to death. We know what it is like to walk to the tomb, to face squarely our loss and pain, our disbelief and defeat. We know the untimely death of our beloved ones. We know the death of our endeavors: the marriage that flounders and fails; the business that goes under; the degree we never finish. We know the death of friendships and kinships: the forgiveness we never extend, the trust that is betrayed, the selfish interest that drives home the killing wedge. We know death writ large upon the world stage: our planet groaning beneath the burden of our abuse, the blood of Palestinians and Israelis crying from the ground of a broken land, the lament of refugees longing for welcome and home. In the dark hours before dawn, we know how the myrrh-bearers felt. We know the unbearable grief. We may even wonder who we are, what our purpose is, or how we can go on.

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When the women arrived at the tomb, the stone was rolled back. They hesitated in fear outside, each too frightened to go in alone, and so they decide to venture in together, a fearful little band bound by their love for Jesus and their common duty as myrrh-bearers. Mary Magdalene, Mary the Mother of James, and Salome entered the tomb, anticipating death. But there in the cold stone crypt, still smelling of blood and suffering, the women were shocked to find life. A holy messenger shared the good news that God could take all the evil of their world and work from it a miracle of life.

In the hours before dawn, as the earth rolled on to meet the morning and the last stars faded from the western sky, Jesus rose. He stretched and stood, testing his bruised body.  He stepped out of the tomb and into the garden, breathing deep the cool of the dying night. God’s amazing love had broken the power of sin and death. 

Mary Magdalene whispered, “Jesus is alive,”

Mary the mother of James gasped, “Jesus has been raised, just as he promised.”

Salome dared to hope, “Jesus has gone ahead to Galilee. We’ll see him there.”

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On Easter morning, we dare to imagine that if God can raise Jesus from dead, then surely there is hope for us and all the ways that we are well-acquainted with death. We can trust that, just as God was at work to overcome the world’s sin and hate to raise Jesus, God is at work even now to help and to heal, to raise up the promise of new life.

Yes, we know the grief that comes with the death of our beloved ones, but we also trust that we are raised with Christ. The promise of the life everlasting and the heavenly shore awaits. Rise up!

Yes, we are well-acquainted with failure, but God is faithful and a new day dawns. One day we may love again, or find fresh purpose, or hear the knock of opportunity. Rise up!

Yes, we know the death of friendship and kinship, but if God can win the victory over sin, then maybe with the Lord’s assistance we can pick up the phone or write that letter or ask for help. Rise up!

Yes, we know global death and destruction, but if Jesus is raised, then maybe there is hope for our world yet. We can learn to tread lightly on God’s good earth. Peace can break out in the midst of war. The homeless poor can find home at last. Rise up!

We are well-acquainted with death, but on Easter morning, we join the myrrh-bearers, with great hope and holy fear, for with God the last word is always life.

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Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome came to the tomb in the traditional women’s role of myrrh-bearer; yet, they soon had a new vocation. Commissioned by God to be the first gospel-bearers, they rose up. They dropped their flasks of oil, lifted their skirts, and fled back into Jerusalem. Somewhere along the way, they overcame their fear and found their voices. They shared their good news with Peter and the disciples, saying, “Death does not have the last word. God has won the victory! Jesus is risen!”

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I suspect that our cousins in the Orthodox tradition are right. Those myrrh-bearers are worthy of our gratitude and remembrance on at least one Sunday a year. They may even have something to teach us. If three women can overcome their fear to rise up and launch a tidal wave of hope and love that laps the shores of today, then think what we can do. We may be well-acquainted with death, but oh the life, sweet life! Let’s trade our myrrh for the gospel, my friends. There is good news to share. Rise up!

Resources

C. Clifton Black. “Commentary on Mark 16:1-8,” in Preaching This Week (Narrative Lectionary), March 27, 2016. Accessed online at Commentary on Mark 16:1-8 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Greek Orthodox Diocese of America. “Learn: Sunday of The Myrrhbearers.” Accessed online at https://www.goarch.org/myrrhbearers-learn

Kaufman Kohler. “Burial” in Jewish Encyclopedia. Accessed online at https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3842-burial#anchor6.

Nelson Rivera. “Theological Perspective on Mark 16:1-8” in Feasting on the Gospels: Mark. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014.

John Sanidopolous. “Sunday of the Myrrhbearers Resource Page,” Orthodox Christianity: Then and Now, April 30, 2017. Accessed online at https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2017/04/sunday-of-myrrhbearing-women-resource.html

Oliver Yarbrough. “Homiletical Perspective on Mark 16:1-8” in Feasting on the Gospels: Mark. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014.

Mark 16:1-8

16When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6But 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. 7But 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.” 8So 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.

“The Holy Myrrh-bearers.” Accessed online at https://www.allsaintstoronto.ca/services-events/soo-gdthh-2ptfc-lng35-c8gjx-xaf3p

“Ahead of Us”

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Sabbah Day Thoughts — Matthew 28:1-10 “Ahead of Us”

Lupe Gonzalo rises at four or five in the morning. She piles into the back of a truck with other farmworkers and is driven to Florida fields in need of harvest. There, she is given a bucket and told to fill it with tomatoes or strawberries or beans as many times as she can during the course of a long day of backbreaking labor. Some days, there are no bathroom breaks, no lunchbreaks, no water breaks. “That’s your job,” Lupe says, “That’s what you’re there to do.” For women, like Lupe, the work carries worse problems than hunger and thirst. Sexual harassment and sexual violence are common—and speaking out about your experience can cost you your job. It feels hopeless.

Manuel Nazario and his people the Weenhayek have fished for a living for longer than anyone can remember. They ply the banks of the Pilcomayo River that rises in the foothills of the Andes in rural Bolivia. They wade in the water and cast nets, just as their ancestors did before them.  But these days when he casts his net, Manuel worries. Climate change, irregular rainfall, drought, and runoff from mining operations in the mountains have troubled the waters. His catch is far less plentiful than it once was, and it only seems to be getting worse. He wonders how he will feed the twenty-seven residents of his village, who depend on him for leadership. He feels powerless.

Smitha Krishnan a Dalit—an untouchable—woman, was accustomed to a life lived on the margins of Indian society. As part of the lowest social class, she was unable to draw water from the common well, prevented from attending school, and forbidden from entering temples. Then her husband died, just before the last tsunami. Then, when the storm came, her thatch and mud house, with everything in it, was swept away, including the sewing machine that she used to earn a living as a seamstress. Widowed and homeless with five children to care for, Smitha despairs.

As Mary Magdalene and the other Mary walked to the tomb in the darkness before dawn, they knew how it feels to be hopeless, powerless, and filled with despair. They had accompanied Jesus to Jerusalem for the Passover. Earlier that week, their beloved friend had been welcomed like a conquering hero, with the singing of psalms, waving of palms, and the spreading of cloaks along the way. But with each passing day, tension had mounted. Powerful enemies had emerged among the Pharisees, scribes, and priests. They challenged Jesus’ authority and feared his charismatic appeal to the people. Betrayal had come from within their ranks, as a trusted friend traded his loyalty for thirty pieces of silver. In a trial orchestrated under the cover of darkness, Jesus had been falsely accused, condemned, and turned over to the Romans for execution. At the judgment hall of Pilate, the same crowd that had welcomed Jesus rejected him, shouting for his blood.

On Friday, the Marys watched as the one they had hoped would redeem Israel was beaten, scourged, spat upon, mocked, and marched through the city streets to his brutal death, flanked by criminals. The women knew all about hopelessness, powerlessness, and despair. Even so, on Sunday morning, before the sun had risen in the east, they found the courage to offer a final kindness. In Matthew’s telling of this story, there are no anointing oils or burial spices. Just two women, vulnerable and alone, who came to the grave to hold vigil, to weep and lift their voices in the wailing cry of grief.

We know how it feels to be hopeless, powerless, and despairing.  Those feelings find us when we stand at the grave of our beloved.  They leave us weeping over unforgiving hearts and broken relationships. They find us as we contend with mental illness.  They trouble us as inflation surges and we worry about money. They keep us up at night when we ponder the future of our warming planet, and they rob us of peace as we read of the seemingly unending cycle of gun violence.  Some days, it feels like the pain and suffering, the cruelty and greed of our world are more than a match for us. Some days, we feel like the two Marys. Some days, we feel like Lupe Gonzalo, Manuel Nazario, and Smitha Krishnan.

At the tomb, the two Mary learned that hopelessness, powerlessness, and despair are no match for God. The earth shook, the stone rolled away, the guards fainted, and an angel, flashing like lightning in the half-light of dawn, told them a mystery. God’s love had won the victory over sin and death. Jesus lived, and even now he was going on ahead of them to Galilee. There was work to do—good news to share. Then, like a big exclamation point on the angel’s astounding words, there was Jesus! He filled them with joy, quelled their fear, and sent them forth as the first apostles with the assurance that he would be with them, just a step ahead, waiting for them in a world where death no longer had the last word.

Matthew likes to remind us that Jesus is with us.  In Matthew’s gospel a holy messenger warms the cold feet of the reluctant Joseph by telling him that Mary’s baby will be Emmanuel, God with us. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus assured his friends that wherever even two of them gathered in his name, he would be there. In the last parable that Matthew recorded, the Lord told his friends that wherever they encountered people who were hungry or thirsty, sick or in need or imprisoned, he would be there, too. Jesus lives, at our side, in our midst, a step ahead.

As the women ran with fear and joy through the streets of the waking city with news that would forever change the world, they trusted that Jesus was with them. If they had any doubts, if their hopelessness or powerlessness or despair threatened their mission, those feelings were swept aside in the Galilee when Jesus met them and sent them forth to the ends of the earth with good news and great love. Jesus lives. He’s always a step ahead of us. It’s a message that we need now more than ever, as we weep at the grave of untimely death, and lament the brokenness of our relationships, and mourn the future lost to mental illness, and despair over a warming planet and the ubiquitous news of guns in our schools. Yes, there is hopelessness and powerlessness and despair in this world, but there is also Jesus. He walks with us still and calls us to be good news in a world bowed down by the powers of sin and death.

One of the enduring ways that this congregation has followed Jesus amid the world’s hurt and pain is through One Great Hour of Sharing. Whether you saved your change in a fish bank throughout Lent, or you chose to use those offering envelopes, your contributions have brought good news to neighbors in this country and around the world who struggle with those familiar feelings of hopelessness, powerlessness, and despair.

Your offerings allowed Presbyterian Disaster Assistance to work with local partners on the ground in India to help Smitha Krishnan. With our help, Smitha found shelter, a sewing machine, and other essentials. She now lives with her children in a permanent, disaster-resistant home. Smitha says, “Because of gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing, I am able to feed and clothe [my children], and when they get sick, I am able to take care of their medication, too.”

One Great Hour of Sharing also helped Manuel Nazario, that indigenous fisherman in Bolivia. Through a generous grant from Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, Manuel’s people are learning new ways to thrive, despite climate change and environmental degradation. Working with local partners, the Weenhayek people are developing irrigation systems and collecting rainwater. They have seeds and gardening tools. They are learning to grow fruits and vegetables organically and sustainably. With a diversified diet and enough to eat, they no longer depend on the traditional practice of casting their nets to ensure their future.

One Great Hour of Sharing has helped Lupe Gonzalo, too. The Presbyterian Hunger Program partners with farmworkers to ensure that those who bring food to our tables do not go hungry or work in inhumane circumstances. We support the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a human-rights organization that works to bring safety and justice to the fields where our food is grown. Lupe appreciates our generosity. She says, “For us farmworkers, the support from Presbyterians across the country has meant the world to us . . . we don’t feel like we’re alone . . . we’re walking together.” 

On Easter morning, Jesus, continues to go on ahead of us, my friends, sending us forth to be bearers of good news.  He’s out there still. And when we rise to respond to his calling, there is something Christ-like in us, something that no grave can ever contain. Jesus awaits. Let’s go forth to make this world a little less hopeless, powerless, and filled with despair.

Resources

Greg Carey. “Commentary on Matthew 28:1-10” in Preaching This Week, April 9, 2023. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Melinda Quivik. “Commentary on Matthew 28:1-10” in Preaching This Week, April 20, 2014. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Kathryn Schifferdecker. “The Foundation of Christian Hope” in Dear Working Preacher, April 2, 2023. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

David Lose. “Easter Courage” in Dear Working Preacher, April 16, 2014. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

–. “A New Day for Farm Workers” in Special Offerings: One Great Hour of Sharing. Accessed online at pcusa.org.

–. “Restoring Dignity to India’s Most Oppressed” in Special Offerings: One Great Hour of Sharing. Accessed online at pcusa.org.

Matthew 28:1-10

28 After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 And suddenly there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. 4 For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here, for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” 8 So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers and sisters to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

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