It’s a very strange Easter this year. Every other Easter I can remember has dawned with full churches, glad shouts, beautiful music, new clothes, glorious flowers. This Easter is very different: many of us are in isolation, and many of us are deeply worried about a disease and a situation we never expected to see in the year 2020 in America. For most of us, our celebration of the resurrection will happen at home this year, instead of in the beautiful temples of our beloved churches. It seems a dark, inauspicious time to celebrate an Easter full of worry and stress. But if you look back to the stories of the first Easter, it didn’t start with glad shouts and glorious worship in beautiful church buildings. The first Easter began in grief, darkness, and despair.
And one thing is absolutely certain: when the two Marys went to the tomb that first Easter morning, the last thing they expected was to find it empty. They had been so optimistic when Jesus was alive, so sure that everything would go right, so certain that the one who could cleanse the leper and give sight to the blind could certainly form a new kingdom of God on earth.
But all reason for optimism has died with him, because optimism is what happens when you think a situation is heading in a positive direction. Optimism means looking on the bright side, finding the silver lining, believing that the evidence shows that events will somehow come out all right. Optimism is a belief in happy endings. But not all endings are happy. There are things that optimism doesn’t touch. Optimism doesn’t help the cause that is lost. Optimism doesn’t prevent the people we love from dying. Optimism doesn’t bring the dead back to life.
Optimism is doing what the women did in our gospel story today, going to visit the tomb of the loved one who has died, to mourn, to pray, to remember. Because even optimists understand that the dead stay dead. These women want only to anoint sad death with sweet burial spices, to find something good and sweet and kind and loving about the whole sad situation.
If Easter simply means optimism, a confidence that spring will come again, a feeling that things will turn out all right if we look on the bright side, then yes, an Easter without crowds, brunches and beautiful church buildings will fall flat. If that’s all Easter is, then when we wake up tomorrow, we will still be worried and distracted and frightened and alone, because optimism can take us only so far, but it cannot finally conquer darkness or evil or death. Optimism can never do anything more than honor the dead with love and care. Which is what these women are doing. They are going to the tomb to remember Jesus’ life as a brief shining moment of optimism, a story of love that was good while it lasted.
But then, something happens. The earth shakes, an angel appears like lightning, with clothes as white as snow, bringing news so astounding they quiver with fear, shaken to their core. But he tells them what fearsome angels always say: Do not be afraid. God has triumphed over the kingdom of fear and death, says the angel. Death cannot hold the Son of God down. God’s love has overcome human fear.
The world has changed. A new kind of love story has happened, not a love story that honors sad death, but God’s love story that creates new life and hope. God’s story is a story of love that contradicts the most fundamental thing we know and fear on this earth: that life always ends in death. This is a love story that never ends. This is a love story that says that the Good Fridays of the world are never the final chapter: the story continues on to Easter, which is the triumph of God’s love for Jesus and God’s love for us.
And as the sun rose in the Easter sky, as light dawned in the darkness, the angel told the women the earth-shaking news that we tremble to hear each Easter: He is not here, he has been raised. So today, on Easter, we say the words: Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
And as the two Marys hear this news, something new dawns in their hearts – something born in darkness, a light when all light has failed: not optimism but hope, hope beyond optimism, hope beyond despair, Christian hope.
Because hope – hope is something entirely different from optimism. Hope is not based on indications that things are going well. Hope is born in the darkest of times when optimism has failed. Hope means that all is not lost, even when nothing is left. Hope arises from the belief that God can inexplicably, unexpectedly change things in ways we never imagined. Hope is a light that begins to gleam in utter darkness; hope opens our eyes to new possibilities optimism could never see. Hope is dropping the burial spices, losing our faith in death, listening to the words of angels, and beginning a new day – a day where we know that love is stronger than death, and our dark world is transfigured by the blazing light of resurrection in the face of every person we love. Hope understands that the immortal, invisible God has hold of us, and will never let us go.
And hope – if we can find hope today, in this odd Easter celebration that happens not in church, but at home in the ordinary places of our lives; if we can find hope in the commitment God makes to us at our baptism, in the commitment we make to God whenever we renew our baptismal vows; if we can find hope in God’s unshakable promise of eternal and abundant life; If we can find hope today in the risen life of Jesus; then we will be transformed, renewed, we will become newly created people shining with Easter light.
Because we will know that there is no darkness so deep, no illness so frightening, no isolation so lonely, no evil so powerful, no death so final, that God’s light cannot shine into it and bring us hope.
As the women rush back to tell the news to the other disciples, Jesus himself appears. Not dead but alive, resurrected, telling them to go meet him back home in Galilee, in the ordinary lives of work and love and fear and worry they left behind. That’s where they will meet him – not in the holy city of Jerusalem, not within the sacred walls of the Temple, but in Galilee, the ordinary home of their ordinary lives.
And when they go back home to Galilee, something remarkable happens. Let me read you the way this story ends, in the gospel of Matthew: an end of this gospel but the beginning of a whole new, unprecedented story of love:
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
What a remarkable thing that is for Jesus to say: to give this band of grieving peasants an impossible mission: go and make disciples of all nations! It’s a mission that no optimistic person would dream of taking on.
But a person filled with hope, even in the midst of doubt? A person shining with resurrection light, even in midst of grief? A person who knows in the depth of their bones that no power of death can overcome the power of God’s love? That’s a person who can learn to live confidently in whatever Galilee they find themselves in this Easter, with trust that God will give them what they need to live with hope, to live in God’s love.
And look at the promise Jesus makes: He says remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
And oh, that is the message we need to hear, this strange Easter, this frightening year. Because we are not in Jerusalem, we are not in our holy temples, we are not in our beloved, beautiful churches. We are home, in our own Galilees. And maybe in our homes we have felt grief. Fear. Anxiety. Loneliness. And maybe we don’t feel optimistic about our lives right now. Maybe we are stressed and anxious.
But you know – That is exactly the world that Easter dawned in. Easter came to a world of darkness and despair. Easter came to a people filled with stress and anxiety. Easter came when all was lost.
Easter came to this world, and if Easter feels different to us this year, maybe that’s because we’ve never needed Easter as much as we need it right now.
Because Easter tells us that Jesus has been here too. Jesus has been in this lonely, worried place. Jesus has been in the very darkest corners of human life.
And Jesus is not dead –he is risen. He is with us now. Which is why we hope. We Christians hope in the resurrection. We hope in the love of God. We hope in the promise that Jesus will be with us always.
So what can we do to celebrate this Easter, this year of fear and worry? We can live with generosity. If we have enough to share, we can give to others, letting Christ’s love shine through us to touch anguished communities, and we can allow others to share with us when we need help. We can live with love. We can reach out to people in isolation, letting them know of our care for them, reminding them that they are never alone. We can live with care: keeping ourselves safe at home so the world around us stays safe. We can live with compassion, doing whatever is possible to support our heroic healthcare workers as they care for others. We can live with prayer: building a life of prayer, studying and going deeper into our Bible and finding God’s message of love there. We can live with Christian hope, because Jesus is here. Jesus is always here. He is not dead, he is risen. Alleluia!
And that, for me is the whole point of our Christian hope: Easter is not just a happy ending to a sad story; Easter is not just a cause for optimism. Easter is the stunning, joyous, incomprehensible, hope-filled good news that Christ was not only someone who lived in the first century AD. And Christ isn’t just someone who lives in religious places, in Jerusalem, in the church.
Christ is someone who is alive here and now, in this ordinary Galilee. Christ lives in every home, school, workplace, hospital room of our community, because the church is in every one of those places. Christ lives in every place of fear and every place where we love each other. And Christ is alive in us.
In a world that believes Good Friday is the end of all our stories, Jesus is here, telling us a new story, giving us a new commission. Jesus tells us to live with joy in the midst of sadness. Jesus inspires us to live as people filled with faith and love and hope. Jesus shows us how to live as Easter people in a Good Friday world.
Because Jesus Christ is risen, and he is with us still, loving this world, entering our forsakenness, shining the light of God into the darkest places of human life. And friends, this Easter Day, we who follow Jesus are hopeful – we have a hope that outshines optimism – we hold fast to a hope that begins in darkness and bursts into the light of day. Our Christian hope is born in despair and yet turns to blazing joy, as we say with all the angels in heaven, Alleluia, Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!
And one thing is absolutely certain: when the two Marys went to the tomb that first Easter morning, the last thing they expected was to find it empty. They had been so optimistic when Jesus was alive, so sure that everything would go right, so certain that the one who could cleanse the leper and give sight to the blind could certainly form a new kingdom of God on earth.
But all reason for optimism has died with him, because optimism is what happens when you think a situation is heading in a positive direction. Optimism means looking on the bright side, finding the silver lining, believing that the evidence shows that events will somehow come out all right. Optimism is a belief in happy endings. But not all endings are happy. There are things that optimism doesn’t touch. Optimism doesn’t help the cause that is lost. Optimism doesn’t prevent the people we love from dying. Optimism doesn’t bring the dead back to life.
Optimism is doing what the women did in our gospel story today, going to visit the tomb of the loved one who has died, to mourn, to pray, to remember. Because even optimists understand that the dead stay dead. These women want only to anoint sad death with sweet burial spices, to find something good and sweet and kind and loving about the whole sad situation.
If Easter simply means optimism, a confidence that spring will come again, a feeling that things will turn out all right if we look on the bright side, then yes, an Easter without crowds, brunches and beautiful church buildings will fall flat. If that’s all Easter is, then when we wake up tomorrow, we will still be worried and distracted and frightened and alone, because optimism can take us only so far, but it cannot finally conquer darkness or evil or death. Optimism can never do anything more than honor the dead with love and care. Which is what these women are doing. They are going to the tomb to remember Jesus’ life as a brief shining moment of optimism, a story of love that was good while it lasted.
But then, something happens. The earth shakes, an angel appears like lightning, with clothes as white as snow, bringing news so astounding they quiver with fear, shaken to their core. But he tells them what fearsome angels always say: Do not be afraid. God has triumphed over the kingdom of fear and death, says the angel. Death cannot hold the Son of God down. God’s love has overcome human fear.
The world has changed. A new kind of love story has happened, not a love story that honors sad death, but God’s love story that creates new life and hope. God’s story is a story of love that contradicts the most fundamental thing we know and fear on this earth: that life always ends in death. This is a love story that never ends. This is a love story that says that the Good Fridays of the world are never the final chapter: the story continues on to Easter, which is the triumph of God’s love for Jesus and God’s love for us.
And as the sun rose in the Easter sky, as light dawned in the darkness, the angel told the women the earth-shaking news that we tremble to hear each Easter: He is not here, he has been raised. So today, on Easter, we say the words: Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
And as the two Marys hear this news, something new dawns in their hearts – something born in darkness, a light when all light has failed: not optimism but hope, hope beyond optimism, hope beyond despair, Christian hope.
Because hope – hope is something entirely different from optimism. Hope is not based on indications that things are going well. Hope is born in the darkest of times when optimism has failed. Hope means that all is not lost, even when nothing is left. Hope arises from the belief that God can inexplicably, unexpectedly change things in ways we never imagined. Hope is a light that begins to gleam in utter darkness; hope opens our eyes to new possibilities optimism could never see. Hope is dropping the burial spices, losing our faith in death, listening to the words of angels, and beginning a new day – a day where we know that love is stronger than death, and our dark world is transfigured by the blazing light of resurrection in the face of every person we love. Hope understands that the immortal, invisible God has hold of us, and will never let us go.
And hope – if we can find hope today, in this odd Easter celebration that happens not in church, but at home in the ordinary places of our lives; if we can find hope in the commitment God makes to us at our baptism, in the commitment we make to God whenever we renew our baptismal vows; if we can find hope in God’s unshakable promise of eternal and abundant life; If we can find hope today in the risen life of Jesus; then we will be transformed, renewed, we will become newly created people shining with Easter light.
Because we will know that there is no darkness so deep, no illness so frightening, no isolation so lonely, no evil so powerful, no death so final, that God’s light cannot shine into it and bring us hope.
As the women rush back to tell the news to the other disciples, Jesus himself appears. Not dead but alive, resurrected, telling them to go meet him back home in Galilee, in the ordinary lives of work and love and fear and worry they left behind. That’s where they will meet him – not in the holy city of Jerusalem, not within the sacred walls of the Temple, but in Galilee, the ordinary home of their ordinary lives.
And when they go back home to Galilee, something remarkable happens. Let me read you the way this story ends, in the gospel of Matthew: an end of this gospel but the beginning of a whole new, unprecedented story of love:
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
What a remarkable thing that is for Jesus to say: to give this band of grieving peasants an impossible mission: go and make disciples of all nations! It’s a mission that no optimistic person would dream of taking on.
But a person filled with hope, even in the midst of doubt? A person shining with resurrection light, even in midst of grief? A person who knows in the depth of their bones that no power of death can overcome the power of God’s love? That’s a person who can learn to live confidently in whatever Galilee they find themselves in this Easter, with trust that God will give them what they need to live with hope, to live in God’s love.
And look at the promise Jesus makes: He says remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
And oh, that is the message we need to hear, this strange Easter, this frightening year. Because we are not in Jerusalem, we are not in our holy temples, we are not in our beloved, beautiful churches. We are home, in our own Galilees. And maybe in our homes we have felt grief. Fear. Anxiety. Loneliness. And maybe we don’t feel optimistic about our lives right now. Maybe we are stressed and anxious.
But you know – That is exactly the world that Easter dawned in. Easter came to a world of darkness and despair. Easter came to a people filled with stress and anxiety. Easter came when all was lost.
Easter came to this world, and if Easter feels different to us this year, maybe that’s because we’ve never needed Easter as much as we need it right now.
Because Easter tells us that Jesus has been here too. Jesus has been in this lonely, worried place. Jesus has been in the very darkest corners of human life.
And Jesus is not dead –he is risen. He is with us now. Which is why we hope. We Christians hope in the resurrection. We hope in the love of God. We hope in the promise that Jesus will be with us always.
So what can we do to celebrate this Easter, this year of fear and worry? We can live with generosity. If we have enough to share, we can give to others, letting Christ’s love shine through us to touch anguished communities, and we can allow others to share with us when we need help. We can live with love. We can reach out to people in isolation, letting them know of our care for them, reminding them that they are never alone. We can live with care: keeping ourselves safe at home so the world around us stays safe. We can live with compassion, doing whatever is possible to support our heroic healthcare workers as they care for others. We can live with prayer: building a life of prayer, studying and going deeper into our Bible and finding God’s message of love there. We can live with Christian hope, because Jesus is here. Jesus is always here. He is not dead, he is risen. Alleluia!
And that, for me is the whole point of our Christian hope: Easter is not just a happy ending to a sad story; Easter is not just a cause for optimism. Easter is the stunning, joyous, incomprehensible, hope-filled good news that Christ was not only someone who lived in the first century AD. And Christ isn’t just someone who lives in religious places, in Jerusalem, in the church.
Christ is someone who is alive here and now, in this ordinary Galilee. Christ lives in every home, school, workplace, hospital room of our community, because the church is in every one of those places. Christ lives in every place of fear and every place where we love each other. And Christ is alive in us.
In a world that believes Good Friday is the end of all our stories, Jesus is here, telling us a new story, giving us a new commission. Jesus tells us to live with joy in the midst of sadness. Jesus inspires us to live as people filled with faith and love and hope. Jesus shows us how to live as Easter people in a Good Friday world.
Because Jesus Christ is risen, and he is with us still, loving this world, entering our forsakenness, shining the light of God into the darkest places of human life. And friends, this Easter Day, we who follow Jesus are hopeful – we have a hope that outshines optimism – we hold fast to a hope that begins in darkness and bursts into the light of day. Our Christian hope is born in despair and yet turns to blazing joy, as we say with all the angels in heaven, Alleluia, Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!