Mark 16:1-8
Listen here.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
You cannot ruin Easter! You cannot cancel it. You cannot put it on pause, mute it, or make it stay home. Just as Jesus burst forth from the tomb that first Easter Sunday, Christians will alway find a way to celebrate this soul-healing, life-changing day. And we will always find ways to bring other people into the sheer joy of it all.A dark shroud of gloom enveloped the two Marys and Salome as they finally left home to perform their act of loving devotion. Their Lord had died. They had to shelter in place on the Sabbath day until Sunday morning before finishing the task of giving Him a proper burial. But what about that huge stone? Who would roll it away? Their gloom of grief was multiplied by their anxiety over the stone. They were afraid they would not be allowed to care for the dead body of their Jesus.
What gloom envelops you? What anxiety has seized you? What fears of late have shackled you?
Then the women noticed the stone had already been rolled away. So they went into the tomb and saw the young man dressed in a white robe. The other gospels use the term “angel,” but Mark says, “young man.” He’s communicating vibrant life, new creation, and hope renewed. Then the young man tells the women, “Do not be alarmed.” There’s good reason not to be alarmed—for them and for you. Not only had the huge stone been mysteriously rolled away. Not only would the young angelic man not harm them. But “Jesus of Nazareth…has risen; He is not here”…in the tomb, that is. The women were invited to “see the place where they laid Him.” No body; just empty grave cloths.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Then the women were instructed to go tell His disciples, especially Peter, that Jesus was alive and He would meet them in Galilee. And as they fled the tomb, trembling and astonishment seized them and they closed their lips. “For they were afraid.” Even after hearing the joyous news that Jesus had risen, even after seeing the evidence of empty grave cloths and empty tomb, they still succumbed to fear. Sounds a bit like the disciples themselves forty days later on the mount of the Ascension. As Matthew tells us, even when they saw Jesus in Galilee, “they worshiped him, but some doubted” (Mt. 28:17).
What are you afraid of? What doubts swirl in your soul even as you worship on this most bizarre Easter? Whatever it is, you cannot ruin Easter.
There’s really only one reason we are celebrating Easter in this unprecedented way, on this day, in this year, separated from each other, not able to be in church together, forced to watch online instead of rejoicing live and in person together. No, it’s not the social spacing. It’s not the city or state stay-at-home orders. It’s not even Coronavirus or COVID-19, believe it or not. On the surface, these are the reasons. But they’re not the ultimate reason. There’s only one reason we’re celebrating Easter in this strange fashion.
It’s the same reason we celebrate it every year. I know, in other years we get to gather together. In other years, we’ve been able to have Easter breakfasts, see each other in brand new, festive Easter clothing. In other years, we’ve been able to sing “At the Lamb’s High Feast We Sing” and then actually get to feast together at the Table of the Lamb’s resurrected Body and Blood.
But not this year, unfortunately. And there’s only one reason for it. That reason is DEATH—the Grim Reaper, the rider on the pale horse in the book of Revelation. He and his buddy Hades “were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth” (Rev. 6:8). Death just happens to be raging in a novel way right now. But there’s nothing new under the sun. Death has reared its hideous head in many and various ways since the Garden of Eden. It may be your loss of a loved one. It may be your own pending funeral. It may be the black plague of the 1300s or the plagues Luther dealt with in Wittenberg or even our current pandemic.
Because Death is raging, we are growing accustomed to rising death tolls. As of this morning, Death has taken just over 20,000 lives in the U.S. by means of Coronavirus. Worldwide, Death has taken over 108,000. (WHO, CDC).
Death has been quite busy all year in all sorts of ways. Here are some death toll figures thus far in 2020 for the whole world (source: worldometers.info, accessed 4/12/20):
- Death by Seasonal flu - 136,000
- Death by Malaria - 275,000
- Death by Suicide - 300,000
- Death by Road traffic accidents - 378,000
- Death by HIV/AIDS - 471,000
- Alcohol-related deaths - 700,000
- Deaths caused by smoking - 1,400,000
- Deaths from cancer - 2,300,000
You cannot ruin Easter. If anything, now is the time for Easter take center stage and brightly shine. Now is the time to trumpet Easter’s joyous message from the housetops and over the internet. (After all, what else to you have to do while you’re hunkering down? :-)
How did St. Paul proclaim it? “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” We know the world needs to hear that, especially now! While our eyes, ears, hearts and minds seem to be swallowed up by the current method of Death’s raging, we—you and I, with all the saints around the world—we know better. Death has been conquered. Jesus reigns victorious. “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” You cannot ruin Easter and you certainly cannot make it stay at home.Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Jesus’ resurrection in the body means resurrection in the body for you. “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ” (1 Cor. 15:22-23). This is most certainly true no matter the ailment or cause of death. So even when Death rages with a newfound fury, even when death tolls mount, even when everyone around us succumbs to fear and panic, we have hope. We have peace. We have a promise. “For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.”
You cannot ruin Easter. Nor can you push the pause button on it. Do you realize the golden opportunity we in the Church now have? People are dying. The world is consumed with death. And we alone have the only message of life. We may not be able to meet together right now to sing His praises, but our risen Lord still wants to use our lips and tongues to tell the Good News.
Later in Mark 16, after our Gospel reading, Mary Magdalene did go and tell the disciples that Jesus had risen. Then Jesus appeared to two others—the two on the road to Emmaus—and they went and told the rest. Then Jesus appeared to all of them and said, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mk. 16:15-16). He takes His frightened little bunch of followers—both in Mark 16 and in the year 2020—and uses them and their voices to bring His healing Gospel to all of creation—to the anxious, to the sick, to the despairing, to the dying, to everyone. What a golden opportunity! What a joyous privilege and honor!
You cannot keep Jesus, the only good man, down. You cannot keep His Christians from speaking, praising and singing His name. You cannot prevent the message of life, now and into eternity, from getting out. You cannot ruin Easter!
“Death’s flood has lost its chillChrist is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Since Jesus crossed the river;
Lover of souls, from ill
My passing soul deliver:
Had Christ, who once was slain,
Not burst His three-day prison,
Our faith had been in vain:
But now has Christ arisen, arisen, arisen;
But now has Christ arisen!” (LSB 482:2)
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