Roll Back the Stone   
Luke 24: 1-12
An Easter Meditation by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

Resurrection is a mystery.  It has always been a mystery.  It was a mystery to the first followers of Jesus.

The first witnesses of resurrection weren’t immediately joyful and they certainly were not triumphant.  They were scared.  What they experienced was shock and fear and confusion.

According to Luke’s gospel, the women who went to the tomb in grief, did not find the body of Jesus.  They were perplexed by this ... and then frightened by the two messengers.   Then... they remembered Jesus... and the things he had said and done.  Then, returning from the tomb, they told all this to the other followers.

What had happened?  They weren’t sure.  But if they didn’t know what to believe they did know that Christ was alive. In all four Gospel accounts, Christian community began at the place of impossible possibility:  the empty tomb.

Something happened on Easter.  Something bigger than we can imagine.  Something vindicated the living, teaching, healing, loving subversive joy of Jesus.  Somehow those women, Mary, Joanna, Magdalene, and the others, were changed from mourners to messengers of Good News! And the disciples... that sleepy, fearful, confused crew that excelled in missing Jesus’ point every single time ... the disciples, Jesus’ closest friends and followers, who abandoned Jesus as he drew nearer the cross ... the disciples changed.  Something happened.  They came back together and lived their lives with resurrected courage. They began to heal and to teach and to feed and to free - in the name of Jesus – empowered, emboldened, even though it meant their own deaths!  What Jesus stood for is what he rose for and the life, work and message of Jesus was and is alive in Easter people in a Good Friday world.

Stephen Patterson wrote, “The followers of Jesus did not believe in him because of the resurrection. They believed in the resurrection because they first believed in him and in the spiritual life he unleashed among them...”.

I could not possibly tell you the number of times that people have taken me aside, and said, in a whisper – “You know, I don’t think I really believe in every doctrine of the Christian faith... things like ‘the resurrection of the body’, for example.”  I understand that.  Resurrection is mystery.  It’s not “I believe in this statement.”  It is experience.  It is renewal, rebirth, and restoration.  And faith is not about certainty.  God is big enough for all our questions and doubts and struggles.  Faith is trust, confidence in things unseen.

Don’t let belief in resurrection be a barrier to experiencing resurrection.  Roll back the stone!

Don’t let belief in resurrection be a wall to trusting the truth of resurrection, in your life and in our world.  Roll back the stone!

One intelligent and wise seven year old in our church family informed me that he wasn’t sure about religion because, as he says, “I’m a man of science.”  I shook his hand saying, “I’m always glad to meet a man of science.”  The presumption that science and religion inevitably conflict starts young, it would seem.

As Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan describe in their book, The Last Week, “...in the Enlightenment -- Western culture began to identify truth with “factuality.” ...Both Biblical literalists and people who reject the Bible completely do this:  the former insist that the truth of the Bible depends on its literal factuality, and the latter see that the Bible cannot be literally and factually true and therefore don’t think it is true at all.”

Far from a scientific assertion, resurrection is “an invitation to journey beyond human limits, beyond human boundaries, into the realm of that experience we call God, who is not above the sky, but rather is found in the depths of life.”  (p. 194)

This morning as we sing the closing hymn, we all are invited to join an Easter parade, and continue our celebration at a “love feast.” Sharing juice, and breads from around the world, let’s share our experiences of resurrection.

Later in chapter 24 of Luke’s Gospel, the risen Christ does appear to two travelers on the road to Emmaus.  Jesus walked along with these two disciples who are in despair, he listened to them, then he interpreted all the scriptures to them! But still they didn’t recognize him. They only recognized the risen Christ – “in the breaking of bread.”   Let us break bread together.

Jonathan Edwards preached that “the difference between believing God is gracious and tasting that God is gracious is as different as having a rational belief that honey is sweet and having the actual sense of its sweetness.”

Taste and see.  The love of Christ is not a belief about Jesus, it is a lived reality of liberation and resurrection.  It is the gift of grace and the courage to face just one day at a time.

If we’re feeling shame or guilt or anger – mercy is not a doctrine or an abstract idea, it is the taste of forgiveness.  Taste and see!

Those of us who have known death – end of a life, death of a hope, death of relationship, assassination of a hero, devastating disasters, diagnoses, persecution, crucifixion ... resurrection is not a logical proposition ... it is the impossible possibility that love is stronger than death.  Roll the stone away!  Wait! ... Resurrection is the realization that the stone already has been rolled away!

Harvey Cox, in his latest book, The Future of Faith draws an historical and contemporary distinction between faith and belief. “Christianity erupted into history as movement of the Spirit, animated by faith – by hope and confidence in the dawning of an era of shalom that Jesus had demonstrated and announced.  The Christian movement (“the Way”) flourished despite persecution and did so without relying on theological agreement.  What we now call doctrines or dogmas, let alone creeds, were yet to appear.  The first dispute (with empire) was not about a clash of creeds; it was about a clash of loyalties. It was about two different ways of life.”                       P.77

The question of faith is not “what do you believe?”  It’s “what do you live?”

Tasting the bread of God, the bread of Heaven, bread broken but offered in love, Easter people let go of the past by surrendering the future to God and embracing the now.

In her book Jesus Freak, Sarah Miles writes of her experience as a war reporter.  She writes, “... death seemed unstoppable ... and yet I witnessed amazing sights as well, whenever a person left the fear of death behind, and rejected the temptation of power through violence. -  I saw unarmed civilians walk straight into a line of sharpshooters - I saw (an abused) woman let go of revenge, and instead offer a stranger a cup of tea. I saw a scared kid refuse to strike a prisoner. - These people had a totally different kind of power, one which comes from believing that death doesn’t have the final word.”                                                                               (P. 126)

Resurrection is mystery.  There is not one single unified tradition about the resurrection.  There is not one unified Biblical witness about resurrection. But what all have in common is that lives were transformed, and that communities of healing, hope and hospitality were formed... and still are today.

As we celebrate resurrection day ... and as we break bread together ... let us give thanks for the new life that breaks in upon us in surprising ways ... for that is the promise we claim as we tell the story and proclaim the mystery ... Christ is Risen ... Alleluia.  Amen.